The power to perceive and interact with your surroundings is a part of being conscious, being alive. Solving complex problems is limited to animals with a neocortex, which takes up the majority of the human brain. Elephants actually have a far bigger brain than humans and are totally capable of feeling emotion and communicating.
Elephants even reported returned to the house of Lawrence Anthony, who had helped many elephants into safe territory, to mourn his death together. Mourning, among the majority of non-intellectual human endeavors, is something shared experience. Comprehension of the world around us, in a non-theoretical respect, is something shared in differing dimensions by all life.
Humans seem to be alone on this planet with our abilities of abstraction and synesthesia, allowing us to picture and work towards unprecedented projects. We can create new words, new ideas, and have these be adapted and accepted within a week’s time. Our ideas do not have to relate to the physical world in which we find ourselves, or our emotional state, and this alone sets us apart (or so we think, you never know with dolphins). We are far from alone in our ability to solve problems, and we are most certainly not the only ones conscious. I am also sure we have all met people both unwilling to solve problems and barely conscious, have we not?
But, despite these skills, are we any better than our animal brethren? No, and not just we are subject to the same processes of conditioning. Conscious life deserves to be respected. This is not a call for becoming a vegetarian, but instead an urge to critically examine a food system that treats neither the animals (livestock) nor its customers with respect. Life, either human or not, shouldn’t be tread on lightly. Crimes against animals, and against the environment, have to be treated as seriously as they are. Every species has its skills, and we should spend more time using ours for the betterment of ourselves and others.
