[Cowperson]

I posted the same philosophical riddle on a pet board. An interesting reply, in line with Cube Inmates, came from this fellow:

I just heard an interview 2 or 3 days ago on the radio with Canadian author Farley Mowatt.

In that interview he says that the greatest pain he has felt has resulted from the deaths not of people he's loved who have died but of the animals he's loved and have died. That the pain from these deaths have been the hardest to bear.

He freely admitted that he is aware that most people think he is looney for thinking this, and that many are offended by this train of thought.

In his opinion he feels that animals probably suffer more than we do, and feel pain more strongly than we do. He suggested that this is because humans are used to suffering and have conditioned themselves to deal with suffering, where non human animals have not. Their suffering is more raw.

That's quite interesting coming from Farley Mowat, a man who wrote one of the great anti-war books of all time, "And No Birds Sang," telling of his horrific experiences and friends lost in the infantry during WWII.

Cowperson