----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 7:30
AM
Subject: Re: sixth sense (and seventh,
eighth, ninth...)
Steve Johnson wrote: I'm sorry if this is off topic. I saw many
articles
over the last couple of weeks that animals escaped the
tsunami
unaffected due to some internal warning system
that they apparently
possess. Does anyone know what it
is?
Hi Steve,
Actually, this is right on topic because it spotlights some of
the very reasons why reductionism is so prevalent in human approaches to the
world and it also spotlights the repercussions of that
habit-pattern.
Human beings tend to assume that our senses come via our
organs associated with those senses: ears/hearing, eyes/seeing,
tongue/tasting, nose/smelling, skin/touch and we also tend to further assume
that animals with those same organs have the same senses, in the same general
mode, and the same limitations we perceive ourselves as having. We talk about
so-called oddities like dolphins and sonar or bats and echo-location, or
snakes and infrared/heat sense ability...
SNIP(JM)
But that's just the beginning. Why would we assume that we don't
have capabilities beyond the obvious? I think it's because we use the obvious
to verify everything else. The scientific method dictates; "Accept nothing as
existing until it is verified via our own senses." That's Descartes, again. We
don't trust our own perceptions unless we can verify things, using
technology, with the obvious five senses. We need a printout or a clicking
noise or some smell... The mind has a tendency to take over from the body and
decide it knows better, which then lets a lot of capability atrophy. On top of
that, the mind also tends to get into habit patterns which limit us even
further.
Most animals are not hobbled by this. They are using all sensory
capability available to them and just "going with it" rather than pooh-poohing
it and telling themselves they're just imagining it or whatever. Indeed, if
we have already "verified" that bats can echolocate and snakes can "sense
body heat in the air"... why should that be the limit of their
capabilities? It kind of blows my mind that people are even surprised that
animals survived this tsunami without our help and technological
warnings!
Judith
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2005 9:08
PM
Subject: [ROSEN] sixth sense
I'm sorry if this is off topic. I saw many articles
over
the last couple of weeks that animals escaped the
tsunami unaffected due
to some internal warning system
that they apparently posess. Does anyone
know what it
is?
Here is an exerpt from one aritcle:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6795562/
But
no one we can find involved with the care of
animals can report the death
of a single one.
Goson Sipasad is the manager of the Khao Lak
National
Park. He says all the animals went high in the hills
and have
not returned. He believes not one perished in
or around the
park.
"We have not found any dead animals along this part of
the
coast," he says.
Jong Kit's elephants' intuition was very lucky
for
four Japanese tourists who had climbed aboard them the
day of the
tsunami. They all survived, carried on the
elephants' backs to the
hills.
__________________________________
Do you
Yahoo!?
Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo