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Isn't it also "human conceit" to think that other species should always be thought of as having emotions and consciousness? No other animal engages in such. Pe

• chris_mc 8y ago
  >No other animal has such a conception. Tell me your secret to understanding the inner minds of animals. Seriously, any pet owner will tell you animals seemingly have feelings. They do things that don't make much sense outside of them showing love, hate, annoyance, etc. It's not scientific, but why would humans be so different from animals when we all came down a similar evolutionary line? You don't see great leaps in physical trait happening, usually, it's a gradual process, so I would assume that feelings gradually developed into what humans have now.
  • walterstucco 8y ago
    Pet owners can also tell you that most of what their pets do makes absolutely no sense If my cats were human, they would both be in jail One of my cats is pure breed, has never lived outside of a house, loves eating plastic, olives and chips but shows no care for fresh meat The other one was a stray cat, she still hides food that she doesn't eat, because that's what she's been doing for the initial part of her life In a way she adapted to live in a house, but she never learned that she's not been living in the streets for the biggest part of her life So yes, they have their personalities, very different from each other They get bored, they enjoy snuggles (until they do not and scratch you for no reason), but can they process their feelings beyond reaction? I'm not really sure they do in a very complex way
• gotrythis 8y ago
  How do you know all the inner thinkings and feelings of these other creatures?
  • disordinary 8y ago
    You interact with them and see how they respond and behave. They're are genetically very similar to us.
  • koboll 8y ago
    Occam's Razor says the reason why your dog looks and acts guilty is that it feels guilty, rather than carrying out some sort of autonomous response that looks exactly like guilt but for whatever reason doesn't cross a certain threshold of self-awareness to deserve to be called Actual Emotion.
    • pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      A simpler explanation in my opinion is that it's projection. But we each then are basically performing petitio principii. Occam's Razor is not truth generating, it only says that you shouldn't make things more complex than is necessary, it doesn't say what is necessary; crucially the World, and humans in particular, are not logical or especially confined by necessities.
      • TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
        > A simpler explanation in my opinion is that it's projection. For this to be true we would first have to invent philosophy and philosophers, psychology and psychologists. So, I'm convinced it constitutes a simpler explanation. Take dogs, for example, we share something like 84% same DNA. Great apes 98.8% or so. This starts to slide in to this idea I have about how people say "everyone is different". No, no we are not. We are way more alike than the cumulative sum of our differences. It would be way simpler, in my opinion, to assume other animals, at least some of them anyway, are capable of most of the same emotions we are. Then we can work out to what extent we care.
      • 8y ago
• sabizmil 8y ago
  I believe this is a classic "finger pointing at the moon" issue where you value words more than the meaning. The question isn't whether or not they feel emotions as we have boxed them up and given names to, but as they are in experience. Of course animals have no such conception of deeper emotions, at least in the same way that we think about them, but that doesn't mean that animals do (or don't) experience them. It just means our method of boxing up experiences into communicable terms probably doesn't match their own.
  • drak0n1c 8y ago
    I am not disputing the fact that many animals experience emotions and consciousness just as we do. I was taking issue with the parent comment's framing of our attitudes as "just human conceit". I am saying that conceitedness is the same as the emotional and other mental phenomena that we are discussing - it is shared by all animals. Occasionally, we can overcome the conceitedness. I think that makes us special.
    • sabizmil 8y ago
      Ah I misunderstood the point that you were trying to make, but it makes more sense now and is something I can agree with. Thanks for the clarification.
  • nikofeyn 8y ago
    > Of course animals have no such conception of deeper emotions, at least in the same way that we think about them how can you possibly claim that?
    • TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
      I took it to mean it seems self evident that other animals don't have a x-thousand year history of oral and written ponderings of the mind. I don't necessarily hold that belief, who knows what the birds and dolphins are jabbering on about.
    • sabizmil 8y ago
• koboll 8y ago
  >The bear does not lament its catch, the whale does not wonder at the inner life of a fish it accidentally swallows. Neither do humans, of course. Do you stop and grieve for the chicken you just grilled and ate? Obviously animals are capable of recognizing that other creatures have emotions, too--any dog or cat owner can tell you that. But clearly, like us, they don't always choose empathy.
  • jonnycoder 8y ago
    Yes actually I do when it’s an animal I hunted myself, butchered and later prepared. I think you touch on the problem though, since grocery store meat does not elicit such response from me and everyone else.
    • TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
      That may be true in your case, but it certainly isn't necessary nor universal. We're certainly capable of it. It remains unclear whether other animals are capable.
  • ozim 8y ago
    I have to see vegan bears and vegan whales, I only know humans who are able to decide not to eat other animals based on their beliefs.
