Animal emotions including depression and suicide.

[Cainkane1]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/11/beached_whales_in_new_zealand_do_animals_commit_su icide_.html

I once went on a trip around the USA that lasted eight weeks. I came home and my dog was there. He was eckstatic. Getting in my face and and whimpering, seemingly overcome with emotion. I have to assume he was sad during long absense. He obviously hadn't committed suicide but animals do seem to have the same emotions humans do. Apparently even animals such as birds have these emotions.

This is why I don't hunt.

[Number Six]

I think there are two things here. One is how much emotions animals have. The other is how much emotion humans perceive animals as having. And of course each of those varies by animal and to some degree by human.

I suspect that humans perceive dogs as having more emotion than most if not all other animals, including other humans. But do they? I don't know. I suspect not but maybe it depends on how you define emotions. As far as being closer to humans in intellect goes there are lots of animals ahead of dogs in the line so maybe they are ahead of dogs in the emotion line too.

I've read that dolphins are very intelligent. And they jump out of the water now and then and exhibit intelligence and all that stuff. But do they ever exhibit as much emotion when you first see them after you've been awhile away as do dogs? Dogs are crazy, nutso on that front, which is why humans like them so much, but I'm not sure that is dogs exhibiting emotion so much as it is humans perceiving it.

[Pulvinar]

I think there are two things here. One is how much emotions animals have. The other is how much emotion humans perceive animals as having. And of course each of those varies by animal and to some degree by human.

Except how could there be a *real* amount of emotions independent of how we decide to measure them? I suspect you mean perceived by the animal itself.

[Scott Haley]

When wolves leave their puppies alone, it's usually because they're off hunting. When the adults come back, the puppies greet them enthusiastically to get their attention. Then they try to lick the adults' faces, to get them to regurgitate some food. Dogs retain puppy instincts throughout life.

Despite that, I love to be joyously greeted by a dog.

[Number Six]

The pup licking the face of the mother dog is an example of our perception being different from what is going on. When they do it in the wild we say the pups are trying to get the mother dog (or wolf, whatever) to regurgitate food. When they do it to us it's suddenly because the dog loves us. But the drive for the dog is the same either way. Despite the fact that its human master never responds to the face licking by regurgitating food, the dog will keep licking its masters face for years. The dogs are driven to lick faces because it got their ancestors food and they do it now regardless of whether it gets them food. And maybe even you could say that dogs are driven to lick human faces because humans find that behavior endearing and as a result they give the dogs more food, so licking human faces gets dogs food too. That doesn't make it an emotion though.

As far as there being real emotion independent of how we decide to measure it, I'm not sure what that's getting at. If you made a machine that behaved like a dog there would be no emotion at all. OTOH a dog does whatever it does and has whatever emotion it has. But the behavior is the same either way. Or maybe two people have the same amount of emotion about something but one exhibits it and the other keeps it inside. To an observer they have different amounts of emotions but in reality they have the same amount.

I guess maybe it all comes down to how emotions are defined. If human brains create human emotions what are dog brains capable of creating relative to human brains? I don't know exactly.

[coalesce]

I have no doubt that all the cats I've owned in my life (six so far) have definite intelligence, emotion and personalities. They may not have the tools to fully express themselves the same way humans do, or it may be that I may not have all the tools to perceive their emotions the way another cat may. They are, however, able to express their feelings to me, be it happy, sad, lonely or angry (such as when my former cat Vinny peed in my ex-wife's shoes because they really didn't like one another.) Either way, I feel my cat Clancy and I on the same page.

Michael

[Number Six]

I agree that animals have some of those but what I don't know is how much of them they have relative to humans.

It's interesting to that that if we can have way more intelligence, emotions, yadda yadda than do animals then there's no reason there can't exist creatures that have way more of those things than us.

[EHocking]

I have no doubt that all the cats I've owned in my life (six so far) have definite intelligence, emotion and personalities. They may not have the tools to fully express themselves the same way humans do, or it may be that I may not have all the tools to perceive their emotions the way another cat may. They are, however, able to express their feelings to me, be it happy, sad, lonely or angry (such as when my former cat Vinny peed in my ex-wife's shoes because they really didn't like one another.) Either way, I feel my cat Clancy and I on the same page.

MichaelI'm with Scott Haley on this one.

The cat peeing in your wife's shoes could also be explained as a territorial reaction.

Cats mark their territory with urine and will urinate on items marked by another's scent - in this case, your wife and her shoes rather than another cat and a bush.

Attributing this to be similar to your human emotion towards your wife is not sound, IMO.

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think there are two things here. One is how much emotions animals have. The other is how much emotion humans perceive animals as having. And of course each of those varies by animal and to some degree by human.

I suspect that humans perceive dogs as having more emotion than most if not all other animals, including other humans. But do they? I don't know. I suspect not but maybe it depends on how you define emotions. As far as being closer to humans in intellect goes there are lots of animals ahead of dogs in the line so maybe they are ahead of dogs in the emotion line too.

I've read that dolphins are very intelligent. And they jump out of the water now and then and exhibit intelligence and all that stuff. But do they ever exhibit as much emotion when you first see them after you've been awhile away as do dogs? Dogs are crazy, nutso on that front, which is why humans like them so much, but I'm not sure that is dogs exhibiting emotion so much as it is humans perceiving it.
All one need do is observe these animals to answer your questions. People often take anti-anthropomorphizing much too far. It's a caution, not some absolute rule that says you can't interpret a wagging tail as an emotional response in a dog.

It may be difficult to recognize emotions in species that express them in ways much different than humans do. Octopi and cuttlefish, for example, may be expressing emotions through skin signals and it would be hard to know. However, one could with careful observation notice patterns and perhaps draw conclusions. But again, the octopus brain is so different from ours it is hard to say what such a brain experiences in the way of emotions. However, evolution tends to select certain patterns, eyesight, locomotion and so on. So it makes sense that emotions are naturally selected.


But as for the cat and dog, I've seen my cat looking for its kittens when it was time to take them away. It was upset regardless if the quality was the same as sadness we experience with loss.

But my dogs, there is no question they experience happiness, stubbornness and aggression.

[Skeptic Ginger]

I have never seen any evidence for animal suicide, however. And as for depression with a loss, just as with most humans, eventually we get over the worst of it and miss the person but stop grieving. With a rare exception, like the dog that waits daily in some spot for a deceased owner to return, I've not seen obviously depressed animals not counting those depressed by the cage they are confined to (an ongoing cause for sadness as opposed to a loss created sadness).

Jane Goodall documented depression in a chimpanzee who's mother died that led to the chimp's eventual death.

[Skeptic Ginger]

...They are, however, able to express their feelings to me, ... (such as when my former cat Vinny peed in my ex-wife's shoes because they really didn't like one another.) ...While I don't doubt the rest of your observations, this conclusion seems a stretch.

[Dessi]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/11/beached_whales_in_new_zealand_do_animals_commit_su icide_.html

I once went on a trip around the USA that lasted eight weeks. I came home and my dog was there. He was eckstatic. Getting in my face and and whimpering, seemingly overcome with emotion. I have to assume he was sad during long absense. He obviously hadn't committed suicide but animals do seem to have the same emotions humans do. Apparently even animals such as birds have these emotions.
On the one hand, there's a class of skepticism that tends to deny that animals experience emotions beyond zombie like instinctual responses. On the other hand, psychologists have been designing animal models of clinical depression (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_of_despair), psychologically disturbed animals with tendencies toward self-mutilation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harlow#Partial_and_total_isolation_of_infant _monkeys), learned helplessness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness#Seligman_and_Maier), and so on for decades. There are also 1000s of experiments documenting the visible behavioral responses of addiction and withdrawal which can be severe enough that animals maim themselves.

Obviously animals have a complex mental life which includes emotional experiences.

[Cheetah]

The idea that animals are biological machines with a multitude of pre-programmed responses to different situations is an old and in my opinion very silly idea, it really makes no sense once you think about it. I don't know why its taken so long to start falling out of favor (Edit: That's actually a lie, I've got a fair idea :)).

Sure, there are some higher order emotions that only make sense in a social context, which some animals might lack, but the basics are surely almost universal in at least mammals and birds (and quite possibly go even further back).

Emotions are a neat and simple way for evolution to 'get the job done', without a bunch of very complicated pre-programing. It is also a much more flexible and adaptable way of doing it.
Make a parent bird/animal love and care about their kids and they will do their best to raise them properly and protect them from harm. Evolution would quickly get stuck if it had to pre-program a response for every eventuality.

When an animal is in need of sustenance evolution makes them want to go to all the trouble of looking for and finding food, by making them feel hungry, I don't think too many would dispute this. The same goes for reproduction, pre-programming, not necessary, just make 'em horny, real horny :D. As soon as love, anger, depression etc is mentioned, pertaining to animals, there seems to be some disconnect/denial, dunno why (Edit: Another one, I've got a fair idea).

