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<DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial>From: Micha Berger <A href="mailto:micha@aishdas.org">micha@aishdas.org</A><BR>Old TK: : I enter
into evidence the following two exhibits:<BR>: a. Bilaam's
donkey<BR><BR>RMB: </FONT><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial>Which was
created separately from every other animal.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT lang=0 color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial>TK: It was different from every other animal in its
ability to speak and express its thoughts in words, but its feelings and
"thoughts" were those of any other even slightly intelligent animal. Even
a dog would have something of the same "thought" -- or rather, emotion of
surprise -- if an owner to whom it had always been loyal, and who had always
treated it well, suddenly started kicking and beating the dog one
day.</FONT></FONT></DIV><FONT lang=0 color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial>
<DIV><BR><BR>Old TK: : b. The calf who ran away because it didn't want to
be shechted....</DIV>
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<DIV><BR>RMB: Still, where do you see that the calf was aware of its own
thoughts in<BR>this story?</DIV>
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<DIV>TK: Who said anything about the animal being aware of its own
thoughts? I specifically denied that "self-awareness" was necessary in
order to experience suffering. The animal somehow knew it was going to be
shechted and it didn't want to die (or it didn't want to experience pain).
Animals experience both pain and fear and those experiences constitute
suffering. I just don't know where "being aware of its own thoughts" comes
into it at all. I don't even know where "being aware of one's own
thoughts" comes in for human suffering. When I was in labor I was
definitely suffering but I never had any thought like, "Well here I am, thinking
about how awful this is and how I can't wait for it to be over."</DIV>
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<DIV><BR><BR>Old TK: :
But it is
indisputable <BR>: that they suffer physical pain, and the notion that they
don't suffer <BR>: because there is no "I" there is just wrong.
<BR><BR>RMB: Then what do you do with my objections:<BR><BR>1- If the
inputs to animal thought include the watching of the thoughts<BR>themselves,
wouldn't that mean they have free will? And isn't free will<BR>the tzelem
E-lokim (see the Meshekh Chokhmah).</DIV>
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<DIV>TK: I emphatically deny that the "inputs to animal thought" include
"the watching of the thoughts themselves." I don't even know what that
means. Even humans often "think" in simple pictures or in emotions without
words, and when they do think in words, how often are they aware that they are
thinking? People who are deaf from birth think in pictures. So do
pre-verbal babies, and so do animals.<BR><BR><BR>RMB: ....Thus, to say an
animal has an "I" that is aware of the pain raises problems<BR>in how one
explains Bereishis 1:26-27, and 2:7.</DIV>
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<DIV>TK: Once again, I deny that an animal has a conscious "I" and I also
deny that it is necessary to have an "I" in order to suffer. I think
Skinner was not only wrong, but a moron. Look at a baby crying in
pain: the baby is clearly suffering even if too young to think or to have
any self-awareness. Now look at a baby crying because his mother has left
and he doesn't know the baby sitter and he is suffering from
stranger-anxiety. Look at the same baby calming down when his mother
returns. When he cried in frantic distress because his mother left him, he
was suffering even though he did not have an "I" and was not "aware" of the pain
in the rather abstract sense you seem to be thinking of. And his distress
was caused not by physical pain but by an inchoate thought/feeling: "The
most important person in the world is gone, and has left me alone here with this
stranger."<BR><BR>RMB: 2- The part of the brain which, when damaged,
prevents this ability in<BR>people is a set of advanced cortical areas in the
prefrontal cortex,<BR>perhaps in concert with the temporal lobes, others suggest
with<BR>interaction with the centromedial thelamus....</DIV>
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<DIV>TK: I absolutely and totally do not know what you're talking
about. It is possible to suffer such severe brain damage that one is no
longer conscious and therefore does not suffer. It is also possible to
suffer brain damage that leaves a person incapable of thought or speech but
still capable of feeling pain and hence, of suffering.</FONT></DIV><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial>
<DIV><BR>RMB: The US National Academy of the Sciences Institute for Animal
Laboratory<BR>Research did studies in 2009 (ILAR 2009). They didn't find any
evidence<BR>for self-awareness (in this sense of the phrase; I don't mean a dog
that<BR>treats its own reflection differently than that of other dogs).</DIV>
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<DIV>TK: There you go again, beating a dead horse -- or a horse that lacks
awareness of its non-aliveness.<BR><BR>RMB: So the notion of self-aware
animals would pose both hashkafic and<BR>scientific questions. .... </DIV>
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<DIV>TK: I have no notion of self-aware animals. I only posited a
non-self aware animal nevertheless knowing that it is in pain. And BTW
many centuries ago in Avodah-time, I raised a theological question which I find
more disturbing than the question of why G-d created a world in which human
beings suffer, and that is, why did He create a world in which animals
suffer? What moral, or other, benefit could there be to such suffering,
especially when it takes place away from anywhere that humans could either
alleviate the suffering or even be aware of it so as to experience pity,
compassion and so on? You have handily done away with my theological
questions by simply waving away any possibility that animals can suffer, since
they can't define the word "epistemology."</DIV>
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<DIV>RMB: If you can think of an alternative to meta-cognizance
(awareness of one's<BR>awareness) other than radical behaviorism, I'll consider
the merits of<BR>that possibility. I couldn't think of one.</DIV>
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<DIV>TK: I'm still trying to wrap my head around the question of why you
think the only choices are to be a German philosopher or to be Pavlov's
dog.</DIV>
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<DIV>But personally I have not experienced meta-cognizance more than two or
three times in my whole life.<BR><BR><BR></DIV></FONT></FONT>
<DIV><B><FONT color=#0000ff>--Toby Katz<BR>==========<BR><BR></FONT><FONT lang=0 color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"></B>--------------------</FONT></DIV>
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