Is personality unique to humans?

[Marblehead]

... mushrooms have personalities.

Certain mushrooms will give a person personality.

[Stosh]

Ok,ok,they dont act identical, but you didnt really answer my question about my cat eating me. Why not? Im thinking you know that the answer is contrary to the angle you wish to project. Avoidance of the mountain indicates you see it too. Tsk tsk.

Shanlung asks whether animals have PERSONALITY, this is also a specfically chosen word, I used it narrowly to draw out why he chose that term. Im thinking that he too sees an obstacle. How else might one ask the question nearer and dearer to ones heart? Do they have Buddha nature? Perhaps? Should they be considered as important as people? Maybe? Are they reincarnations of people? Even.

Ultimately for an answer to be important, it has to get to the issue of what we are to do going foward. Having variability in behavior , could be applied to weather, but the question of whether the planet has weather , seems to be addressing something else rather than how we should consider organic fuzzies.

[zerostao]

"Are they reincarnations of people?"

this, i am certainly not qualified to speak to. if, we accept that energy is neither created nor destroyed. but, transforms. it still does not address your question. i see paradoxical problems with reincarnation. but my view is very limited.

 

"Should they be considered as important as people?"  another tough question. maybe we should treat them with more consideration than we generally do. in nature, there is a lot of competition. how many species have humans directly killed off?

let alone indirectly. wouldnt it be cool to have the carolina parakeet around?

 

personality, idk, i think this word is loaded. i think it reflects more, our opinions of ourselves. personification is another word, we tend to want to assign anything as having intelligence, some word that highlights ours. 

 

individuals with their own consciousness and intelligence. i am confident to say animals have this. we are animals too. specifically, mammals with opposing thumbs, capable at grasping at straws. we struggle trying to define our own consciousness. 

 

it is generally accepted that your cat would most likely eat you if you were mouse size. i think this is because of the nature of the cat. maybe most cats would be curious to see what you tasted like, maybe other just like to kill, maybe some cats would choose not eat you, idk. we all have our own nature, consciousness, intelligence, and individuality. 

[Marblehead]

... we are animals too. specifically, mammals with opposing thumbs, capable at grasping at straws. we struggle ...

I loved that play on words.

[Lth]

Ok,ok,they dont act identical, but you didnt really answer my question about my cat eating me. Why not? Im thinking you know that the answer is contrary to the angle you wish to project. Avoidance of the mountain indicates you see it too. Tsk tsk. Shanlung asks whether animals have PERSONALITY, this is also a specfically chosen word, I used it narrowly to draw out why he chose that term. Im thinking that he too sees an obstacle. How else might one ask the question nearer and dearer to ones heart? Do they have Buddha nature? Perhaps? Should they be considered as important as people? Maybe? Are they reincarnations of people? Even. Ultimately for an answer to be important, it has to get to the issue of what we are to do going foward. Having variability in behavior , could be applied to weather, but the question of whether the planet has weather , seems to be addressing something else rather than how we should consider organic fuzzies.

 

if it can eat you doesnt mean it will. if theres enaf food this happens:

 

 

its from a video posted by innersoundqigong earlier

[Stosh]

I was sort-of aiming those questions as refinements of Shanlungs original version, but its fine for you to stand in. 

"Are they reincarnations of people?"

this, i am certainly not qualified to speak to. if, we accept that energy is neither created nor destroyed. but, transforms. it still does not address your question. i see paradoxical problems with reincarnation. but my view is very limited.

Agreed, thats a very difficult question to answer in whatever version chosen.

 

"Should they be considered as important as people?"  another tough question. maybe we should treat them with more consideration than we generally do. in nature, there is a lot of competition. how many species have humans directly killed off?

let alone indirectly. wouldnt it be cool to have the carolina parakeet around?

Out of the 8.7 million or so species on earth we collectively are probably responsible in some way for about 322 species. 

Some of those are probably due to our introduction of cats pigs and rats to new places, so they share in the blame for those 322,

but they ,other animals probably figure very prominently ,additionally  in all the rest of those extinctions. We call it survival of the fittest and they were doing it a long time before we showed up. 

 

personality, idk, i think this word is loaded. i think it reflects more, our opinions of ourselves. personification is another word, we tend to want to assign anything as having intelligence, some word that highlights ours. 

