It seems like all living organisms have an awareness of their environment, it’s a question of degree. It also depends on the definition of “consciousness”.
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You’re right, I think there’s indeed a difference in the degree of awareness among all living organisms, because there’re a high and a low levels of living organisms, but certain animal which is constantly being hurt can possibly takes an action to retaliate such treatment…
Yea, but that guy ate lambchops not two weeks later…
Suicide bombings, beheadings of the innocent people, and excessive acts of cruelty such as mutilation and so on. I think, we’re really facing a very serious problem in these days, the time of Kali Yuga ( The Age of Kali कलियुग ), one of the causes was probably due to ‘transmigration’ from the lower realms ( including the the animal realm ) to the human realm…
“Your Honor, my previous incarnation as a lab rat made me do it.”.
But that’s not how kamma works, or how prevuous incarnations affect one either, i think.
Intention is not predestined. lol not even kamma is predestiny; kamma ripens or not, but choice or intention are there, neh?
Yeap…, but in psychology or psychiatry you will find that, there is the idea that one person who has been a victim of violence will tend to commit the same violence to other people, or one victim of sexual harassment will tend to do the same harrasment to other people, the effects that they experienced in childhood will tend to be repeated by them when they are adults…
I think these words are problematic. Both criminal behavior and psychological prognosis are much more complicated in any individual or in general.
… transmigration from or to animal realms is not new, is it? I am unfamiliar with Kali Yuga in a Buddhist context, also… ? Edit: is it another belief in an End Time?
Hmm…, I don’t think that we should makes this seems so complicated that makes it so hard to understand. Living things are indeed a complex things, moreover their mental elements, but whatever complexity there is, I truly believe that this ‘complexity’ doesn’t emerge from nothingness, instead it’s an ‘accumulation’ of the existing ones priorly, plus a new ones. So in theory, obviously, the experiences gained yesterday, a week ago, a month ago, or a childhood experiences, or even a previous life experiences is indeed contributing to the current model of life behavior.
Kali Yuga is the concept of Hinduism, that is true, not a Buddhist concept, even though in Buddhism there are also a concept of ‘16 Buddha’s Predictions’ whose contents describes the situation in a distant future which filled with crimes, corruptions, moral decadence and many other worse things.
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I think this question is better reframed as to what extend does the Buddhist notion of animals corresponds to the scientific classification of animals?
Buddhist notion of animals meaning that it’s part of the samsaric cycle, capable of being reborn into it, and it capable of being liberated given the right conditions (reborn as human etc). Scientific classification of animals is complicated. There’s 7 kingdom classification now (based on 2015 taxonomy update).
Animalia is only one of them.
How sure are we that the other 6 kingdoms are not capable of being reborn into, and do the notion of rebirth follows scientific taxonomy classification (mainly based on cell’s characteristics for kingdom).
4 of them, Bacteria, Archaea, Protozoa, Chromista are more or less single celled. Protozoa is of interest for being labelled as “single celled animals”.
Plantae and Fungi are commonly grouped together by vegans and eat both, although fungi doesn’t do photosynthesis, but decompose dead things.
Let’s focus more on the more strange animals within animalia: scallops (when served as food, without the shells), coral reefs (because it is immobile). Looks like plant, but not classified as plant.
How about starfish, where if you cut them in half, they reproduce into two. So, no central brain? This might be a question to be solved by those with mind reading or divine eye superpower.
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This discussion won’t get anywhere unless people define what they mean by consciousness.
Do they mean “phenomenal” consciousness, just the sense of being aware, the “what is it likeness”?
Or do they mean metacognition, self awareness, etc.
Or are they referring to neural correlates of consciousness (NCC)?
In the context of Buddhism, it’s just means mind capable of being reborn, having been reborn into that being. Or for the case of arahants, mind freed from previous rebirth.
One of the karmic consequences of taking life of living beings is a shortened lifespan in a following rebirth. The covid pandemic has produced a phenomenon of older people dying early. The two are likely connected in the light of the harm done to animals and the environment since the beginning of industrialization, which is much greater than any preceding time.
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One needn’t even believe in supernatural consequences to believe that, since Covid-19 itself came from a Chinese meat market iirc?
And Covid-19 basically kills by choking and drowning its victims’ lungs, I see wider karmic parallels with climate change too.
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