Consciousness.....Good or Bad ??

Question

Is higher consciousness necessarily a good thing ??
After all, the lower animals are not conscious of
the fact that they will die. They can know pain, but
they do not know their final fate, as we do.
Like they say.. " It's a dog's life "

Answer 1

The doubt is because of the experience that there is always something to know further..... so why not choose ignorance ?
But consciousness is something that is a fulfillment in itself, not leaving things halfway.... and, there is no other way to be, except being 'fully' conscious, what ever it takes !

Answer 2

I think consciousness is probably a good thing. I mean without thinking, it's not much of an existence is it? I think animals are aware of their own mortality. They know to defend themselves. They know to eat to survive. They have to deal with it when those around them die...They may not think & reason the way that we do (we certainly wouldn't know if they did since we don't speak their language). I know that they dream because I've seen the way they move during sleep. I know they remember because there have been animals I haven't seen in years & they still recognize & come running to me when they see me. They act on instinct for the most part but they do learn (sometimes better than humans do. If an animal makes a mistake that causes pain, they learn not to repeat it. As humans sometimes we spend our whole lives making the same mistakes & hurting ourselves...so who's the "lower" animal?)

:)

We don't know our final fate either. Not exactly. We don't know when & we don't know what it will be like. Animals probably know that they will die. I've heard of people with aging animals who were near their time & they became more affectionate & needed to be near their owner & looked them in the eye. They knew. They're just not as neurotic as we are. They don't obsess over things. It's just a fact of life. You're born. You survive. You die.

I'm a cat person myself. I'm in awe of them. So beautiful, so graceful. Perfect creatures. I think Egyptians had the right idea...

Answer 3

Funny, you're worried about the morality of consciousness,
but me-- I'm lead to think about the morality of euthanasia by your question. Isn't the human mind something?

Answer 4

Who says animals are not conscious of the fact that they will die? Have you asked them?

Answer 5

Both. It is bad. It makes us destructive, even to ourselves. But it also gives us human nature, which, in a certain light, is amazing and unique to us. We experiance the greatest of the great and the worst of te worst.