Yes definitely loaded when considered broadly.

 

individuals with their own consciousness and intelligence. i am confident to say animals have this. we are animals too. specifically, mammals with opposing thumbs, capable at grasping at straws. we struggle trying to define our own consciousness. 

Fine , lets call us animals too , fine lets say they have some kind of intelligence and consciousness , OK so what? My cat will still eat me after all I have done for her.  She doesnt care about my consciousness.

 

it is generally accepted that your cat would most likely eat you if you were mouse size. i think this is because of the nature of the cat. maybe most cats would be curious to see what you tasted like, maybe other just like to kill, maybe some cats would choose not eat you, idk. we all have our own nature, consciousness, intelligence, and individuality. 

Agreed , aint she sweet? if she did? or is she an amoral murderess. 

[Stosh]

 

if it can eat you doesnt mean it will. if theres enaf food this happens:

 

 

its from a video posted by innersoundqigong earlier

If the cat is full , and doesnt properly recognize food... 

 

Do you own or have a reasonable amount of exposure to a cat that acts normally?

Im not talking about shanlungs cat ,  or strange oddballs that get stuck on you tube for the precise reason that they ARE abnormal Im just talking about a normal cat, ,, then you know what its instincts are,, 

[Marblehead]

It has been said that humans and cats are the only animals that kill for the fun of it.

 

Actually, I think that for the cat it is its instinct.

[Stosh]

It has been said that humans and cats are the only animals that kill for the fun of it.

 

Actually, I think that for the cat it is its instinct.

Agreed, instinct, the cat does what its programming tells it. Thats just what it is. Is this the personality we should be recognizing in this thread, or should we be considering them like little hairy humans. If they are little persons, well they are really horrendous. If they are non person animals , we can claim them innocent and free of our judgement since they dont have our awareness. I love my cat, to me she is the sweetest little kitty in the world, but she is A CAT . In this, she actually has a highly favored status, I certainly wouldnt allow some murderous freeloader to hang around my apartment, groomed fed cared for etc.

Frankly, she is far easier to get along with than people, she even has a sense of what looks like decorum ,restraint, dignity. But she isnt a human.

[zerostao]

i havnt seen on this thread where anyone is suggesting cats are little humans. 

marblehead, dont you also possess instincts? 

yes, a cat has its programming, it is called dna.

we(humans) also have dna and our programming, does this mean that we are incapable of thinking to decide how to act?

we can take this thread way off topic(maybe idk)

how do we know the level of thinking a cat has? 

on this forum, there have been debates about ; if we have free choice or not, or are we all just programmed.

are we going to have this same debate about the level of free will cats have?

are some of us experiencing cat issues? i am considering to get one of my own, a bengal cat.

 

today my mom told me something interesting. she has an elaborate bird feeding set up and enjoys watching the birds and squirrels gather up and eat seed, corn, or soot. well this has not gone unnoticed by a hawk or two, and a hawk will occasionally come in and feed on a bird, or even a squirrel. mom didnt like this too much and if she sees a hawk by her feeders, she will go out the kitchen door and shoo away the hawk. today, mom noticed a hawk hanging out and watching the door. mom goes out the door and the hawk shows mom that he has a bird and then he flies off. the hawk wanted mom to see that it had come in and took a bird , despite mom's effort to thwart hawks attempt.

doesnt this demonstrate the hawk has a level of choice? he chose to wait for mom.

does the hawk have a personality? was he programmed to flaunt his action to mom?

do we get bogged down in pure semantics and say the hawk cannot have a personality becoz he is not a human?

then dont we also have to say that nothing could be demonstrated unless it is done by a demon?

[voidisyinyang]

Bringing up cats and birds and instincts to kill is a big issue in terms of personality.

 

House cats are possible the top reason for song birds going extinct in the U.S.

 

Domestic cats, officially considered an invasive species, kill at least a hundred million birds in the US every year—dwarfing the number killed by wind turbines. (See "Apocalypse Meow," below.) They're also responsible for at least 33 avian extinctions worldwide. A recent Smithsonian Institution study found that cats caused 79 percent of deaths of juvenile catbirds in the suburbs of Washington, DC.

