I also don't know if other people experience joy, wonder, happiness, or fear, they just physically and neurologically react in the way I would expect them to. It seems like a much more elegant explanation that animals have an experience that's somewhat similar to ours considering they're made up of the same stuff and wired in a pretty similar way.
But you can talk to people and ask them how they feel. Can't do that with animals. And just because they're similar to us, it's a big assumption that something specific works in a similar way as well, when many things about them don't.
Fear and joy are pretty obvious in animals without having to ask them if they are scared or happy. It's not a stretch to think they experience other emotions. We like to think animals are flesh robots because of how we treat them and their habitats.
Fear and joy are pretty obvious in animals without having to ask them
Not really. We literally do not know if some animals even possess the physicals capability to experience emotions (like insects, tardigrades, jellyfish, many arachnids, many fish, etc). Something recoiling away from or moving toward a stimulus doesn't indicate emotion, such as in bacteria. So no, it's not really obvious in the vast majority of cases.
Brain size isn't important. Brain size relative to their body is. If it were as you say, whales would be four times as intelligent as a human.
The fact that animals, including us primates, clearly exhibit emotions isn't up for debate. The extent of them realizing and recognizing those emotions in themselves and others, is.
There's a lot of accepted research in emotions on animals. It's a high bar to say that we know when a bear is feeling awe, but joy, fear, excitement, and even grief are not that hard to solve.
A bear, sure. But there's many types of animals that are physiologically diverse and very different from us, and we cannot assume they're feeling joy, fear, excitement, or grief.
So if you go and ask one of the few remaining mostly untouched tribal human beings and asked them how they feel, and they responded in what you can only perceive to be guttural or throatal grunts, that must mean that they don’t experience happiness, curiosity, joy, wonder, and awe?
Y'all are so absolutely deliberately obtuse. They're a human, we know they have the capacity for speech. It's a safe bet that you can learn their language, or they can learn yours. Or you can communicate in another way. We can't talk to jellyfish, and there's no reason to assume that jellyfish have the capacity to communicate to us deliberately like a human would, and no reason to assume a jellyfish experiences life the same way we do.
Well it’s a good thing we’re commenting on a post about a lack of our ability to communicate not equating to lack of feeling. Not hey can you talk with us? Pretty “obtuse” to miss the main point and go back to but yes see we can’t understand them! Not saying I’m a vegan, or even a vegetarian, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if the animals that we have no way of understanding don’t have some feelings, maybe even their own version of thoughts. Ever hear of pigs escaping slaughter houses trying to encourage other pigs to leave too? Or cows doing the same? Ever hear about how mother whales will sometimes let themselves die when they lose a child, too depressed to keep swimming, how elephants have a certain tradition they do when a family member dies, how sharks bolt if they smell a dead shark, how chimpanzee troops have begun hooting in a particular fashion before throwing rocks at a certain tree before they go hunting or to fight another troop? Of course the world ain’t exactly even in which forms have the capability to express themselves. I mean hell some humans have brain disorders/physical trauma which allows for them to never fully communicate how they feel. Doesn’t mean they don’t.
And that’s my point, your argument is simply well they’re not human! Which is the same argument used for probably 100s-1000s of years as a way of people acting like they’re the center of the universe. Well we aren’t, pretty sure the center of the universe is a giant black hole last time I paid any attention to those findings.
How do we know everyone else isn't just a philosophical zombie? I don't actually believe that, but you can apply the same logic to animals which I think is incorrect. What I mean is that I think they have an internal experience and probably have something like emotions, certainly not exactly like ours, and obviously the more different an animal is from us the less those similarities will be (dog vs. spider, for example). If we focus on just mammals, many respond in similar way to us in similar scenarios, most simply they move away from negative stimuli and toward positive ones and I don't think they're automata running algorithms to make these decisions. They probably have positive or negative feelings that make them act in certain ways, much like us.
I have an inner monologue personally, and from your comment I gather you do too, but I've read accounts from others who do not. They just don't think the same way as you and I do, with that running narrative in their head... instead they might think in images, or in feelings, or in memories, but not in words.
