what constitutes self awareness?

[muldoon]

I dont think I have ever seen anything like this from the animal world.  Quite frankly, the video is quite extroardinary.
http://www.transformationteam.net/video/elephant_artist

Also, snopes confirms as true.  http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/elephantpainting.asp

[Whitlock]

You have got to be kidding me. That was unreal

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

We watched that video a while ago... pretty amazing.  There are some animals that seem almost human.  We have a dog that has expressive (and very human looking) eyes.  You can tell what he's thinking just by looking at him. 

[glenn kangiser]

We watched that video a while ago... pretty amazing.  There are some animals that seem almost human.  We have a dog that has expressive (and very human looking) eyes.  You can tell what he's thinking just by looking at him. 

hmm My wife says that about me....

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

What?  That you look almost human or that she can tell what you're thinking about just by looking at your eyes?

[glenn kangiser]

That I seem almost human.

[peternap]

I'm surprised that you even thought about it muldoon. Most hunters and I mean hard core hunters will tell you that all animals are self aware.
Somewhere some fool decided that since we were inventive little monkeys, with an opposible thumb and had figured out how to make electrons flow in one direction, that everything else was only reacting because of instinct.

I'm not going to get into the soul discussion, but I can tell you that every animal on this earth is self aware and for the most part, don't want to look human!

[muldoon]

I'm surprised that you even thought about it muldoon. Most hunters and I mean hard core hunters will tell you that all animals are self aware.
Somewhere some fool decided that since we were inventive little monkeys, with an opposible thumb and had figured out how to make electrons flow in one direction, that everything else was only reacting because of instinct.

I'm not going to get into the soul discussion, but I can tell you that every animal on this earth is self aware and for the most part, don't want to look human!

Well I agree with everything you said so I guess I expressed myself poorly.  I did not mean to imply that I thought animals did not have souls or emotion and intelligence.  I certainly think there is much much more to all the animal world than instinct alone and have had many lifes experiences to back that up. 

What surprises me in that video is that I have never seen an animal be able to express themselves like that.  Sure it's understandable to see emotion; fear, sadness, happiness, and such; but would you expect Zeus to draw a picture of himself playing with you to capture the memory?  Thats remarkable. 

I do believe that there is a distinction between being aware and alive and being expressive and imaginative.  I would not expect a zebra to understand algebra, not would I expect an aligator to understand the intervals involved in a triad or 7th chord.  To be able to view a 3 dimensional object such as another elephant and represent it as a 2 dimensional line draing shows enormous self awareness and control over the environment in which it lives in.  To add an oversized and colorful flower was mindblowing to me because there is no way that elephant saw another elephant carrying a 400 pound flower (as the scale of the image would represent).  It was not just drawing from memory, it showed expression and imagination to collate different mental images into one piece of art. 

[MountainDon]

I would like to see if the pictures the elephant paints are all done the same day to day, as it was taught, or if there are "personal" variations day to day.       

[glenn kangiser]

The Snopes thing above explains some of it and links to this site, but in my opinion it is pretty poorly done and hard to get around on.  http://www.elephantart.com/catalog/splash.php

[muldoon]

hummm...

http://www.elephantart.com/catalog/default.php?cPath=69

[glenn kangiser]

Not very imaginative is she .... hmm

Actually impressive that she can master one though. 

[peternap]

The Elephant draws better than I do

It is amazing but so is the sign language ape that taught her kids.
Makes you think!