I've seen many animals/birds get p'd-off and angry, throw a temper tantrum, or depressed when losing a friend. Sometimes it is clearly counterproductive in a supposed 'pre-programmed by evolution' sense. You definitely don't have to be intelligent to really feel hungry or angry or love or horny.

What would be a great mystery, would be if evolution did things completely differently for animals and then suddenly emotions popped up in the human animal (and all that supposed pre-programming suddenly disappeared), makes no sense.

[dlorde]

What would be a great mystery, would be if evolution did things completely differently for animals and then suddenly emotions popped up in the human animal (and all that supposed pre-programming suddenly disappeared), makes no sense.

Exactly.

[Cainkane1]

Reading stories concerning being licked by dogs seem to mean they are merely trying to get food from whomever they are licking but my dog used to lick me after he had eaten. I gave him good dogfood and meat scraps. So if they lick your face after they get fed well what does that mean? I think puppy kisses after the puppy eats is akin to kissing.

[Pulvinar]

So if they lick your face after they get fed well what does that mean?

It means your face is now covered with bits of dog food.

What always amuses me is that many people can have insight into the internal states of animal brains, yet insist that machines couldn't have such states.

[I Ratant]

When wolves leave their puppies alone, it's usually because they're off hunting. When the adults come back, the puppies greet them enthusiastically to get their attention. Then they try to lick the adults' faces, to get them to regurgitate some food. Dogs retain puppy instincts throughout life.

Despite that, I love to be joyously greeted by a dog.
.
I love that too!
I hate to see a nasty dog.
I have to presume the owner is equally nasty, or has no interest in the dog's wellbeing.
ST's dog is all over me when I got there.
There's some around here that come to greet me when I walk by.
Others that are really loud and nasty when inside their yards, but not so brave when outside, and really appreciate my putting them back inside, where they can be brave and loud again. :)

[I Ratant]

Reading stories concerning being licked by dogs seem to mean they are merely trying to get food from whomever they are licking but my dog used to lick me after he had eaten. I gave him good dogfood and meat scraps. So if they lick your face after they get fed well what does that mean? I think puppy kisses after the puppy eats is akin to kissing.
.
A couple of the dogs I see when walking will lick my hand, although I've never fed them.

[Steve001]

Rats studies done several years ago showed rats capable of laughing.
Chimpanzees also laugh. Dogs have a laugh of a sort when playing. It sounds like panting.

[Number Six]

This whole thing might be getting into the distinction between emotion and instinct and urge. Humans can love each other and then want to have sex to express it but can we be sure it's an expression of their emotion rather than just the filling of an urge? Maybe at some level there is no difference between the two.

I don't doubt that animals have some level of what humans call emotions but there are two difficulties I have with flat out stating what we see in animals is point blank emotion.

One if that dogs, for instance, exhibit a lot more of what we'd call emotion than other animals. That means either dogs have a lot more emotions than other animals, which seems odd, or we're observing what we see in dogs as a lot of emotion but at least some of which isn't emotion.

There are two parts to the second thing pertains to animal parents and offspring. Male animals run the gamut from getting the female pregnant and then leaving right away for good to staying to help raise the offspring all the way until the offspring are independent. Human males do this too, but that's all within the group of human males whereas with animals it's more like, all Male X animals leave right after copulation, all Male Y animals stick around to raise their young, etc. So if it's solely emotion driving them then it's strange that all Male X animals have no emotion with regards to their offspring while all Male Y animals have a lot of emotion towards them.

The second part to this second thing is that AFAIK animals mostly raise their young until the young are independent and then the young leave and that's it. The animal parent doesn't have the animal offspring over for Thanksgiving and hector them about when they're going to get some grandchildren. So if animal parents raise their offspring because they love them then the love seems to shut off when the offspring become independent.

[TjW]

Or possibly that dogs' expression of emotion is closer to ours, and thus more accessible to us.

[Number Six]

Okay, maybe that's a form of the first one I listed, that dogs exhibit more of what we call emotion than other animals, on our first glance that is, which is why we find them endearing, but that it's not really more emotion than other animals but just some we more perceive as more emotion. So maybe a rabbit has a lot of emotion inside it but we don't see it because mostly it just sits there.

[TjW]

Possibly.
But the conclusion you drew was that some of what we perceived as emotion in dogs was not emotion. Now, that could be true, but it doesn't necessarily follow from the fact that we perceive more emotional behaviors in dogs. It could be that all of those perceived emotional displays really are emotional displays. It could be that dogs have an even richer emotional life than humans, and we are unable, for whatever reason, to pick up on the subtle cues. This might explain why some people get unexpectedly bit.

[meow]

Okay, maybe that's a form of the first one I listed, that dogs exhibit more of what we call emotion than other animals, on our first glance that is, which is why we find them endearing, but that it's not really more emotion than other animals but just some we more perceive as more emotion. So maybe a rabbit has a lot of emotion inside it but we don't see it because mostly it just sits there.

almost every one of your posts is off the mark. we've been selecting dogs for specific traits for more than 30,000 years. we've been making them less wolf-like and less reptile-like the whole way through.

my dog doesn't lick me --ever; he's always happy to see me when i've been away even when his belly is stuffed full and he can't eat another bite.


--not only that but he insists on sleeping in the same room with me and if he doesn't get his way he'll cry all night. never heard of a lizard or rabbit insisting on sleeping with their owner.

[Number Six]

Possibly.
But the conclusion you drew was that some of what we perceived as emotion in dogs was not emotion. Now, that could be true, but it doesn't necessarily follow from the fact that we perceive more emotional behaviors in dogs. It could be that all of those perceived emotional displays really are emotional displays. It could be that dogs have an even richer emotional life than humans, and we are unable, for whatever reason, to pick up on the subtle cues. This might explain why some people get unexpectedly bit.

Yes but again that gets to, what is emotion. Maybe dogs have no emotional life at all and what we're seeing is something other than emotion and meanwhile turtles have the richest emotional life of any creature but it's emotion we can't see. It comes down to how emotion is defined, which I suspect has already been addressed by scientists.

[Nursedan]

Didn't read the article but did read the OP -

I saw my Grandpa's dog essentially kill itself. We were fishing on his lake and the dog (very old and getting sick) jumped into the water from the other side of the lake, about 300 feet from us. He could have walked around the lake and jumped in (or he could have not jumped in at all) but he decided to jump in the water far from where we could save him. He struggled for about 100 feet then we realized what was happening and he went under and floated to the surface. I have to say it seemed as if he knew exactly what he was doing.

Edit: Ok read the article. About what I thought it would be.

[caniswalensis]

When wolves leave their puppies alone, it's usually because they're off hunting. When the adults come back, the puppies greet them enthusiastically to get their attention. Then they try to lick the adults' faces, to get them to regurgitate some food. Dogs retain puppy instincts throughout life.

Despite that, I love to be joyously greeted by a dog.

If you really love it, you'd regurgitate. :cool:

[Number Six]

almost every one of your posts is off the mark. we've been selecting dogs for specific traits for more than 30,000 years. we've been making them less wolf-like and less reptile-like the whole way through.

my dog doesn't lick me --ever; he's always happy to see me when i've been away even when his belly is stuffed full and he can't eat another bite.


--not only that but he insists on sleeping in the same room with me and if he doesn't get his way he'll cry all night. never heard of a lizard or rabbit insisting on sleeping with their owner.

Dogs are pack animals and want to be with their alpha dog. And just because they're full doesn't mean they'd say "You know, I'm full so I won't try to get food." When they not full and they lick your face I doubt they're thinking "I hope master regurgitates some food." They just do it. As I said in another post, if it were a conscious effort to get you to regurgitate food they'd stop eventually since people never regurgitate food for their dogs to eat.

Dogs lick places other than people's face though. I don't know that it's a sign of emotion or affection. It might a grooming think or something else.

[Number Six]

I saw my Grandpa's dog essentially kill itself. We were fishing on his lake and the dog (very old and getting sick) jumped into the water from the other side of the lake, about 300 feet from us. He could have walked around the lake and jumped in (or he could have not jumped in at all) but he decided to jump in the water far from where we could save him. He struggled for about 100 feet then we realized what was happening and he went under and floated to the surface. I have to say it seemed as if he knew exactly what he was doing.


Dawgwin Award Winner.

[I Ratant]

Didn't read the article but did read the OP -

I saw my Grandpa's dog essentially kill itself. We were fishing on his lake and the dog (very old and getting sick) jumped into the water from the other side of the lake, about 300 feet from us. He could have walked around the lake and jumped in (or he could have not jumped in at all) but he decided to jump in the water far from where we could save him. He struggled for about 100 feet then we realized what was happening and he went under and floated to the surface. I have to say it seemed as if he knew exactly what he was doing.

Edit: Ok read the article. About what I thought it would be.
.
What he was doing was probably something he'd done before.

[Nursedan]

.
What he was doing was probably something he'd done before.

Actually, this particular dog hadn't swam for years, being old and sick. I thought that as it was happening; that he was trying to reach us - but no, there didn't seem to be a reason for him jumping into the cold water (other than to end his life). :(

I'll add that before this experience I thought that humans were the only species aware of the fact that we will one day die. This experience made me question that.