 

 

If anyone questions this - there has been hard science published on it and recently even video cams put on house cats - finding out they hunt extensively and often don't bring the kill back to the house. So then "cuttie little kitty" comes back to the house all innocent to get their free food when they just finished a killer run for fun.

 

You find that in other animals also like Orca Whales - killer whales - playing with their kills for seemingly sadistic reasons.

 

But anyway as far as instincts - there is an interesting doc on this - killer instincts and animals.

 

I reference it in my book.

 

But before I get to that - your story about the hawk wanting to show your mom that she couldn't stop the hawk from killing a bird - this is very believable.

 

I had a very close friend, a pet parakeet that I got the day it left its nest and so it really imprinted on me before he could learn to fly. We let the bird fly free around the house and he was basically a member of the family - he would shower on my shoulder and various other activities as part of the family.

 

But sometimes the bird got mad at me - and one time he was in his cage kind of in a bad mood and so I put my hand in to encourage him to come out and he hopped over and bit my hand. That was the only time he ever did that but after he did it then he was fine with me. It was obvious to me that he had held a grudge against me - for some unknown reason to me at the time - but after he was able to express his anger that he quickly had recovered - he just had to communicate his grudge to me.

 

So I'm sure a hawk would have this same level of mentality regarding your mom - having a grudge about her scaring the hawk off and wanting to take an extra effort to show her she didn't stop him. haha.

 

O.K. now back to the killing instinct.

There was a fascinating experiment on melanin and adrenaline in animals.

 

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2010/09/06/mans-new-best-friend-a-forgotten-russian-experiment-in-fox-domestication/

 

 

Belyaev wondered if selecting for tameness and against aggression would result in hormonal and neurochemical changes, since behavior ultimately emerged from biology. Those hormonal and chemical changes could then be implicated in anatomy and physiology. It could be that the the anatomical differences in domesticated dogs were related to the genetic changes underlying the behavioral temperament for which they selected (tameness and low aggression). He believed that he could investigate these questions about domestication by attempting to domesticate wild foxes.

 

and

 

 

The domesticated foxes had significantly lower adrenaline levels than their undomesticated cousins. The researchers hypothesized if the foxes were not afraid of humans, they would produce less adrenaline around them. This explains the foxes’ tameness, but it doesn’t account for their changed fur coloration patterns. The scientists initially theorized that adrenaline might share a biochemical pathway with melanin, which controls pigment production in fur. Further research has since supported this initial hypothesis.

 

Now this actually fits with qigong theory since black is the pigment of food that increases kidney energy for more will power.

 

the science supports this now - melanin increases adrenaline.

 

 

Melanin, a skin and fur pigment, is produced from the same chemical--dopa--that's used to make the neurochemical dopamine, as well as other key chemicals. When you select for altered behavior, you could also be getting altered dopamine production. "And once you fool around with the dopa pathway, there's a good chance you'll mess up the melanin pathway too," says Coppinger.

 

From qigong science - dopamine is turned into serotonin - instead of dopamine turning into cortisol stress.

 

http://discovermagazine.com/1994/oct/ascentofthedog434

 

Anyway Gurdjieff says that modern humans are controlled by their Kundabuffer - the energy blockage in the lower back.

 

And so because of the Kundabuffer - I saw that modern humans are stuck in the anger-fear-sex cycle - because the dopamine gets turned by the male ejaculation into cortisol stress - instead of through qigong training the dopamine gets turned into serotonin.

 

So as far as whether humans have free will or are controlled by their instincts like animals - the issue is a bit complicated - it is a choice rather to not be controlled by the lower emotions but with that choice also comes certain physiological changes I would say.

 

So I think "free will" is a bit of a catch-22 issue.

 

Also I think personalities are somewhat limited - some psychologies argue their are a limited set of personalities and so every person in the world fits into those sets - no matter what culture they're from, etc. Personally I find that bunk and demeaning.

 

So for example my friend's dog was sick with cancer and so the qigong master actually helped heal the dog but whenever he did the healing - the dog actually left her body - by her spirit - so that the qigong master could focus on healing the body of the dog. So then when the dog died its spirit spent several days with the qigong master - hanging out having fun - and the qigong master said he learned a lot from the dog and that it was an ancient spirit.

