Well? For all I know this relationship easily makes the cut, but if it doesn't why not? I can't think of an interspeciel(sp?) relationship with any extra components over the man/dog relationship. Oh I know of the symbiotic relationships where it is absolutely imperative that the two species are joined but once upon a time man was much more reliant on dog than he is now. Recent discoveries have found that dogs have lived along side us for alot longer than previously thought, in fact it is theorised dogs were just as involved with directing our evolution as we were with directing theirs. Some things you might not have thought of; Our sleeping patterns, No other animal has the in built peace of mind to sleep like they're in a coma for 8 hours, we can do this because we evolved with dogs watching our backs. Weak senses/bodies, All senses but sight have degraded much in the human species compared to their ancestors. Our sense of smell is almost completely useless. This is because we had one of the best noses in the animal kingdom sniffing for us. It was never our strong point, but it was functional, now it can just enjoy scents and be repulsed by odours. This seems normal to us but its basically the final stage before losing the sense completely. Our hearing is still functional, but it has weakened because our survival stopped depending on it picking up the sound of twigs breaking a mile away, the dogs pick that up, we just need to be able to hear them barking, which we are still quite capable of, unfortunately(unfortunate if you are asleep and the twig only broke because a slightly larger twig fell on it) Our bodies too lost the need to be as powerful and athletic as they once were, a gorrilla is like 4 times stronger than the strongest man and what the hell do they have to do? Nothing! they sit around eating leaves all day, quite litterally that is it. Apparently we are predatory animals, funny looking predatory animals, i can't think of a single animal we could run down or overpower. Weapons? Chase a wildebeast with a spear and tell me how successful you are. Dogs have insane stamina and determination, they chased down our prey and subdued it, our job was just to finish it off, thats what the weapons were for. This is one of the area's dogs found us useful, have you ever watched a pack of wolves hunt? Its a slow process, not pretty, and the wolves need to exhaust all their energy to finish anything with any bulk. They don't have a devestating strike like big cats or bears, they just have to wear the animal down until it dies from shock and exhaustion. We helped out in this regard, when we finally caught up the dogs would be hanging off the prey animal and keeping it still, we could have run in and hit it on the head or stabbed it or whatever. It would have saved the dogs alot of energy. This brings me to Diet; Were humans omnivores before they met dogs? Well yes, probably, but I doubt meat made up such a large portion of our diet. Meat would have become more and more available thanks to canines, they aren't about to hunt berries for us. And can we really be attributed for moulding ourselves into predominantly carnivores? When considering all the predatory attributes we lack, it seems extremely doubtful that we are soley responsible for our love of meat, it makes sense if you consider our relationship with dogs though. The common misconception that is generally assumed with the historical induction of canines in to human society, is that they started scavenging on the fringes of our successful cities and we felt sorry for their puppy dog eyes and let them join us. But we couldn't be more wrong. Its more likely that we owe these cities to dogs. It is only recently that dogs have been anything other than hard working partners helping us survive in countless ways. Who knows exactly how big a role dogs played in our evolution? What would we be if we never had the time and peace of mind to comfortably dream? Well I for one am not confident sciforums would exist for starters, it seems unlikely the written word would even exist. For many people owning a dog is more than a decision they make, its an instinctual unexplainable urge. They feel empty without one. Probably similar to the feeling a clown fish with no anemone to rest in has, or the itch that the ox with no oxpecker's endures. Some people don't want a dog at all, but are they really human according to the homo-sapien standard? Well not really, they are are more like a modern off-shoot, that perhaps could be refered to as the traitor-sapien. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Yes, the relationship is symbiotic. Great write-up. I have read that dogs have lived with humans for more than 30,000 years and cats for about 3,000.
