July 5, 2012
I have long wondered whether animals have feelings: feelings of pain, sorrow, happiness, and grief? Do the animals mourn their dead? These questions have gone unanswered to my palest surprise. Scientists and psychologists have attempted to analyze and come to an answer, albeit their answers are highly debatable.
Do I have an answer? Sometime ago I tried to unravel this mystery of animal feelings, particularly whether the animals mourn their dead, with examples of a crow mourning over a dead crow or a monkey shedding tears out of sadness or pain. However, I am not sure whether they are really feelings because my cognitive perception of animal kingdom is limited. All the more, I am no psychologist or scientist to make a laboratory experiment which might give a precise result but with due benefit of doubt or exception.
My curiosity and search with regard to the feelings of animals towards themselves and towards humans was aroused when I was watching a nail biting documentary, “Ocean Giants, Deep Thinkers” on BBC One. Their extraordinary and maiden revelation on feelings of humpback whales towards humans fascinated me and I wished I could embark upon the coast of Mexico. But sadly that would not be possible for now, however, I can share the joy of the people who witness this extraordinary intimacy between these ocean giants and humans.
Two things stayed with me from the documentary:
a) the unity and coordination of humpback whales to capture their prey. They have a unique way of hunting their prey. After swimming for 3000 miles, a few whales gather to hunt together with an absolute togetherness. They surround the shoal of herrings with a strategic tactic that allows the shoal of herrings to fall into their predator’s disk. Then with mouths wide open capture the herrings. Their mouths can contain nearly 500 kilos of herrings a day. What a wonderful example of unity, coordination and togetherness. The documentary makes it clear that these whales are no way connected because they had travelled from different parts of the ocean.
b) Humpback whales have awesome affinity towards humans. In the Mexican shores when I fisherman fishing found a huge humpback whales next to his boat seemed to his emerging to devour him. But to his pleasant and wildest surprise the whales just caressed his boat. He was completely taken aback by this gesture of the whale. He then stroked the whale and became friend with the whale. This shows that these mammoth ocean giants have feelings and they loved to be caressed and stroked. Scientists then experimented with these whales and come to know that these mysterious animals have feelings and possibly they would like to communicate to us but unfortunately our languages don’t match. Scientists have opined that these ocean creatures have spindle cells three times more than humans. Therefore their emotional awareness is much stronger than humans. Therefore they even can show their affinity and emotions to humans. Today scores of people go to this shore to witness these mesmerizing emotional activities of humpback whales.
Apart from elephants, dolphins are considered to be the most intelligent animal on the planet. There are instances where dolphins have helped people. When I went to watch the spectacle of dolphins performing unimaginable stunts at Duisburg in Germany, it occurred to me that dolphins are such a lovely creatures who can hear, understand, and act wisely according to the master’s requests (I am not using the word ‘command’, because in this show master was requesting the dolphins to perform a particular stunt). The aforementioned BBC documentary showed how dolphins could have a high level of awareness of them. They experimented through a mirror in which dolphins showcased their awareness just like humans. They looked at the mirror again and again with several angles. The scientists opined through this that dolphins have even higher-level awareness then us. They believe that in the future they would be able to communicate with us. How lovely dolphins speaking to me, ‘excuse me, or sorry or thanks.’
Finally, the documentary showed a remarkable group of Mexican grey whales, which seem able to empathize with humans and may even have a concept of forgiveness. Can it be true? Can they empathize with us? Can they have a concept of forgiveness? I am sure they do empathize with us like the fisherman caressed by the whale; a complete showcase of feeling with us. I am sure animal lovers would agree with me, that animals are violent as long as their hunger is quenched. Therefore, I think they don’t generally harm other creatures without a proper reason. This can even lead to have the concept of forgiveness. Scientists cannot know what exactly these mysterious creatures’ feelings.
Just to reflect on the story of God’s creation, God on the fifth day, created animals of all sorts. He blessed them and made them multiply and fill the earth. And on the sixth day, God created human. God gave human dominion over the other creatures but not domination; just a point to grasp, dominion is to take care of God’s creation not dominate it.
But my point here is, God created human after he had created animals. Animals were created before man was created, God must have created them out of nothing: because God did not have any blueprint or a model to create the animals unlike the man, God created man in his likeness, hence God had a blueprint or a model for man. Therefore we can deduce from this above argument that God must have given animals some special attributes that were not in Himself, so He would have given them some kind of extra entities that were not given to humans. Now what are these special entities? I can presume that they are given some sort of powers or behavioral patters that make them tantamount to humans. Simple tangible example to elaborate this point is the shape and size of different animals is unique unlike humans who are generically looking alike.
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