 

Now it makes for a wild story but part of that maybe the energy of the qigong master having that affect on the dog - like the cow that was a best friend of Ramana Maharshi - it is said when the cow died he liberated her soul so that she never had any more reincarnations.

 

by the way I guess it is black house cats that supposedly have less instinct to kill - which is ironic considering melanin increases adrenaline.  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2415895/Cats-help-aloof--OUR-fault-Humans-cultivating-prehistoric-killer-felines-letting-tame-cats-breed.html

 

Yeah so cats have been domesticated a much shorter time than dogs and hence - they really are killing machines.

[shanlung]

Concept of zero means zero has value as a mathematical placeholder and numerical situation. This is not the idea of something being absent, which isnt math, its a direct assessment of a situation. There is no such existant thing as negative oranges, or zero oranges, those are conceptual creations. (There are no zebras either,but thats different)

 

   Very cute!  Going beyond ordinary mundane 0 and into the mental and metaphysical realms which cannot be proven true or false in which all reasonings can go and be buried out of sight.  Maybe for all we know Alex knew the answer to 1 divided by 0 but did not have the words to write it all down for us.

 

Well since animals arent persons, just machines fit for eating ,like plants... no they have no personality. Yeah they wiggle around but that just means they are live systems. One might as well suppose mushrooms have personalities. So the answer requested is yes, only humans have personalities.

 

I go beyond my former carpet anemone who had no brains but a crazy amorphous nervous system and which cater regardless if it was the size of a golf ball or expanded to larger than  tumescent dinner plate and quivering excitment when I walked into the room.  Do not talk of my footsteps.  As then he/she must have a memory of my footsteps and ability to detect timing and nuances as I walked to differentiate with other people footsteps.  No brains at all in any sense as we know it, but maybe more intelligence than some entities here who shown clearly intelligence not related to presence of brains.

 

 For all we know, we might be like those Victorian scientists who felt they knew all to be known.  For that matter , Romans of Julius Cesar time thought they known all that can be known.  And the American Patent Board wanted to dissolved itself in late 1800s as all to be invented was already invented.

 

Some of the mealworms that I used to feed Yingshiong my insectivore had more personalities than some humans I known including some entities here.

 

If the cat is full , and doesnt properly recognize food... 

 

Do you own or have a reasonable amount of exposure to a cat that acts normally?

Im not talking about shanlungs cat ,  or strange oddballs that get stuck on you tube for the precise reason that they ARE abnormal Im just talking about a normal cat, ,, then you know what its instincts are,, 

 

Ah!!  mentioned of my cat calls for some fotos of my cat!

Much more personality then my meal worms and therefore much much more personality than many humans.  

 

OK You excluded as it is clear you have personality of some sort, much more than mealworms or carpert anemone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It has been said that humans and cats are the only animals that kill for the fun of it.

 

Actually, I think that for the cat it is its instinct.

 

I have had enough gifts from my kitties.  I tried to minimise that by keeping kitties in the house in evening and nights.  I suggest folks should do that to lessen the destruction of wild birds and mice, which go to feed owls and predators.

 

 

Bringing up cats and birds and instincts to kill is a big issue in terms of personality.

 

House cats are possible the top reason for song birds going extinct in the U.S.

 

 

 

If anyone questions this - there has been hard science published on it and recently even video cams put on house cats - finding out they hunt extensively and often don't bring the kill back to the house. So then "cuttie little kitty" comes back to the house all innocent to get their free food when they just finished a killer run for fun.

 

You find that in other animals also like Orca Whales - killer whales - playing with their kills for seemingly sadistic reasons.

 

But anyway as far as instincts - there is an interesting doc on this - killer instincts and animals.

 

I reference it in my book.

 

But before I get to that - your story about the hawk wanting to show your mom that she couldn't stop the hawk from killing a bird - this is very believable.

 

I had a very close friend, a pet parakeet that I got the day it left its nest and so it really imprinted on me before he could learn to fly. We let the bird fly free around the house and he was basically a member of the family - he would shower on my shoulder and various other activities as part of the family.

