h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Lentilla, thanks for the interesting reply. We are threatening to go widly off-topic here, but...

I remember the parrot too! There are also some very smart cockatoos. I was a bit fascinated myself by this. I always thought we should try with a mockingbird, as they have the largest "native vocabulary" of any bird species around here.

I think many animals are self-aware. I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to call them sentient, though. On the other hand, there was Koko, the ape who came to understand death after her kitten passed away. It all becomes a gray area, really, and I think it makes humans uncomfortable. We like to maintain simple concepts of the universe, and we like to feel confident in our supremacy over all other beings. Anything that questions either can be hard for us to swallow.

If sentience is such a useful and overpowering characteristic as we feel it is, then we shouldn't be surprised that so many lifeforms make a stab at attempting it...

This has been moved out of Peer Review, *not* because it's not suitable, but because we're going to compile a master God entry from entries such as this, and the results of the current front page Topic.

So will it stick around in its current incarnation, unapproved as well as being absorbed into the sanctioned version?

Yeah - that's the standard way of doing it. The current incarnation will be unedited, and the collaborative entry will include most of this and lost of other stuff too, and credit TG and everyone else...

And so... we might as well enjoy the topic drift...

I think animals are every bit as self-aware and sentient as humans. They display the entire range of emotions. They use critical thinking skills. They have unique personalities and likes and dislikes. They have sex for recreational purposes. And, they even understand death... anyone who has ever seen footage of elephants passing by an elephant graveyard has seen the closest thing to ancestor worship than can be communicated nonverbally... elephants very gingerly and delicately rubbing their trunks over the skulls in much the same way that a human might polish a prized heirloom... except not with out noses, of course.

As for wondering about their place in the macrocosm, well, there's really no way to be sure, since they don't have a way of communicating it. But really, is the ability to think like that so very necessary? Look at how much trouble it has gotten US into to...

I've hopped in and out of this thread, and since I have to pack, sleep, get up, go to the airport, and get on a plane all in the next 11 hours, I don't have lots of time to read back-postings.

But animals... I learned a lot about meditating, chanting (purring -they call it) and mindfullness - all basic spiritual practice - from my cats. It is quite clear to me that if people are spiritual beings then so are animals. And vice versa, I guess.

I think human beings are able to relate to dogs and cats and most other mammals better than they can relate to birds, lizards, fish, etc. We're closer on the evolutionary chain.

This doesn't mean necessarily that a dog or a cat is self-aware. Hell, most babies aren't self-aware. It just means that we think alike. Try giving the dog something he doesn't like: he'll whoof out one of those big sighs, plop on his belly and rest his head on his paws, and look at you with those big brown eyes - is that not exactly like a five-year old kid?

I'm not going to attribute any special qualities to a pet, but owning a pet has been proven to lengthen a person's lifespan. Mostly because of stress relief, I've heard.

From Merriam Webster online, "self-awareness: an awareness of one's own personality or individuality." A dog knows who he likes and dislikes, what foods he likes, what spots he likes rubbed, etc. Does this not qualify as self-awareness?

Understanding self-awareness, consciousness, sentience, and observation is the big mystery, really... it's what this business of God is all about in the first place.

Ok, I edited this thing one last time to try and remove the remaining offending comments, just for the sake of putting it to rest before the collaborative entry goes up. Not too many additions, and I didn't bother tracking down the spelling errors (an on-line spellchecker would kick ass, by the way, for those of us who are functionally illiterate). I hope the eds will see their way to maybe referencing this entry in a footnote or something as "the thing that started all this god nonsense", but whatever the result I'm reasonably happy with what's there now. thanks very much all of you for your input and criticism, especially Colonel Sellers, Fragilis, Lucinda, Anna, and lastly Pattern-Chaser for turning me on to an excellent book, which couple with my recent studies of ancient history may wind up being the basis of several guide entries to come. I still hold out some faint hope that someone will clue in Douglas about this entry eventually, as I sort of wrote it in part for him.

-TG

And thanks for toughing it out, TG. I know you have spent countless hours on the project. And whatever happens next, I for one have appreciated it.

Having read DNA's interview in American Atheist, I must say that he would be proud of this entry.

This entry has been described as "controversial" and so forth, and so it may be best not to bring DNA into this...

Considering he's dead, that might be smart.