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Do whales grieve?

georgemcbay 6d ago
> Do whales grieve? Just as much as any human that isn't me, as far as I can tell from all available evidence. So, yes, I absolutely believe they grieve, just like I believe humans who aren't me grieve.
- nexie 6d ago
  I hope that’s just because you haven’t had a reason to grieve… Either way, hope you are well!
  - georgemcbay 6d ago
    > I hope that’s just because you haven’t had a reason to grieve… Either way, hope you are well! Thanks, stranger. I'm old enough that I have experienced significant grief a few times in my life. Given our mortality, we should welcome some degree of situational grief, as grief is the absence of a previous love that we were lucky enough to experience in the first place. Of course, there are also profoundly unfair versions of grief (like the loss of a child) that I wish nobody (or no whale, for that matter) would ever have to experience.
  - the_af 6d ago
    "That isn't me" in the above comment means "I know I can grieve, but I can only tell indirectly other people can do so as well." It doesn't mean "I've never felt grief".
stackghost 6d ago
They exhibit behaviours that seem to defy alternative explanations, though I doubt anyone could say for certain whether they do or don’t
- card_zero 6d ago
  You could have an alternative explanation: large animals invest lots of food energy in their offspring, and so the slimmest chance that a calf might not be dead is worth lots of effort. Say one in a thousand actually revive. Here's an article about orcas: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64559047 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64559047 It seems that an orca invests so much in a son that it's like an all-or-nothing one way ticket to pass her genes on. (She might get second try later, but the probability is much lower.)
  - pastel8739 6d ago
    You might also argue that although there may be a non-emotional argument for why grieving could be beneficial, it’s possible or even likely that evolution encoded this instinct in something like emotions. Just how evolution encoded the tendency to care for one’s family and community in emotions for humans.
    - card_zero 6d ago
      Yes! Which leads into strange territory, because we can say that attachment is not entirely rational, but is influenced by genes pointing us toward more successful reproduction, without concern for creating knowledge. But then this environment of instincts is the environment we've built up all our cultural store of meaning in, it's the human condition, so the argument can be turned around to say that meaning isn't entirely rational. So even gene-driven attachment isn't meaningless, but at the same time, I don't want to be bullied and herded around emotionally by little nucleic acid spirals just so they can replicate themselves.
- jibal 6d ago
  > They exhibit behaviours that seem to defy alternative explanations No, they really don't. The article says > indicated an inherent, strong maternal attachment to the calf Yeah, that's not grieving.
  - stackghost 6d ago
    What if I told you that marine biology is a large and rigorous field that is not fully encapsulated by TFA?
    - jibal 6d ago
      [flagged]
- madaxe_again 6d ago
  Indeed. The same goes for widows at funerals. I mean, has anyone ever dissected the brain of a grieving human and said “aha hah! Here it is!! The grief!”
  - card_zero 6d ago
    No, of course I haven't been doing that, and it's going to be a while before I would have collected a representative sample anyway, if I had been.

Do whales grieve?

> Do whales grieve? Just as much as any human that isn't me, as far as I can tell from all available evidence. So, yes, I absolutely believe they grieve, just like I believe humans who aren't me grieve.

nexie 6d ago
I hope that’s just because you haven’t had a reason to grieve… Either way, hope you are well!
- georgemcbay 6d ago
  > I hope that’s just because you haven’t had a reason to grieve… Either way, hope you are well! Thanks, stranger. I'm old enough that I have experienced significant grief a few times in my life. Given our mortality, we should welcome some degree of situational grief, as grief is the absence of a previous love that we were lucky enough to experience in the first place. Of course, there are also profoundly unfair versions of grief (like the loss of a child) that I wish nobody (or no whale, for that matter) would ever have to experience.
- the_af 6d ago
  "That isn't me" in the above comment means "I know I can grieve, but I can only tell indirectly other people can do so as well." It doesn't mean "I've never felt grief".

stackghost 6d ago

They exhibit behaviours that seem to defy alternative explanations, though I doubt anyone could say for certain whether they do or don’t

card_zero 6d ago
You could have an alternative explanation: large animals invest lots of food energy in their offspring, and so the slimmest chance that a calf might not be dead is worth lots of effort. Say one in a thousand actually revive. Here's an article about orcas: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64559047 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64559047 It seems that an orca invests so much in a son that it's like an all-or-nothing one way ticket to pass her genes on. (She might get second try later, but the probability is much lower.)
- pastel8739 6d ago
  You might also argue that although there may be a non-emotional argument for why grieving could be beneficial, it’s possible or even likely that evolution encoded this instinct in something like emotions. Just how evolution encoded the tendency to care for one’s family and community in emotions for humans.
  - card_zero 6d ago
    Yes! Which leads into strange territory, because we can say that attachment is not entirely rational, but is influenced by genes pointing us toward more successful reproduction, without concern for creating knowledge. But then this environment of instincts is the environment we've built up all our cultural store of meaning in, it's the human condition, so the argument can be turned around to say that meaning isn't entirely rational. So even gene-driven attachment isn't meaningless, but at the same time, I don't want to be bullied and herded around emotionally by little nucleic acid spirals just so they can replicate themselves.
jibal 6d ago
> They exhibit behaviours that seem to defy alternative explanations No, they really don't. The article says > indicated an inherent, strong maternal attachment to the calf Yeah, that's not grieving.
- stackghost 6d ago
  What if I told you that marine biology is a large and rigorous field that is not fully encapsulated by TFA?
  - jibal 6d ago
    [flagged]
madaxe_again 6d ago
Indeed. The same goes for widows at funerals. I mean, has anyone ever dissected the brain of a grieving human and said “aha hah! Here it is!! The grief!”
- card_zero 6d ago
  No, of course I haven't been doing that, and it's going to be a while before I would have collected a representative sample anyway, if I had been.