When my doggy got run over, I didnt understand how litteray one second he was interacting with me, being himself being conscious be working, thinking and then... he's gone, he's just a limp body. WHo has the shell of Beau (my dog) but no doggy that was jumping up and cuddling me coz he lloves me, and I loved him. WHere did he go?
My doggy died, where did he go?
- Thread starter Agent@5
- Start date
I beg to differ. There is a massive amount of difference between a computer and an animal. Besides the most obvious, computers have no consciousness. They dont feel emotions, they do not breath air, they do not bleed when they have been hurt, they do not respond to emotion. They are all unique charcteristics that make living matter different to non living matter. You dont build an emotional bond like you do with a pet. I dont anyway.
PS thanks for your sympathy guys.
Agent,
For non biological entities repair is often possible even after a significant time, for nearly all bio entities decay occurs quickly making any future recovery impossible.
Any emotional attachment one might form with any entity when it has animation simply makes the ending harder to bear.
Cris
There is no denying these are differences, but when the ability to absorb energy is removed from, say a plant, a tree, an animal, a person, a car, a computer, then they all exibit the same traits - complete cessation of all normal functioning.
For non biological entities repair is often possible even after a significant time, for nearly all bio entities decay occurs quickly making any future recovery impossible.
Any emotional attachment one might form with any entity when it has animation simply makes the ending harder to bear.
Cris
orthogonal
Registered Senior Member
Agent,
I'm very sorry to hear that your pet was killed.
My answer to your question is that he didn't go anywhere, he simply ceased to exist. "Being" dead is functionally equivalent to "being" unborn, though it's only an artifact of language that I speak of 'being" dead, or "being" unborn. In fact, there is no "being" at all associated with death or non-being.
Some people come to love certain trees, for example. Trees are immense and complex living things. People have formed intimate relationships with what others might only think of as "living cellulose." When this tree dies, these people feel a poignant loss much the same as you feel for your dog. Yet, few people think that when trees die, they go to "the big forest in the sky." They think that when a tree dies, it simply dies.
It's the same with farm animals. I walk to work along a number of dairy farms. I occasionally stop to look at, or even pet the cows near the fence. I think cows have lovely eyes, and I've no doubt that if I spent much time with a particular cow I'd develop a bond of friendship with it, much as you felt for your dog. Yet our culture treats cows more as inanimate, than as animate beings. People generally don't believe that the bull or cow which constitutes your hamburger has an individual afterlife. I might as well mention that my brother returned this year from a trip around the world. He was surprised to see the practice in a number of Asian countries of breeding puppies for culinary use. Tom had a number of photos of the cutest little pups waiting in cages for their slaughter. Westerner's are repulsed at the idea of eating puppies. A Hindu thinks a cow is sacred. My wife's Italian cousin loves horse meat. (All meat is the same to me, that's why I'm a vegetarian). My point is that when people use living things as a resource, they typically don't view it as having an afterlife. They only seem willing to grant an afterlife to the animals they love. My own mother fully believes that she'll be reunited with her deceased pets when she dies. I believe that bacteria, trees, dogs, and people, ..., all living things in fact, return to nothingness upon their death.
The reason it's so difficult to accept the finality of death is that an intense emotion drives our wish that what we have loved might live again. I felt it when my father died. A major reason that religions thrive so well is that they tell us that what we want to be true, is in fact true. Common people find comfort in religion or other such fairy-tales. Intellectuals, on the other hand, understand that their desires are an unreliable source for their beliefs. An intellectually honest man believes what he has to believe, rather than what he wants to believe.
I understand your reaction to Cris's reply. The machines built thus far by humans seem quite primative next to an earthworm. However, I'd like to assure you that an animal brain is only a biological machine. A single neuron has no consciousness, but a network of a hundred million neurons may well have consciousness.
You might think of an analogy of the single celled human zygote at the moment of conception. It has the intelligence of a virus at this moment. Yet through cellular division and continually increasing organization, it becomes ever-more human in the course of its nine month gestation. The change is so gradual that it would be difficult to determine the exact cell division which divides a pre-fetal organism from a human fetus. Likewise, as computer hardware and software grow in complexity, it will be similarly difficult to determine when computers move from the inanimate to the animate. We shall face some interesting ethical questions concerning the nature of life, at some point in our future.
Agent, I'm telling you that the consciousness of any animal (ourselves included) is the result of a vastly complex biological machine, yet a machine none-the-less. That statement takes nothing away from our capability to love, or to write poetry. When we die, we simply return to that which we were before our birth; nothingness. Unfortunately, there is nothing that could bring back your dog, yet the love you have for your dog does not have to die. You may transfer this love to another living thing, a person, another pet, or even a farm animal. All living things are worthy of our love.
Hope this helped,
Michael
I'm very sorry to hear that your pet was killed.
My answer to your question is that he didn't go anywhere, he simply ceased to exist. "Being" dead is functionally equivalent to "being" unborn, though it's only an artifact of language that I speak of 'being" dead, or "being" unborn. In fact, there is no "being" at all associated with death or non-being.
Some people come to love certain trees, for example. Trees are immense and complex living things. People have formed intimate relationships with what others might only think of as "living cellulose." When this tree dies, these people feel a poignant loss much the same as you feel for your dog. Yet, few people think that when trees die, they go to "the big forest in the sky." They think that when a tree dies, it simply dies.
