Posted: Oct 29, 2014 6:47 am
JackRussell wrote:I have been sitting at the pub this evening and a conversation started where one person stated as a fact that Homo Sapiens Sapiens are the only animal that are demonstrably aware of their own mortality.
It's a perfectly good argument because it's very carefully worded - 'demonstrably aware' , when you get right down to it, would require them to be able to confirm their awareness, which only humans can do. QED.
Of course, there is plenty of evidence to suggest a number of other creatures seem aware of mortality, whether that extends to a concept of their own or not is difficult to establish.
JackRussell wrote: He further argued that this had never been demonstrated in any other animal, including primates that are closest to us in the evolutionary sense.
Laying aside the problem I already noted, you can show him the film of a female chimp carrying around the body of her deceased infant for days, occasionally laying it down and apparently trying to inspect it. Of course, we can't know what was going through her head (ergo the problem with 'demonstrably aware'), but there was some struggle going on inside her to relinquish her infant. When she finally did so, it was quite emotional.
This behavior has been seen in a number of primates, and elephants seem to mourn the loss of companions. Again, it has to be 'seem' because we can't actually know the workings of their minds, whether they're thinking or just engaging in an unrelated behavior that appears to be mourning.
There's also the gorilla (forgotten his name right now) trained to communicate who allegedly once explained that thoughts of his own death made him sad.
Lots of circumstantial evidence suggests that there is some degree of awareness, but again the argument is carefully crafted because demonstrating a thought is inherently problematic unless you can interrogate the subject.