Will this do I can think of numerous such relationships in nature. Farmer ants have such a relationship with a type of aphid, I believe. But more than this you can consider your body as a communion of symbiosis. The billions of cells are individual organisms that cooperate in a symbiotic relationship creating you and me. All of nature is a symbiosis. I think the long sleeping patterns of man are more due to our brain size than anything else. Larger computers need longer ‘de-fragmenting’ periods. Sleep is a period of rejuvenation and of placing into order the days events and experiences. The higher the experience the more information needed to order and therefore the longer the sleep pattern. Also the larger the brain, in comparison to the body mass, the more energy it requires and so a longer period of rest becomes necessary. I think the relationship with dogs as with all domesticated beasts is not what caused human weakness but was the product of it. For example our weak noses are not the cause of the dog being our companion but the dog is our companion because we have weak noses. Man is a user of resources and other animals are just resources. But don’t be too envious of the dog and its status in our human world. It had to give up its liberty and lose its real nature so that we could tolerate it. Let us not forget that amongst the beasts that man has domesticated, man is also one of them. There is no more domesticated animal than man. Look around and see the sheep. I believe our heightened carnivorousness is more a result of farming and the leaving behind of hunting foraging practices. When man grew his own meat and didn’t have to hunt for it, he had access to more protein. I think here is the source of heightened brain power as well. More energy creates the possibility of larger engines. Singling out dogs as our greatest benefactors does not do justice to all the other beasts that participated in our ‘civilization’. Horses, for instance, opened up frontiers and cultivated land; they fought wars and carried our growing possessions. I believe the urge you speak of has more to do with mans domestication than any need for canines. The loss is one of man for man. Men have lost their pack, their identity, their nature and this longing is filled by a base creature that with its basic instinctive nature , undying loyalty and primitiveness reminds us of what we are and reconnects us with a memory of our real selves. Men own dogs for entertainment and for work but also for filling the loneliness caused by modern life, to feel that sensation of belonging to an unhindered and loyal pack or tribe, to make up for personal limitations and weaknesses. I remember serving on a border area, when I was in the Greek army, and we had 4 dogs there to keep away wolves and bears. I recall the sensation of power and strength I felt when going into a nearby town once, followed by the entire group. It was like the feeling teenagers get in belonging to gangs; a feeling of belonging of strength, of pride; a primitive intuitive sensation that connects us to our past. But what are dogs but pale imitations of wolves? And what are we modern men, but pale imitations of real men? Think about it.
Re: Will this do Hey, I know all about the other symbiotic relationships, I said I don't think any of those relationships have any extra attributes that the dog/man relationship doesn't have. Well thats not entirely consistent now is it? Cetaceans have enormous brains and hardly sleep at all, in fact they are never fully asleep. Many animals spend more time sleeping than we do, but none sleep as deeply as we do, they sleep on edge and the russling of some branches will make them wake up with a jump. All sorts of nasty things could be done to me while I was asleep, in fact they have been(shaving cream etc), but I don't wake up untill I'm good and ready. I think this is because my ancestors have relied on dogs to watch over them for a long time. If large brains were that much of a hinderence we wouldn't have evolved them, you can be as smart as you like but if you are dead asleep anything can kill you. If you were correct intelligent people would have started sleeping heavily and naturally being culled from the population, thus making us less intelligent but lighter sleepers. I think its somewhere in the middle. As i said our noses have never been special and yes this would have helped us see the benefits of dogs, but at the same time I think joining forces with canines has allowed our sense of smell to get weaker. There is a species of crab that has lost its powerful claws, the claws are still there, vestiges from the past, but they are now nearly useless. Why? because a long time ago this crab learned the benefits of attaching anemone's to its claws. Now its survival depends on finding anemone's and attaching them to these weak claws. Such is the nature of symbiotic relationships, once you get help you lose quality in the area that is being helped because you can afford to. We had dogs long before we were farming. And in fact dogs played a huge role in getting us started in agriculture. We wouldn't have been able to do it without them. See above. Certainly these animals played a big role in our success, but none as much as dogs, dogs are the only animal that played a substantial role in the actual evolution of our very species. I disagree, I think the urge is wearing off throughout our species because it can but once upon a time our survival depended heavily on dogs. Yes, correct, and just as we allowed dogs to become pale imitations of wolves, they too allowed us to become pale imitations of men. We worked together to make life more comfortable for eachother. That is at the very essence of what symbiosis is. I'm glad something came of this discussion. Warwick, 30 000 years ago is when canis familiaris began to branch out into different breeds, but it is now estimated we have lived alongside canines for much longer than that, more in the ballpark of hundreds of thousands of years.
Intelligence is brain size is in relation to body mass. That's why cataceans have no civilization depsite their enormous brains. I am not aware of catacean sleeping patters but I am aware that any assumptions about what another species does or does not do consciously, is a mere hypothesis based on only external evidence. But beyond the 'special relationship' of dog and man, you should be more interested in the new symbiosis between man and machine. Dogs may have been what you say, but now they play a small part in our survival. What type of changes will happen in man because of his reliance on machines? Kaczynski had some interesting ideas.
