Dadar, Mumbai

One gets a hint of the spirit, the geist, as it were, of Mumbai at Dadar railway station. You are washed over by people in constant journey from a place to another. A constant thrush of people, each in their own uniform harmonic oscillation, giving rise to an emergent order, like parts in a well oiled machine. Unlike cogs and chains, however, what passes by you are bundles of thoughts and emotions. Ambition, anxiety, worry, love, longing, yearning, despair, acquiescence... mostly all to do with something more; the present, the here, is but a means. Just like Dadar station. It is for most just an interchange, on the way to some place else.

And yet, it is this lack of fulfilment, and constant pursuit of it, that defines Mumbai. Each person and institution locked into a Red Queen co-evolution, constantly fighting, unceasingly moving either to climb ladders or to remain where one is. The city itself finds peers only in other global cities - none in India - and it is locked into the same global melee, running and running to remain in its place. This makes the geist of the city a restless one, and in this restlessness, mediocrity is overthrown, complacency is not an option. All of ones energies and abilities are to be used, honed, and improved upon. And this makes the city and its people brilliant.

No. It is no utopia. Inequalities and injustices of the world exist, if anything, more pronounced than elsewhere. It is far from offering a comfortable, safe, or secure place to live in. It is neither true nor good nor beautiful.

But one cannot doubt its brilliance. People strive to help in little ways, a culture of helping in need, for one could be a helper today and the one needing help the next (although I doubt whether the help would be forthcoming in bigger matters of life, given the constant struggle to make oneself). And there is meaning in life, for all of you is utilised in the run; there is no space for doubt - it is either a problem to be solved, or it is the scene of one's being run over.

I'm characteristically out of place here; with my sloth-pace and constant scepticism*. To stand and stare is to be eliminated from the game. I'm not a player, truly, but neither am I willing to be written off. So let me make my way across the gangway, and board another train, leaving Dadar en route a longer journey. Mind the gap.

(* - but neither can I claim "aamchi mumbai")

Stop anthropomorphizing!

This is a thought. Trying to put into words a discomfort that I've always felt. This is raw, not very well formulated, and not researched. I'm sure others would have written out the same or similar concerns, in a much better and more rigorous fashion. I hope to revisit sometime and make this better.

Categorical imperative: stop anthropomorphizing animal behaviour.

Premises:
1. Non-human animals exhibit behaviour that strongly suggests cognitive processes. (Highly probably that cognitive processes exist in non-human animals as inferred from intelligent behaviour)
2. The cognitive processes in non-human animals are qualitatively and quantitatively different from those to be found in humans; inferred from differences in brain structure. (caveat: although similarities exist)*
3. If cognitive processes in non-human animals are different from those in humans, their subjective experiences are also qualitatively and quantitatively different.**
4. Thus, their subjective experiences are categorically different from human subjective experiences.

Conclusion:
Therefore, we cannot apply human categories for subjective experience to the subjective experience of non-human animals.

* and ** - in holding that the subjective experience of non-human animals are quantitatively and qualitatively different, I do not hold that (1) they are completely different, nor that (2) they do not have anything like subjective experience. That their subjective experience is different or inaccessible to us is not reason enough to treat them morally different - insofar as our behaviour to them goes.

Coming back, to apply human categories to non-human animals is not just to be factually wrong, but also to be violating the agency of those non-human animals. If such wrong beliefs affect or effect certain actions of ours, those actions can result in consequences that grievously injure the animal or its interests.

Example: Ah, the cat gave me an ugly look. Maybe I should keep away from it.
Example: My dog is feeling sad because it's left out of the festivities, let me give it some good rich food so that he feels good. (when he is actually just scared by the firecrackers, and what he requires is not rich food, which will make him sicker, but darkness and peace)
Example: That elephant looks pitiful and existential. Maybe it's time to put her to sleep.

Are non-human animal's subjective experience accessible to us? Possibly. I would like to think yes, in some ways. For example, I think perhaps pain is a pretty universal feeling. But the emotions and thoughts that follow the experience of pain is bound to be different. But I do not know anything about it to take a stand. I do know that the way is definitely not by anthropomorphizing their experience and behaviour.

Of course, these are all highly speculative.