Do Animals Have A Concept Of Death

Final week I talked about the question of whether primate mothers who carry expressionless infants around sympathize the concept of death. The scientists conducting the research sounded commendably cautious in the conclusions they drew. Not anybody follows their lead in this.

Susana Monsóis, professor of philosophy at UNED (Madrid) and writer of La zarigüeya de Schrödinger (Schrödinger's Possum), " a book on how animals experience and empathize death," dispenses with all that.

Her subtitle is "Having a concept of decease, far from beingness a uniquely human feat, is a fairly common trait in the animal kingdom." Still she falls far short of demonstrating that.

Her essay is a archetype on what happens when we seek simply to amass back up for a securely felt thesis that seems to exist split up from reality. Every bit her bespeak of view, that humans are not really unique, becomes more influential, it is worth examining a few of the arguments she offers briefly:

Monsóis begins reasonably plenty with a discussion of the well-known trait of opossums (and some other life forms) of "playing dead" (thanatosis), presumably because many predators will not carp with carrion if they are non desperate. She notes, reasonably, that we can't presume that the opossum "knows" she is playing dead any more that a stick insect "knows that she looks like a stick." Merely so what of the predators her behavior may influence in either case?

Humans have long thought of themselves equally the but animal with a notion of mortality. Our concept of decease is ane of those characteristics, like culture, rationality, language or morality, that have traditionally been taken as definitional of the human being species – setting u.s. apart from the natural world and justifying our boundless use and exploitation of it. However, as I accept argued elsewhere, the widespread notion that but humans tin can empathize death stems from an overly complex view of this concept. The human being concept of decease is not necessarily the only concept of death.

Agreement death does not require grasping its inevitability or its unpredictability, nor does it require understanding that decease applies to all living things or being familiar with its underlying physiological causes. In minimal terms, the concept of death is simply made upward of two notions: not-functionality and irreversibility. This means that all an animal needs to grasp in order for us to be able to credit her with some understanding of death is that expressionless individuals don't do the sorts of things that living beings of her kind ordinarily do (ie, not-functionality) and that this is a permanent land (ie, irreversibility). This minimal concept of death requires very lilliputian cognitive complexity and is likely to exist very widespread in the animal kingdom.
Susana Monsóis, "What animals call back of death" at Aeon (September xiv, 2021)

Simply a minute. The concept of death is a human 1. It means what humans sympathize it to mean: Irreversibility, inevitability, unpredictability and and so along. Monsóis wishes to prove that intelligent animals understand death by the familiar political tactic of moving the goalposts. Non-functionality is not a concept specific to death (information technology could mean unconsciousness). "Irreversibility" requires the power to procedure abstract concepts easily.

In reality, the opossum's predator is not thinking about non-functionality or irreversibility, only about whether the opossum is worth eating in its current state.

Incidentally, thanatosis (an involuntary land caused by fright rather than a tactic) is hardly a foolproof defence for opossums. We are told that "Scientists have establish many possums in the wild wandering around with healed wounds and fractures, probable from being attacked."

Scientists have not, of course, plant the ones that, despite thanatosis, were consumed by desperate predators. Monsóis'due south claim that "the opossum's thanatosis reveals how common the concept of death is likely to be amidst the animals that feed on her" seems to be a product of human worldview needs, not of observing wild fauna.

Monsóis then attempts a abrupt distinction between thanatosis and a less extreme metabolic shutdown called "tonic immobility," which involves such tactics as remaining still against a camouflage background.

While tonic immobility has clear defense functions, when it comes to thanatosis, biologists tin't hold on its physical advantages and the reasons why it would accept been favoured past natural selection. Why would an creature who wants to avoid being eaten pretend that she's already dead? The trouble is that thanatosis is unusually complex behaviour and must be distinguished from simple tonic immobility, since information technology's very costly. That is, there has to be a good evolutionary reason for animals to develop thanatosis in a higher place and beyond tonic immobility. There are several hypotheses, only all postulate thanatosis as either an anti-recognition or an anti-subjugation mechanism. For our purposes, regardless of which hypothesis is true, all we demand is to postulate a concept of decease in the deceived predators in order to successfully explain the evolutionary emergence of thanatosis.
Susana Monsóis, "What animals think of death" at Aeon (September fourteen, 2021)

No, to understand this situation, we do not need to postulate that animals have a concept of expiry. Thanatosis is, similar metamorphosis in insects, an involuntary process triggered in some life forms by alarm. No theory of expiry on either side of the predator–prey divide is necessary. The pungent smells emitted during thanatosis are thought to exist a disquisitional part of the deterrence mechanism. If thanatosis was conserved and elaborated over time in some frogs, toads, snakes, and insects, etc., as well as opossums, that'due south most likely because, relative to fight or flying, it has left more survivors in those groups.

