3 ms·

> The dog analogy comes to mind: Dogs are smarter than people because they understand us but we do not understand them. Having owned a dog, a cat and numerous

> The dog analogy comes to mind: Dogs are smarter than people because they understand us but we do not understand them. Having owned a dog, a cat and numerous small animals, I can say that I think that at times I was definitely able to have a two-way conversation with most of the higher animals, but not the lower. I think the Guinea Pig I had when I was 8 was about as low down the evolutionary scale as I could have any understanding at all (lots of squeaks meant "hungry"). My Gerbil was a black box, I fed him and cleaned his cage and he ran around for a few years, but other than that, not a lot to say. My cat and dog, on the other hand, most definitely told me when he wanted outside, or didn't like this brand of food, or needed his litter box changed, or was unhappy when we moved, was cold, needed into a room and the door was closed, was happy to see me after a long trip, etc. All it took was a little bit of observation. Research into Apes and Dolphins seems to have revealed very similar levels of two-way interaction. I'm not saying they were particularly interesting conversations, but there was definitely an effort to communicate something by both parties and we managed to understand each other I think a fair amount of the time.

jacquesm 17y ago
Yep. Some animals even show 'empathy', the ability to figure out your emotional state by observing you and changing their behaviour accordingly. But it doesn't give them people rights any more than a Dolphin asking for a fish does. On the other hand even if they weren't intelligent at all we'd still have some moral obligations towards them. Heck, I know people I'd gladly trade for a Dog or a Dolphin for that matter.
- nradov 17y ago
  Domesticated dogs appear to have "empathy" with humans because over thousands of generations, the ones who acted that way got fed and bred more.
  - nitrogen 17y ago
    Selective pressures on early humans "caused" them to behave as though they were experiencing emotion and demonstrating a sense of self, because those were the ones that got more food and produced more offspring. If dogs have evolved to demonstrate some of the behaviors humans do, how can anyone prove that they are simply mimicking those behaviors instead of actually experiencing the same neurochemical reaction we do? It seems to me this could easily slide into a philosophical zombie argument. If dogs continue to be bred for human-like qualities for thousands more years, and eventually come to mimic nearly every human behavior, are they any different from humans at that point? Or are they actually just zombie animals demonstrating behavior without actually "experiencing" anything?
    - elblanco 17y ago
      > how can anyone prove that they are simply mimicking those behaviors instead of actually experiencing the same neurochemical reaction we do? Tests like the Turing test see that as irrelevant. Basically if an animal behaves like it feels emotions, it does feel emotions.

jacquesm 17y ago

Yep. Some animals even show 'empathy', the ability to figure out your emotional state by observing you and changing their behaviour accordingly. But it doesn't give them people rights any more than a Dolphin asking for a fish does. On the other hand even if they weren't intelligent at all we'd still have some moral obligations towards them. Heck, I know people I'd gladly trade for a Dog or a Dolphin for that matter.

nradov 17y ago
Domesticated dogs appear to have "empathy" with humans because over thousands of generations, the ones who acted that way got fed and bred more.
- nitrogen 17y ago
  Selective pressures on early humans "caused" them to behave as though they were experiencing emotion and demonstrating a sense of self, because those were the ones that got more food and produced more offspring. If dogs have evolved to demonstrate some of the behaviors humans do, how can anyone prove that they are simply mimicking those behaviors instead of actually experiencing the same neurochemical reaction we do? It seems to me this could easily slide into a philosophical zombie argument. If dogs continue to be bred for human-like qualities for thousands more years, and eventually come to mimic nearly every human behavior, are they any different from humans at that point? Or are they actually just zombie animals demonstrating behavior without actually "experiencing" anything?
  - elblanco 17y ago
    > how can anyone prove that they are simply mimicking those behaviors instead of actually experiencing the same neurochemical reaction we do? Tests like the Turing test see that as irrelevant. Basically if an animal behaves like it feels emotions, it does feel emotions.