[Buddha-l] Re: on eating meat

[Andrew Skilton]

Thu, 20 Oct 2005  Joy Vriens wrote:

>>Lucky kids!

>I made myself a rule that I would systematically try to answer all their 
>Why questions, without ever qualifying them as as silly or not 
>important. That's a hell of lot of work and often I have to admit I 
>don't know or add lots of disclaimers! So now they are not afraid to ask 
>anything or even to question anything.

You are a paragon. Very lucky kids! Admitting one doesn't know is very
productive for all parties, don't you think?

>> Is it a further measure of my 'madness' that I think I read recently that
tests
>> have shown some dogs able to recognise a vocabulary of several hundred words?
 

>That's interesting, I expect that means they recognise a vocabulary of 
>several hundreds human words, many of which probably concern "things" 
>that are objects for humans, but not necessarily for them? Didn't 
>Wittgenstein say that if a lion could speak our language we wouldn't 
>understand him?

Yes, I you are right in your interpretation of this.  These were all human words
that they were trained to recognise, I think.  Dogs and humans have a long
history of relatively intimate mutual training/conditioning, of course - unlike
lions and humans. I note how much time my dogs spend studying my behaviours -
I'd love to know how they interpret how I live my life.

By the way, I wrote that comment on dog vocabulary 'tongue in cheek'.  I hope it
will not  disappoint you but I do not actually talk to my dogs. Well, that's not
quite true - I occasionally address them rhetorically.  I guess there is a
rudimentary 'body language' that we have taught each other, and which they
understand better than I.

Andrew



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Andrew Skilton 

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