[Pup]

The pup licking the face of the mother dog is an example of our perception being different from what is going on. When they do it in the wild we say the pups are trying to get the mother dog (or wolf, whatever) to regurgitate food. When they do it to us it's suddenly because the dog loves us. But the drive for the dog is the same either way. (snip)

I guess maybe it all comes down to how emotions are defined. If human brains create human emotions what are dog brains capable of creating relative to human brains? I don't know exactly.

I think that one can state the case either way: Either "emotions" lead to actions by which we can deduce what other humans/creatures feel. Or actions feel like they're driven by something we wrongly call "emotions" but they're really just stimulus-response behaviors.

Both explanations work equally well for humans or animals.

Once can say that pups don't really "love" their parents and licking is just a way to get food, but one can say the same thing about human children, that smiling or hugging parents isn't because they "love" them, it's a successfully bred-in way to get attention and care, spurred by certain brain activity that provokes the behavior.

The problem is that one can only experience what that brain activity "feels like" oneself. When a person remembers what it "feels like" to want to hug her mother in childhood, it "feels like" the thing that we label with the word "love."

So it really does come down to a definition of what an emotion is, and therefore how one can observe it objectively in other animals/humans, without relying on behavioral indicators, even in humans.

To greatly oversimplify... As an example, if an increase in adrenaline is the defining characteristic of the emotion "excitement" in humans, then by definition, any animal experiences the emotion of "excitement" when their body increases adrenalin, whether they're a mouse or a human.

If that's not a suitable definition, then it needs refined until whatever we're getting at is achieved. And I have a feeling that "what we're getting at" would go down the political path of animal rights very quickly, with headlines: "Scientists say cattle at slaughter houses feel same emotions as humans" or "Scientists say cattle cannot feel any emotions."

[Cheetah]

I don't doubt that animals have some level of what humans call emotions but there are two difficulties I have with flat out stating what we see in animals is point blank emotion.

A lot of people seem to agree that at least mammals do seem to have emotions, but what about birds? If they do then surely mammals have too.

Whenever I’ve lived in a place with a garden I periodically toss out a few handfuls of birdseed and I enjoy watching the interactions between the different birds that come to feed. The general trend seems to be that there is a lot of squabbling between members of the same species (especially males), but different species seem to mostly ignore each other, or at least stay out of each other’s way (with larger more aggressive species having the right of way).
On one occasion I had a bunch of Masked Weavers, Laughing Doves and a single young male Rock Pigeon feeding, all three species basically ignoring each other.
A while later another, female, Rock Pigeon arrived and started feeding. The male immediately showed interest and starting to follow her around, but alas she was not at all interested and just wanted to fill up on some seeds.
The male started strutting around her, puffing out his chest, crooning, bobbing his head and very much trying to impress her. She would just turn her back on him and continue pecking up seeds. This went on for a few minutes, the strutting, bobbing and crooning growing progressively more exaggerated. When he got too in her face she would fly up into a tree, he would follow, continuing his antics, she would fly down again and grab a couple of seeds before he’d be there again.
This happened repeatedly, until he was literally bouncing up and down, bowing down until his chin touched the ground, rearing up as high as possible, puffing out his chest and crooning very loudly, strutting around like a wind-up toy, lifting his feet too high.
Eventually she had had enough and just took off and flew away, he froze, stood there in a seeming daze for a few seconds, his chest deflating.
He then suddenly swung around and grabbed a Weaver, yanking out a beak full of bright yellow feathers, turned and attacked a dove, ripping out half of it’s tail. This went on for a few minutes, whenever another bird would get close to him he’d go for them, until there were bunches of feathers scattered on the lawn. It took the other birds a while to realize that they now had an attack pigeon in their midst, before they took to the trees.
After just a few minutes he calmed down and started feeding again, the other birds returned and things were back to normal.

This certainly looked like an emotional response to me, what do you think, I’d be very interested?

This seems very similar to something that happens in pubs and clubs around the world, the young, cocky, horny guy trying to impress the girl, getting progressively more 'inventive' in his attempts, before finally being rejected, her leaving and him then taking his frustration out on someone else by picking a fight and beating them up. :biggrin:

[Stomatopoda]

I don't understand why some treat emotion as a binary "yes/no" value, or separate from instinct. It seems (imo) more logical to view emotion as a very complex form of instinct. Also, I don't see how the idea of animals (including humans) having emotion as well as being biological "machines" are incompatible. A computer can be a trillion times more complex than a flashlight, but at no point does it ever stop being a machine.

[Cheetah]

^^^

I agree, but don't know if emotion is even more complex than any other instinct, I think they are sort of the same thing to a large degree.

[Roboramma]

Okay, maybe that's a form of the first one I listed, that dogs exhibit more of what we call emotion than other animals, on our first glance that is, which is why we find them endearing, but that it's not really more emotion than other animals but just some we more perceive as more emotion. So maybe a rabbit has a lot of emotion inside it but we don't see it because mostly it just sits there.

There are a few possibilities here, two of which are: dogs have the same amount of emotion as, say, crows, but they also have "fake" emotions that we misinterpret as real.
Or dogs have the same amount of emotion as, say, crows, but those emotions are more easily noticed by humans because they express their emotions in similar ways to us.

It seems to me that whatever their internal experience, dogs use emotions in much the same way and for the same reason that humans do. If we evolved to have emotional responses as the underlying mental factor of the behavioral response that is interpreted as emotion, I suspect that dogs do it the same way.
It's possible that they've found a more efficient way to have those behaviors, but I don't see why we should assume that when we know that our way evolved.

Similarly I expect that they have a mental experience of vision that is in some ways similar to ours (and different from our experience of sound).

[caniswalensis]

I know animals have emotions, because I have seen my little kitten weep bitter tears after I beat it.

[Halfcentaur]

My dog was happy when I'd leave for a long time and come back. But when I left for 5 months living in Asia and Europe, the moment I got back she went absolutely insane, she wasn't just acting happy to see me, she was whining and shaking overcome with some kind of sensation to the point of freaking out, and she would not leave my side for days after.

[Fine]

My dog was happy when I'd leave for a long time and come back. But when I left for 5 months living in Asia and Europe, the moment I got back she went absolutely insane, she wasn't just acting happy to see me, she was whining and shaking overcome with some kind of sensation to the point of freaking out, and she would not leave my side for days after.

_____________________


Halfcentaur,

A similar reunion brought the warrior Odysseus to tears. HERE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argos_(dog))

///

[I Ratant]

There are a few possibilities here, two of which are: dogs have the same amount of emotion as, say, crows, but they also have "fake" emotions that we misinterpret as real.
Or dogs have the same amount of emotion as, say, crows, but those emotions are more easily noticed by humans because they express their emotions in similar ways to us.

It seems to me that whatever their internal experience, dogs use emotions in much the same way and for the same reason that humans do. If we evolved to have emotional responses as the underlying mental factor of the behavioral response that is interpreted as emotion, I suspect that dogs do it the same way.
It's possible that they've found a more efficient way to have those behaviors, but I don't see why we should assume that when we know that our way evolved.

Similarly I expect that they have a mental experience of vision that is in some ways similar to ours (and different from our experience of sound).
.
Not a crow... we have ravens around here, and the two never appear together.
A young raven fell out of its nest, and for a couple days the parents gave everyone holy hell even getting close to it.
This one in particular took umbrage at my interest in Junior, and would follow me around yelling at me.
And it had a stony stare! :)

[coalesce]

While I don't doubt the rest of your observations, this conclusion seems a stretch.

Quite possibly, yes, but given their relationship, it's not completely unlikely. Like I said, I've had six cats (although my mother's eldest, Biggles, was just put down a couple of days ago) and they've all had very distinct personalities. I don't think it's entirely out of the realm of reality that they are capable of the same thoughts and emotions as you and I. Guess I'll never know for sure.

Michael

[sadhatter]

Reading stories concerning being licked by dogs seem to mean they are merely trying to get food from whomever they are licking but my dog used to lick me after he had eaten. I gave him good dogfood and meat scraps. So if they lick your face after they get fed well what does that mean? I think puppy kisses after the puppy eats is akin to kissing.

The real answer is kind of an in between , in regards to the polarized reactions.

Animal communication is a closed system, the do not communicate specifics ( in the vast majority of cases, i doubt many folks have chimps as pets.) they communicate emotional states.

A puppy does not communicate " I love you" by doing anything, essentially the dog is trying to make sure you know that your previous action caused a positive emotional state, in order to get you to continue said action.

Same thing with coming home. The dog is not trying to communicate " I have been disturbed by your absence and am glad that you have returned." but rather " I am currently happy, and really would like you to know this.". To the dog, you have no way of understanding the reasons for its upset, because you wern't there, but you can understand its current emotional state (to the dog) and overly displaying this will make it clearer.

And then there is all the minutia. Remember animals have much more sensitive senses than us, those kisses could have been due to the sandwich you had at noon that day and had forgotten about by then.

