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There are a few animals I'd really like to have as pets, because of their intelligence. Obviously a dog, but also there are a couple of breeds of cat (aby, burm
by tehwalrus 13y ago
There are a few animals I'd really like to have as pets, because of their intelligence. Obviously a dog, but also there are a couple of breeds of cat (aby, burmese, bengal,) plus grey parrots and an octopus. If I could get away with them, I'd also be up for dolphins. I wouldn't have space for a whale.
I occasionally daydream about hacking up an electronic waterproof octopus toy, kind of like an underwater "bop it" that I can customise as they learn new features on it.
It makes me sad to read about any of these animals being hunted. They're too cool, leave them alone.
- jonnathanson 13y agoThey're super cool and ridiculously smart. Quite possibly among the smartest animals on the planet. (It's difficult to say how smart, exactly, because their neural anatomy evolved very different from the mammalian systems we've held up as the gold standard. But they meet certain indicating criteria that a lot of mammals fail.) http://io9.com/5626679/three-arguments-for-the-consciousness-of-cephalopods http://io9.com/5626679/three-arguments-for-the-consciousness...
- judk 13y agoCows are bred to be fat, and they don't need to outwit prey, so it is hard for them to show the fact that they are conscious intelligent animals as well.
- samatman 13y agoWhile intelligent, octopus are dramatically different from other intelligent species. They are, somehow, born with their intelligence. Everything else learns it, all the species you mentioned learn from their parents or surrogates. Octopus are also a K selected species, laying 200,000 eggs on average. Furthermore, they are short lived in comparison to any other intelligent species. We associate intelligence with individuality and hence with rarity: each human intelligence is rare because it was cultivated, not born. Octopus aren't like that.
- tehwalrus 13y agoI'm still not sure that it's ethical to kill human clones, just because they were born fully formed and with pre-programmed intelligence, and die anyway after a few years.
- scott_karana 13y agoI think you mean r selected species? Otherwise, fascinating points! My day disappeared to Wikipedia thanks to you :-)
- cko 13y agoWhile I agree with your "leave them alone" sentiment, why can't that apply to all animals/sentient beings? I'm not sure how to answer that question myself... but a lot of comments thus far say something like "they are intelligent so leave them alone." On the other hand, if an animal is ugly or stupid or abundant, like spiders or cockroaches or deer or (I can't think of an example of a stupid animal) then it's okay to exterminate/hunt/harvest/kill them. I'm just curious what line of reasoning or criteria that lead to "dog: awesome, do not abuse! Michael Vick is a monster", "pig: edible", "spider: kill on sight", etc. Is it attractiveness? Perceived benefit to our own species?
- tehwalrus 13y agoI'm a vegetarian, and I also tend to get pests out of my house rather than kill them, where possible (including spiders.) So, I don't get your examples of hypocrisy; they're not acceptable just because everyone is doing them. I value living things because I'm a chronic Myers Briggs "Feeler" - I put myself in the other things' shoes way too much for my own good, including things like octopuses and pigs. It's much harder for insects because their neural circuitry is so much simpler, but I still try and avoid killing them needlessly.
- cko 13y agoI, too, consistently test as a "Feeler" when taking Myers-Briggs. Sometimes after it rains I go out side and scoop earthworms back into the grass so they don't dry up and die later. Then I wonder if I should be going to everyone's driveway and doing the same thing. Then again, I'm not strictly a vegetarian (I eat meat rarely). It's interesting to see how people reason these things - like, for example, at my job there are lots of dog-lovers, but they won't hesitate to kill an ant or spider.
- tehwalrus 13y agoIt's much more reasonable to kill a very very simple organism like an ant or spider than a mammal or cephalopod. You're right that the individual choices people make are interesting!
- ripter 13y agoI hope you don't like pork. Pigs are intelligent too.