Is there consciousness in other species or is there discontinuity in the mental/brain functions between us and all other species?Humans have always exploited other animals.We breed them, eat them, milk them, skin them, fleece them, ride them, steal their eggs, shoot them for sport, take them apart to see how they work, willingly give them diseases and experiment on them, keep them in captivity as objects of curiosity or ridicule and make them work for us.We believe them to be mentally inferior to ourselves and hence do what we like with them without any feelings of guilt.The question is how we might differ mentally from them? Do they have consciousness?How their minds differ from ours?

Life is like the tamarind fruit bound in its shell

Animals are for superior than man when it comes to cooperation as in bee?s and ants. Animals like dogs are capable of giving unconditional love, they show all the emotions, we humans feel. All living creature, share same life force on this earth. as for consciousness, mans consciousnesses is all that is known, and has the language to express it. Thoughts are the words. Thoughts are also feeling and emotions. So if a dog has all the emotions and feelings they must have consciousness that we have,.

david sharma wrote:

Animals are for superior than man when it comes to cooperation as in bee?s and ants. Animals like dogs are capable of giving unconditional love, they show all the emotions, we humans feel. All living creature, share same life force on this earth. as for consciousness, mans consciousnesses is all that is known, and has the language to express it. Thoughts are the words. Thoughts are also feeling and emotions. So if a dog has all the emotions and feelings they must have consciousness that we have,.

Life is like the tamarind fruit bound in its shell

Dear David Sharma, thanks for your interesting comments.Yes, at least they have the team-spirit of co-operation, don`t they?So your deduction is they must have consciousness like ours.their thoughts are not expressed in language but in very many different forms of vocal activity as well as bodily reactions. curiously enough, in ancient India, some persons had skills to communicate and understand their language.and interpreted the. such rare skills have fast disappeared.we do have horse-whisperer etc.
Referring to the consciousness that is universal, permeating all living things or living beings, how it has failed in us that we can treat the animals so cruelly?Of course animals do kill man for food but they do not have consciousness built cruelty, may be instinct-built-cruelty.I will stop here. There may be others, experts ,well-versed in the evolutionary psychology to tell us more about it so that we all can learn..

Life is like the tamarind fruit bound in its shell

Life as it started on earth, started to suffer, it had to deal with nature and environment to survive and this set evolution in motion, physical suffering got engraved on the very being of life. Suffering begets fear and aggression. Fear and suffering are one. Mans brain (hardware) still in evolution is very limted indeed as it is struck in time. So is the (soft wear) thought, result of time, has fear in built-in the consciousness

david sharma wrote:

Life as it started on earth, started to suffer, it had to deal with nature and environment to survive and this set evolution in motion, physical suffering got engraved on the very being of life. Suffering begets fear and aggression. Fear and suffering are one. Mans brain (hardware) still in evolution is very limted indeed as it is struck in time. So is the (soft wear) thought, result of time, has fear in built-in the consciousness

Life is like the tamarind fruit bound in its shell

Thanks David Sharma. But theory of evolution is still a theory-not completely proven one.
There is a lot of leaping done both by scientists and dogmatic addicts to Darwin.I would recommend you to read Karl Popper`s works on scientific knowledge such as the following:"The epistemological Position of Evolutionary Epistemology", in ALL LIFE IS PROBLEM SOLVING;chapter4.London Routledge1999.KR POPPER:Objective knowledge,Oxford,Clarendon press1972.
Peter Munz:Philosophical Darwinism,LondonRotledge1993.
KR popper:natural selection and the evolution of Mind,Dialectica1978.32,pp339-55
I can go on adding bibliography that may throw different views than normally taken and pich of skepticism creeps in when one reads these about leaping like Darwin etc.
But I admire your analogy here about the computer hardwarebeing the brain and software being the thoughts.thank you.
Ps:I am not on the side of Intelligent Design either.I am an open-minded scientific enquirer.By the way a Turkish journalist(Muslim by faith) has taken to pieces some parts of Darwinism with his fossil-photogrphs in a book-that you may see on the YOUTUBE.

Life is like the tamarind fruit bound in its shell

At a conference of psychologists held in New Delhi, Canadian researchers have read paper saying that dogs have human intelligence level upto 2.5 years level that of a toddler etc. Fascinating conclusions... seem to emphasize the presence of consciousness&Intelligence among dogs.

Life is like the tamarind fruit bound in its shell

only if we all could be toddlers life will bewonderfull indeed.innocent

david sharma wrote:
only if we all could be toddlers life will bewonderfull indeed.innocent

Life is like the tamarind fruit bound in its shell

Indeed!
scientists have found infants and toddlers do not accumulate memory and do not react so much on the basis of a past-event-memory.They seem to interact" fresh " as NEW! That is a blessing that withers away with age... and conditioning concretizes in due course..

Life is like the tamarind fruit bound in its shell