Are Animals More Aware Than Us?

[Frogfucius]

I read somewhere that animals experience a more vivid existence than humans, because they live almost purely through their senses. It said that because of the development of civilization and a cognitive mind, human senses have dulled over time.

It makes sense. Humans are lost in their minds almost every waking moment, but animals are only ever focused on externals. What do you think?

[Dodo]

Meow

[Key Elements]

They could be very cute and enlightened. 

 

[Dodo]

They're enlightened because they know all they need to know to survive in their environment. Us humans are stupid and make it harder for ourselves :)))

[Prabhaker]

Instinct is the world of the animals–everything is instinct. Even if sometimes you see indications of other things, it is your projection. For example, you can see love in animals–the mother looking after her kids lovingly, caringly–and you can think that it is not just instinct, it is something higher, not just biological. But it is not higher, it is simply biological. The mother is doing it like a robot in the hands of nature. She is helpless–she has to do it. Becoming an animal means complete surrender to unconscious instincts.

[Dodo]

9 minutes ago, Prabhaker said:

Instinct is the world of the animals–everything is instinct. Even if sometimes you see indications of other things, it is your projection. For example, you can see love in animals–the mother looking after her kids lovingly, caringly–and you can think that it is not just instinct, it is something higher, not just biological. But it is not higher, it is simply biological. The mother is doing it like a robot in the hands of nature. She is helpless–she has to do it. Becoming an animal means complete surrender to unconscious instincts.

Complete surrender, robot in the hands of nature... Arent you describing enlightenment ? 

Isnt that the entire ego thing.. You presume you have control now and are thinking of yourself as god. But maybe thats what we wished for

Edited September 28, 2016 by Dodoster

[Prabhaker]

14 minutes ago, Dodoster said:

But maybe thats what we wished for

This too is impossible because what has become conscious in man cannot become unconscious again. We seek this very unconsciousness when we get drunk. The search for intoxicants is an indication of our desire to become animals. Only when he is thoroughly drunk and unconscious is man in conformity with nature, with the animal. 

[Neo]

What animal though, a spider is different to say a horse. There may be a whole spectrum, right down to a creature that has no special senses at all.

 

[Andrea Marchetti]

Humans are more aware than animals. That's why we have mental problems and animals don't.
They live more in the senses because they cannot do otherwise, they have not a conscious mind. There is nobody inside them who can stay present, they have no self, they live subconsciously all their lives, like a dream. Their being present has no value. But yes, their existence is more vivid, time doesn't exist for them; but only because they are subconscious. Children are like animals, we usually don't really remember our early childhood, we were living subconsciously.
Human senses have increased: we can sense our thoughts, this is why we are sucked in our ego and that's what we call being conscious. It's one step more... External senses in humans are pushed apart because they lost a bit of significance for us since thoughts came in.
We are more aware than animals. We are conscious of ourselves being alive, not only living as like animals do. Of course animals' consciousness has different degrees depending on the animal.

[FindingPeace]

I wouldn't say that humans are necessarily more aware than animals. It depends how you define 'awareness'. I see it more as attention. There is a difference between awareness and consciousness. And there is no doubt that animals with a brain, are conscious. And they are aware of their senses. Just as we are. But we, though, are more often giving our internal thoughts and dialogue more attention than we are our sensory input. So our awareness is more on the abstractions and conceptualisations and fictions of our thoughts. Not the reality of our sensory world around us.

So I would argue that we are less aware than most animals.

However, our self-awarenss, is also an illusion. Beyond being aware of our bodies, we have this 'awareness of self' which is really just an awareness of the memories of experiences that we put together in to a 'story' of our 'life'. But that is all a fiction. In reality, our life is happening only in the present moment - something we give little attention and awareness too. So we spend more time lost in memory, thought, anticipation rather than seeing what is really happening. Something animals do all the time. They can only really ever be present as they don't have the conceptual framework to have an internal dialogue about a fictional 'life' that they are 'living'. This is the difference between having an ego (humans) and not (animals).

The life that you are aware of living isn't a life but a story. Life isn't a story, it the here and now, this moment in time. That's all there is. And animals have little choice but to live from this paradigm.

Edited September 28, 2016 by FindingPeace

[Frogfucius]

@FindingPeace Yes, exactly. To say animals are not conscious, aware, or present is simply false. If you ever observe an animal, they're just as reactive to stimuli as humans. If not more so, since they don't have mental distractions. Their reflexes and senses are extremely sharp, with no mind, which shows they're perhaps more present than humans.

Now, we are more conscious than all other animals because of our capabilities for deep abstract thought. But that also takes us out of presence and awareness.. hence why animals may be more aware than humans, and experience existence far more vividly and intensely with the external environment. It's a far simpler existence, but what's wrong with that?

[Prabhaker]

1 hour ago, Frogfucius said:

To say animals are not conscious, aware, or present is simply false.

Man has different plane of consciousness. Animals have consciousness but they do not have awareness of their consciousness. Man knows that he has consciousness. 

[Frogfucius]

28 minutes ago, Prabhaker said:

Man has different plane of consciousness. Animals have consciousness but they do not have awareness of their consciousness. Man knows that he has consciousness. 

Animals experience everything as it is. Man does not, because his mental abstractions and ego get in the way. Animals are more in-tune with the fundamental nature of existence than man, because they are incapable of conceptualizing it.

That said, some animals are capable of empathy, they do have a sense of self, and may even act altruistically. Whales and dolphins have been known to protect stray seals, and have also been known to commit suicide. I'd say the more complex the mind, the more conscious the animal. The more conscious the animal, the more they associate with mind patterns. But then they become less in-tune with their fundamental existence, which could be psychologically harmful for the individual...

I don't know, I'm just throwing thoughts out here.

Edited September 28, 2016 by Frogfucius

[Prabhaker]

6 minutes ago, Frogfucius said:

But then they become less in-tune with their fundamental existence

It is freedom of man to become in-tune with existence or not. He can become a Hitler, he can become a Buddha.

[kurt]

Animals and humans are just food.  The activity in the brain is just chemistry (thoughts), it's not sentient.  Only consciousness is sentient, but it is not local to any living animal.

So nothing is aware, not even humans, humans and animals are just programmes.  The subtle body is developed in animals and humans and this is what dies with the gross body.  But consciousness is just knowledge of all this, that is the thing that is aware.