Why want to be an animal?

[Keryth]

Ive had a question on my mind for some time now. You know how there are those peoples who want to be actual animals? Not anthros that are more like animals, but actual animal animals. Ive wondered, why would you want to be something that's less physically and mentally capable then what you are now?

[Jack.is]

Most of the animals that people want to be are hardly less physically capable than humans. Mentally, sure, but all those cute, fluffy, common mammals that people fantasize of being are typically faster, stronger, sharper-eyed, -eared, and -nosed, etc.

It could be that people who want to be these animals wish to be an animal with human cognition, or they feel that they would be content with a solely animal mind. (Of course, once you're stuck with it there's no being anything *but* content with it, but you see what I mean.)

IMO it all stems from a desire for a much simpler life. As an animal one wouldn't have to deal with human responsibilities. Survival is a more pressing and constant issue, though, but I've seen many people overlook or underestimate this.

[Kris]

Most of the animals that people want to be are hardly less physically capable than humans. Mentally, sure, but all those cute, fluffy, common mammals that people fantasize of being are typically faster, stronger, sharper-eyed, -eared, and -nosed, etc.

It could be that people who want to be these animals wish to be an animal with human cognition, or they feel that they would be content with a solely animal mind. (Of course, once you're stuck with it there's no being anything *but* content with it, but you see what I mean.)

IMO it all stems from a desire for a much simpler life. As an animal one wouldn't have to deal with human responsibilities. Survival is a more pressing and constant issue, though, but I've seen many people overlook or underestimate this.

You'll see those two answers popping up a lot(though the latter people tend to not advertise, whether it be from something they dislike physically, to responsibilities, or other things that they may or may not have screwed up in their life)

Me? I just think it'd be cool 

[Black Foot]

Well we love those kind of animal and wish that we could be that animal since we don't have that many worries except for the normal mundane that doesn't want to become an animal but we have to worry about the normal mundane hunting for us unless were a mythical creature then we could be ok for the time being unless we were put into a secret place that to goverment has to study us then we will need to worry alot.

[Keryth]

Woah, run on sentence there buddy O.o

I guess in some aspects they are physically more capable, at least with senses. But still, living with the thought that you will never have your thumbs back? Guess its just me. But I see where you're coming from on the simpler life thing. Its like it goes, ignorance is bliss.

[Bloodtooth]

Woah, run on sentence there buddy O.o

 Its like it goes, ignorance is bliss.

True on both, lol.

Yeah, Ignorance is Bliss. Come on, I think everyone at one point has looked at an animal and thought "What I'd give to be in your shoes, buddy." When things get you stressed, annoyed, fed up... wouldn't it be nice to be say, a cat? All you worry about is a warm place to sleep and food being put down, and a bit of fuss.

I do admit, I totally would prefer to stay Human, I like my thoughts and my thumbs, and the fact I can drive. But sometimes... maybe ignorance really is bliss?

[Anthro_Inquisitor]

In my opinion with an mental capacity of an animal I wouldn't comprehend prolonged suffering, something humans can comprehend.

Its not only ignorance, but an inability to comprehend the pains and sorrows of human life.



Of course it goes both ways, it takes alot of time to understand the good things. Yet at the same time and animal wouldn't want those.


I wouldn't mind, and sometimes wish I was, an animal. Mainly due to the fact that the absolute-mindedness and simplicity of 'survival is the key' makes it seems more appealing. Best part is if that I found out I was wrong... I wouldn't know it, nor care.

[Alexandre]

IMO it all stems from a desire for a much simpler life. As an animal one wouldn't have to deal with human responsibilities. Survival is a more pressing and constant issue, though, but I've seen many people overlook or underestimate this.

This is quite true.  Survival could be a beast. 

All my life, I've fantasized about being a cat.  It's not something that perturbs my every thought, but I've always thought about it for a few reasons:

1.  I would have fewer worries.  A house-cat doesn't get stressed out very often.
2.  It would be loads of fun.
3.  I would be extremely and irresistibly adorable. 

[Baako]

IMO it all stems from a desire for a much simpler life. As an animal one wouldn't have to deal with human responsibilities. Survival is a more pressing and constant issue, though, but I've seen many people overlook or underestimate this.

This is quite true.  Survival could be a beast. 

All my life, I've fantasized about being a cat.  It's not something that perturbs my every thought, but I've always thought about it for a few reasons:

1.  I would have fewer worries.  A house-cat doesn't get stressed out very often.
2.  It would be loads of fun.
3.  I would be extremely and irresistibly adorable. 

But as an animal all 3 of those bonuses would be irrelevant as you would not aknowledge them as important issues, you wouldn't even find it fun as it would just be basic instincts keeping you going.