I think it may have been kipling ( internet is a bit crap at the moment) who said " Even if a lion could talk, you wouldn't understand it." and that is a great rule of thumb for animals. What your picking up, is going to be a lot more than what they are throwin down, simply because of the differences in our systems of communication.

[RenaissanceBiker]

Animal communication is a closed system, the do not communicate specifics ( in the vast majority of cases, i doubt many folks have chimps as pets.) they communicate emotional states.
I'm not so sure about that. I have seen animals express their desire for another to do something. I once saw a large doe standing just inside a tree line with two younger does. There were some oak trees in the middle of a clearing that were dropping acorns. The two smaller ones kept looking back at her while she kept nodding her head impatiently. She was non-verbally trying to get them to venture out into the clearing first to see if it was safe. They eventually did and after watching them eat acorns for a few minutes she walked out as well. All three does were hungry, but she wasn't telling them she was simply afraid. She was telling them to go first. I have spoken with other hunters who have seen similar behavior with bucks and young does.

ETA: Have you ever had a dog bring you a ball so you can throw it?

[Pup]

ETA: Have you ever had a dog bring you a ball so you can throw it?

Or a cat scratch at the door to go out? In one sense, yes, these are only emotional states--an urge for the cat to patrol its territory, for example, and frustration at not being able to do so--but the animal is also communicating specifically what it wants in response to the emotion--the door to be opened so it can reach another part of the territory.

I think most human communication could be broken down the same way, with both an emotional component and specific information being conveyed. Sometimes one might dominate, sometimes the other.

[I Ratant]

I get accosted by Wally every time I visit his home.
He brings the ball to me for me to toss for him.
Obviously he loves that!
Time delay in the camera for focusing missed the catches... :(

[quarky]

I'm am clearly in the camp of thinking that most mammals are way smarter than we think, except us. We are less sophisticated than we suspect.

As per pet dogs, of course they have strong ties to humans.
We co-evolved. We more or less created dogs.
So they are in a different category than nearly any other animal.

We invest the emotional reaction in them.
Its hard to get that tight with a dolphin.
Yet, there are stories of Dolphins committing suicide when they are taken from their pods and put into a concrete box of water.
Elephants as well, have been said to become morbidly depressed after a loss.
They have ancestral grave yards.

Chimps and elephants and dolphins are all known for hanging onto a dead baby, long after it made any sense. They grieve.

[EHocking]

I'm am clearly in the camp of thinking that most mammals are way smarter than we think, except us. We are less sophisticated than we suspect.

As per pet dogs, of course they have strong ties to humans.
We co-evolved. We more or less created dogs.
So they are in a different category than nearly any other animal.

We invest the emotional reaction in them.
Its hard to get that tight with a dolphin.
Yet, there are stories of Dolphins committing suicide when they are taken from their pods and put into a concrete box of water.This is basically an urban legend (http://marineanimalwelfare.com/suicide.htm)and most likely to be untrue.Elephants as well, have been said to become morbidly depressed after a loss.
They have ancestral grave yards.Uh, no. That's merely legend as well. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant's_graveyard)
Chimps and elephants and dolphins are all known for hanging onto a dead baby, long after it made any sense. They grieve.While I'm pretty much on board that animals might experience loss, or perhaps a degree of confusion caused by the death of offspring, I'm still of the opinion that we are projecting anthropomorphic feelings on animals in this situation, rather than witnessing true grief (as we understand it).

[TheRedWorm]

Why would it be unusual for animals to have emotions; we're animals, and we have emotions :confused:

[quarky]

This is basically an urban legend (http://marineanimalwelfare.com/suicide.htm)and most likely to be untrue.Uh, no. That's merely legend as well. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant's_graveyard)
While I'm pretty much on board that animals might experience loss, or perhaps a degree of confusion caused by the death of offspring, I'm still of the opinion that we are projecting anthropomorphic feelings on animals in this situation, rather than witnessing true grief (as we understand it).

The urban legend is all about us, and the crown of creation.

We project anthropomorphic feelings upon ourselves.

The very word 'anthropomorphic' is swollen with our presumptions about ourselves.

[EHocking]

The urban legend is all about us, and the crown of creation.

We project anthropomorphic feelings upon ourselves.

The very word 'anthropomorphic' is swollen with our presumptions about ourselves.That was my point.

You were using anecdotes that have been shown to be false in support of your view that animals grieve or have similar emotions to humans.
Most of the other posts here have been of a similar, personal anecdotal nature.

Whereas I am yet to be convinced by any evidence so far presented on this thread that animals do have the capabilities of emotion that are being purported here.

(hand wave, I should probably reread the thread to suppor that statement, but in the meantime...)

[TheRedWorm]

Again, why would human emotions be unique?

[Pup]

Whereas I am yet to be convinced by any evidence so far presented on this thread that animals do have the capabilities of emotion that are being purported here.

Out of curiosity, what would be an example of convincing evidence?

I'm still stumped, as I noted back in post 32 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=7773603&postcount=32), about how one would define emotions, in a way that doesn't involve an observer looking at a person/animal and subjectively deciding that their actions match what the observer would do if he/she were feeling a particular emotion.

[EHocking]

Again, why would human emotions be unique?Well, uniquely human...

I'm not saying, absolutely, that animals are incapable of experiencing emotions, what I am questioning is the depth (for want of a better word) of their emotional capacity.

I obviously question our anthropomorphism of their emotional state and also question our capacity to interpret their full capacity for emotion.

For instance, humans have a highly evolved spoken communication system, yet even within the same population of humans with a common language and common experiences (e.g., middle-class, English speaker) we, throughout our lives, misinterpret each others spoken and written words, facial expressions, phyical gestures, emotional state etc etc.

If we can so frequently misintepret the emotional state of individuals of the same species as ourselves, that was brought up in the same social environment as ourselves and achieved the same educational level as ourselves (for instance), I find it naive at best and arrogant at worst, that we think we are able to accurately interpret the emotional state of a different species by observing its vocalisations, expressions and gestures.

Certainly I can agree that many animals social norms and "instinctive" interactions within their society, including our own, might be outlined at a very basic, biological level, but am sceptical to a fair degree of the confidence we can have in extrapolations beyond that fairly basic understanding.

[jhunter1163]

I should video my dog getting ready to go play Frisbee. If you have any doubt about whether animals have emotions, the look of joy on her face when I say "Lady, wanna go for a ride in the car?" would put them to rest.

[EHocking]

I should video my dog getting ready to go play Frisbee. If you have any doubt about whether animals have emotions, the look of joy on her face when I say "Lady, wanna go for a ride in the car?" would put them to rest.Or you could describe it as a trained response as well.

Try it with a wild Timber Wolf and let's see the look on its face (after it had torn yours off!!):D

[TjW]

Well, uniquely human...

I'm not saying, absolutely, that animals are incapable of experiencing emotions, what I am questioning is the depth (for want of a better word) of their emotional capacity.

I obviously question our anthropomorphism of their emotional state and also question our capacity to interpret their full capacity for emotion.

For instance, humans have a highly evolved spoken communication system, yet even within the same population of humans with a common language and common experiences (e.g., middle-class, English speaker) we, throughout our lives, misinterpret each others spoken and written words, facial expressions, phyical gestures, emotional state etc etc.

If we can so frequently misintepret the emotional state of individuals of the same species as ourselves, that was brought up in the same social environment as ourselves and achieved the same educational level as ourselves (for instance), I find it naive at best and arrogant at worst, that we think we are able to accurately interpret the emotional state of a different species by observing its vocalisations, expressions and gestures.

Certainly I can agree that many animals social norms and "instinctive" interactions within their society, including our own, might be outlined at a very basic, biological level, but am sceptical to a fair degree of the confidence we can have in extrapolations beyond that fairly basic understanding.

I can believe that humans may not understand exactly the emotions a particular animal is having. I can believe that emotions they have may not have exact parallels in humans.
But when the cat is on the counter on his back, stretching and purring loudly, extending and retracting (but not scratching with) his claws as I pretend to "rip out his guts" with my hand, then I'm going to say that he's not only experiencing an emotion, he's doing his best to display to me that he's experiencing an emotion.
I'm not sure I understand exactly what that emotion is, other than I'm pretty sure it's in the "enjoyment" spectrum.
You may not mean it that way, but your post makes it sound as though animals are little fuzzy automatons. I suppose they may be, to the same extent that humans are large mostly-hairless automatons.

[EHocking]

Out of curiosity, what would be an example of convincing evidence?It's not that I dismiss the notion of emotional response in animals, merely the validity of our perception of the depth of that emotion.I'm still stumped, as I noted back in post 32 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=7773603&postcount=32), about how one would define emotions, in a way that doesn't involve an observer looking at a person/animal and subjectively deciding that their actions match what the observer would do if he/she were feeling a particular emotion.As am I.
Even our emotional reactions can be fairly described in terms of refinement of base "instincts" by the evolutionary process to get to the current state of the human brain.

I'm of the opinion that the difference between us and other animals is because of the uniqueness of the structure of our brains.

