Sy Borg wrote: ↑October 6th, 2023, 11:04 pmMy guess is that someone has been feeding the robin. Whenever I walk the local bushland, a number of magpies will follow me around like dogs looking for treats (because I often carry dog treats, which they enjoy).
There are a few things that make one attractive to other social animals - food, protection, cooperation and warmth are the major ones.
Don't you think that such a reduction
attempt is the reason that humans are capable of clear cutting ancient forests for energy?
In my example, my 'meaningful experience' with a robin is reduced to the human concept
'robin'.
"
It's just a bird that wants some food". There are hundreds of thousands of robins all over the world. The robins in this piece of forest don't matter beyond '
some language here'.
Communicable ('written down') language is seen as the only scope of plausibility. The rest of meaningful experience is ignored and forgotten.
One might even be looked upon as crazy when one would argue about a 'sparkle of happiness' in the eyes of a robin, when claiming that it seemed that the intention of that sparkle was to get a deeper eye contact. And beyond that eye contact: what might be the 'meaningful experience' of such a deep eye contact? When the experience cannot be 'communicated', would that mean that it didn't happen?
Was there no sparkle in the eye of the bird? Did the bird not have a big spirit that can become meaningful in the eye of the human?
What does it mean to perceive such a spirit, of which I would say that its essence is pure beauty and happiness?
What is the meaning of beauty?
People are claiming that the forest is beautiful and
forest bathing is seen as healing for the human spirit. But why? Can the true source of beauty of forests be reduced to language?
Is the perceived beauty in the green of the leaves or the form of the plants? Or is the term beauty used to refer to something that goes
beyond what is perceptible, and that one
becomes an active part of when visiting a forest?
My argument is that animals could be willing to sacrifice their basic interests for
meaningful experience and that it is of vital importance to learn to understand this.
The problem truly comes down to
anthropocentrism - 'a human-centric view of the universe'.
Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑October 2nd, 2023, 7:10 amOur human-centric view of the universe — that the world is there for our use or abuse — is the problem?
I wrote the following in the OP:
As with consciousness, what is at stake when it concerns eugenics and animals might not be enclosed in language. This indeed would make it difficult to think about the effects of eugenics.
The robin example shows that I was able to perceive a spirit of beauty and happiness. And it would be 'virtually impossible' to describe what I experienced, similar to how it has been virtually impossible to describe what
astronauts are experiencing when viewing earth from space.
The (extreme transcendental) 'meaningful experience' transforms the astronauts. A documentary film by NASA provides more details:
an experience that transforms astronauts’ perspective of the planet and mankind’s place upon it. Common features of the experience are a profound understanding of the interconnection of all life, and a renewed sense of responsibility for taking care of the environment.
https://lunarscience.nasa.gov/articles/ ... ew-effect/
The problem:
meaningful experience cannot be 'written down' so politics cannot act on it.
The
boundary of language means the boundary of the humanly conceivable 'plausible' world, and the cultural evolution of science and its ideal of 'immoral advancement' has resulted in a structural suppression of anything outside of that boundary.
Today, humans feel an 'ought' to suppress what lays beyond the scope of human language. As if it is a moral good, which is culturally imposed. One who would step outside of that boundary could be sent to a psychiatrist for 'suppression'.
Philosopher Robert M. Pirsig disagreed with the diagnosis schizophrenia. He argued the following:
Pirsig figured that if he told anyone he was, in fact, an enlightened Zen disciple (and not mentally ill), they would lock him up for 50 years. So he worked out a strategy of getting his ideas across and to escape the destructive grip of psychiatry.
Robert M. Pirsig developed a strategy to overcome the suppression of his apparent venture beyond the culturally imposed boundary of the humanly conceivable 'plausible' world, which is '
the boundary of language' or the boundary of what can be 'written down' in the books of science. That is how he escaped psychiatry or the '50 year lock up'.
In GQ, Pirsig was quoted as saying that in the Zen Buddhist canon, his condition would more likely be called "hard enlightenment".
Meaningful experience... It required Pirsig to develop a 'strategy' to escape the destructive grip of social acceptance because his words (language) could not protect him.
The astronauts may join politics and do their part to serve nature on behalf of the 'meaningful experience' that they have had, but when it comes down to it, it is a voice of (the experience of) such an astronaut in the face of for example the 'scientific establishment' with its 'written down' language or your virtually impossible to disprove argument:
the bird just wanted some food...
Did the robin bird just want some food or was there
more to it? Was the spirit that was perceived real?
The one who would 'act' on an experience of a spirit, to protect
forests from being clear cut or otherwise, would face a risk of being 'locked up for 50 years'... An enlightened Zen disciple 'strategy' isn't feasible for anyone. Pirsig is said to have had an IQ of 170.
Language may simply be unable to provide a means to prove the contents of meaningful experience. But the idea that that means that it is justified to neglect it, that it is OK to clear cut forests with the idea that there are more forests (and animals within them) just like it, that is something that I would intend to question.
Bertrand Russell:
...one piece of beauty after another is destroyed...
value wrote: ↑October 6th, 2023, 3:14 pmWhat do you think about the practice of eugenics on animals?
Sy Borg wrote: ↑October 5th, 2023, 8:38 pm
I think we have been shaping genomes (which is what eugenics is) in many plants and animals for a long time. In a sense, government policy is a form of eugenics, effectively deciding who lives and who dies. It's possible that the world would be a better place if eugenics had been practiced on humans, but it's also possible that it would be worse, especially given that leaders that espoused eugenics were extremists. It depends on who is doing the eugenics, and to what end.
When it comes to pets, there are two choices - eugenics or dealing with violent animals.
What would you think about the result of the following study?
Learning one’s genetic risk changes physiology independent of actual genetic risk
In an interesting twist to the enduring nature vs. nurture debate, a new study from Stanford University finds that just thinking you’re prone to a given outcome may trump both nature and nurture. In fact, simply believing a physical reality about yourself can actually nudge the body in that direction—sometimes even more than actually being prone to the reality.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562- ... -behaviour
Is the animal reducible to genetics?
The complex coherence of genes logically foresees in
more than what the human can 'see' in it...
In the example of my meaningful experience with a robin, I would argue that genes cannot explain the potential of such a spirit, which involves beauty and happiness. But I cannot put that experience into language beyond the description that I gave.
Is it justified and valid from a theoretical sense to use an outside-in perspective in an attempt to modify animals through genetics?
One of my primary questions when it concerns GMO: does the (physiological home of) the spirit of animals and plants need protection? If so, how can that (if it is possible) be made evident in language?
Philosophical Vegan
cat?) is a step further than the animal rights advocacy expressed by Friedrich Nietzsche, of which it is said that it was quite profound.
Grizzly man is similar although it ended fatally for him. He would sing to the Grizzly bears, socialize with them and touch them in the wild. It went OK from him and his friends for 13 years. The attack was at night in the dark while he was sleeping in his tent.
dog would sacrifice itself to protect his human owner. Even in connection with wild animals it is seen that animals are willing to invest in the relationship with the human, to do things for the relation between the human and the animal (to serve a 'higher meaning of life').
astronauts shared in the OP similarly attempts to make a case for 'Planetary level consciousness', with the individual, humans and animals alike, being part of a bigger level of awareness (consciousness).
Europe has decided to sacrifice its ancient old growth forests for cheap green energy and calls it clean. Massive amounts of forests are completely clear cut.
animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.
USA may give an insight of what is at stake:
'robin'. 
forest bathing
- By Mounce574
- By Lagayascienza