Animals Cannot Talk

And even if they could, you would not be able to understand them. While in class, I showed a friend a picture recently of puppies, and one was biting the nose of the other. She goes "oh they are playing!"

False. One was exhibiting alpha dominant behavior, exerting force over the other and training him into submission via a nosebite.

"NO! They are playing!"

Right.

I then showed her a picture of a panda, and she says, "oh I'd love a panda as a pet."

"Actually, pandas are highly temperamental and very aggressive animals." To prove my point, I sent her this video:


Her response: "Na uh pandas aren't mean! He just wanted the jacket because he was cold. If he could talk he would have said so!"

Well... also wrong. Not to impugn my friend, who is very intelligent, she just does not really like the 'dark' side of nature. My whole argument about the ridiculousness of imposition of human 'morality' on nature is neither here nor there, however. Just suffice it to say that the best argument against natural morality is nature itself, and to divide certain animal behaviors into 'good' and others into 'bad' is just ludicrous. It's called 'reality.' Learn to live in it. Anyway.

The ability to speak is not just some 'on/off' switch that has been flipped in humans. It is the result of a whole plethora of senses, in addition to education and acculturation, including, but not limited to, the way our other sensory organs work, our chemical and emotional motivations as individuals and as homo sapiens per se, etc. In other words, if the panda could 'talk,' it wouldn't be a panda. It would be a human in a panda suit. My point is that 'talking' is a central, not a coincidental, part of being human. Here is a good way of putting it: if a bat spoke, it would not in any way possible be able to describe to you what it is like to have sonar, no more than a bee would be able to describe what it is like to see in ultraviolet. Similarly, if the panda were able to speak, it would not have anything to say about "I am cold." Pandas have built in jackets. It would probably say something like "Hey dude, I am going to fuck you up because you smell funny." Did you know that for a cat to look you directly in the eye is a sign of aggression? Animal behavior and motivations do not translate to human ones.

Anyway, the funny thing about all of this. Imagine I were a magician. Turning someone into an elephant seems like a pretty funny thing to do. However, being the smart magician I am, I would turn my foe into an elephant while he was sitting on his living room couch. "Harhar," you say, "I get it! He will crush his couch!" Yes, he will, but that is not the good part. See, my favorite sense is 'proprioception,' the sense that allows you to control your body parts and balance in terms of motion and self reference, in other words, the sense that allows you to make heads and tails of navigating through physical space using your body. This sense requires a good deal of practice at. Think about how often children fall down, or how long it takes to learn a new sports move.

The funny thing about turning someone into an elephant in their own living room is that, in the process of simply learning how to hold still, they will surely destroy their entire house. Now that, to me, is pure comedy.