We are the only animal capable of creating art and music, i.e., expression our emotions - probably as a result of the evolutionary development of the "emotional" human brain.

This wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_emotion) goes some way to describe my approach/attitude towards the subject.

[EHocking]

I can believe that humans may not understand exactly the emotions a particular animal is having. I can believe that emotions they have may not have exact parallels in humans.
But when the cat is on the counter on his back, stretching and purring loudly, extending and retracting (but not scratching with) his claws as I pretend to "rip out his guts" with my hand, then I'm going to say that he's not only experiencing an emotion, he's doing his best to display to me that he's experiencing an emotion.
I'm not sure I understand exactly what that emotion is, other than I'm pretty sure it's in the "enjoyment" spectrum.I'm not totally disagreeing here, but basic responses such as pleasure and pain are not, IMO, the same depth of "emotion" as proposed in the OP - animal depression and suicide.
You may not mean it that way, but your post makes it sound as though animals are little fuzzy automatons.While I'm not exactly stating that, what would be the problem if that is all they were?
If they were merely fuzzy automatons, it doesn't seem have had an adverse effect on their evolution.

Our wish for them to experience joy is our problem, not theirs!

Another instance. Certain species of Albatross (Wandering) breed for life, yet spend the rest of their time apart. The pair bonding may take several years, yet once paired they will rebond every breeding season with the same bird for possibly up to 50+ years.

Is this love, or merely "instinct"?
Does it matter?

If you watch their bonding "dance", many a human has interpreted it as a "love dance". But again, probably just their projection.

Is cat's brain's Limbic System more evolved than an Albatrosses'? At a guess I'd say yes, so a cat's "emotional" responses may indeed be more "evolved" than an Albatrosses and less evolved than ours.
I suppose they may be, to the same extent that humans are large mostly-hairless automatons.It may be only the fact that humans are more capable of articulating their emotions to each other, due to the evolution of our brain, that we feel emotions to the "depth" that we do.

[TjW]

Or it may be only the fact that humans are more capable of lying about their emotions to themselves and each other, due to the evolution of our brain, that we claim to feel emotions to the "depth" we do.

[quarky]

Do we know enough about whales to make this call?

[jhunter1163]

Or you could describe it as a trained response as well.

Try it with a wild Timber Wolf and let's see the look on its face (after it had torn yours off!!):D

There's a difference between the "trained response" I get when I call my dog, or ask her to give me her paw, or tell her to sit, and the one I get when I say "let's go for a ride in the car." The first three are trained responses; she knows that she's rewarded if she responds the right way (or is punished if she doesn't). The last one means we're going to the park to play, and she reacts with what can only be described as joy.

And pack animals, such as timber wolves, have been observed exhibiting mourning behavior when a member of the pack dies.

[h.g.Whiz]

My middle school science teacher told me Flipper committed suicide.

[Amapola]

I can believe animals have emotions... I doubt they are like ours. What use would OUR emotions be to an animal? Dogs, cats, horses - they are all different types of animal, with different types of behavior. One is a social predator, one a solitary hunter and the other a herd animal. To me, it's pretty weird to assume that a dog and a cat and a horse would all experience the exact same type of emotion that a bipedal ape does. Why would they? What possible use would it be to them? Most likely they have emotions that are useful to them, for their own species.

As far as committing suicide, I'm really not sure about that one. The animal would first have to understand all sorts of things we take for granted; because WE understand them it doesn't mean that an animal does, or needs to, or that it would be useful for that animal to understand it. Pretty strange, to me, to assume that because *I* can understand the passage of time, or the idea that one day I'll be dead, that an animal can grasp those same things. Also, they are just as capable of misjudging things and making mistakes as we are; some people seem to think an animal would never make a mistake that might result in its death, just as human beings make mistakes that result in their deaths. We don't call those deaths suicide.

I think animals probably experience life in a way that is suitable for their species, and that it varies with the species. Horses, for example, don't give food to other horses; the most dominant eats first, if there happens to be any food left the others eat it in order of herd hierarchy. We might think that was "selfish"; it's just how horses are. They don't have our same social structure, so they don't need the behaviors that we need for our social structure.

Animals do communicate with each other, no question, but I think if you truly want to work with them you have to understand them from their perspective, not ours. Personally I find it a fascinating world even without trying to insert human feelings into it.

[EHocking]

There's a difference between the "trained response" I get when I call my dog, or ask her to give me her paw, or tell her to sit, and the one I get when I say "let's go for a ride in the car." The first three are trained responses; she knows that she's rewarded if she responds the right way (or is punished if she doesn't). The last one means we're going to the park to play, and she reacts with what can only be described as joy.But that is also a trained response to a point, so my allusion to a Timber Wolf previously.

Walking up to a TW with a tennis ball saying "walkies! Fetch", will garner a quite different response than with your dog. Think back. How long did it take your own dog to recognise "let's go for a ride in the car" = "play fetch?"

A conditioned, or trained, response.

Also - how do we know it is joy that the dog is experiencing?

Since dogs in this situation regard their owners as the Alpha of the pack, it could well be a conditioned response to appear joyful (e.g., face licking) to see the pack's Alpha in order to appease the alpha acknowledge its place in the pack.

The response may stem from a dog not wanting to get the crap kicked out of it by the pack alpha.

So if the pack Alpha wants to go to the park and make me fetch a ball for him, it might be in my best interest to feign enthusiasm to appease the apha's present desires because I'm not in a position to challenge him/her.
And pack animals, such as timber wolves, have been observed exhibiting mourning behavior when a member of the pack dies.I'd be interested to see the study.

Just to reiterate.

I am not dismissing animals capacity to feel emotions.
The pain/pleasure response is a pretty basic one in practically all animals, so it is not unreasonable to extrapolate that basic response to the capacity to feel emotions (see links in my previous posts).

[EHocking]

My middle school science teacher told me Flipper committed suicide.Ah, a fount of urban legends are such people.

See Post #47 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=7821565&postcount=47).

[EHocking]

I can believe animals have emotions... I doubt they are like ours. What use would OUR emotions be to an animal? Dogs, cats, horses - they are all different types of animal, with different types of behavior. One is a social predator, one a solitary hunter and the other a herd animal. To me, it's pretty weird to assume that a dog and a cat and a horse would all experience the exact same type of emotion that a bipedal ape does. Why would they? What possible use would it be to them? Most likely they have emotions that are useful to them, for their own species. That's pretty much where I'm arguing from as well.
The wiki article I quoted previously on Evolution of emotion goes one better on starting to explain the probable root of these responses in different animals.

For instance we (might) be able to rank animals in a notional order of capacity to experience emotion and determine where the pleasure/pain response transitions to capacity for emotion.

e.g.,
insect
fish
amphibian
reptile
birds
mammal
primate
human

I'm no behavioural scientist but I'd be inclined to insert the threshold between pain/pleasure response and capability for emotion, between reptiles/birds and mammals.

There is probably quite a gulf between capacity to experience emotions between, say, a lizard and a dog.

It is my opinion that the next big "gulf" is more likely to be between primates and humans and that the gulf between other mammals (such as dogs) is not as great as that between humans and primates.

All down to brain evolution, IMO.
As far as committing suicide, I'm really not sure about that one. The animal would first have to understand all sorts of things we take for granted; because WE understand them it doesn't mean that an animal does, or needs to, or that it would be useful for that animal to understand it. Pretty strange, to me, to assume that because *I* can understand the passage of time, or the idea that one day I'll be dead, that an animal can grasp those same things. Also, they are just as capable of misjudging things and making mistakes as we are; some people seem to think an animal would never make a mistake that might result in its death, just as human beings make mistakes that result in their deaths. We don't call those deaths suicide.

I think animals probably experience life in a way that is suitable for their species, and that it varies with the species. Horses, for example, don't give food to other horses; the most dominant eats first, if there happens to be any food left the others eat it in order of herd hierarchy. We might think that was "selfish"; it's just how horses are. They don't have our same social structure, so they don't need the behaviors that we need for our social structure.

Animals do communicate with each other, no question, but I think if you truly want to work with them you have to understand them from their perspective, not ours. Personally I find it a fascinating world even without trying to insert human feelings into it.Quite.

[Pup]

But that is also a trained response to a point, so my allusion to a Timber Wolf previously.

Walking up to a TW with a tennis ball saying "walkies! Fetch", will garner a quite different response than with your dog. Think back. How long did it take your own dog to recognise "let's go for a ride in the car" = "play fetch?"

A conditioned, or trained, response.

That's true, but one could also say, we have bred dogs to feel joy when they fetch things, because fetching things (birds, for example) is useful to us. It's artificial selection, in the same way that natural selection has bred us to feel joy when an attractive person expresses love for us or when we sit down to a big meal, because those things are useful to our survival.

So, yes, the dog needs to figure out the signs that will bring it to the joy of "fetch," just as people need to figure out the signs that will bring them to an attractive mate or a good meal, but the joy is innate.

Also - how do we know it is joy that the dog is experiencing?