[Timberwuff]

I beg to differ on that notion of lack of fun. A house cat would definitely know what is fun and what wouldn't be, they usually strive to have fun when they can, often times meowing at you like crazy for it.

And yes, it would be extremely and irresistibly cute and fun.

[Keryth]

Thinking more about it though, you'd be ignorant since your mind would be programmed to follow simple rules, and you wouldn't have reason. Now more I think they have innocence over ignorance. Not like animals ever could experience jet skiing, or airsoft, or video games, or love. Guess they just don't mentally, or subconsciously, know what they're missing in comparison to people.

[Motion]

What is it like to be a bat?

http://www.clarku.edu/students/philosophyclub/docs/nagel.pdf


No one wants to be an animal. They want what they think it might be like to be an animal.

[Feathertail]

No one wants to be an animal. They want what they think it might be like to be an animal.

They want that, though, because they're dissatisfied with their lives and are thinking that anything else has to be better. Survival is an appealing goal because it's real; it isn't about kissing up to the boss, or selling people on things they don't need, or realizing you just spent money on something that will only make your life more cluttered and complicated.

A lot of people recognize that their own lives are unsatisfying and unnatural, and yearn for something else. Add in the potent symbolism that animals represent, and you have a winner. As for me, I had so much trouble turning my brain off to go to sleep last night that I kinda wished I could become nonsentient at will, so that I wouldn't have to keep thinking about things.

[Motion]

No one wants to be an animal. They want what they think it might be like to be an animal.

They want that, though, because they're dissatisfied with their lives and are thinking that anything else has to be better. Survival is an appealing goal because it's real; it isn't about kissing up to the boss, or selling people on things they don't need, or realizing you just spent money on something that will only make your life more cluttered and complicated.

A lot of people recognize that their own lives are unsatisfying and unnatural, and yearn for something else. Add in the potent symbolism that animals represent, and you have a winner. As for me, I had so much trouble turning my brain off to go to sleep last night that I kinda wished I could become nonsentient at will, so that I wouldn't have to keep thinking about things.

You do not have to be unhappy with your own life to have a "grass is greener" approach when looking at being an animal.

[Alexandre]

You do not have to be unhappy with your own life to have a "grass is greener" approach when looking at being an animal.

I completely agree. 

Thinking more about it though, you'd be ignorant since your mind would be programmed to follow simple rules, and you wouldn't have reason. Now more I think they have innocence over ignorance. Not like animals ever could experience jet skiing, or airsoft, or video games, or love. Guess they just don't mentally, or subconsciously, know what they're missing in comparison to people.

And our mind isn't programmed to follow specific rules right now?  From the way I see it (and I could be completely wrong), their rules are not necessarily more simple, nor are ours more complex.  Rather, they're simply a different set of rules.  Perhaps they can never realize what they're missing as animals, but we'll never fully comprehend what we're missing as humans.

Mind you, Keryth, I can see where you're coming from; my argument isn't any more valid than yours. 

[AzureVixen]

Ive had a question on my mind for some time now. You know how there are those peoples who want to be actual animals? Not anthros that are more like animals, but actual animal animals. Ive wondered, why would you want to be something that's less physically and mentally capable then what you are now?

It's because we love the animals enough that we wish to be just like them
I'd rather be my fursona any day. It happens to be a fox.

[Wolvenblaze]

This is a good antithesis to the "Proud to be Human" thread.

I personally wouldn't enjoy the simple life of an animal.  It's the complexities of the world that make it worth living in.  All of the needless human-developed conflicts, redundant systems, and stresses, pollution, war, strife, all of these aren't things that need to be fled from.  They are things that make existence interesting.  I don't think ignorance is bliss.  It's more of a lamentable state that makes the victim think he is happy.

I would prefer to know that I was going to die tomorrow unavoidably and suffer through it painfully, than to have it happen suddenly "without feeling a thing."

[Anthro_Inquisitor]

This is a good antithesis to the "Proud to be Human" thread.

I personally wouldn't enjoy the simple life of an animal.  It's the complexities of the world that make it worth living in.  All of the needless human-developed conflicts, redundant systems, and stresses, pollution, war, strife, all of these aren't things that need to be fled from.  They are things that make existence interesting.  I don't think ignorance is bliss.  It's more of a lamentable state that makes the victim think he is happy.

I would prefer to know that I was going to die tomorrow unavoidably and suffer through it painfully, than to have it happen suddenly "without feeling a thing."

The thing is that as an animal existence wouldn't need to be interesting, you wouldn't feel the need for it. There would also be no desire for perferences as to how you die, so the life is not only simple but programed.

