Hi --
BTW, I forgot to cite my best sources for information on non-human
sentience.  These include, e.g., Jeffrey Moussaief Masson and Susan
McCarthy, _When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals_ (NY:
Delacorte Press, 1995); Lyall Watson, _Dark Nature: A Natural History of
Evil_ (NY: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1995), _Beyond Supernature: A New
Natural History of the Supernatural (NY: Bantam, 1988), _Lifetide_ (NY:
Bantam, 1980), et al.; Jane Goodall, _In the Shadow of Man_, revised edition
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988); Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, _The Tribe of
Tiger: Cats and Their Culture_ (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1994); Paul Corey,
_Do Cats Think?  Notes of a Cat-Watcher_ (Edison, NJ: Castle Books, 1977);
Dr. Derek Denton, _The Pinnacle of Life: Consciousness and Self-Awareness in
Humans and Animals_ (NY: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994); ..... (There are a great
many more good ones out there, but I use these all the time.) All these
works are either concerned true hard ethological (behavioral) science or
solid empirical observation of their subjects, or both.  They are
well-written and a treat to read -- and will, in some cases, move you to
heartbreak.  I have also had direct experience of the sentience of non-human
organisms.  These include waking up in the middle of the night to hear my
female ferret, who had just lost her mate from unknown causes, sobbing her
heart out exactly as a human widow would do; watching my cat one evening
sitting on the balcony watching the sunset as Mozart played in the
background on my CD player, his face a mask of pure bliss; watching my
female ferret come over to give comforting kisses to that cat one afternoon
when we were trying to give him antibiotics for an large, dangerous abscess
he'd developed after a scrap with another cat; and watching my cat give
similar comfort to my former landlord's aged pit-bull, who was paralyzed in
her back legs and in a good deal of pain.  Chimpanzees and gorillas will
themselves keep pets, such as kittens -- a trait that was once considered to
be _the_ hallmark of sentience.  And so it goes.  All life is sentient, in
its way, and some of it is sentient as we are -- or as our saints and
geniuses are, if recent research on whales and elephants is any indication.
For confirmation of that asssertion, please check out the works cited above,
as well as those cited in their bibliographies.  You will find them
eye-openers.
 
   Enjoy, Yael Dragwyla
[Posted in FML issue 1672]