Since dogs in this situation regard their owners as the Alpha of the pack, it could well be a conditioned response to appear joyful (e.g., face licking) to see the pack's Alpha in order to appease the alpha acknowledge its place in the pack.

That still assumes the Alpha can recognize and appreciate signs of joy. He doesn't actually need his face licked, so if it's just a way to appease him, then he must be able to feel the emotion of satisfaction at being appeased when he sees what he thinks is a genuine display of joy at his arrival, and by extension, he'll need to understand what joy is.

[TjW]

But that is also a trained response to a point, so my allusion to a Timber Wolf previously.

Walking up to a TW with a tennis ball saying "walkies! Fetch", will garner a quite different response than with your dog. Think back. How long did it take your own dog to recognise "let's go for a ride in the car" = "play fetch?"

A conditioned, or trained, response.

Also - how do we know it is joy that the dog is experiencing?

Since dogs in this situation regard their owners as the Alpha of the pack, it could well be a conditioned response to appear joyful (e.g., face licking) to see the pack's Alpha in order to appease the alpha acknowledge its place in the pack.

The response may stem from a dog not wanting to get the crap kicked out of it by the pack alpha.

So if the pack Alpha wants to go to the park and make me fetch a ball for him, it might be in my best interest to feign enthusiasm to appease the apha's present desires because I'm not in a position to challenge him/her.
I'd be interested to see the study.

Just to reiterate.

I am not dismissing animals capacity to feel emotions.
The pain/pleasure response is a pretty basic one in practically all animals, so it is not unreasonable to extrapolate that basic response to the capacity to feel emotions (see links in my previous posts).

My wife likes it when I hug her. If I walk up to a random, unknown woman and hug her, that woman's response may be quite different to my wife's.
Does this demonstrate my wife's response is a learned behavior, and that women don't have "real" emotions?

Using your definition, a large number of human emotions are the result of learned behavior. The phrase "an acquired taste" springs to mind.

Certainly pain and pleasure are basic. The interesting thing about emotion is not that pain and pleasure exist, but what mental states evoke them. A human masochist can feel real pain, but I'm informed that from that they can develop genuine pleasure. A depressed person can be doing very pleasurable things and still feel miserable.

I'm with Amapola on this. I think animals have emotions that are somewhat different than ours. I wouldn't attempt to say I know exactly what they are. I have enough trouble figuring out the emotional state of my own species. Even when they're trying to express it to me using language.

I'll agree with you that I don't think most animals have the mental ability to consider suicide.

[Amapola]

That's true, but one could also say, we have bred dogs to feel joy when they fetch things, because fetching things (birds, for example) is useful to us. It's artificial selection, in the same way that natural selection has bred us to feel joy when an attractive person expresses love for us or when we sit down to a big meal, because those things are useful to our survival.

So, yes, the dog needs to figure out the signs that will bring it to the joy of "fetch," just as people need to figure out the signs that will bring them to an attractive mate or a good meal, but the joy is innate.



That still assumes the Alpha can recognize and appreciate signs of joy. He doesn't actually need his face licked, so if it's just a way to appease him, then he must be able to feel the emotion of satisfaction at being appeased when he sees what he thinks is a genuine display of joy at his arrival, and by extension, he'll need to understand what joy is.

In your example of the alpha wolf, isn't this more likely dominance and subordinate behaviors? As I understand it, subordinate pack members greet the alpha or any other higher-ranking animal in this way, to assure them of their status. I don't know that it has anything to do with "joy".

In horses (which I know a lot more about) one must carefully watch for these dominance displays particularly when handling stallions (intact breeding males). When I handle such animals I am very careful to use dominance displays that the horse will understand: I control where he stands, I make sure he is the one to move away from me, I make him walk behind me or in front of me, I make certain that I never allow him to slowly creep up closer and closer to me. With horses it's all about real estate: who gets to stand where, and who walks where in the herd. If I mistakenly decided he was slowly getting closer to me because he "liked" me and allowed him to do this, I would pretty quickly be wondering why he was biting me and acting "mean" all of a sudden. He's not being mean; he is asserting his dominance, because I have mistakenly *told* him he is dominant over me by allowing him into my personal space.

Things like that make me wary of assigning human emotions to animals; they may well have some totally different use for that particular behavior. Just because it looks like the horse is getting close to me because he "loves" me, does not make it so.

[quarky]

When a dog's tail is waging, the dog is happy.
Dogs smile, fer fsm's sake!

And they do the opposite. They get depressed.
Rescue dogs suffer ptsd.

These dogs need to find some living people in the wreckage once in awhile, or they simply bum-out. Rescue crews actually run fake rescues for the dog's sake, wherein they will rescue a live person.

[Ron_Tomkins]

I have never seen any evidence for animal suicide, however. And as for depression with a loss, just as with most humans, eventually we get over the worst of it and miss the person but stop grieving. With a rare exception, like the dog that waits daily in some spot for a deceased owner to return, I've not seen obviously depressed animals not counting those depressed by the cage they are confined to (an ongoing cause for sadness as opposed to a loss created sadness).

Jane Goodall documented depression in a chimpanzee who's mother died that led to the chimp's eventual death.

Well, we used to have these Lovebirds. They laid these eggs and one day we made the mistake of throwing them away. The mother went into a strong depression and she almost died. We had to take care of her and I don't remember if my mother gave her medicine cause I was very young, but I do remember she had to feed her water cause the bird wouldn't drink. So while technically, the lovebird wasn't trying to commit suicide, the animal did experience a strong depression that made her indifferent to her own care.

[quarky]

I have a gut allergic reaction to human arrogance and the crown of creation we wear with pride...especially in ego-inspired blindness to actual observations and curiosity.

I've seen old science text books that explained why the Negro was inferior; a lesser type of human being. As these prejudices lighten, everything gets a lot smarter, and we get a bit dumber, yet, more scientific.

It was my time spent with dolphins that really threw me, as per the taint of this potential myopia.

To be fair, I may have gone too far the opposite way. Ant colonies and such.

I should dismiss myself from the conversation due to my anti-prejudiced prejudice.

[Pup]

In your example of the alpha wolf, isn't this more likely dominance and subordinate behaviors? As I understand it, subordinate pack members greet the alpha or any other higher-ranking animal in this way, to assure them of their status. I don't know that it has anything to do with "joy".

Okay, let's say it's about dominance and subordinance. That still doesn't eliminate emotions, because there needs to be a motivation to display subordination or to work for dominance. Even if forming a pack heirarchy is inbred because it increases survival, there needs to be a mechanism in the animals' individual brains to reward and punish behavior, otherwise the animals will have no reason to do it, since the behavior isn't directly linked to physical pain.

Let's take a horsey example. The average domestic horse has never been hurt by a blowing white plastic bag. Yet the average horse will react to the sight of one alongside the road.

Would we define that reaction as the emotion we call "fear"? Or is it mere stimulus-response, inbred into generations of horses who survived when they ran first from approaching preditors and asked questions later?

We could talk about it either way, but if we talk about a human's reaction differently when a human sees something scary, then we need to explain what's going on differently in the human's brain compared to the horse's.

[Amapola]

Okay, let's say it's about dominance and subordinance. That still doesn't eliminate emotions, because there needs to be a motivation to display subordination or to work for dominance. Even if forming a pack heirarchy is inbred because it increases survival, there needs to be a mechanism in the animals' individual brains to reward and punish behavior, otherwise the animals will have no reason to do it, since the behavior isn't directly linked to physical pain.

Let's take a horsey example. The average domestic horse has never been hurt by a blowing white plastic bag. Yet the average horse will react to the sight of one alongside the road.

Would we define that reaction as the emotion we call "fear"? Or is it mere stimulus-response, inbred into generations of horses who survived when they ran first from approaching preditors and asked questions later?

We could talk about it either way, but if we talk about a human's reaction differently when a human sees something scary, then we need to explain what's going on differently in the human's brain compared to the horse's.

See, the first problem is we don't really even understand HUMAN emotions. So how can we assign them to other animals not even our own species? We would need a very clear definition, and as far as I know there is no such clear definition at this time.

And I will repeat myself: Animals probably DO have emotion, but it is not necessarily what we think it is. We keep trying to relate it to US: Quarky's point about being arrogant comes in here... why are WE the "gold standard" of emotion? Why are we not comparing OUR emotion to that of an iguana? What causes us to think that our emotions, whatever they might actually be, are just so freaking superior that it's just OBVIOUS that all other life forms have those exact same experiences?

As far as the horse and the white bag, to a horse, all things on Earth have an invisible line drawn around them. If you step over that invisible line, you are close enough to whatever it may be that you can no longer turn around and safely run away from it. You are so close that you must stand and fight. So a lot of what we call "spooking" (thinking the horse is "afraid" of an object) is actually the horse retreating back far enough away from that imaginary line to be sure they have enough space to turn and run, just in case whatever that is turns out to be dangerous. It's not actually fear, as we experience fear; it's more *like* caution although I would hesitate to actually define it. So again: OUR emotions have little to do with what the horse experiences. Calling it "fear" is a mistake. We are predators; we don't have the same experience as a prey animal. I think it is wrong to assume that we do.

