I think you're basically arguing that herd behavior or swarm behavior can't emerge without self conscious higher level adult emotions; I'm thinking that's a big

I think you're basically arguing that herd behavior or swarm behavior can't emerge without self conscious higher level adult emotions; I'm thinking that's a big stretch based on natural examples. I'm not even sure "monkey see monkey do" even is an emotion, if it is, which is it? Possession of empathy isn't possessing the observed emotion, its just observing it. For another weird concept look at humanities universal habit of rationalizing irrational decisions. For no good reason I did XYZ, now listen to my detailed rationalization based on emotions or Vulcan-level logic, which doesn't really matter because I really have no idea why I asked ABC out on a date or decided to buy that car or eat that second piece of birthday cake, although in detailed post-rationalization I can dream up all kinds of sand castles in the sky explaining elaborate logical reasons or stark emotions that I supposedly experienced before I made a random decision. This adds an annoying second level of analysis, why do some people do random things just like everyone else, but their societal or cultural failure is rationalizing it as logic or admitting it was just random, whereas "everyone knows" we must, at least in public, declare it to be the result of emotion.