    • root_axis 8y ago
      Well, among omnivore animals it is certainly true that some individual animals would fit the literal definition of vegan. You probably wouldn't ever know about it unless it lived in a zoo, however.
    • pvaldes 8y ago
      You can see vegan bears in most big zoos. Panda bears. I'm not aware of any vegan whale but would ressemble manatees probably.
      • deleted 8y ago
• filoeleven 8y ago
  What about the moose that spent 20 minutes rescuing a chipmunk from drowning in a barrel? Or the dog who held out a stick for another dog to grab onto and escape the rapids? There are plenty of other examples of this, I’m sure; these two came to mind first because they were caught on video. What drives that behavior if not empathy?
  • drak0n1c 8y ago
    Empathy is an emotion experienced by both humans and animals. I don't dispute that. But I don't believe that empathy requires intellectual awareness of the inner life of other creatures, or generalizing that to all animals as we are. Empathy is an emotional reaction, like rage at a perceived slight, and does not require thought.
    • nikofeyn 8y ago
      > But I don't believe that empathy requires ... putting of oneself in another's shoes... put oneself in another's shoes is basically a definition of empathy...
      • Haga 8y ago
        The whole put oneself in other shoes process is buggy as hell, even for our species. We basically draw a flat copy with mirror neurons and run it on our own hardware. If too much divergence accumulates, the other becomes a idiot or deity depending on outcome.
    • TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
      > It is an emotional reaction, like rage at a perceived slight, and does not require thought. Of course, we can't know this. It seems reasonable to speculate that other animals don't subvocalise in human languages,[1] though that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't capable of thought.[2] 1. It also seems reasonable to me to believe that dogs (some dogs?) might be capable of understanding some human language beyond simple commands. I typically have more luck with my two 2yo Border Collie cross if I explain to them why we're doing a new thing. More research is needed. Please deposit funds in my offshore bank account. 2. We could debate what is meant by thought, I believe that would be a distraction
• zwkrt 8y ago
  Our species is special because we can communicate our feelings directly through language, and language is also a great tool for applying your own inner feelings. A baby feels hunger and cries. An adult feels hunger too, but also has the capacity to think "I bet he is hungry", "I will be hungry later", "the last time she ate this she was still hugry after", etc.
• Gpetrium 8y ago
  It is entirely possible that animals have different degrees to what we call emotion/consciousness in a similar manner to what we see in humans. What may make us 'special' is the spectrum to which humans are able to move within the emotion/conscious area.
• taneq 8y ago
  > No other animal engages in such. This unsupported statement has been made about so many things that we later found out many animals DO engage in.
• yeahitslikethat 8y ago
  You said, "No other animal engages in such." Which is the point of the article. You cannot make that claim. You do not know what all the other animals are thinking. Maybe the elephant is thinking, "You have everything you need. Why do you want to kill me for my tusks?"
• sagartewari01 8y ago
  Yes, all animals share this conceit, and we expect them to. For eg, it's ok if a crab eats insects, but horrible if it eats it's own newborns.
• csomar 8y ago
  > The bear does not lament its catch, the whale does not wonder at the inner life of a fish it accidentally swallows. The uniquely human conceit that we engage in is the one we are both engaging in right now. The exercise of putting oneself in another's shoes. How do you know that certain animals do not do that. It is not like we can read their brains. Here are a few I know of: 1- Several bird species maintain life-long bonds with their partners. 2- Some bird species have funerals for deceased birds. 3- Several animals (like Dolphins) can recognize themselves in the mirror. 4- My dog recognize when I'm angry. You see the pattern. Humans are just more capable of sophisticated patterns than animals we compare to. How about other creatures? I mean, if you want to claim supremacy, what would be your definition of supremacy? Number of humans? Mass? > "It has been estimated by E. O. Wilson that the total number of individual ants alive in the world at any one time is between one and ten quadrillion (short scale). According to this estimate, the total biomass of all the ants in the world is approximately equal to the total biomass of the entire human race." Ants beats us on the number scale but we are equal on the biomass front.
• anigbrowl 8y ago
  Isn't it also "human conceit" to think that other species should always be thought of as having emotions and consciousness? No other animal engages in such. Obviously animals have simpler lives than we do but they have personalities, maybe equivalent to that of a 2- or 3-year old. One of my dogs is getting old and can't always find a ball that I throw for him. The younger one will sometimes find it and then bring it to him if she sees him looking; she'll drop her own ball, fetch the 'lost' one and drop it for him, then get her own and bring it back to me to me. I didn't set out to teach that behavior, though the younger dog may well be imitating mine.