The range of video clips online is plentiful to say the least. If you're looking for a twisted worldview, just click around and soak in. If you require a better control of what you watch, you must first put a check on yourself. It is very easy to overinterpret the clips, especially when they show behaviour that strengthens your own prejudices or warms a romantic heart. Who doesn't want to see goodness, kindness and care among both people and animals? However, there is no point in accepting everything displayed as cute, wise, brave and remarkable animals.
You relate to others, animals as well, with emotional experiences. Our conceptual thinking is too extreme and exclusively human to be able to build bridges to the animals. Thinking can only be a sentinel, a support and a sensible companion, but relations belong to emotional life.
The role of thought and thinking is not as dominating as is generally believed. Opinions and positions are mainly formed based on emotional considerations. Then the thought has to choose suitable facts and form arguments that will backup and confirm the correctness of the position taken.
Observations and stories from everyday life probably make up a large part of each person's collective knowledge of the world. In science, such experiences are called ‘anecdotes’. Like the one about the cat who knows how to wake people up:
It is morning, people are sleeping, but the cat wants to eat. First, a common attempt in the catty way: meow, chatter, buff, stomp around with the claws. If that doesn't help, round two begins. The cat disappears into the kitchen and immediately afterwards the cloth and what is on the table falls to the floor, the newspaper basket overturns, cutlery and pans crash and rattle, everything that makes noise is included in the arsenal. It usually helps. After a couple of times, people know what applies.
This was an example of an anecdote, a story that lacks scientific value because it has not been verified. The first question is whether the story is correctly reproduced, if it is a true description of what has happened. The second question is whether it is the cat's intention is to wake people up. It is conceivable that it is just an expression of the cat's way of playing. With scientific eyes, a story like this can never be anything but a funny observation, a whim. Furthermore, the observation only applies to a specific cat individual and is could therefore not be generalized. Natural science has a limited interest in an individual subject that cannot be seen as an object.
If I claim that cats can stand on their hind legs like a human, I often have to show clips to be believed.
Online, there are several similar clips of cats standing and walking on two legs. As well as clips with more or less improbable and surprising behaviours.
Why does the cat stand on its hind legs? We can't know why. Maybe to get an overview. Could be a learned trick. There is a limit to how much knowledge you can get out of a clip. But ...
I envision a path where anecdotes are taken seriously. The clips on the net constitute such a huge amount of documentation from all over the world that it would be a sin not to seek knowledge from them. But of course, it requires caution and good judgment. And still, this may not be science.
“One should not imagine that as a human being you can understand what an animal feels or thinks”. This is something you may hear from time to time. But man is also an animal, one of the great apes. Although more confused.
The neurons that make up the nervous system are already present in jellyfish. Reptiles and fish have the same organ structure as us, with intestines, liver, kidneys, spinal cord, central and peripheral nervous system, pain sensors and sense organs. The same chemistry as in animals governs human sexual functions, stress response, aggressiveness, well-being and fear. It is a strange attitude that we would stand completely alien to the animals around us.
The border between us and the other animals is artificial and created by an unfortunate mixture of fear, feelings of inferiority, arrogance, critical thinking and not least a need for power paired with a greed that tirelessly generates arguments for the right of the strong to use the lives of others for personal gain.
This is a description of the worst aspects of natural science—the reluctance to try new ideas, but that was the situation for most of the twentieth century. Science is just a method, a tool, but those who make it too rigid or turns it into a religion claiming to explain the entire existence harms it.
Man is extreme in many ways. Is there any other animal that can show such tenderness and self-sacrifice as man, and at the same time be capable of the most beastly misdeeds? Is there any other animal that can solve such intricate problems while entangling itself in a self-generated inferno?
Is there any other mammal that has been able to adapt to virtually every habitat on Earth? Is there any other animal that has the power to influence, change and destroy the living nature of the earth and at the same time been able to live completely and imperceptibly for thousands of years as part of nature.
Man is also extreme when it comes emphasize the role of intellect and conceptual thinking. The age of reason it is said to be, but reason has only a supporting role i everyday's decisionmaking. As if thinking is the only guide we have in life. Is this not an illusion?
A thought experiment: Let us examine how people feel about nuclear power. The result is received and presented in the press. How many of those who took a stand and answered have really critically examined what nuclear power means, from uranium mines, necessary infrastructure, safety issues, economics, operation, final repository, dismantling? Is it at all possible to balance all those factors into a standpoint that is based on facts?
What we call democratic elections: how many have really in detail understood what the various parties stand for? Is it critical thinking and fact-checking that leads us to a position? Or is it more likely that one takes an emotional position based on upbringing, habits and unspecified experiences, and then searches for the arguments that justifies one's positions?
I leave the question open. I don't think we use thinking as thoroughly as we probably imagine. Feelings rule more than we think. In this context—video clips with animals—thinking shall inspect and warn, pay attention to wishful thinking and deceptions, but it must be with empathy we approach the animals and ourselves, an animal among other animals.