Do Elephants Have Souls?
thenewatlantis.com
thenewatlantis.com
It moreover seems hard to reconcile the idea that there needs to be some minimal level of intelligence to gain a level of awareness. In fact, several philosophers have thought this way also and have coined the term panpsychism to denote the idea that all entities of the universe have some level of sensing and awareness and that it is most concentrated in life forms.
"We are one" "We are the universe experiencing itself"
These are tenants of buddhism and other eastern religions.
Dr Hoffman makes things a bit more interesting in his observations by relating these older concepts to modern understandings of simulation theory and physics (my own opinion).
Just some context. Ive listened to everything the guy has on YouTube.
Humans are animals too.
The Latin word for non-human animals was "bestia", hence English "beast".
Unlike in modern English, in Latin "bestia" just meant non-human animal, without a negative connotation.
In modern English, "animal" is used by many with the meaning of the Latin "bestia", not with the meaning of the Latin "animal".
Animals show behaviors that are very close to human, often identical modulo anatomical differences. Animals lack a language that we can understand, and therefore can't defend themselves against claims that their behavior doesn't hold up to arbitrary standards of emotion, intelligence, etc.
All sentient beings deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. The vast majority of humanity is not on logical or ethical solid ground here, and remains in denial.
There is merit in arguing that sapience, i.e. functional self awareness and a general capacity to learn, merits a higher standard of respect and dignity than mere sentience. (As do non-sentient objects, like mountains, though at a lower standard than sentients.)
The author seems to be setting up a lot of human-animal binaries (humans choose, animals act on instinct) in order to ultimately cast doubt on them. I'm sure I'm not alone in finding these binaries quite implausible to begin with, and therefore finding those parts of the piece a bit tedious. But I am moved by these vignettes illustrating just how relatable elephants and humans are to each other.
Many p-zombies say that.
an inner realm of awareness, selfhood, and possibility
The dictionary has some similar phrasing:
the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life
the spiritual principle embodied in human beings, all rational and spiritual beings, or the universe
a person's total self
So depending on your definition, you could (or could not) apply it outside of humans. Or it's something you believe in or don't believe in. If it's self awareness, or just a definition we wrap around what causes a living being to do things, then yes, it's something you can say an elephant has. Obviously if you say it's "a person's total self", then you only apply it to people.
Also, should be noted the article is from (2013).
Other people may or may not have souls, I have no real way to confirm this. Elephants may or may not have souls as well.
I can say with some confidence that P(other humans have souls) > P(elephants have souls). That's about all I can conclude from this limited vantage point.
> pretty sure
> some confidence
What does this mean ?
All those poor avocados...
> Now, this might seem a trivial thing to mention, considering the gravity of the subject, but I truly don’t feel it is. We were very pious children from pious households in a fairly pious town, and this affected our behavior considerably. Once, we baptized a litter of cats.
> It occurred to one of the girls to swaddle them up in a doll’s dress — there was only one dress, which was just as well since the cats could hardly tolerate a moment in it and would have to have been unsaddled as soon as they were christened in any case. I myself moistened their brows, repeating the full Trinitarian formula.
> Their grim old crooked-tailed mother found us baptizing away by the creek and began carrying her babies off by the napes of their necks… We lost track of which was which, but we were fairly sure that some of the creatures had been borne away still in the darkness of paganism, and that worried us a great deal.
> I still remember how those warm little brows felt under the palm of my hand. Everyone has petted a cat, but to touch one like that, with the pure intention of blessing it, is a very different thing. It stays the mind. For years we would wonder what, from a cosmic viewpoint, we had done to them. It still seems to me to be a real question. There is a reality in blessing… It doesn’t enhance sacredness, but it acknowledges it, and there is a power in that. I have felt it pass through me, so to speak. The sensation is one of really knowing a creature, I mean really feeling its mysterious life and your own mysterious life at the same time.
Genesis 1:26 "Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”"
It is a great article describing Anthropomorphism though.