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Zusammenfassung von The Inner Life of Animals

Name: The Inner Life of Animals
Rating: 4.5 (51 reviews)
Author: Peter Wohlleben

Peter Wohlleben

Love, Grief, and Compassion – Surprising Observations of a Hidden World

4.5 (51 Bewertungen)

24 Min.

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The Inner Life of Animals
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What’s in it for me? Discover the inner life of animals.

Anyone who’s ever caught his dog stealing a snack from the kitchen would guess that dogs are capable of feeling shame. Those big round eyes full of regret, that “oops . . . Sorry” look – it feels unmistakable.

Examples like this seem to indicate that animals can experience complex emotions.

But what does shame feel like for them? Perhaps it feels the same as it does for us humans. And what other sorts of emotions do they feel? Can a horse be sad? Can birds exhibit mendacity? These are the kind of questions addressed in the following blinks. You’ll discover just what makes animals tick as Peter Wohlleben explains using scientific studies as well as his own experience.

Also, in these blinks, you’ll find out

the contents of laboratory rats’ dreams;
why the author’s rooster is a sly fox; and
why no one does any research on water bears.

Though we shouldn’t anthropomorphize animals, evolution suggests they have similar emotions.

Have you imagined what it would be like to read an animal’s mind? Well, by the end of this book-in-blinks you might have an idea. But we’ve got to begin with some basics. There are some pitfalls to avoid when it comes to discussing animals and emotions.

For starters, it’s all too easy for us humans to anthropomorphize animals, that is, project human-like qualities onto them that they don’t possess.

Take the squirrel. It has those big eyes and that bushy tail. Seems harmless enough. But that cuteness is distracting. Squirrels are pretty ruthless predators, quite content to gobble up nestling baby birds. That’s not to say that squirrels are “bad,” in the moral sense, either. It’s just the way they’ve been programmed. They behave this way to survive.

Just because squirrels provoke an emotional response in us, it doesn’t mean that we have a deep insight into their nature. In fact, it tells us more about us than the animals.

There’s no doubt humans are different from animals. However, from an evolutionary perspective, there’s a strong argument to be made that emotionally we do share some similarities.

After all, humans and animals do have some common ancestors. And this biological bequest forms our emotions. We certainly have much in common with other mammals, especially regarding brain and nervous system structures.

These similarities in brain structures would suggest that we share similar feelings with other animals, especially if we're closely related. And with good reason. Emotions are primarily handled in the relatively old parts of our brains, namely those sections that are alike in all animals.

For instance, when they give birth, both nanny-goats and human mothers produce large quantities of the neurotransmitter oxytocin – a hormone that bonds the mother to her offspring.

So, there seem to be some differences and some similarities between humans and animals when it comes to emotional consciousness. But why exactly is that?

An animal’s worth is dependent upon its practical use for humankind.

There’s no escaping it – we just can’t help judging animals through the lens of human experience.

We’ve been distinguishing between “useful" and “harmful” animals for millennia, even if these aren’t the most helpful classifications at times.

Some animals display their emotions openly, while others are a little harder to figure out.

It’s easy to sense the inner workings of some species, as we’ve been exposed to them a great deal over the course of human history.

Sometimes we can guess what more familiar species are trying to communicate. It’s pretty direct. When a dog bares its teeth, for instance, we know that caution is best advised.

Animal behavior is motivated by instinct, feelings and consciousness – just like human behavior.

People who don’t give a fig for animal rights like to argue that animals’ emotions are inferior to our own, that they’re simply products of chemistry and instinct. They’re wrong.

When you think about it, human emotions, like those of animals, are just as much the result of body chemistry.

Affection between humans and animals is complex, and misunderstandings abound.

Humans feel. Animals feel. Sometimes they even have feelings for one another.

However, we’ll never really know if animals are capable of loving humans as we love them.

Animals feel fear and pain just as we do. Surely that’s an argument for animal rights.

Now let’s think about the inner lives of animals, particularly whether it’s possible for animals to feel fear or pain.

There’s a lot of evidence to show that animals are pretty similar to us in this regard.

Some animals recognize their own names and display signs of self-awareness.

Do you think that maybe emotions wouldn't be such a big deal if animals weren’t as conscious of them as humans? No easy way out there. Animals, it turns out, are also self-aware.

Some animals give each other names. Some can even recognize the names that humans give them. These are indications of self-awareness.

Social animals, just like humans, have social emotions.

The way a species lives also affects the sorts of emotions it can feel. Simply put, some emotions can only be identified when a given species lives together in groups.

Shame, for instance, can only really exist among animals that live in herds or packs.

Animals can behave altruistically or deceitfully and seem to know the benefits of both.

Evolutionary advantages are hard to come by, but for animals that live together, behaving sociably brings some benefits. It’s altruism by another name, and it’s pretty widespread.

Take the vampire bats of South America. When a bat returns to the cave after a successful hunting trip, it’ll regurgitate some food and share with those who have been less lucky in the skies. But it only helps those who have shown generosity to it before. It proves that kindness really does pay off.

All animals sleep, and we think that some of them dream, too.

One feeling that we certainly do share with animals is tiredness. And they need sleep just as much we do, even if the positions they sometimes nap in can get a bit weird.

Chickens sleep standing on a perch. They don’t fall off because their claws grip the perch automatically and without any extra effort. Their leg muscles, which might be expected to move if they were dreaming, are just switched off. This means they can sleep soundly the whole night through with their heads tucked under their wings.

Animals have souls, and they can often sense their deaths coming.

One elusive question remains. Do animals have souls? The author is convinced that they do.

But before we get there, let’s establish what we mean by “soul.” One dictionary defines a soul as “the principle of life, feeling, thought and action in humans.”

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Worum geht es in The Inner Life of Animals?

In The Inner Life of Animals (2017) Peter Wohlleben discusses the latest research on animal feelings and emotion. He draws insights from multiple studies as well as from his personal experiences of the woodland where he has lived and worked for decades. The book argues that animals’ inner lives are really not so different from our own.

Wer The Inner Life of Animals lesen sollte

Everyone who owns a pet
Anyone interested in psychology and neurology
Animal rights activists who could use some new arguments

Über den Autor

Peter Wohlleben is a German forester and the New York Times-bestselling author of the renowned The Hidden Life of Trees. He spent many years working as a civil servant in the forestry commission. He now works in his own woodland where he tries to apply alternative and more environmentally friendly forestry methods.

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