Elephant painting/animal rights/animal "souls"

[Nordic]

If you haven't seen this yet, you really must:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He7Ge7Sogrk

Elephants who paint. Pictures. In this case, of an elephant.

According to Snopes.com, it's the real deal.

I'll certainly never eat elephant again. And it makes me feel bad that I once owned an elephant-skin wallet (my dad got it for me while he was in Vietnam).

Seems like a great discussion item for this site. What does it say about animals, and our relationships with them?

[Searcher08]

I used to be veggie till I traveled round Mexico, where veggies regularly starve to death. I then tried being vegan when for a while but soya makes me barfy, so I'm now eating fish and Organic free range poultry and organic dairy stuff. I have never hunted or killed for either sport or food.

I have noticed a lot of animal rights people like animals MUCH more than humans.

One thing I find funny around animals, is the human attitude that the food chain end with us - which I have always considered incredibly arrogant.
<cue Twilight Zone>

[slomo]

I used to be veggie till I traveled round Mexico, where veggies regularly starve to death. I then tried being vegan when for a while but soya makes me barfy, so I'm now eating fish and Organic free range poultry and organic dairy stuff. I have never hunted or killed for either sport or food.

I basically have the same problem. Most of the high-protein sources make me gassy and are, well, *impure* in the sense that the underlying vegetable source is typically grown using pretty awful agricultural practices abusive to the earth (e.g. soy). I still supplement with bean products to the extent I can get away with it socially, and otherwise eat meat that is as cruelty-free as I can get, subject to availability. I'm basically OK with meat consumption under those circumstances, as healthy ecosystems must have high-level predators. My dogs have taught me much.

I have noticed a lot of animal rights people like animals MUCH more than humans.

Truly. I vastly prefer animals to humans.

One thing I find funny around animals, is the human attitude that the food chain end with us - which I have always considered incredibly arrogant.

I also. It is on that basis alone that I am open to literalist alien/reptile hypotheses.

[FourthBase]

http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/v ... hp?t=13095

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koko_%28gorilla%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanzi
http://quingem.com/cheetapainting.jpe

In the image thread I've posted dozens of images of chimps, mostly bonobos. It is impossible to examine them honestly and conclude that animals do not have souls. You mentioned you'd never eat an elephant ("again"??? WTF????)...as if elephant is a common food, lol. But how about...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU7_Ar9C_iI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tvl2FNL0l7o

http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/v ... 1688#51688
http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/v ... 3497#23497

[Penguin]

Its not a food chain, its a food ring. From man, to food of maggots...

Btw, soy is not a good source of protein for a vegan. Soy has lots of poisonous compunds, not all of which are lost in processing / soaking and boiling. It makes many people ill, my mate included. We eat lots of nuts and grains, peas and assorted beans, seitan (wheat gluten, unless you suffer from Coeliac disease its nice stuff - you can make all kinds of things like stakes, sausages, etc from it), and hemp seeds both baked and made into hemp tofu. Hemp rarely causes allergies and has all necessary amino acids and a high protein content.

Your mileage may vary.

As to "loving animals more than humans"? Dunno. In general, animals have done me less harm as far as I know.

[barracuda]

Ummm, these animals have been trained to do this, right? What is the difference between this and a circus animal? Elephants can do all kinds of things with training, but do they want to? Something is amiss here. These elephants paint the same elephant and flower images over and over.

Nabokov, in the postscript to Lolita relates, "...a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes, who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed bars of the poor creature's cage."

I do not see a creative mind at work here, rather repetition and stress.

[slomo]

I should clarify my last comment above. It is (or should be) obvious that the food chain does not end with us: we become food for bacteria, who are infinitely smarter than human beings in many ways:

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/n03434 ... tibiotics/

But on the other hand, I don't automatically rule out other high-complexity predators who possess intelligence that is similar in kind to that of humans but much superior, and who are able to evade evidence. (I don't necessarily rule it in, though.)

[FourthBase]

Ummm, these animals have been trained to do this, right? What is the difference between this and a circus animal? Elephants can do all kinds of things with training, but do they want to? Something is amiss here. These elephants paint the same elephant and flower images over and over.

Nabokov, in the postscript to Lolita relates, "...a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes, who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed bars of the poor creature's cage."

I do not see a creative mind at work here, rather repetition and stress.

[annie aronburg]

These elephants are housed at this sanctuary because elephant logging has been made illegal in Thailand and human encroachment has long since disrupted their traditional habits and habitat.

As much as I like the idea of elephants engaging in hobbies that I enjoy, I notice that there isn't a lot of variety in the artwork and that the trainer stands awfully close to the elephant as it "creates".

These amazing creatures are performing tricks, taught to them by humans, for profit. Well-intentioned profit, perhaps, but painting is not what elephants choose to do when left to their own devices.

Call me when they get to abstract expressionism and I'll take it all back.

Annie

[Penguin]

slomo: Yep, I got your idea. Was just being sort of funny

[slomo]

Call me when they get to abstract expressionism and I'll take it all back.

The thing is, I don't think we can say for sure what animal consciousness is like. In the "Chimp that thought he was a boy" thread, Nomo asks whether anybody has read any good dolphin poetry lately. My response is, would you be able to recognize dolphin poetry if it was presented to you? Can you even recognize Chinese poetry? Before you can understand poetry, you have to understand the language.

My dogs are aware of all kinds of things that I am not. They regularly pick up sounds and smells are meaningful to them but evade my recognition. How can you be sure that you fully understand any kind of consciousness that is nonhuman? To believe that you can strikes me as hubris.

[OP ED]

what do elephants taste like?

[Searcher08]

what do elephants taste like?

Like chicken, but bigger

[barracuda]

what do elephants taste like?

[OP ED]

really? oh, well fuck it then, chickens are cheaper.