What do animals know about spirituality?

Answer

Nothing

Answer

The spiritual experience of other creatures is a mystery to us, as a result of our inability to communicate with other species in a abstract way. In fact, we are a bit sketchy at communicating about spirituality within our own species.

Science is good at understanding the reducible and repeatable but often opaque to individual and subjective experience. We can dissect animal sense organs and cut open their brains. This does not tell us what they perceive or think any more than dissembling an unscrewed light bulb teaches us about light.

We can observe and sometimes manipulate behavior, even predict it, but this is not the same as understanding motivation and says little or nothing about what it is like to be the individual we are observing. The neighbor down the street and Adolph Hitler might both seek food or sex and avoid pain and yet be in other ways be quite dissimilar.

Consider the difficulties in finding something when one is invested in its non-existence. It was once posited that animals did not feel pain or emotional connection to their fellows or family members. When this proved unsupportable, words like "imprinting" or "instinct" were coined to create emotional distance and describe animal experiences one might otherwise call grief or fear, loyalty or love.

In the past century much has been learned. For example, we learned that bees see the ultraviolet spectrum so flowers we perceive as white are full of "invisible" design. We are just now teasing out meaning in bee dances. It was once postulated that elephants were psychic because they could coordinate their movements across such vast distances. We learned they were communicating subsonically through the earth.

Perhaps science will one day evolve to encompass subjective and singular experiences. Physics is certainly creating pressure in that direction. Every year, more territory once understood as miraculous and mysterious is colonized by understanding. It is not impossible that we will one day discover evidence of spirituality and learn it is deeply embedded into the roots of life.

New Answer: I don't think they "know" of spirituality but they do seem to live it w/ unconditional love.

First answer by Alcyone. Last edit by MysticalbreezeNM. Contributor trust: 1 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 17 [recommend question]