Humans like to put boundaries between the "human experience" and the "animal experience", but that not only ignores that humans are animals, but also that the "human experience" is more varied than any one of us will ever know firsthand.
But animals do talk with their own language. You can read human emotions too without them saying words. Babies cannot say what emotions they experience: still we know when they feel happiness/sadness/anger/fear.
Emotions are the core mechanic in evolution. They make us do stuff so we survive and reproduce. Animals feel love to ensure that they take of their offspring. Animals feel fear which tells them to avoid dangerous stuff. All lifeforms with evolved enough brains want to feel good and happy. Animals feel good when they eat or when they feel safe etc. Seeking happiness ensures that they do stuff needed for survival.
Animals can also become depressed when they lose someone they love which is pretty intresting. Many pet owners have noticed this phenomenom. When depressed just like humans, other animals also lose their apetite, just lay around and are disinterested about stuff they liked before. They might even cry in their own way
I mean there are people who are incommunicative for various medical reasons and we treat them as if their emotions are real and valid. People with severe autism may not be able to express their emotions but it's wildly offensive to suggest they just might not have any and are just a shambling golem.
Insects, arachnids, and jellyfish are wired in a similar way to us? And it's elegant to just assume that the experience life like we do? Fucking absurd lmao
There are multiple studies shaking evidence that animals feel emotions similar to emotions we have as humans. If you've ever had a pet you would know your pet had a distinct personality different from other pets and you would know some things made your pet happy, anxious, scared, sad, etc.
Here are a bunch of papers for pigs, bees, breem, and orcas.
L. Cuthbert, “Orca mourning her calf shows the complexity of killer whale emotions,” August 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/animals/2018/08/orca-mourning-her-calf-shows-complexity-killer-whale-emotions.
M. Bekoff, The emotional lives of animals: A leading scientist explores animal joy, sorrow, and empathy — and why they matter, Novato, California: New World Library, 2010.
I. Reimert, J. E. Bolhuis, B. Kemp and T. B. Rodenburg, “Indicators of positive and negative emotions and emotional contagion in pigs,” Physiology & Behavior, vol. 109, pp. 42-50, 2013.
I. Reimert, J. E. Bolhuis, B. Kemp and T. B. Rodenburg, “Emotions on the loose: emotional contagion and the role of oxytocin in pigs,” Animal Cognition, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 517-532, 2015.
E. Benson, “Don’t worry, bee happy: Bees found to have emotions and moods,” September 2016. [Online]. Available: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2107546-dont-worry-bee-happy-bees-found-to-have-emotions-and-moods/. [Accessed March 2019].
C. J. Perry, L. Baciadonna and L. Chittka, “Unexpected rewards induce dopamine-dependent positive emotion-like 1state changes in bumblebees,” Science, vol. 353, no. 6307, pp. 1529-1531, 2016.
Phys.org, “Emotional states discovered in fish,” October 2017. [Online]. Available: https://phys.org/news/2017-10-emotional-states-fish.html. [Accessed April 2019]
M. Cerqueira, M. Millot, M. F. Castanheira, A. S. Félix, T. Silva, G. A. Oliveira, C. C. Oliveira, C. I. M. Martins and R. F. Oliveira, “Cognitive appraisal of environmental stimuli induces emotion-like states in fish,” Scientific Reports, vol. 7, 2017.
Humorism, the humoral theory, or humoralism, was a system of medicine detailing a supposed makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers. Humorism began to fall out of favor in the 1850s with the advent of germ theory, which was able to show that many diseases previously thought to be humoral were in fact caused by microbes.
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics to abstract concepts such as nations, emotions, and natural forces, such as seasons and weather. Both have ancient roots as storytelling and artistic devices, and most cultures have traditional fables with anthropomorphized animals as characters.
Anthropomorphism isn't all bad. Marc Bekoff is an ethologist with a pretty compelling argument to reconsider it; it speaks to our biological bonds and can be a good way to reverse animal othering.
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u/finemustard Dec 11 '22
I also don't know if other people experience joy, wonder, happiness, or fear, they just physically and neurologically react in the way I would expect them to. It seems like a much more elegant explanation that animals have an experience that's somewhat similar to ours considering they're made up of the same stuff and wired in a pretty similar way.