 

But sometimes the bird got mad at me - and one time he was in his cage kind of in a bad mood and so I put my hand in to encourage him to come out and he hopped over and bit my hand. That was the only time he ever did that but after he did it then he was fine with me. It was obvious to me that he had held a grudge against me - for some unknown reason to me at the time - but after he was able to express his anger that he quickly had recovered - he just had to communicate his grudge to me.

 

Tinkerbell, my CAG of Taiwan will take no shit from me.  If I crossed the line (set by her ) inadvertantly , she let me know in no uncertain terms by flying to me to shit on one shoulder and flapping immediately to shit on the other shoulder (we were so told birdies take 45 minutes between shit).  If my transgression was really bad, she would nip me hard.

 

Riamfada never ever will bite me (other than once when she mistaken my hand for my wife )

Riamfada gave me her first painful bite

 

BUT she remembered I was unfair or displeased her.

She would hold that in her mind and heart and BITE my wife to take it out on me.  My wife became her body guard to make sure I did not inflict my puerile or morbid curiousity on Riamfada.

My wife knew she got to pay the price.  This dawned on us after a month as humans , and me and wife in particular, a lot less intelligent than Riam.

 

Idiotic Taoist of somewhat doubtful personality or maybe zero  personality

[Marblehead]

marblehead, dont you also possess instincts? 

Hehehe.  I so much wish I could say that I have negated them with rational thought but that would be a lie.

 

Yes, I still have most of my instincts.

[Stosh]

i havnt seen on this thread where anyone is suggesting cats are little humans. 

I narrowly approached the word personality , to probe what exactly was intending to be inferred if a critter was said to have one. One possibility is that folks may think they are 'just like us" or that they  have 'rights' . Such an attitude,  I am describing as them being considered 'little hairy humans'. 

 

marblehead, dont you also possess instincts? 

No he doesn't. ( on a  functioning level ) nor do you or I for that matter, our brains are more abstract. 

 

yes, a cat has its programming, it is called dna.

we(humans) also have dna and our programming, does this mean that we are incapable of thinking to decide how to act?

we can take this thread way off topic(maybe idk)

Who cares about being of topic? If Shanlung really wants it to stay on point , he can mediate. If he wanders off to do something more important , he can fix it when he is done with that. Its not like he is waiting for an answer so he can figure out how to regard his parrot, he isnt a helpless idiot.  

 

how do we know the level of thinking a cat has? 

on this forum, there have been debates about ; if we have free choice or not, or are we all just programmed.

are we going to have this same debate about the level of free will cats have?

are some of us experiencing cat issues? i am considering to get one of my own, a bengal cat.

When I was a kid I thought wild animals as pets , was a cool idea. It seemed feasible. After having Sophie for several years , I think I would have been making a poor choice. Domesticated animals are improved versions, in the domestic situation.

 

today my mom told me something interesting. she has an elaborate bird feeding set up and enjoys watching the birds and squirrels gather up and eat seed, corn, or soot.

Suet 

well this has not gone unnoticed by a hawk or two, and a hawk will occasionally come in and feed on a bird, or even a squirrel. mom didnt like this too much and if she sees a hawk by her feeders, she will go out the kitchen door and shoo away the hawk. today, mom noticed a hawk hanging out and watching the door. mom goes out the door and the hawk shows mom that he has a bird and then he flies off. the hawk wanted mom to see that it had come in and took a bird , despite mom's effort to thwart hawks attempt.

Isnt Mom is creating some headache for herself if she isnt accepting of the hawk  along with the songbirds. 

Does she know that squirrels eat baby birds, I saw one eat a cardinal chick , ate im like a burrito.

Personally Id rather have the hawk around. 

 

doesnt this demonstrate the hawk has a level of choice? he chose to wait for mom.

does the hawk have a personality? was he programmed to flaunt his action to mom?

A bobcat once seemed to show off her ' kill ' to me. She seemed rather pleased with herself and goofed around quite a while with it.. but I wasnt there so I am not even sure the hawk did as described with the described intent.

 

do we get bogged down in pure semantics and say the hawk cannot have a personality becoz he is not a human?

then dont we also have to say that nothing could be demonstrated unless it is done by a demon?

Demon? The semantics was intended to find what the heart of the question was, the word personality is too broad IMO

[shanlung]

Hehehe.  I so much wish I could say that I have negated them with rational thought but that would be a lie.

