First off, I feel the question what is the meaning of life to animals is one of insurmountable subjectivity, especially considering we have not even nailed down the meaning of life for ourselves. Obviously, this is a more lighthearted subject, after all I feel we cannot really infer what the actual meaning of life to non-human animals is because we are not one. I shall do my best to respond to the question at hand, however.
I would say the meaning of life to an animal is just that, to live. I might be way off base in assuming that animals have no need or time to consider what they want to do with their lives, what to be when they grow up, what they should invest their money in, whether or not God exists, or contemplate when they are going to die. Animals seem to want or need a few things, these being, the need to eat, sleep, have sex, rinse and repeat. Granted I might be skipping over some things, like social interaction or bathing. However, I think that animals know more than we do and thus require less time for pondering such ideas like the meaning of life. In short I would assert that the meaning of living to an animal is basic functions for survival and I feel that humans could learn a lot if they stopped questioning and just started living.
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You make some valid points about animal life. I just have one slight issue. If we stopped questioning and started living... then why are we coming to this class?
ReplyDeleteI guess it just amounts to questioning seeming to be natural for humans, and to deny that instinct might have detrimental effects upon our species as a whole. Besides, while there may be some humans who question too much, there are far more who do not ask enough questions, or they don't ask meaningful, insightful questions, which itself proves detrimental to our society and our species.