It's the same with farm animals. I walk to work along a number of dairy farms. I occasionally stop to look at, or even pet the cows near the fence. I think cows have lovely eyes, and I've no doubt that if I spent much time with a particular cow I'd develop a bond of friendship with it, much as you felt for your dog. Yet our culture treats cows more as inanimate, than as animate beings. People generally don't believe that the bull or cow which constitutes your hamburger has an individual afterlife. I might as well mention that my brother returned this year from a trip around the world. He was surprised to see the practice in a number of Asian countries of breeding puppies for culinary use. Tom had a number of photos of the cutest little pups waiting in cages for their slaughter. Westerner's are repulsed at the idea of eating puppies. A Hindu thinks a cow is sacred. My wife's Italian cousin loves horse meat. (All meat is the same to me, that's why I'm a vegetarian). My point is that when people use living things as a resource, they typically don't view it as having an afterlife. They only seem willing to grant an afterlife to the animals they love. My own mother fully believes that she'll be reunited with her deceased pets when she dies. I believe that bacteria, trees, dogs, and people, ..., all living things in fact, return to nothingness upon their death.
The reason it's so difficult to accept the finality of death is that an intense emotion drives our wish that what we have loved might live again. I felt it when my father died. A major reason that religions thrive so well is that they tell us that what we want to be true, is in fact true. Common people find comfort in religion or other such fairy-tales. Intellectuals, on the other hand, understand that their desires are an unreliable source for their beliefs. An intellectually honest man believes what he has to believe, rather than what he wants to believe.
I understand your reaction to Cris's reply. The machines built thus far by humans seem quite primative next to an earthworm. However, I'd like to assure you that an animal brain is only a biological machine. A single neuron has no consciousness, but a network of a hundred million neurons may well have consciousness.
You might think of an analogy of the single celled human zygote at the moment of conception. It has the intelligence of a virus at this moment. Yet through cellular division and continually increasing organization, it becomes ever-more human in the course of its nine month gestation. The change is so gradual that it would be difficult to determine the exact cell division which divides a pre-fetal organism from a human fetus. Likewise, as computer hardware and software grow in complexity, it will be similarly difficult to determine when computers move from the inanimate to the animate. We shall face some interesting ethical questions concerning the nature of life, at some point in our future.
Agent, I'm telling you that the consciousness of any animal (ourselves included) is the result of a vastly complex biological machine, yet a machine none-the-less. That statement takes nothing away from our capability to love, or to write poetry. When we die, we simply return to that which we were before our birth; nothingness. Unfortunately, there is nothing that could bring back your dog, yet the love you have for your dog does not have to die. You may transfer this love to another living thing, a person, another pet, or even a farm animal. All living things are worthy of our love.
Hope this helped,
Michael
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orthogonal
Registered Senior Member
Thank you Cris,
Oh, I've been meaning to tell you how much I enjoyed that photo of you surrounded by your three beautiful daughters. They look like really nice kids. Thanks for posting it.
Michael
Oh, I've been meaning to tell you how much I enjoyed that photo of you surrounded by your three beautiful daughters. They look like really nice kids. Thanks for posting it.
Michael
That depends wether or not your canine has accepted Jesus into his heart.
If it accepts the fact that jesus is lord & kept from biting people, he goes to doggy heaven.
If not, he goes to doggy hell.
So it all depends on that. And yes, it is possible for your pet to be saved from the clutches of evil and sin. If you were wise enough to take it to doggy church, baptise it, and keep it far away from evolutionist dogs and heavy metal, your dog is as good as saved.
Yup.
If it accepts the fact that jesus is lord & kept from biting people, he goes to doggy heaven.
If not, he goes to doggy hell.
So it all depends on that. And yes, it is possible for your pet to be saved from the clutches of evil and sin. If you were wise enough to take it to doggy church, baptise it, and keep it far away from evolutionist dogs and heavy metal, your dog is as good as saved.
Yup.
MISSOURI MULE
Registered Member
Beyond a doubt the most empty experience we have is the loss of something we love. We can close our minds and believe only in what we can see and feel i.e. our dear friend is warm one moment and cold the next.....but if we reach beyond the envelope...which may be frightening to us...I think we get the feeling that more is out there. I am certain that love within ourselves and families stretches beyond generations. And no I am not referring to some sinister ghost story or anything like that but I believe strong emotions can make some hereditary imprint that we cannot explain yet.
I understand your point, but I really dont belive in analogies. The reason two subjects are different, is because they arnt the same thing. I know you will arugue that, and too a certain extent I agree with you too but analogies will have their falicies. I too never belived my dog went to a magical fairy land where he would be happy forever and ever. And yes we do function similarly to a machine, in fact machines are paterned off these systems. I am saying, humans do not have the power to recreate a living life. THEY CAn, however replicate it, but have yet to create it from the very beginning. STarting their own genes. Just because the systems are similar and function, to a certain degree, in the same way, does not mean they are the same thing. Everything ends. THe Earth will end, nto to say that becasue we end too the earth and I are the same thing. I do hold sentimental value with my dog, perhaps I am letting emotions influence my opinion, and it may not be a subjective as yours, never the less, I dont not believe That A dog is a machine.l It is SIMILAR to a machine. BUt they do not share all of the same qualities. I am saying where did his energy go?