A few days ago, I read an article related to animal sentience.Do you know its meaning?
Animal rights defenders define sentience as the capacity of animals to feel emotions and act according to them. This concept establishes that all living beings are capable of reasoning result of their experiences (although basic with respect to humans) and therefore develop consciousness.
Nature is present in our lives down to the smallest details. The water we drink, the air we breathe, and the sun that illuminates us are factors that accompany man in his daily life.
Many people take nature as part of the decoration of their environment. For example, we have a garden, but the function we give it is aesthetic. The same can happen with pets when we give them a utilitarian purpose of adornment or represent a status. But nature is much more than this! When we reduce every element of nature to ornamental purposes, we reduce ourselves because human is part of nature. But, sometimes, human behaves as an isolated entity that lives off it and takes all their resources indiscriminately.
Nature "knows" which is the meaning of its existence and has demonstrated it through the millions of years that our planet has.
In nature reigns an intrinsic intelligence that governs many of its processes that integrate each of its elements to subsist and prevail for future generations. Such is the case of several of the cycles that it develops to renew itself such as the water cycle, the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the processes of photosynthesis and respiration of living beings, and the balance of the trophic chains to mention some of these wonderful natural processes.
Have you ever wondered who tells nature what to do, when, or how? Over time, nature has developed complex mechanisms to renew itself, expand, and also to defend itself. Can this be considered learning or evolution? These are questions that invade my thoughts every time I am in direct contact with nature, and I can admire the beauty of each of its elements. They are those moments when I can be conscious that I am part of it.
What prevents us from seeing nature as part of ourselves? I think that man has built many barriers creating "his ecosystem". An ecosystem of asphalt, concrete, steel, and plastic that feed day after day the monster of pollution. Faced with this, nature has no choice but to defend itself. Doesn't it seem fair to you?
Now, back to the concept of sentience, its defenders only grant this capacity to living beings that have nervous structures that allow them basic reasoning to act. For example, when a bird feels danger situation it flees, and when an environment is pleasant, it returns and settles in it. Based on this, we can say that animals manifest themselves in a more evident way than other elements of nature. Well, this happens if just the human can observe and see these manifestations.
What about the rest of the elements that conform to nature?Do they communicate with the human? I think so! When you water a plant whose leaves are dry, and after a few days, it has lively and turgid leaves, it is evident that it is telling you what its watering cycle is. When things like that happen, it is a true sign of communion with nature.
If you have listened to the rustling of the grasslands when the wind moves its leaves, you have been observed by the curious eyes of a butterfly, you have been caressed by the waves of the sea at the shore of the beach, or if you have felt revitalized with energy when the sun touches your skin, then you know what I am talking about.
Just turn off the noise around us so that each of our senses can appreciate the subtle ways that nature has to tell us that she "knows" what the meaning of her existence is and is not just there!
The author's original text in Spanish was translated into English using DeepL