 

Yes, I still have most of my instincts.

 

My instincts very good too.

 

When hungry I eat!

When thirsty I drink!

 

When horny I fornicate.

Kind of difficult here as wife not around, other women all dressed in black and I never certain if that will be a woman under the black dress and hijab.

 

 

Idiotic Taoist drawing the line against camels and goats

[Stosh]

   Very cute!  Going beyond ordinary mundane 0 and into the mental and metaphysical realms which cannot be proven true or false in which all reasonings can go and be buried out of sight.  Maybe for all we know Alex knew the answer to 1 divided by 0 but did not have the words to write it all down for us.

True, all Im saying is that the experiment isnt conclusive on the concept of zero, I think its saying something else which is more interesting. To me it suggests preconscious and imagination. 

 

What exactly was the insectivore. A shrew ?

Edited April 3, 2015 by Stosh

[Rocky Lionmouth]

Personality is not unique to humans in my experience, some of those i have met have no personality whatsoever.

 

[Lth]

a being that is unconscious - its behaviours are dictated by the environment

the more conscious a being is the more choice it has in choosing its actions

consciousness differs in every being, and every being has a different level of consciousness, just like a human compared to another human, but what remains is

all beings are capable of love

so this...

 

Im not talking about shanlungs cat ,  or strange oddballs that get stuck on you tube for the precise reason that they ARE abnormal Im just talking about a normal cat, ,, then you know what its instincts are,, 

...completely disproves your scientific religion

[Stosh]

a being that is unconscious - its behaviours are dictated by the environment

 

the more conscious a being is the more choice it has in choosing its actions

 

consciousness differs in every being, and every being has a different level of consciousness, just like a human compared to another human,

Ok thats reasonable

but what remains is

 

all beings are capable of love

prove it

 

 

so this...

 

 

...completely disproves your scientific religion

Whos ? .. what?

[Lth]

Ok thats reasonable

prove it

Whos ? .. what?

 

 

sometimes, when you do not judge the situation, you can see more...

[Marblehead]

all beings are capable of love

I "Liked" your post but I'm not sure about that love stuff.

[Marblehead]

 

 

sometimes, when you do not judge the situation, you can see more...

And sometimes when we imagine we see more than there really is.

[Stosh]

 

 

sometimes, when you do not judge the situation, you can see more...

Tsk tsk 

[shanlung]

When I was a kid I thought wild animals as pets , was a cool idea. It seemed feasible. After having Sophie for several years , I think I would have been making a poor choice. Domesticated animals are improved versions, in the domestic situation.

 

 

None of my birdies or beasties , or even that carpet anemone long time back,  with me  were/are regarded as pets.

I grown to accept them as intelligent sentients that I was lucky enough to share a part of my life with.

 

True, all Im saying is that the experiment isnt conclusive on the concept of zero, I think its saying something else which is more interesting. To me it suggests preconscious and imagination. 

 

What exactly was the insectivore. A shrew ?

 

Insectivore as I use in my context will be bird that must have insects as their main source of food.

Such as Yingshiong, a white rumped shama.

 

 

 

When I shot the photo below of him flying to land on me after a month with me, he shocked the bird world at that time.

People who bred shamas for 30-40 years told me even those that they had from eggs never ever landed on them.

 

 

YS shocked the bird world again last year.

I had given him to Jurong Bird Park so he could be in a giant aviary and rejected literally blank checks offer as I could not bear the thought of him back in a cage.

 

And last year when I was in JBP, he showed me and the rest of the world he remembered me after absence of 7-8 years.

A head with a brain the size of a peanut.  Showed me more personality and feistiness than many humanoids I known.

 

 

Yingshiong Reunion & Tinkerbell

 

Idiotic Taoist

[Stosh]

None of my birdies or beasties , or even that carpet anemone long time back,  with me  were/are regarded as pets.

I grown to accept them as intelligent sentients that I was lucky enough to share a part of my life with.

Your carpet anemone was intelligent?

Ummm , no,   IMO

 

insectivore as I use in my context will be bird that must have insects as their main source of food.

Such as Yingshiong, a white rumped shama.

I see they are trained for singing competitions, interesting hobby.