About animals

Having academies look like ways to get pets homes, not just kittens. I wonder how effective they are?

I finished the Chopra book. He isn't as human-centric as I thought he was. Each species approaches the universe in their own way and participates in the same "cosmic consciousness" that we do. I agree with that. So my initial objection is no longer valid. He has a few things that still puzzle me: (1) He likes an interpretation of the "anthropic principle" that I don't understand. Generally I reject the anthropic principle since it implies that we are here because there were infinitely many universes that failed to create life like ours. I assume any multiverse that might exist has life like ours. (2) He seems to confuse random (uniformly distributed) chance from indeterminism which is also a sort of randomness. The indeterminism model can be interpreted as reality making "choices" which implies mind. (3) He goes beyond "wave" and "particle", and I would agree with that, but then continues talking in terms of them. He does point out a continual creation from the quantum vacuum which I agree with. (4) He claims general relativity predicts everything perfectly and then notes that no one has found dark matter and dark energy yet which implies general relativity doesn't predict everything very well.

I think they are more effective anyway than some of the dungeons where the animals are put. Apropos, the cages are the bedroom and it seems that the cats can get in and out at free will.
That he isn´t so human-centric is undestandable as he is from India, where the animals are seen as gods. I like this idea of a cosmic conscience.I think that as yet all theories about life in other universes still exist on a very hypothetical basis. But maybe we are on the brink of new discoveries in this area. There would be also the question: if there are more advanced forms of life than there are on earth, will they want to be discovered by us? I skip the part of Physics which I don´t understand do well, but I take it that Chopra borrowed several concepts from it to build his theory.

One of the reasons I hope life is found on other planets is that it would void the anthropic principle, or at least make it irrelevant when it comes to life. If life is found elsewhere, then our existence is not an extremely lucky event needing an entire universe of planets failing to have life to explain it. We would have to look deeper for an explanation than chance which basically says there is no explanation.

Anyway, I found this yesterday about crows killing another crow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7liZdySa-IU

There were also crow funerals but this looked odder to me.

"House Of Seven Cats", by Patrick Lee Hadley/Album: "Egypticat"; (just heard (again) on my favorite DTV music station)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9VMTMHo2lw

Thanks, Tailor, I´ll have to look for it, this video is not available here.

I didn´t find it but I found this curiosity. You both can try it on your furry family members if you didn´t do it already.

http://time.com/4538773/man-makes-music-for-cats/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by YesNo

One of the reasons I hope life is found on other planets is that it would void the anthropic principle, or at least make it irrelevant when it comes to life. If life is found elsewhere, then our existence is not an extremely lucky event needing an entire universe of planets failing to have life to explain it. We would have to look deeper for an explanation than chance which basically says there is no explanation.


Anyway, I found this yesterday about crows killing another crow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7liZdySa-IU

There were also crow funerals but this looked odder to me.

---

I managed to watch only the beginning of the video, and that not because of my conjuntivitis, Yes/ No. I got a feeling of horror, it is too similar to human cruelty and covardice. Anyway one doesn´t know what happened before. Animals usually have a reason for acting the way they do.

"One of the reasons I hope life is found on other planets is that it would void the anthropic principle, or at least make it irrelevant when it comes to life. If life is found elsewhere, then our existence is not an extremely lucky event needing an entire universe of planets failing to have life to explain it. We would have to look deeper for an explanation than chance which basically says there is no explanation."

I think humans are very creative in antropocentric explanations.They change according to scientific evidence.Some of them:
1-The medieval belief that the earth was the centre of the solar system-Because humans inhabited it of course.
2-The idea that the whole earth, with everything that is on it, was created for the sole benefit of man.
3-And now the anthropic principle-Other planets are just failed experiments in getting us a
snug and confortable planet.
Just wondering who will be the next Galileo.

I hope you can cure the conjunctivitis, Danik. There is no need to finish the video. The first few seconds make the point clear.

The anthropic principle tries to argue that our presence here is an accident. For that accident to happen there must be a lot of failures. The first two views take a privileged view toward humans (even at the expense of other species). The anthropic principle denies that privilege position by claiming we are here only through chance. I think there must be a better explanation for our being here than chance that would include a better explanation for other species being here as well.

Thanks, Yes/No. I think I got the anthropic principle wrong, then. I didn´t get the part of being here by chance. I shall have to look better into it. I hope there is a better explanation for life on earth.

Going in the opposite direction of the crow video here is a video DW posted on:
http://www.online-literature.com/for...=1#post1337348

Wayne Potts says birds are "anticipating" moves rather than "following others" because that would allow for better reaction time. That's an interesting idea. It seems like a more communal or group approach.

Animal behaviour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KS1Y9t5w2Q

Cat in the background observing open faucet concurrent

I liked that snake yawn and the way those lizards ate things.

http://digg.com/video/cat-ring-bells...m_medium=email

I thought it was much more difficult to condition cats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning
Interesting how the dark cat changes the bell during the experiment to the one meant for the other cat.

It looks like I could teach my cat to do tricks.

Of course it depends on the cat. Most cats I think would do a lot to get their favorite treat. But I don´t like these animal conditioning games. When I studied Psychologi much time ago we had to condition mice. I refused to give them shocks.