Are animals wiser than us?

Question

I don't mean smarter. I know that humans are the "smartest" species.
Yet look at us, living complicated lives, creating wars, letting members of our species starve just because they don't have pieces of green paper to buy food and polluting the environment. Slaving away our entire lives working for some idiot than inherited a corporation and millions from his parents without moving a muscle.
Look at us, wating our lives with meaningless jobs, worrying about love and philosophical questions that we cannot answer, fighting against each other in a stupid rat-race.
And then look at the animals, only worrying about the basic stuff, having food, shelter and being happy with so little. They don't complicate their lives with ideologies, nationalities, racial discrimination, religion, or meaningless jobs. They don't ask what's their purpose in life, they just live and enjoy the ride.
Look at the birds singing, at the dogs frolicking in the grass, at the dolphins jumping happily.

Look at them and their simple and happy lives.
Look at us and our complicated livestyles. Our mindless pollution, our slow self-destruction with drugs or tobacco. The unnecessary worries we create for ourselves, when life is really so easy.

Could it be, that animals are wiser than us?

Answer 1

Wiser? Absolutely, not. They are just more in tune with their sense of survival. We have pretty much lost it.

Answer 2

There is a difference between individual wisdom and collective wisdom. Individually, animals cannot compete with the intellect and wisdom of human beings... except for some human beings. On the collective scale... lets just say wisdom is defined by making good choices. In order to make good choices you must have the ability to make choices. Humananity is for the most part the only species that possesses the ability to make collective choices and therefore is the only species that possesses collective wisdom. No matter how unwise humanity is collectively animals have no collective wisdom at all. Something is greater than nothing.

Based upon the aforementioned - Humans show greater wisdom individually and collectively and are therefore more wise than animals.

Answer 3

Sorry to have to quote but this fits perfectly with the Matrix trilogy's idea that "ignorance is bliss". We know more, and that makes us less content with the basic needs of life, so we keep struggling for luxuries that we think will make life better, creating more problems in the process. The problem with humans is the power struggle. Everyone wants to be rich and superior, and they'll step on others to get there.

I actually think philosophy and religion are our ways of bringing order to chaos. Our ways of finding explanations for why we there's so much suffering in the world,. All religions teach us to love and be at peace with one another, but sadly in the power struggle we seem to have lost our spirituality. We care too much about our own interests to bother about humanity and the entire species. And those who do care often don't find the right means, and they don't have enough influence to change something so deeply rooted in us all.

So yes, animals do live wiser and happier than we do, and I just hope we will stop denying them of their happiness with the pollution and habitat destruction that we're causing.

Answer 4

I truly feel that we people who are supposedly "smarter" than animals could definately learn a tremendous amount from them. How many animals suffer from depression, phobias, addictions, heart attacks, high blood pressure, etc? But people do, due to the stress we inflict on ourselves in everyday life. We need to take a (or many) lessons from animals and go back to the basics of just living and loving - try to keep life simple and not complicate it more than it already is.

Answer 5

Wise - Any Action/Cause/Choice that doe's not cause pain/suffering.
Unwise - Any Action/Cause/Choice that causes pain/suffering.
In order to be considered wise or unwise there has to be an intended action cause or choice. Animals (unfortunately like humanoids) do not think or make choices, they are meryl reacting instinctively.
Humanoid - A reactive or anamalistic creature. (the most cunning of all the animals and not a predator but preying on it's own kind is a cannibal, evil and insincere to be feared and avoided or contained. Educating is possible but dangerous and usually futile)
Human - A Humanoid that is educated to and has become a philosophical/thoughtful creature. (beyond harmless, this creature seeks ways to be helpful/pleasurable incapable of evil or insincerity and not to be feared.)

Answer 6

Wisdom is the ability to ask why. Wisdom is acquired through contemplation of the answers. Would a lemming be considered wise after he leaped off a cliff?

Answer 7

We can only guess that there lives are simple and happy. They could be simple and miserable for all we know. Still, sometimes when I'm looking straight into their eyes, I feel they ARE wiser than us and that they think humans are big screw ups.

Answer 8

No, I think they're just more simplistic. They cannot experience the feelings of bliss, satisfaction, and redemption that we do. I look at it as we have higher highs and lower lows than them. We have more freedom, more knowledge, more power than animals. Therefore we live more complicated lives, which gives us more enjoyment and yet more suffering.

Answer 9

That's because humans are evolving enties. We have spacific lessons to learn while we are here. That is why we were given a more complex brain. You are obviously young, not to insult you, just to let you know it will all become much clearer to you as you get older.

Answer 10

Sometimes I think dogs have the wisest lives:
1. sleep when you're tired
2. eat when you're hungry
3. love with all your heart
4. protect the ones you love with your life
5. check out anything that smells good
6. last and best of all, find someone who will feed you and clean up your messes and yet still love you!

Answer 11

Yes they are, they take care of their own families & don't expect everyone else to do it. Just look at all the children in USA that no one wants & most peolpe could care less about them, I say the USA should take care of our own before worrying about the rest of the world, we have our own poor, homeless & children, that need our help we should care about them instead everybody else. I'm climbing off of my soapbox now, but seriously we need to take care of our own. I kind of got off track, sorry.