Could Animals Have A Soul?

[sandyRoe]

The house must have been coming down with mice. The new traps have killed six in only two days.
If animals do have a soul is it fair to dispatch them unshriven from this world?

[sandyRoe]

The followers of Jainism hold all life to be sacred.
It must be galling for them that the Nazis stole one of their symbols

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism

[pixie373]

Interesting link sandy. agree with a lot of what i read there.

[Octavius]

"I'd say anything that's conscious"

In the field of plant neurobiology (ok, bear with me) it is thought that even plants have some form of consciousness / awareness. It is known for example that tomatoes when bruised emit an odour which can apparently be detected by other plants via hormonal signalling pathways as a warning of attack. They can then engage their own defense systems.

Now is that consciousness (awareness), or just a chemical reaction?

[jim360]

I think it's probably just a chemical reaction, but then again what is consciousness anyway? While it's not fully understood it is likely that consciousness itself is just another form of electrochemical reaction. So in that respect it may be premature to say that plants are "just" experiencing chemical reactions whereas humans are blessed with a higher form of consciousness.

That thoughts and consciousness are likely to only be such electrochemical processes, that does not mean they aren't fascinating. There seems to be this idea that Science makes everything boring, or dull, or somehow misses out on beauty of other ideas. That is completely wrong. Indeed, being able to understand how something works can very often make it even more fascinating than before.

[modeller]

pixie //I'd say anything that's conscious. //
That's a tricky one . When a jelly fish dives for cover when it sees something coming . Is that a conscious decision or instinct. The sense of survival is very strong even in new born babies . I would say consciousness is when a decision is made independant of instinct but many times it's difficult to make the distinction.

[keyplus90]

Animals do have soul, yes.

[Old_Geezer]

Especially the hip cats.

[pixie373]

I love modeller's- "making a decision independent of instinct". Although that would exclude a human for the first year of life or so. Maybe "conscious" is anything that has a central nervous system, so looks for pleasure and avoids pain?

[modeller]

It has been suggested that the soul is the accumulation of life's experiences. If that is so and if there is an afterlife what effect would that have. How would a baby's soul compare with an adult of any species ?
We are all born different and that difference would be even greater after a physical lifetime. An afterlife sounds like an extremely unequal ' existance '.

[pixie373]

I'm not sure I'd agree with that, modeller. If there is a "soul", i would have thought it would be the essence of who you are and not affected by memories.

[Octavius]

modeller, thats identifying 'soul' as character and personality? Is this what you understand as a soul?

[pixie373]

I actually think we're born with our character/personality as well.

[Old_Geezer]

Was reading National Geographic in the dentist waiting room a couple of days ago, Article on twins inc. those separated at birth. It does indeed seem a lot of who you are/will become is already set from birth. In fact it looks as if parenting does little to define the eventual adult. Unsure whether one can conclude the soul from that though. It may just be in the genes. But there again, who knows ?

[Old_Geezer]

A soul could presumably learn and alter from experiences, that's how we learn and improve, but I'd not see any chance of a soul just being that. It is what you are. Given survival of bodily death, then any experience from the small number of years of our single lifetime here isn't going to mean much in the long, perhaps infinite time we might exist.

[modeller]

octavious //thats identifying 'soul' as character and personality? Is this what you understand as a soul? //
No it's not !! If you read what I said, I was commenting on what some others had suggested.
I don't believe in the concept of souls at all that's why amongst other things I queried how the soul of a 1hr old baby would co-exist with say a 90yr old.

[modeller]

OG You mentioned twins. You didn't say whether they were identical twins as that would be significant as they are the result of the same egg being split after conception. Think also of co-joined twins. Where and when does the second soul come from. How about identical quintuplets needing 5 souls.
What a farce the whole concept is !