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Whales almost certainly do not feel the same way. They feel like whales about their young. That's not to discount whales: that feeling may be profound and emoti
by hungie 2y ago
Whales almost certainly do not feel the same way. They feel like whales about their young. That's not to discount whales: that feeling may be profound and emotional for them. But it's probably alien to the human experience.
- conradev 2y agoI’m sure their sensory experience is different from ours, but is the feeling truly alien? We share enough genetics to share the same brain chemicals, for one
- rrr_oh_man 2y agoWhy probably?
- hungie 2y agoI dunno, I've never spoken with a whale to compare notes.
- roenxi 2y agoFor starters, whales aren't tool users. So it'd be something of a surprise if evolution had programmed them to feel joy when their offspring use tools. Humans, on the other hand, seem to get a bit of a kick out of teaching other people (especially kids) to do things which makes a lot of evolutionary sense given how strategically central tools are to our species.
- DFHippie 2y agoI feel that people who study animal intelligence started with the dictum "don't assume similarity to humans" and immediately interpreted it as "assume dissimilarity to humans".