Much of the rest of the essay is devoted to thinking evolution'south thoughts after it, with a curious result:

If thanatosis aims only to exploit the predator's disgust, then it'southward hard to explain why it'south so complex. The opossum could generate disgust simply through the foul-smelling liquid that she releases from her anal glands. Why the need, then, to stay withal, reduce her vital functions, display a blue natural language, so along? The opossum'due south thanatosis doesn't announced to be for generating disgust, but for generating the advent of being dead.
Susana Monsóis, "What animals think of death" at Aeon (September 14, 2021)

Monsóis goes on to argue that only smelling bad would be plenty to deter predators, so the more dramatic miracle of thanatosis must take some deeper meaning to do with the minds of the predators: "The concept of death in the predator is needed to business relationship for the complication of the behaviour in the prey."

No, expect. While Monsóis tries to deal with development wholly from a Darwinian (natural pick) perspective, she ends us treating it as if it is the piece of work of a designer. She writes as if evolution is designing the opossum from a blueprint.

In reality, a defense or any other adaptation need not be the least extreme or the virtually efficient i. Retrieve of the peacock's tail and the giraffe'due south cervix. Yes, less farthermost developments might have sufficed in those cases as well. But no matter. The iconic tail and neck are what actually happened.

Similar many people who use evolution to conjure a worldview, Monsóis has evolved the world she needs:

That thanatosis is indicative of a concept of death in predators is further supported past the fact that this defence is unlikely to piece of work confronting specialised predators, for these would have evolved an advisable response. Instead, nosotros await it to work against generalist predators who don't encounter this prey likewise often and are not familiar with their lilliputian trick. For it to piece of work against generalist predators, they have to have a concept of decease, that is, not but the capacity to react to certain stimuli that are associated with decease, but a concept that can be practical to different species. Simply with a concept can a predator mistake for dead an animal that she has never encountered earlier.
Susana Monsóis, "What animals think of expiry" at Aeon (September 14, 2021)

No. For thanatosis to work as a deterrent, the predator demand just be not drastic plenty to consume something that looks dead and smells bad. As noted earlier, the survival of opossums with bite marks in them illustrates that some predators are that desperate. Many hungry predators don't even impale their casualty; they only start eating it and it dies in the process — obviating the concept of death altogether.

Monsóis ends by restating a thesis in which she strongly believes but for which she has provided no significant support, "The concept of death, far from beingness a uniquely man feat, is a adequately common trait in the fauna kingdom."

And then she lets the piano drop.

Her work is governed past an nigh political calendar, which she spells out with admirable clarity:

We humans like to think of ourselves as a unique species. Nevertheless, little by picayune, all those traits that we have been relying on to ground this uniqueness accept been falling, as the science advances and reveals the staggering diversity and complication of fauna minds and behaviour. We now have solid testify of culture, morality, rationality, and even rudimentary forms of linguistic communication. The concept of death should also be counted among those characteristics to which we tin no longer resort to convince u.s. of how very special nosotros are. Information technology is time to rethink human exceptionalism, and the disrespect for the natural earth that comes with it.
Susana Monsóis, "What animals think of decease" at Aeon (September 14, 2021)

Of form, we actually don't have "solid evidence" of any of this. Her war on homo exceptionalism quickly takes the states across the boundaries of reason in pursuit of a cause. I would similar to think, charitably, that all this nonsense proceeds from a drastic inner desire to talk to the animals — and have them respond dorsum. We humans have wanted that since forever; our art, literature, and religions are total of talking, reasoning animals. The only area where they nosotros don't find these talking, reasoning animals is non-human nature.

Human exceptionalism is just a fact. Sophistry may persuade adherents to a conservation cause only it doesn't change the nature of things.

Note: Considerable damage has been washed to chimpanzees and dolphins by efforts to pretend that they think like humans. Besides often, an creature has been unfitted for life among its own species by the experimenters and then abased, with unhappy or fatal consequences. The humans, meanwhile, motion on.

Yous may as well wish to read: Does a chimp mom who carries a dead baby effectually understand expiry? In a recent report of primate mothers, researchers imply that their behavior shows a growing awareness of the nature of death. Reality check: The primates' behavior definitely demonstrates grief over their dead infants, and caregivers should be mindful of their emotional welfare. But the behavior besides makes clear that the primates don't sympathize what death ways.

and

Practise animals truly grieve when other animals die? Yes, just "expiry" is, in some ways, an brainchild so there are just some things they empathize almost it. For example, the dog Hachikō's lifelong devoted vigil at the train station is touching in part because he could not know that his man friend had really died.

Source: https://mindmatters.ai/2021/10/a-philosopher-simply-invents-animals-concept-of-death/

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