XPost: alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian, rec.pets.dogs.health, misc.rural   
      
   On Sun, 03 Jul 2005 19:31:45 GMT, don'tgo@there.com (The Watcher) wrote:   
      
   >On Sun, 03 Jul 2005 08:55:29 -0700, Louis Boyd    
   >wrote:   
   >   
   >>Elmo wrote:   
   >>> whatthe@fu?.com said (on or about) 07/01/2005 14:31:   
   >>>   
   >>>> On Fri, 01 Jul 2005 04:49:10 GMT, Goo wrote:   
   >>>>   
   >>>>>   No dog has any sense of anticipation longer than a   
   >>>>>   couple of seconds.   
   >>>>   
   >>>>      Can you back up that absurd sounding claim?   
   >>>   
   >>> I don't know about anticipation but it's my experience that dog's have   
   >>> very little sense of time.  If I walk up to the mailbox and back (less   
   >>> than 5 minutes) I get the same greeting as I do when I've been away all   
   >>> day.  So for a dog, anything more than a few minutes is roughly   
   >>> equivalent to "forever".   
   >>   
   >>For pet parrots the situation is different.  If you return after a few   
   >>hours they'll greet you happily.  If you've been gone several days   
   >>they'll typically bite you, perhaps for having been away so long.  A few   
   >>hours later they're just as happy to see you as before.   
   >>   
   >>But what does it matter. The concept of time is an artifact of human   
   >>civilization.  What animal has any reason to care about time at all?   
   >>Sure, conditions change with time, but it's only present conditions most   
   >>animals have any reason to care about.  Sure, some animals seem to   
   >>prepare for the future, but that doesn't really mean squirrels know that   
   >>it will snow eight months after nuts are plentiful. It only means the   
   >>squirrels which did for some reason decide to store more nuts than those   
   >>which didn't had a better survival rate.   
   >>   
   >>Ants obviously aren't as intellegent as humans,   
   >   
   >No, not when measured by HUMAN standards. ;)   
   >   
   >>but there certainly are   
   >>a lot more of them on this planet.  Does that mean they're more   
   >>successful and better adapted?   
   >   
   >Maybe on the Ant IQ Test it does. ;)   
   >If we can judge them by our standards, why shouldn't they judge us by theirs?   
      
       The standards is what is important. If you want to go by population   
   size, apparently they have that, but then so does bacteria. Length   
   of time on the planet? Again... Ability to manipulate our environment?   
   That's where humans excel. That and the ability to store and share   
   information are the things which allow us to live as we do, imo. We   
   are certainly helpless pathetic creatures in many other areas, like our   
   ability to survive naked with no tools in almost any environment other   
   than those which we create.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)