[EHocking]

My wife likes it when I hug her. If I walk up to a random, unknown woman and hug her, that woman's response may be quite different to my wife's.
Does this demonstrate my wife's response is a learned behavior, and that women don't have "real" emotions?No.
It demonstrates that you wife is not a dog.

Using your definition, a large number of human emotions are the result of learned behavior. The phrase "an acquired taste" springs to mind.Again, no.

Nowhere have I argued that humans do not experience emotion.
In fact I've quoted an article on the evolution of emotion, wrt, the evolution of the limbic system, which in humans, is more "evolved" than in other animals.
Certainly pain and pleasure are basic. The interesting thing about emotion is not that pain and pleasure exist, but what mental states evoke them. A human masochist can feel real pain, but I'm informed that from that they can develop genuine pleasure. A depressed person can be doing very pleasurable things and still feel miserable.Again, the subject was not human emotions.
I'm with Amapola on this. I think animals have emotions that are somewhat different than ours. I wouldn't attempt to say I know exactly what they are. I have enough trouble figuring out the emotional state of my own species. Even when they're trying to express it to me using language.Exactly what I said in post #53 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=7823061&postcount=53).

I'll agree with you that I don't think most animals have the mental ability to consider suicide.We appear to be in agreement on most points, it seems?

[quarky]

Good one, Amapola.

[EHocking]

That's true, but one could also say, we have bred dogs to feel joy when they fetch things, because fetching things (birds, for example) is useful to us.Or that dogs we have anthropomorphised a dog "pecking order" trait into what we want to believe is joy in man's best friends reaction to us. It's artificial selection, in the same way that natural selection has bred us to feel joy when an attractive person expresses love for us or when we sit down to a big meal, because those things are useful to our survival.In that I agree, basically the last point in my post #53 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=7823061&postcount=53).

So, yes, the dog needs to figure out the signs that will bring it to the joy of "fetch,"Or, just as likely, it needs to figure out the signs that will bring "joy" to the alpha of the pack - in this case playing fetch....just as people need to figure out the signs that will bring them to an attractive mate or a good meal, but the joy is innate.No argument there - there are evolutionary advantages to pack animals, such as dogs and humans, to survive and procreate. Joy may well be innate in humans, and it would appear that the differences in animals brains (such as the limbic system) is probably key to that. In humans it is highly developed. My only dissent on this thread is that I don't believe it is as developed in non-human mammals. That still assumes the Alpha can recognize and appreciate signs of joy.Or an anthropomorphism of an affect display that we interpret as joy. I merely question whether it is anything more than just an affect display.He doesn't actually need his face licked, so if it's just a way to appease him,But if the affect display required to appease an alpha is to wag your tail and lick his/her face, then there is a need, if only to reinforce the pack hierarchy. then he must be able to feel the emotion of satisfaction at being appeased when he sees what he thinks is a genuine display of joy at his arrival, and by extension, he'll need to understand what joy is.Not at all, if it is merely affect display to prevent the non-alphas being roughed up by the alpha, the ability to experience joy is not required by either animal.

[EHocking]

When a dog's tail is waging, the dog is happy.It is also an aggressive display (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_communication#Tail).Dogs smile, fer fsm's sake!No they don't.
Chimpanzees do - but that is to show fear. And they're closer cousins to us that dawgs.And they do the opposite. They get depressed.
Rescue dogs suffer ptsd.I don't think anyone here has argued that animals do not suffer from stress or fear from maltreatment.
ETA : Just realised you mean search/rescue dogs. I responded thinking you meant rescued, dogs.These dogs need to find some living people in the wreckage once in awhile, or they simply bum-out. Rescue crews actually run fake rescues for the dog's sake, wherein they will rescue a live person.I'd like to see the research backing up that. I see that a study has been proposed, but not the results.

As the study (that I read about) would be based on questionnaires given to their handlers we automatically are relying on anthropomorphic interpretations from handlers who would have a very close bond with the animal and may well themselves have suffered or still suffer from PTSD.

A difficult study to find a control group for.

ETA : The publications from the Penn State studies (http://news.vin.com/VINNews.aspx?articleId=19754)so far appear to contradict your assertion.

Studies from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine were published in 2010 (http://www.vin.com/doc/?id=4710483), and twice (http://www.vin.com/doc/?id=84072%20%20)in 2004 (http://www.vin.com/doc/?id=84073). Each revealed that the dogs did not have any adverse health or behavioral consequences tied to the experience.
This conclusion holds true for S&R dogs that were at the World Trade Center (WTC), the Pentagon and the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island that took debris from the collapsed World Trade Center.

[TjW]

No.
It demonstrates that you wife is not a dog.

Again, no.

Nowhere have I argued that humans do not experience emotion.
In fact I've quoted an article on the evolution of emotion, wrt, the evolution of the limbic system, which in humans, is more "evolved" than in other animals.
Again, the subject was not human emotions.
Exactly what I said in post #53 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=7823061&postcount=53).

We appear to be in agreement on most points, it seems?

The difficulty is that if you apply the same non-anthropomorphizing standards to both sets of observations, the results are the same.

A dog-like creature displays a different reaction than a dog. We can't be inside the dog to determine whether or not the dog is actually joyous. Your conclusion is that neither the dog nor the wolf are expressing emotion; the dog is providing a "learned response".

A wife-like creature expresses a different reaction than a wife. We don't actually know how my wife really feels about the hug. We merely know what she says. And people have been known to lie about things like this.
Using the same logic, the conclusion should be that my wife is merely providing a "learned response".

So, no, you haven't claimed that humans don't have emotion. I just don't think your example is a good argument against the dog having emotion.

There's a tendency for humans to reserve a special status to themselves, or their group. It seems to me that this can be just as much a fallacy as anthropomorphizing.

[quarky]

It is also an aggressive display (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_communication#Tail).No they don't.
Chimpanzees do - but that is to show fear. And they're closer cousins to us that dawgs.I don't think anyone here has argued that animals do not suffer from stress or fear from maltreatment.
ETA : Just realised you mean search/rescue dogs. I responded thinking you meant rescued, dogs.I'd like to see the research backing up that. I see that a study has been proposed, but not the results.

As the study (that I read about) would be based on questionnaires given to their handlers we automatically are relying on anthropomorphic interpretations from handlers who would have a very close bond with the animal and may well themselves have suffered or still suffer from PTSD.

A difficult study to find a control group for.

ETA : The publications from the Penn State studies (http://news.vin.com/VINNews.aspx?articleId=19754)so far appear to contradict your assertion.

Studies from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine were published in 2010 (http://www.vin.com/doc/?id=4710483), and twice (http://www.vin.com/doc/?id=84072%20%20)in 2004 (http://www.vin.com/doc/?id=84073). Each revealed that the dogs did not have any adverse health or behavioral consequences tied to the experience.
This conclusion holds true for S&R dogs that were at the World Trade Center (WTC), the Pentagon and the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island that took debris from the collapsed World Trade Center.



I can't tell if you're making this argument because you can, or because its what you feel, or because its what you believe, or because you've never been close with a dog. Dogs smile when they're happy.

Dolphins smile too, but theirs is rather locked in anatomically. easy to run with that, as per anthropomorphic second guessing.

To say that dogs don't smile is to admit to a perverse agenda or lack of observation. Are you being a scientist in your provocative claims, or are you merely protecting our tarnished crown?

I can't see the advantage in seeing this as you do, nor can I see the downside in seeing it as I do. Yet, I've lived closely with dogs for decades.

If I'm projecting the happy/sad onto them, and seeing the reflection of my projection, well

Dogs seem to enjoy that too.

[Pup]

See, the first problem is we don't really even understand HUMAN emotions. So how can we assign them to other animals not even our own species? We would need a very clear definition, and as far as I know there is no such clear definition at this time.

Exactly. And it works the other way, too. How can we deny that other species have them, if we don't even have a good definition of what they are.

It's not actually fear, as we experience fear; it's more *like* caution although I would hesitate to actually define it. So again: OUR emotions have little to do with what the horse experiences. Calling it "fear" is a mistake. We are predators; we don't have the same experience as a prey animal. I think it is wrong to assume that we do.

But the point is that the horse is feeling something, mentally and not physically, that causes it to take action. It may not have an exact parallel to a human emotion, but I don't see that it's so different we must classify it as something definitely-not-an-emotion.

