Hi!
Regarding animals ability to reason:
Reasoning - Food for thought - Meanings are as follows:
Logical - Is swimming right into a fishing net logical thought? Dolphins
have great personalities but they can not avoid swimming into nets - Perfect
example of instinct and inability to reason! They always swim there
instinctively and will continue to swim there with or without net presence.
Rational - Is obeying a human who impedes on your freedom rational thought?
Birds are beautiful creatures - I wish I could fly with my own wings -for now
I fly on the wings of love. However, a bird would allow a human to cage it
and keep it caged without fleeing to freedom and still honor that person? Is
that rational thought? Just behaving instinctively to its surrounding - no
reasoning there. The bird does not ask itself rationally WHY is the person
impeding on my freedom - why am I not in the forest among my other bird
friends and family - that would be rational thought!
Sensible - is eating dog food sensible thought? Dogs make great pets - great
personalities - the wolfs among us - however, if you were sensible would you
eat dog food? Or is the dog eating out of behaviorial instinct to survive -
not sensible thinking there - the dog does not hold out for better food which
would be the sensible thing to do!
AWARE - is swimming upstream when you know Grizzly bears will eat you
awareness? Salmon are amazing fish - really - how they instinctively swim
upstream to breed - for continuance of their species - survival instincts kick
in. However, if they were AWARE in thought that the grizzly bear was always
there - would they continue that path or find a new path that would increase
their odds of survival? They can not reason with awareness!
Knowing - Is scratching furniture and ripping your owners home knowing
thought?
A cat can be such a loving curious kind of pet - I love cats - I especially
love the big cats! However, a house cat who is not declawed and not given
proper toys to play with will scatch the daylights our of chair legs - now is
that knowing - if they knew what they were doing - destroying their owners
furniture - they would KNOW that they were behaving improperly but they can
not reason - they are just sharpening their claws - instinctive behavior.
Are you following this? These are just a few examples
HOWEVER - Because we can reason/knowingling with our brains as humans does
that make other animals inferior? No,
But this ability to reason with our brains should make us more
responsible/rational to the animals who can not - and only behave - We should
respect that they deserve to live, freely without our impediment of that and
you take away their need to reason -which they don't have anyway -
then they become as free-spirited as we are. They
are feeling, loving, creatures who have rights - but we are (well, we should
be) rational
humans who care about those rights and treat them as co-inhabitants and we
care about
our home and theirs rationally! But, please do not say that they
reason/think/rationalize/know the way humans do because they do not!
They can not!
Peace!
Angela
