The un-conscious distortion of the facts is almost harmless compared to the unconscious neglect of an animal's mental life until it verges on the unusual and marvelous.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
There has been so much underestimating of animal cognition that to perhaps overestimate it, as I probably do, is probably a healthy reaction.
There is little evidence that other animals judge the appropriateness of actions that do not directly affect themselves.
The restriction of studies of human intellect and character to studies of conscious states was not without influence on a scientific studies of animal psychology.
If it is indeed impossible - or at least very difficult - to inhabit the consciousness of an animal, then in writing about animals there is a temptation to project upon them feelings and thoughts that may belong only to our own human mind and heart.
The contradictions are what make human behavior so maddening and yet so fascinating, all at the same time.
There's certainly nothing original about the observation that conscious experience poses a hard problem.
Some statements concern the conscious states of the animal, what he is to himself as an inner life; others concern his original and acquired ways of response, his behavior, what he is an outside observer.
There is no reasoning, no process of inference or comparison; there is no thinking about things, no putting two and two together; there are no ideas - the animal does not think of the box or of the food or of the act he is to perform.
I consider nothing low but ignorance, vice, and meanness, characteristics generally found where the animal propensities predominate over the higher sentiments.
Our unconscious is not more animal than our conscious, it is often even more human.