I keep saying this and people say I’m crazy, but whales, elephants, and some other animals for sure have religion (a codified mythos of spirituality passed down through generations). Our experience is not remotely unique.
Recent studies show that birds, whales, and many other animals use consistent grammar and have accents. They’re not just making mindless sounds, they’re communicating with purpose. We’ve documented empathy in several other species. Some other species outperform us in memory and certain cognitive tests.
And many animals have been observed objectively playing and having fun. It’s pretty narcissistic to think we’re that much more advanced than other animals. Just because our culture places great emphasis on our ability to manipulate our environment doesn’t mean those that don’t aren’t as ‘evolved’ as we are. That’s very egotistical, and has led to some of our subcultures oppressing even other humans that lived nomadically or with nature as ‘subhuman’.
Wanting our cheese wrapped in plastic doesn’t make us more highly evolved. We’re just as evolved as everything else alive right now, and of course it’s probable that some other animals appreciate fun. It’s a concept even our newborns understand. It’s ludicrous to assume otherwise, imo.
I’ve seen some of the stuff pointing toward some of this but… What can be shown to substantiate the religion thing?
Some pods of whales will revisit certain coordinates yearly, or on longer timelines that are extremely regular, where there’s no discernible reason (no food, they’re not mating, etc). They hang out for a while, then leave. They don’t do anything special there but vocalise more, and they’ll put off hunting for this social interaction. It’s reminiscent of early human history when we were nomadic and would sometimes gather, foregoing hunts in favour of sharing stories, often in the form of legends. Our earliest mythologies and spiritualism grew from this, and there’s no reason to discount their behaviour as so different from early hominins.
Elephants have been known for revisiting the bones of family members for decades, and a recent paper has been submitted with evidence they’ve been observed burying their dead on purpose – carrying babies for miles to man-made trenches. They obviously can’t do that with their larger dead, but they appear to prefer their dead to be protected from predation if possible, and they stay with the bodies for days, trumpeting. That strongly suggests they have some kind of opinions surrounding death, which again, in our own ancestors is inextricable from spirituality.
I personally think some other animals have religion – I have no real evidence as that’s just my opinion. I think we vastly underestimate animals and overestimate our relative importance.
e: link
If you like to play with a good toy now and then, that says something about you.
Also consider, this toy involved no fantasies of mass murder.
While I cant explain the slug, I just want to point out that a reason these small animals might be attracted to it might include exercising in a confined space. Just running kind of works against many creatures hiding instincts. And running in place is practice for running in a chase.
Seems to be the video of the experiment: https://youtu.be/TbB1FJB6Y0s?si=TpL_0P7faMhgOVZM
Link with site tracking removed: https://youtu.be/TbB1FJB6Y0s
I am not a bot, and this action was performed manually.
Is this running distance? That’s a completely unfair metric for the slug.
Slugs to be you then, I guess. :P
In all seriousness, the graph shows different species as fraction of total uses recorded. Since the paper is mostly about mice, and behavioural differences under different circumstances, it being unfair to the slugs is probably not such a big deal here.
This just reminds me that bumble bees will play with small wooden beads if they’re left out, mostly just rolling them about aimlessly and sometimes jumping on them because apparently they are amused by it rolling over with them on top of it.
This is too cute, it can’t possibly be true. I demand pictures and videos!
