Do you think animals think of suicide?

Animals try so hard in the wild to survive and have offsprings, but what drives them so hard to do this? Don't you think that at some point an intelligent animal takes a step back (metaphorically) and realizes that he is just going to die and be eaten by worms? Like they try way to hard for nothing so don't you think at some point they just give up? I know I have seen dogs become depressed. So do you think this depression can cause a loss of will to survive?

it depends on what animal your talking about, basically it comes down to domesticated animals and wild. dogs and cats, yes they have emotions and they are entangled with their owners. A dog/cat living in a shit hole, dependent on the owners, probably wants to kill itself. Now a lion/bear/whale/deer or something in the wild, has the inate will to survive. nothing would stop a wild animal from doing its thang when theres no boarders or fences.

Hepheastus420 said:

Animals try so hard in the wild to survive and have offsprings, but what drives them so hard to do this? Don't you think that at some point an intelligent animal takes a step back (metaphorically) and realizes that he is just going to die and be eaten by worms? Like they try way to hard for nothing so don't you think at some point they just give up? I know I have seen dogs become depressed. So do you think this depression can cause a loss of will to survive?

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That's a really interesting idea, Hep. I've never even thought about it before. I did a little research, and there is debate about it, but I can't find anything conclusive. Take a look at these articles:

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2010/03/animals-do-not-commit-suicide.html
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1973486,00.html

[video=youtube;pK1jMHE1bkw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK1jMHE1bkw[/video]

This was a comment on the first link.
If two falcons would debate wether animals could fly, they could conclude, after watching two snails that they can't, forgetting that they, themselves are, indeed, animals.
We humans are animals. If we are able to commit suicide then some animals can.
So the question should be: what type of animals can commit suicide:

to understand the concept of suicide a animal must understand the concept of death and be self aware. so maybe.

That is the thing. Imo self-awareness is one of the prerequisites for sapience. Animals other than humans have shown little capacity for self-awareness, with a few talented trained apes being the exceptions. So I don't think animals think about death, self-inflicted or otherwise.
There were videos of elephants and macaques whose babies died, and the mother would not abandon the child's corpse until it was very obviously dead. While this argues for animals being capable of strong and complex emotion, there is a missing element there - sense of self, continuity of that self, relation of that self into story. Jmo.
cheers 'neer

actually their are many animals that will not leave their young until they are positive they are dead. i think its more an argument for a strong parental instinct along with the thing that alot of animals if they are seperated from their young and cant find them they will search and search and search for quite a while before giving up . i watch alot of wildlife shows.
i have seen a show where they work with bonobono(i believe thats the name) a primate originally thought to just be a subspecies of chimpanzees too and they are probably one of the smartest creatures on the earth. they even seem to have a child like understanding of death. one of the animals in the study died and when they were talking to the one through sign language and a computer and it was saying "sue is dead. dead is gone. i miss sue." to (look up a show called kings of the wild if you want to see more of how smart they are, its pretty incredible).

Heisenberg said:

Lemmings don't kill themselves

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i no they dont....that was just what i thought of when i saw the thread

good thread. i suppose that any animal with the ability to conceptualize life and death would be vunerable to suicide. animals that mate for life might fall into this category. animals that have to "fit in or die" would also fit in this category. the animal would have to be able to understand the relationship of the present and future to actually make a conscious decision to end its life. our ability to actually understand what's in an animal's "mind" is extremely limited, so to say conclusively that other animals do not have this awareness is a fail. 50 years ago we weren't even sure chimps used tools, now we know even blue jays (in captivity) to make and use tools. it's not much of a stretch to say that some of these animals have awareness beyond what we understand.

Jakabok Botch said:

i no they dont....that was just what i thought of when i saw the thread

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The vid was funny, and my comment was not directed at you. I figured lemmings would come up sooner than later.

Heisenberg said:

The vid was funny, and my comment was not directed at you. I figured lemmings would come up sooner than later.

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yeah, the video was funny, but "White Wilderness" was a so sad.

I can't believe disney would import lemmings just to film herding them off a cliff...
It looks like robot chicken was making a reference to that scene from the disney movie, White Wilderness.

ClosetSafe said:

yeah, the video was funny, but "White Wilderness" was a so sad.

I can't believe disney would import lemmings just to film herding them off a cliff...
It looks like robot chicken was making a reference to that scene from the disney movie, White Wilderness.

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9:55 they start fallin...id never seen this before....was woderin wat everyone was always talkin bout....[video=google;-4192932441686635859]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4192932441686635859[/video]

Heisenberg said:

Lemmings don't kill themselves

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after grazing the psychotropic lichen massive munchies: Hey I know Kelp run!! Weeeee.......!!!!!!

cannabineer said:

That is the thing. Imo self-awareness is one of the prerequisites for sapience. Animals other than humans have shown little capacity for self-awareness, with a few talented trained apes being the exceptions. So I don't think animals think about death, self-inflicted or otherwise.
There were videos of elephants and macaques whose babies died, and the mother would not abandon the child's corpse until it was very obviously dead. While this argues for animals being capable of strong and complex emotion, there is a missing element there - sense of self, continuity of that self, relation of that self into story. Jmo.
cheers 'neer

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i think there are more than a few self aware animals. i think chimps, pigs, dolphins, and maybe elephants are self aware. i know for a fact dolphins are

damn those things fucked themselves up on that cliff. notice how some realized what they were doing and started climbing back up. natural selection at work i guess lol

My neighbors dog ate a bunch of muscle relaxers and vicodins. Hmmmm well Im gonna have to bring this one up to him and see if he might consider counseling for his dog!!!

I do not think an animal cares if you commit sideways: just leave the door open so it will eat your carcass. Use norml to contact your reps do something useful?
My second wifes dog ate my teeth wth does it matter?

Luger187 said:

i think there are more than a few self aware animals. i think chimps, pigs, dolphins, and maybe elephants are self aware. i know for a fact dolphins are

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Dolphins self-aware? I don't even know how to test for that, so I'd be fascinated to know how you rate this as fact. Not contradicting you, just ... not buying in without good evidence that dolphins' talent for mimicry has been systematically corrected out.
cheers 'neer