Monday, January 25, 2010
Human/ Non-Human Animals
I believe that communication and brain development distinguishes human animals from non-human animals. The means of which human animals communicate distinguish them from non human animals because it is a more sophisticated form of communication. Non-human animals tend to communicate in a less complex manner such as using similar sounds or even body movements to send messages to others animals, while human animals have a complete system of alphabets that can be joined in multiple ways to have multiple meanings. For example, the male Anolis Lizard expands his throat sac in attempt to impress the female lizard that it wants to mate with. A male human that wants to have an intimate relationship with a female human communicates this to her using language. The means of communication that human animals and non-human animals use is a direct reflection of the difference in the level of brain development that each has. The sophisticated language that human animals use to communicate reflects the more sophisticated and complex level of brain function that human animals have. The less sophisticated and complex the communication of non-human animals reflects how less complex their brain function is.
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Niiarmah's distinction of human and non-human animals is strong but I feel like little or no credit is being distributed to these non-human animals and how "less complex" their brain functions are. M. Mendel and E.S. Paul's "Consciousness, Emotion and Animal Welfare" completely not only gives head to a non-human animal's increased intelligence, but hints at the comparisons of brain capacity an animal has to a human. Mendel and Paul's memory interpretation of a monkey's "metacognition" reflects that "monkeys can monitor the quality of their memory and use this information to moderate their behavior in a memory task" (Mendel & Paul, p.74) Much like a human studying and taking a test. Although only some similar species have been tested to have similar brian functions as humans, for example monkeys and dolphins, animal's brain functions aren't necessarily "less complex" as stated.
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