Amoeba, Fish, or Homosapien
For the past week that I've had friend's fish to take care of, I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish I was a fish countless times.
It seemed too damn easy. Living commitment-free, I guess.
But then I started noticing that whenever I hold something "green" near his bowl it comes near it excitingly, because his food container is green.
I don't know much about cognitive functioning in fish, but I know it is pretty simple given that fish are evolutionary most primitive among vertebrates. However, the fish is displaying "classical conditioning" so it does have "some" level of complex cognitive circuiting.
This, and many other behaviors I have been observing, is no scientific solid proof of any fish consciousness, but it is an indicator that something is there.
And then I started trying to view things through his perspective, a fish's perspective. Now this, at first, sounds easy but as you actually try it, really is a mind-fucker. He is small, vulnerable, dependent, lonely, controlled. He has no say in whatsoever concerning his life. He cannot express nor act out opinions. And his life is free of any sort of self-decided Quality.
With those and other very limited resources, can you imagine that, for a fish, how hard it is to find a meaning for a life? Because even if his meaning was self-preservation there are a lot of behaviours that he has to engage in , such as pleasing me or getting me to love him, so I take better care of him increasing the probability of his survival.
I guess the point is Existence is never simple nor it is "easy" even for a fish, and I bet that putting myself in the shoes -or the pesudopdia- of an amoebae would yield the same conclusion. So even if life seems easy for others through your perspective, it really is not from theirs. Each organism -humans included- has its own tolerance level with the patterns of behaviours -and life- that confirm to that.
And I have to admit that sometimes despite all my active attempts on empathy and self-awareness I fall at the fault of disregarding some people's suffering, viewing it as ridiculous when to them it is very much real and every bit agonising.
That's horrible.
This gap in the one-ess of the human experience that we cannot very easily cross.
It seemed too damn easy. Living commitment-free, I guess.
But then I started noticing that whenever I hold something "green" near his bowl it comes near it excitingly, because his food container is green.
I don't know much about cognitive functioning in fish, but I know it is pretty simple given that fish are evolutionary most primitive among vertebrates. However, the fish is displaying "classical conditioning" so it does have "some" level of complex cognitive circuiting.
This, and many other behaviors I have been observing, is no scientific solid proof of any fish consciousness, but it is an indicator that something is there.
And then I started trying to view things through his perspective, a fish's perspective. Now this, at first, sounds easy but as you actually try it, really is a mind-fucker. He is small, vulnerable, dependent, lonely, controlled. He has no say in whatsoever concerning his life. He cannot express nor act out opinions. And his life is free of any sort of self-decided Quality.
With those and other very limited resources, can you imagine that, for a fish, how hard it is to find a meaning for a life? Because even if his meaning was self-preservation there are a lot of behaviours that he has to engage in , such as pleasing me or getting me to love him, so I take better care of him increasing the probability of his survival.
I guess the point is Existence is never simple nor it is "easy" even for a fish, and I bet that putting myself in the shoes -or the pesudopdia- of an amoebae would yield the same conclusion. So even if life seems easy for others through your perspective, it really is not from theirs. Each organism -humans included- has its own tolerance level with the patterns of behaviours -and life- that confirm to that.
And I have to admit that sometimes despite all my active attempts on empathy and self-awareness I fall at the fault of disregarding some people's suffering, viewing it as ridiculous when to them it is very much real and every bit agonising.
That's horrible.
This gap in the one-ess of the human experience that we cannot very easily cross.
Follow up 10th of July 2015:
- All souls reincarnate
http://n0ha.blogspot.com/2015/06/blog-post_5.html?m=1
Comments
Post a Comment