Greater kudu
I promised myself I wouldn’t let this blog turn into Katie’s Critter Corner, because I’ve got bigger plans for this blog. But, I have a huge weakness for large, herbivorous quadrupeds, and if they’re pretty to boot, I’m sold. And this picture (painting?) is just incredible. It interests me how we ascribe human virtues to non-human animals, and these animals gain greater value in our minds by this imposed label. Just plain anthropomorphization? Are we that hard up for inspiration?
No, I say. I think, even if we were innundated by other virtuous humans, we would still do this to animals. First, virtue doesn’t get old, you can’t wear it out, you can’t get sick of it. We’re not filling a virtue void by anthropomorphizing animals. Second, I think it goes along with the imaginitive, creative, artistic impulse, where by playing with the juxtaposition of ideas, represented by objects, you can create a powerful, succinct message that if taken literally, flouts reality.
In any case, in this male greater kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) I see nobility, pride, courage, ability and curiosity. How can I not love that?
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I think I’m still struck by the possibility that this might actually be a painting of such a beautiful animal. That would make two beautiful pictures, and a third if you count the the picture of beauty to be imagined behind someone’s desire to paint it.
And I’m going to fess up here and admit that I had no idea what a kudu was until I saw this. On seeing it, I immediately thought: ram. Guess I should have guessed antelope.
Not to end on a negative note, but when I googled images of kudu, well, you probably know in what context I found most of them. This picture you posted is one of the prettiest I’ve seen, and, at least to my mind, it proves that there is sentience. You’re probably thinking, what a dumb thing to say, but a friend of mine, who, incidentally, graduated from UCLA with an undergraduate degree in Biology and who has been published in Nature (which I understand isn’t all that great?), argues that only humans are sentient. If my guess is correct, he was inspired to reach this conclusion by Julian Jaynes, not that Jaynes is at fault.
Comment by UberKuh — February 28, 2006 @ 6:27 am
Negativity is in the mind of the beholder. I support intelligent, forward-thinking management of resources, animals included. Pointless butchery seriously pisses me off. That said, I sleep under the hide of an elk my dad shot and I ate at some point in my childhood. Field biology is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.
I see no problem in saying many mammals are sentient. Proving it is a matter of science, and I’m not up on the literature, so I’ll keep my trap shut about proof. And in any case, if you’re wondering, sentience is no argument for animal rights.
And being published in Nature doesn’t imply jack about the soundness of your friend’s views outside the area in which he was published. First, Nature is a high-profile, selective journal that has extremely spotty quality control as far as science goes. Things that make a great cover story up their odds of being published, regardless of the soundness of the conclusions. Second, ideally academic achievement and all-around knowledge would be strongly related, but you can only think that when it’s safe to assume perfect strangers live wholly integrated and rational lives. I’m not willing to make that leap of faith with anyone, especially academics; are you? In reality, accomplishment, wisdom and knowledge vary independently. If I knew your friend, then I would have some basis for specifically trusting or not trusting his opinion.
Jaynes views turn my stomach. He’s all but saying our natural state is that of a schizophrenic. Because he was a psychologist, we can assume he’s familiar with people in this state. To argue as he does - I don’t even have the words for that kind of intellectual transgression. Needless to say, any claims for the origins of a physiological trait like consciousness can be submitted to a battery of tests in evolutionary biology, neuroscience, paleo-anthropology, and a myriad others. Because his “Origin of Consciousness” (book, idea, the whole kit and kaboodle) wasn’t peer reviewed, I think the likelihood that he did anything besides armchair theorizing very closely approximates zero.
Comment by Katie — February 28, 2006 @ 7:13 am
Katie: I see what you see. Mirroring of known values makes something beautiful to me.
UK: I think Jaynes is full of shit. I can tell you why, too. But, what do you think of Jaynes? And just because one is published in Nature (or any other publication) doesn’t mean one is *correct*. To me, it takes a helluva lot more peer-reviewed articles than one to have me seriously consider something as (scientific) fact.
“Sentient”:
1 : responsive to or conscious of sense impressions
2 : AWARE
3 : finely sensitive in perception or feeling
I used www.m-w.com (Merriam Webster for this). Wikipedia also has a definition of sentient.
Does your friend have a whole new definition of sentience?
Comment by Jenna — February 28, 2006 @ 9:42 pm
Maybe he meant that animals can’t speak a sentence. Yeah, that’s it. As far as what I think of Jaynes, I really can’t say because I haven’t wasted my time reading this bicameral bullshit of a book. Consciousness within the last three millennia… give me a break.
Comment by UberKuh — March 1, 2006 @ 12:07 am