In my model, anthropomorphism is the creating of a label or narrative to explain an animal’s behavior. This definition makes anthropomorphism measurable. Without its measurability, its occurrence is vague, vaguely defined, and inaccurately detected and identified. If you disagree, it’s okay to move on; it’s just an opinion.
It’s subtle. I started in 2009 and I’m just getting its clarity in 2024.
Secondly, the human’s creating of the narrative or label
- creates a disconnect
- and *IS* the disconnect
that gets wedged within the relationship—between the things that manifest the relationship—in the relationship between the human and the dog.
The conscious or unconscious creation of a narrative or label is the Pandora’s Box that gets called anthropomorphism.[1]
When a dog does a behavior,
- its behavior is what it is,
- its behavior
- is
- and explains its message,
- and more importantly, its behavior *IS* its message.
NB: a human creating a narrative after a dog exhibits a behavior, that human’s creation of the narrative adds a conceptual level that removes focus away from the evidential narrative that just happened.
- There is no anthropomorphism when narratives aren’t created.
- There is no anthropomorphism when labels aren’t created.
- There is no anthropomorphism when the animal’s behavior is left as its behavior.
- The crossing of the line
- from experiencing level
- to conceptual, thinking, writing and typing level
- is where the anthropomorphism appears.
It’s complicated.
The DOuGTrainer
[1]Going down Nature’s paradoxical rabbit holes, how can a narrative or label be unconsciously created? It’s this: for lines of awareness in any label’s creation, there’s forever a space between our lines of awareness and Nature’s goal lines.
That’s the foundation on which Nature always wins.