Here are a few clips from the screening on Bowerbirds we watched last Thursday. Just follow the link below to see the YouTube links. I highly recommend you watch these clips, because I will bring them up in class later in the semester.
9.30.06
UIUC Fall 2006
9.30.06
Here are a few clips from the screening on Bowerbirds we watched last Thursday. Just follow the link below to see the YouTube links. I highly recommend you watch these clips, because I will bring them up in class later in the semester.
Kristina Hughes | 12-Sep-06 at 12:25 am | Permalink
To Descartes, animals were only corporeal objects; only machines. Descartes believed they move on their own but only according to their bodies, that they are merely very sohpisticated machines. However, if we are only sure without doubt of our own mind, then how do we know animals do not think? These videos illustrate this contradiction: different female animals are attracted to different nests the male animals make. Their bodies are all the same, however a different entity allows these birds to distinguish and choose one nest from another.
Patrick Morrissey | 13-Sep-06 at 12:47 pm | Permalink
I agree with Kristina’s point that animals have a form of free will. I do not agree with Descartes’ concept that animals are just a extension. I think animals, especially the birds in the video’s have some form of free will. I agree with Sartre in respect to the fact that the birds have free will and the will determines their actions. This is evident when the birds try to lure the females with impressive nests and singing.
Kyle Padera | 17-Sep-06 at 4:02 pm | Permalink
I am fascinated by the idea of animals having free will. Here I was just reading about someone who does not think humans have free will yet animals maintain this uncanny ability to defy what we could not. Nevertheless I believe that it is the nature of these birds to do what they do. It follows a form of natural selection as to how and who each birds pick. In actuality I think it would be amazing to study the ideals of free will as exhibited by non-humans, but it is a very hard argument to formulate considering we have no technology that can read a mind, let alone an animal mind.
Rickin Shah | 26-Sep-06 at 9:43 pm | Permalink
I agree with Patrick about the idea that animals have free will. It’s remarkably different how these birds go about picking and choosing how they feel the nest should look. The fact that they seem to exhibit choice in the acorns or leaves or flowers they even pick up should be enough to constitute a good argument for free will. One could argue that some of this is natural instinct and i would agree with that to a certain extent…making the nest at all is naturally instinctive but the aestetic modifications i feel really give a strong push for animals w/ free will theory.
Daniel Worst | 28-Sep-06 at 8:24 am | Permalink
I like these clips because these birds make something so perfect it would be hard for me to duplicate it. My favorite part is the bird that could make chainsaw noises and car alarms. I would like to study that bird and see how exactly it is able to make such noises. It is interesting to think that animals have free will, but when you see that they have a mind and a body just like humans, you could hypothesize that they do have free will. Then again, how would we ever know for sure that animals have free will because we can never communicate with them to see what they were thinking.