@Frank Apisa,
Quote:In any case...you do not even know whether man is the only species on planet Earth that knows it will eventually die.
It is natural to wonder what Apisa gets out of not knowing whether animals are aware of their existence, aware of time and space and aware of their inevitable extinction.
One thing might be that not knowing about that can be presented as being a characteristic of a superior and more mature human being than those who claim to know that animals are unaware of those states of mind. And in terms of the claim to not know, the intellectual position is unassailable because we cannot know whether animals are aware of their eventual death. Hence the claim is banal and not worth making.
And it begs the question of how does Apisa know he doesn't know that animals are unknowing, or knowing, in this regard. How do we know that it isn't simple a pose adopted to display the characteristics of superiority and maturity by way of a circularity. Which is a very easy thing to do. As is proved by Apisa's practiced use of it on all occasions.
How does Apisa know that he knows anything? Descartes addressed himself to the problem as had Plato and Augustine earlier. And no doubt many others.
I have witnessed the slaughter of a large pen full of sheep during an outbreak of foot and mouth disease. There was no reaction from the remaining sheep as each one was killed. They carried on eating as if nothing was happening right down to the last sheep which carried on nibbling its nuts surrounded by dead sheep at close quarters.
And I have seen animals exhibit no response to the sort of sunset which caused Prof. Brian Cox, the thinking woman's crumpet, to well up with emotion although I must admit that I do not know if he had had recourse to an onion.
Bearing in mind that Darwin insisted upon our kinship with animals, and committed his followers to the same view, not knowing whether animals are self conscious and aware of death logically concludes that eating them might be cannibalism. One does not know for sure. I assume, therefore, Apisa does not eat meat and does not support scientific experiments on animals of which there are 4.1 million per year in the UK. Darwin did support such experiments and carried out a large number himself.
If Apisa does eat meat we have to ask him whether he omits what Shaw called the "heroic dish". And if he does what is his reason.
Considering the research of Prof. Bose into plants Apisa will have to admit that he does not know whether they are self conscious and aware of death and likewise in respect of micro-organisms such as plankton and amoeba.
It seems to me that Apisa's continued existence is reliant on the Biblical precept that man has dominion over the animals. The alternative is that he is a cannibal but one too fastidious, or cowardly, to eat human flesh. And we know that many other humans just like himself, except in regard to having been conditioned by New Jersey style lady journalism and Christian morality, were not only not fastidious, or cowardly, in respect of eating human flesh but consumed it with relish after hunting it down.
Hence reason No 15 for denying evolution is that it absolves people from the charge of cannibalism.
Reason No 16 is that it prevents people from looking as foolish and stupid as Apisa does.
