Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions

RICHARD: Have you never been frightened by a sudden and unexpected loud noise (for example) before you could think? Are you not aware that the freeze-fight-flee instinctual reaction is also observable in other animals than the human animal? Have you not read about the laboratory tests demonstrating that feelings come before thoughts in the perceptive process? Has it not occurred to you that a baby is born with (affective) feelings ... which is well before thinking begins? Moreover, as all animals are born with instinctual passions, such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire, are you suggesting they can think?

RESPONDENT: Of course animals can think, they have a brain don’t they? They have a memory don’t they? If they have a brain then they have memory and if they have memory then they will have thoughts. One follows the other as a thought is just a memory inside the brain.

RICHARD: Just for starters ... if, as you say, animals can think – that they can conceive in, or exercise the mind with, or form, or have in the mind, an hypothesis, a theory, a supposition, a plan, a design, a notion, an idea, or can conceive of mentally as in meditate on, turn over in the mind, ponder, contemplate, deliberate or reflect on and come to the understanding in a positive active way and form connected objectives or otherwise have the capacity to cogitate and conjecture and choose mentally (as in form a clear mental impression of something actual) – then how is it that when a famine or drought occurs they languish and/or die just as plants do?

RESPONDENT: It was not enough the arbitrary infinity of the universe, now we have also the unhappiness of the animals.

RICHARD: There is nothing ‘arbitrary’ about being the actual experiencing of infinitude itself ... but if that is the way you comprehend what I have to report (when I say things like ‘as this flesh and blood body only I am the universe experiencing itself apperceptively; as such this infinite, eternal, and perpetual universe is stunningly aware of its own infinitude’ for example) then that is your business.

As for ‘the unhappiness of the animals’ you speak of ... I can only presume you are referring to this:

• [Vineeto]: ‘The idea that animals are innocent or happy is a myth’.

Perhaps if I were to put it this way? If you can demonstrate that animals have no instinctual passions, such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire, and thus, being always happy and innocent (aka harmless), already live together in peace and harmony I will be most surprised.

RESPONDENT: How do you know that?

RICHARD: By being born and raised on a farm being carved out of virgin forest I interacted with other animals – both domesticated and in the wild – from a very early age and have been able to observe again and again that, by and large, animals are not happy and harmless ... they are mostly on the alert, vigilant, scanning for attack, and prone to the passionate fright-freeze-flee-fight reaction all sentient beings genetically inherit.

Further to the point I was able to observe, and have maintained a life-long interest in observing, the correspondence the basic instinctual passions in the human animal have with the basic instinctual passions in the other animals ... to see the self-same feelings of fear and aggression and nurture and desire, for example, in other sentient beings renders any notion them living in peace and harmony simply ridiculous.

For some simple examples: I have seen a dog acting in a way that can only be called pining; I have watched a cat toying with a mouse in a manner that would be dubbed cruel; I have noticed cows ‘spooked’ and then stampede in what must be described as hysteria; I have beheld stallions displaying what has to be labelled aggression; I have observed many animals exhibiting what has to be specified as fear ... and even in these days of my retirement, from my comfortable suburban living room, I can tune into documentaries on this very topic: only a few months ago a television series was aired again about observations made of chimpanzees over many, many years in their native habitat and I was able to identify fear, aggression, territoriality, civil war, robbery, rage, infanticide, cannibalism, nurture, grief, group ostracism, bonding, desire, and so on, being displayed in living colour.

I have to hand a National Geographic article on chimpanzees in the wild in which Ms. Jane Goodall uses words such as ‘war and kidnapping, killing and cannibalism’ and ‘affectionate and supportive bonds’ and ‘pleasure, sadness, curiosity, alarm, rage’ and ‘chimpanzees are creatures of extremes: aggressive one moment, peaceful the next’ when describing what she observed over 20-plus years ... here is an excerpt describing cannibalism (she gave each chimpanzee a name): <snip>

The text for a photograph has this to say: <snip>

And another photograph depicting out-and-out war: <snip>

I am only too happy to send you the full article if that would be of assistance.

RESPONDENT: Do you have an animal brain to know it?

RICHARD: If by this you mean, for example, that only a dog can experience how a dog experiences itself then we may as well stop this discussion right now.

RESPONDENT: I’d like to clarify a point you made to No 38 recently.

RESPONDENT No 38: …the implication is that the underlying human intelligence (including the unique personality components) by its very nature is ‘happy and harmless’, sensately revelling in the universe. Is that a general case or could there be instances of specific human intelligences that do not have that nature, but revel in e.g. causing misery to others? Animals appear to thoroughly enjoy life, unless they’ve been damaged psychologically. Is being happy our birthright, which we typically squander?

VINEETO: I don’t know which kind of animals you have in mind, but animals on farms or in the wild do not enjoy life – they are driven by the survival instinct of ‘what can I eat, what can eat me’. In the wild animals are constantly on the alert, vigilant for predators and scanning for attack on prey. Animals that are provided with shelter, food and security become domesticated such that the survival instincts are not as pre-eminent but when push comes to shove the wild animal instantly re-surfaces – exactly as it does in the domesticated human animal when push comes to shove. Animals are not aware that they are cruel, in panic, pining or bored but some are nevertheless are run by feelings and all of them are driven by instinctive imperatives. The idea that animals are innocent or happy is a myth.

