(Untitled)

[ignifer_glacie]

D.H. Lawrence

Self-Pity

I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself

Comments

[chron_job]

Well, I was being facetious, But If we want to get into it:

I'm not sure what's meant by "an emotional reaction to pain", but if what's meant by that is reacting to the pain in a context that relates the experience of pain to the self in a framework of time (being able to remember not-pain, and compare with pain) obviously this can't happen in a being that isn't self aware.

The fact that self pity as a response to pain, can only happen in a creature that's self aware, is a tautology.

Of course, this defeats the jist of the quoted poem even more thoroughly than my original comment... what's the use of alluding to wild creatures' supposedly laudable lack of self pity, when that's only because they don't have the capacity? Rather than (as I think the author is trying to imply) that wild creatures are somehow superior in character.

Also, I'm not sure where I draw the line on self awareness. I know that many apes, some dogs, and cetaceans react to the "mirror test" in ways that lead us to infer that they are self aware.

> animals sorta don't suffer like we do, because it hasn't been conducive in natural selection.

I would say Animals don't suffer like we do, because we are using a human centric definition of suffering. If it were not conducive to natural selection... why then do humans suffer? As we are also the result of natural selection.

The question is related I guess, to that other question... is Consciousness (human style) a natural advantage on which selection has acted? Or is it a side effect of other capacities that WERE selected for, but is not itself very advantageous. I don't know, but I lean toward the former.