More on Humans, animals, and the state of nature

This first thought kind of relates to everything I've been talking about when it comes to religion and evolution and stuff like that.

It's amazing how perfect everything works isn't it? I mean... out of all the stuff that can go wrong in the scheme of things... it's amazing how perfect everything works.

Here's a thought I had earlier:

What do dogs hear when we talk to them? I imagine it would be like someone talking to me in very fast Japanese. I have NO IDEA what they're saying. But then think about an infant. The infant makes noises, thinking it's communicating in an effective manner... but it's not. But what the infant does do is as it develops, it learns that the words it hears from its parents have meaning beyond just being sounds. That the word "chair" refers to something shaped like a chair and that if it wants to reference the chair, it should say chair. But despite hearing "chair" a million times, a dog could never absorb the word chair and learn that it should say the word chair if it wants to talk about the chair. I mean, its obvious that it doesn't have the same capacity for vocals that a human does. But still, can you imagine the cognitive function and upper-level thinking that it takes to absorb first language? We learn new languages by referencing the one we already know and so it's crazy thinking about we first make associations.

Oh i remember what I wanted to talk about..

I've been reading Rousseau almost out of genuine interest (but don't have nearly enough time on my hands) and he talks about a lot of interesting things. For example, he says that because we live in a civilized society, we feel the ever-increasing need to advance ourselves that, without society, we would never do. That there are so many illnesses and maladies that exist simply because, as creatures in society, we indulge and therefore push our bodies beyond their natural capacities. It's just really interesting to read about his state of nature.

I have a very similar view as Rousseau, I think. He talks about nature treating infants as did Sparta. That is, weak or deformed infants just die because of the demands of living in the wild. Nature would treat humans the way it treats all creatures, with a fair and crushing indifference.

He says that man in the state of nature has to be strong. That he could easily beat up civilized man, even with all of his tools because nature has crafted him to be resourceful, smart, and cunning. It's funny because beyond the natural sciences, every single thing we learn is an attempt to understand the society that has emerged from this hypothetical state of nature. Rousseau says that man has no need for reason and thus, no need for philosophy.

And without philosophy, there is no need to ponder the workings of the universe.

And thus, no need for any other discipline.

In the state of nature, man knows all he needs.

Anyway, I might post more things that he talks about that I think are interesting.

Oh and another thought I had during my terrible, awful philosophy seminar:

We spent nearly 2 and a half hours talking about whether animals have ideas and if we need to worry about the content of their ideas in order to show that they have them. On the one hand, I believe it can be argued that animals are little more than fleshy things with feelings. I believe animals can feel pain and respond to stimuli. In the vein of Hume I believe that animals have a very limited capacity for reason in that they can be trained through Pavlovian conditioning.

For example, when my Dad opens the fridge and takes out the pack of American cheese, the dogs come running because they've been conditioned that when he takes out the cheese, they will get some. They come because for whatever reason, dogs just like to eat and eat and eat and I think if you somehow had a never-ending pile of cheese, a dog might just sit there and eat it til he died.

On the other hand, you could say that the dog had the desire for cheese or that when my dad gets the cheese out, they already know they want some and now is their opportunity to grab it. This would imply that animals have desires and no matter the content of their desires, gives us some insight to proper moral treatment. Now I think it's very possible that animals can have desires. Like when it comes to playing games. Maybe dogs legitimately like fetch or tug-of-war because they have fun doing it. Maybe they only do it because it helps them work out their instinctual frustration that being a house pet surpresses. If the former, then dogs have desires to play games. If the latter, my point stands that they are little more than fleshy things with rudimentary brains.

I can't decide and frankly, I don't care. Still, it's interesting to think about.