RESPONDENT: I’m very curious about this whole line of reasoning and where it comes from. A couple points that are unclear to me...<snip> You state that animals in the wild are ‘constantly on the alert, vigilant for predators and scanning for attack on prey.’ I do think it’s obvious that animals in the wild must be vigilant – both for predators and prey, but I wonder about this word ‘constantly’ that you use here. I’m told for example that some tigers sleep up to 18-20 hours per day – that certainly doesn’t sound like ‘constant vigilance’ – and we’re all familiar with videos of them having time for play and romping around.

VINEETO: Tigers are not a representative example of animals in the wild. They are exceptional in that they are at the top of the food chain in many places and therefore need to be less constantly vigilant than the general population of animals that not only need to hunt but are hunted as well.

Most people who make romantic videos of playing and romping big cats and other ‘cute and lovable’ animals passionately believe in a Garden of Eden-type ‘natural paradise’ which is supposed to have existed before humans roamed the earth and these people have a vested interest in presenting animals as being innocent and happy – a natural state that was supposedly corrupted by the very presence of human beings. Nature documentaries, while appearing to be visual evidence of the leisurely and playful life of wild animals, is nevertheless information tainted by the beliefs and feelings of the people who researched, filmed, edited, produced and annotated it. (see )

RESPONDENT: Also, I don’t know about you, but I interpret their hunting activity as probably quite enjoyable – much like people enjoy the hunt as well.

VINEETO: People who are nowadays hunting animals for sport do it for pleasure and entertainment, not for survival – they enjoy the temporary unrestrained expression of the instinctual passions to hunt and kill. Animals in the wild need to hunt and kill in order to survive and most animals fear becoming a meal for some other predator.

Speaking personally again, I like it that we humans have risen to the top of the food chain – that I don’t have to worry about being eaten by a tiger outside the supermarket or having to shoot a crocodile out of the garden.

RESPONDENT: Oh, and to not be concerned about guilt when killing another animal – that sounds pretty good to me too.

VINEETO: Everyone is instilled with a social conscience and it is an age-old dream to free oneself from the shackles of this societal conscience by returning to one’s natural state, the so-called innocence of the wild and uncultured, to a state before one’s feeling of guilt ever existed. The idea that animals are both happy and innocent because they don’t know or feel guilt is based upon the belief that if it weren’t for guilt one would be happy and carefree.

If ‘that sounds pretty good’ to you I suggest you read Ramesh Balsekar – he has made a cult out of his no guilt philosophy.

RESPONDENT: Generally animals only kill to eat.

RICHARD: Dream on ... animals are instinctually-driven by territoriality, just as the human animal is; animals are instinctually-driven to defend their young, just as the human animal is; animals are instinctually-driven to compete to copulate, just as the human animal is.

RESPONDENT: Animals don’t kill others of the same species except in rare instances.

RICHARD: Oh, we have been down this same-same path before, you and I ... try watching the ‘National Geographic Channel’ for starters, and see what the chimpanzees get up to regularly. And try watching with both eyes and not take too much notice of what the narrators say. Watch rather than listen to pap.

RESPONDENT: Wild animals do not abuse each other.

RICHARD: Dream on ... I have seen a cat toying with a mouse in a manner that can only be dubbed cruel; I have seen magpies playing with a live cricket in a manner that can only be called mean; I have watched many animals exhibiting what must be specified as abuse. Once again, the ‘National Geographic Channel’ shows chimpanzees in their native habitat ... I see civil war, robbery, rage, infanticide, cannibalism, grief, group ostracism ... and so on. It is easily discerned by those with the eyes to see that animals do not have peace-on-earth by being natural. This insistence that the animal state being a natural state and therefore somehow desirable because human are ‘divided from nature’ that is held by many people is just nonsense ... I am glad that I am human and that we are living in a civilised society with all that technology can offer. We have already improved on nature so much in the areas of technology, animal breeding and plant cultivation, for instance.

RESPONDENT: You may be projecting your own suppressed conflict onto ‘out there’(?)

RICHARD: And you may be repeating yourself again soon ... can you not move on past your preconceived notions and actually look at the animal world as-it-is? Just because they do not have spears and bows and arrows and rifles and machine-guns and missiles does not mean that they would not if capable. They are as instinctually-driven with fear and aggression and nurture and desire as the human animal is.

RESPONDENT: Animals experience more happiness that humans because they don’t think (worry) and we do.

RICHARD: As ‘worry’ is a feeling – be it an anxious feeling, an apprehensive feeling, a fretful feeling, a nervous feeling and so on – I would suggest looking deeper than thought, thoughts and thinking before coming to a conclusion. And, as animals can be anxious, apprehensive, fretful, nervous and so on, it is highly questionable whether they are more happy than the human animal.

But whether they are more happy or not is besides the point anyway: the point being that only the human animal has the ability to think, reflect, compare, evaluate and implement considered action for beneficial reasons ... thus only the human animal can dispense with the blind survival passions.

Then one is not only constantly happy but constantly harmless as well.

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Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless