I was browsing my Facebook page lately when this picture caught my attention. It was a picture of a dog who was punished with boiling water poured all over his body for chewing the owner's phone. His miserable conditions broke my heart in deep pain that I need to do something to stop this animal cruelty.
This article was penned to raise awareness about the negative consequence of humanizing animals and to educate animal owners on the risks of raising any type of pets like human beings.
People don't realize that when we humanize a pet like a dog, a cat, a bird, or a bear, we are actually raising a human being in an animal suit. This might be a strong statement, but this is a fact. According to the Caveman in the Box Trilogy Theory, humans and animals might seem to be two different species, but when they live side by side with exactly the same environment, they become actually two similar objects, in terms of emotions, intelligence, behaviors, and health. When both are raised in the same controlled space as our homes; humans and animals are emotionally, mentally, physically, and socially the same. How is this so?
Imagine that we are simultaneously raising in the same house two newborn beings: a puppy and a baby.
In this house, the baby is nurtured by the whole family: by the mother, father, brothers, and sisters. Every day, she also sensed the dynamics of the house: she hears the sounds of her mother's calls, sees the contour of her mother's smile, feels the softness of her mother's touch, tastes the flatness of her mother's milk, and even smells the aroma of her mother's scent. She also reacts subconsciously with her home environments like the temperature of the room, the sounds from the television, the smells from the kitchen, and the noises from the whole family. All these sensational interactions that she gradually acquires come to her as pieces of information and eventually settle down in her mind. From this house, a confined surrounding is where all information begins. It is the primary source that molds the baby's totality, entireness, and her becoming a being, a human being.
Also, in the same house, the puppy is raised by the same people. He is also surrounded by the same dad, mom, and kids. The puppy also hears, smells, sees, and feels everyone and everything in the house. He also reacts with the temperature inside and outside the house, the sounds from the radio and television, the aroma from the kitchen, the taste of the food, and the synergies within the family. Just like with the baby, the same pieces of information are also stored in his brain. And from the same house, with everything is the same, the dog too becomes a being, a human being as well, only in an animal suit.
Thus, when love and care are provided to the baby, the same love and care are felt by the puppy. When both baby and puppy are placed in the same bed next to the owner, both species will also experience the same comfort, protection, and affection. What the baby sees, smells feels, hears is what the puppy sees, smells feels, and hears as well. When they are placed in the garage overnight, both will also experience the same nastiness, coldness, loneliness, and anxieties. Whatever the situation is, both beings will identically undergo the same exact experiences. It is not because one is a puppy or one is a baby, but it is all because they were brought up in the same exact environment.
The environment makes who you are. It is where information comes from. It is a container, a source of information, storage of knowledge. When two species live in the same environment, both will definitely acquire the same exact information. Just like the baby and puppy, the information obtained by the baby will exactly be the same information gained by the puppy because they are identically surrounded by the same objects and people in the house. The information they gained from the house programmed them to be the same beings.
However, some might argue that the baby is totally different from the puppy because the brain of the child is more complex than the brain of the dog. Again, this is another misconception. Why? At same very early age, they come with the same "empty" brains. The brain doesn't come with information yet from birth. According to the two experiments below, Information must be acquired, compared, codified, and transmitted first before it becomes communal knowledge. The brain follows this process of acquisition, association, codexation, and transmission to be fully functional.
In a thought experiment, known as The Caveman in the Box Trilogy, the argument above can be thoroughly examined by investigating the origin, creation, and evolution of early information with the following leading questions: 1. How did information emerge into the early minds of the very first humans? 2. Who supplied our primitive ancestors with information? 3. Where did it originate? Where did it come from? 4. Was the source of information a who or a what? Was it god, space aliens, or something else?
In this experiment, a newborn son of a caveman was placed inside a well-designed state of the art fully automated laboratory "box" - where food, water, and everything that the boy needs for his survival, growth, and development were technologically provided. However, he was not allowed ever to see anyone or hear anything. He was totally isolated from the world from birth to adulthood.
Parallel to this same scenario was another box. The box of his father, the first human on earth, who was also placed in isolation from birth to adulthood. The only difference between the two boxes was that the father's box was Mother Nature; the world surrounded by plants, animals, objects, and natural elements.
A third box was also present. The box of his father's dog. This four-legged creature was also isolated from birth to adulthood with the same environment as the second box. The only difference between the master and the dog was that the dog was an animal.
From these three scenarios the following scientific questions were raised:
- Who among these three will acquire lots of information?
- Who will never acquire any information at all?
- Will they be aware of themselves?
- Will they become aware of their own surrounding?
- Will they figure out that they are alive?
- Will they understand the things surrounding them? How?
- How many words will they acquire?
- If things are not explained to them, how will they know and understand them?
- Will their minds stay empty for the rest of their lives?
- Will they become conscious of their environments?
- Will instinct kicks in?
- If instinct is true, what are these instincts that they possess?
- How did these instincts develop in the first place?
- Will they stay and act like babies throughout their adulthood?
From this thought experiment, the following conclusions were determined:
1. The brain is a clean slate from birth.
2. Humans acquire information from the environment.
3. The environment makes who and what we are today.
4. Nature is the Mother of Information.
5. Information can only be acquired in two ways: by choice or by chance.
6. Instinct is not inborn but a learned behavior.
7. Information originates from the outside and flows into the inside mind.
8. It is inhuman to humanize animals, it is like raising a child in a cage.
In summary, when we humanize a puppy, we are actually raising a human baby. What is disturbing, we place the baby in the crib while we place the puppy in a cage.
The caveman in the box experiment also raises two important issues: Awareness and Consciousness. Awareness involves Perception and Reaction. If someone perceives something but doesn't react then the person is not aware of what he perceives. If someone reacts to something but doesn't perceive it then the person is not aware of such a thing. Perception and reaction play an important role in Awareness.
Now, what if all his sensory organs were shut down", will awareness emerge? Will he need to be aware of his surroundings first before he will become aware of himself? Does this mean he needs to learn the outside world first before he will understand his inside world? Will he be conscious of his surroundings or he will be staring at them point-blank? Instinct?
Do you know why a newborn baby cries when he gets out of the womb? Is crying really inborn or instinct? Is crying a product produce by the mechanical state of the body, cause produce by the parameters of his environment, or learned from the inside world of the womb?
Based on I.M., crying is not instinct! It is triggered mechanically by something from the outside world. Since the environment inside the womb is totally different from the outside world, the experience of crying outside the womb, which is something unfamiliar, unknown, and new to the baby, might have been triggered by the change in temperature, air pressure, light, noise or even smell. The experience of crying might have been influenced by the air rushing into his lungs like in the sensation of choking. As he gasps the air, his mouth "throws up" immediately and mechanically produces a sound we called crying. Thus crying is not instinct but inlearn, a repetitive experience that becomes a learned instinct over time.
Now, why do you think a kitten can save itself in the swimming pool while a newborn child can't? Is it instinct, inlearn, or both? Let us conduct another "thought experiment".
Let us say we took away the baby cat and the baby boy at the same time from their mother's womb and simultaneously toss both of them right away into a swimming pool. In a few seconds, both babies would probably experience the pain of suffocation, and eventually, air-gasping triggers their hands/feet to paddle. The baby boy would probably sink while the cat would probably still be paddling until he gets to safety.
But how did the baby cat gets into safety and saves its own life? If we look at the body structure of the kitten and the baby boy, the kitten's four legs are designed strategically in contrast to the boy's two legs. The body of the baby boy is configured vertically while the body of the kitten is horizontal. The center of mass of the kitten is different from the center of mass of the baby boy. All these factors helped the kitten to survive and live.
In this experiment, we may conclude that instinct is not present in both subjects. It tells us that information must either be experienced, acquired or learned first before it becomes instinct. Inlearning is a mechanical impulsive reaction triggered by a perilous environment. Instinct is actually a learned instinct.
"It is inhuman to humanize an animal; you might raise a child in a cage." ~ Joey Lawsin