Its really just removing everything from life, the good and the bad, for a systematic life.

[Motion]

The thing is that as an animal existence wouldn't need to be interesting, you wouldn't feel the need for it. There would also be no desire for perferences as to how you die, so the life is not only simple but programed.

Its really just removing everything from life, the good and the bad, for a systematic life.

Animals have dopamine too, and have nerve endings, there is good and bad.

It's just an issue of that you can not, and will not, know what being an animal is like. So anyone trying to make the decision of "would I want to be an animal?" is basically just trying to make the judgment on the amount of happiness of an animal's life compared to that of their own.

[AzureVixen]

The thing is that as an animal existence wouldn't need to be interesting, you wouldn't feel the need for it. There would also be no desire for perferences as to how you die, so the life is not only simple but programed.

Its really just removing everything from life, the good and the bad, for a systematic life.

Ok it may not be 100% related but you said they don't care how they die. It makes me sad. I'm sure animals care as to when they die. Like what if they lose most their strength and can't get themselves food. I think they would be able to tell they are going to die and wouldn't be to happy about it. That's what I think even though it's probably wrong.

[Keryth]

Okay, thinking again, again, ONCE AGAIN, Thats what I was trying to get at that being an animal would just mean living by a programmed standard that doesn't fluctuate.

It's because we love the animals enough that we wish to be just like them

I dont like animals at all actually I take anthros into the perspective that rather than them being animals combined with humans, or the other way around, or animal based at all, I see anthros as an invented sort of species, like an aliened race or something from different realms, or worlds, or whatever you get what im going at.

Going off on a different route, theres a sort of balance thing going on here. Since animals don't have the worries, or the capacity of worry for that matter, that humans endure, they don't life that difficult of lives, but since they live easy systematic lives, they don't receive a much as people do. Since people know so much and have so much they get to do and enjoy, and so many emotions and stuff, they live more complex and cruddy lives, but since life is so cruddy we get such great things in return to enjoy.

We can all agree though that life sucks no matter what species you are, so in the end it doesn't really matter at all and were all just fooling ourselves.

[Motion]

Okay, thinking again, again, ONCE AGAIN, Thats what I was trying to get at that being an animal would just mean living by a programmed standard that doesn't fluctuate.

It's basically the same as that of a human, preform actions that make you feel good [via reward system in your brain] and preserve the life and health of your body. You could look at the world of the human as being a more complicated one, with lots of "math" and "politics." But animals are not robots.

We can all agree though that life sucks no matter what species you are, so in the end it doesn't really matter at all and were all just fooling ourselves.

Life is worth living, and then some.

[Keryth]

It's basically the same as that of a human, preform actions that make you feel good [via reward system in your brain] and preserve the life and health of your body. You could look at the world of the human as being a more complicated one, with lots of "math" and "politics." But animals are not robots.

Didn't say they were, just meant they preform actions based on a more primitive coding and decision making method. The thing that separates us is that we have reason. We can think about a situation in more detail, ask more questions about it like "What if" or "Then what after that", and we can make choices based on our morale. Yes we mainly do things that make us feel good, but that's cutting out the other big parts and shortening it to a one liner. I doubt an animal would be able to engineer a space ship, or invent the towel.

Life is worth living, and then some.

Okay, we can almost all agree that life still sorta sucks. Butyes, theres things that make it worth it.

[Motion]

Didn't say they were, just meant they preform actions based on a more primitive coding and decision making method. The thing that separates us is that we have reason. We can think about a situation in more detail, ask more questions about it like "What if" or "Then what after that", and we can make choices based on our morale. Yes we mainly do things that make us feel good, but that's cutting out the other big parts and shortening it to a one liner. I doubt an animal would be able to engineer a space ship, or invent the towel.

We make choices based on morals because it makes us... feel good about ourselves. Just another instance of us feeling good, not necessarily "do" good, because your morals can be completely different from everyone else's.

That's not fair, only one person gets to "invent" the towel. D:

And I guess I don't understand what you mean by the life sucks comments. Are we talking about for only animals? Because I believe that goes back to my first post about trying to understand what it's like to be a bat, it's just an assumption. But if you mean for humans then I'd have to disagree, living in the countries that most of us on the forums do, we have pretty good lives. We only need to work part of our lives and there's amazing amounts of entertainment presented to us cheaply with TV, computers, libraries and the radio. If I had to guess, I'd say we are probably a lot more "happy" then animals, but I have never been an animal, and can not actually say how "fun" it is or is not.

[Keryth]

Yeah, id agree that were definitely having more fun than animals. And when you put it that way life does sound more fun But there's always somewhere else you would rather be.