[EHocking]

The difficulty is that if you apply the same non-anthropomorphizing standards to both sets of observations, the results are the same.Not really, since I have said throughout the thread that that human brains are different to dog brains, so it is not unreasonable to conclude that they work differently.A dog-like creature displays a different reaction than a dog. We can't be inside the dog to determine whether or not the dog is actually joyous. Your conclusion is that neither the dog nor the wolf are expressing emotion; the dog is providing a "learned response". I have not been declaring that dogs/cats/wolves are unable to experience emotion. I have been questioning the depth (for want of a better word) of that emotional capability and then expanded on the "fuzzy automaton" notion that it may well be that what may well be only affect display appears to us to be emotions, due to our tendency anthropomorphise such behaviour.
A wife-like creature expresses a different reaction than a wife.A "wife-like" creature?We don't actually know how my wife really feels about the hug.And my point previously was that it may well be the human capability to articulate our feelings that is at the root of having feelings. We merely know what she says. And people have been known to lie about things like this.
Using the same logic, the conclusion should be that my wife is merely providing a "learned response". You're having to move the goalposts to make that "logic" work, since you stated in post 68 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=7826481&postcount=68), "My wife likes it when I hug her.".

So I disagree.
So, no, you haven't claimed that humans don't have emotion. I just don't think your example is a good argument against the dog having emotion.And I never claimed it was.
I was pursuing my thoughts on the subject and thought that I had been very careful to make that plain. Of the example you claim is my argument that dogs do not have emotions (not a claim of mine at all), I clearly stated, "...it could well be a conditioned response...". I then merly expanded on that line of thought.There's a tendency for humans to reserve a special status to themselves, or their group. It seems to me that this can be just as much a fallacy as anthropomorphizing.All I'm talking about is brain physiology and evolution.

Others have read more into what I have written if they contend that I have ever claimed humans are in some way superior to animals in this thread.

In fact I'm trying keep emotional responses out of my posts in this thread in order to keep from muddying the waters of this discussion with OT notions such as humans being a "higher" evolved animal than others.

I might argue that our brain may well be. We are the only animal that writes, creates music and art, has the ability not only to change our environment but to ponder the consequences of doing so, the last point being pointing to perhaps we are also the only animal to experience empathy for another species. (see my response to Quarky re S&R dogs).

[EHocking]

I can't tell if you're making this argument because you can, or because its what you feel, or because its what you believe, or because you've never been close with a dog. Dogs smile when they're happy.I make this argument because this is in the science section. Your allusion to my cold-heartedness because I've never hugged a puppy is barely worth responding to - except to point out that it is a logical fallacy, but at least on topic. Appeal to emotion

As to smiling, as with tail wagging, a dog's "smile" can be a reflection of moods other than happiness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_communication#Mouth).Dolphins smile too, but theirs is rather locked in anatomically. easy to run with that, as per anthropomorphic second guessing.It is not a smile - just the shape of their mouth. If they are experiencing agonisiong pain, the expression will not change. Ergo, not a smile.To say that dogs don't smile is to admit to a perverse agenda or lack of observation.I saying that to intepret a dog's smile as an indications of happiness (as with tail wagging) is fraught with misintepretation. Your thinly disguised ad hominem notwithstanding.Are you being a scientist in your provocative claims, or are you merely protecting our tarnished crown?That ad hominem was less well disguised.I can't see the advantage in seeing this as you do, nor can I see the downside in seeing it as I do. Yet, I've lived closely with dogs for decades.As I said previously - does it matter if dogs or cats cannot feel emotion and are mere "fuzzy automaton" (a very fine moniker that one)? If the symbiotic relation ship works for both animals, does it really matter what the mechanism? If the dog benefits from the protection and food provided by it's human master merely because that human believes the dog "loves" him/her, the dog benefits. The human benefits from a piece of mind and companionship due to the emotional nature of the animal that we have evolved to.

I see no harm in a person being happy because they think their dog loves them. If a dog does not experience joy or happiness - who cares? The dog doesn't, because it would not be capable of "missing" an emotion that it is incapable of feeling. It still gets fed and protected by the human who does think it can feel these things, and the human is content with a "loving" doggie.

All I'm discussing is whether, or at what level, animals may be able experience emotions - as outlined in post #66 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=7826211&postcount=66) that seems to be studiously ignored in preference to declaring I'm a heartless, dog-hating, anthropocentric monster...
If I'm projecting the happy/sad onto them, and seeing the reflection of my projection, well

Dogs seem to enjoy that too.And even if they don't actually "enjoy" - does it really matter?

[Rockhopper]

Hi all,

I am probably late on this as I usually just lurk around. But today I came across an article regarding empathy in Rats. I can not post links yet but if you google 'California university rats feel each others pain' it should come up.

I just like Rats...(Domestic ..but I have respect for the Non-domestic types sneaky little furballs)

[Pup]

perhaps we are also the only animal to experience empathy for another species.

What about mammals who take in other species to nurse--dogs nursing kittens, and vice versa?

One could argue that they're feeling empathy, seeing the signals of another hungry species, and therefore allowing it to nurse, or one could argue that they're merely reacting in a stimulus-response way to an object that happens to be sending out the right stimulus.

[TjW]

I saying that to intepret a dog's smile as an indications of happiness (as with tail wagging) is fraught with misintepretation.


Yes. Just as interpreting a human's smile as happiness is fraught with misinterpretation.

For the record, I don't think you're a puppy-hating monster. I just think you have a somewhat solipsistic approach to the idea of animals having emotion.
If I can make a straw man here: "We can never be inside their heads to know that they're experiencing emotion, so we can't really know."

And that's true, but not terribly interesting.

[quarky]

EHocking, I'm certainly not accusing you of being a cold, puppy hating monster. I yielded the point about the dolphin's anatomy and the smile. With dogs, I think its a different story.
Our long relationship with dogs have humanized them, for lack of better term.
Interpreting their obvious gestures is largely reliable. So I actually wondered if you've spent much time with a dog.

[EHocking]

What about mammals who take in other species to nurse--dogs nursing kittens, and vice versa?

One could argue that they're feeling empathy, seeing the signals of another hungry species, and therefore allowing it to nurse, or one could argue that they're merely reacting in a stimulus-response way to an object that happens to be sending out the right stimulus.I was thinking about the S&R dog study that seemed to indicate that searching for bodies, post 9/11 was not a traumatic experience for them.

That makes me ponder whether dogs do have any empathy, since it would seem that it doesn't matter whether they're searching for drugs, guns, money or bodies. That is, they don't recognise the body of human as being anymore interesting, or traumatic to find (or not find as asserted by another poster) as any other inanimate object.

As for hosting young, introducing young of different farm animals to host mothers doesn't seem to faze either animal, so I don't know if voluntary nursing is an indication of empathy, or just a reaction to a hungry young animal.

[EHocking]

Yes. Just as interpreting a human's smile as happiness is fraught with misinterpretation.

For the record, I don't think you're a puppy-hating monster. I just think you have a somewhat solipsistic approach to the idea of animals having emotion.No great argument of your assessment, I will admit.
If I can make a straw man here: "We can never be inside their heads to know that they're experiencing emotion, so we can't really know."

And that's true, but not terribly interesting.Frankly I wouldn't call it a strawman at all - since it is the root of my position on matter!:D

And it would be uninteresting, that is why I posed the question in post #66 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=7826211&postcount=66) , in an attempt to find out which animals may be able to experience what we might call emotion, and to what degree. One approach might be to examine brain structure and find correlations between the human limbic system, where the ability for emotions is postulated to reside, and similar structures in other animals.

Rather than relying on pet owner anecdote and folklore repeated in opinion pieces, I am interested in seeing if it were possible to come to some conclusions on the subject - but using biology.

[EHocking]

EHocking, I'm certainly not accusing you of being a cold, puppy hating monster. I yielded the point about the dolphin's anatomy and the smile. With dogs, I think its a different story.
Our long relationship with dogs have humanized them, for lack of better term.
Interpreting their obvious gestures is largely reliable.So far, though, this approach, anecdotes by pet owners and dog handlers and folklore being repeated as science seems to indicate that such interpretations are not reliable, but fraught with anthropomorphic interpretation errors.So I actually wondered if you've spent much time with a dog.It is irrelevant to a biological discussion on whether animals might be able to experience emotions that might lead to depression and suicide.

And frankly, the question is merely a special case of argumentum ad hominem - poisoning the well (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well).

[TjW]

I would place the distinction on those animals that exhibit "play" behavior, either as juveniles or adults.
I wouldn't necessarily rule it out for others, but it seems to me that play requires an internal world view that can distinguish between self, other individuals, and the environment, and a certain amount of control over what the self does.
Play can serve to sharpen survival skills. So an emotion such as "Fun!" could have some evolutionary benefit.

[EHocking]

I would place the distinction on those animals that exhibit "play" behavior, either as juveniles or adults.
I wouldn't necessarily rule it out for others, but it seems to me that play requires an internal world view that can distinguish between self, other individuals, and the environment, and a certain amount of control over what the self does.
Play can serve to sharpen survival skills. So an emotion such as "Fun!" could have some evolutionary benefit.I agree, and that is pretty much the reasoning I used to create the first division between basic pain/pleasure reaction and potential for emotions, as being between birds and mammals.

Then several shades of grey going "up" through to primates.

Next division I postulated, between other primates and humans is based on our (seemingly) superior ability to articulate our "state of mind" to another of our species and ability for creating art and music.
The only animal to do so.

[Amapola]

Exactly. And it works the other way, too. How can we deny that other species have them, if we don't even have a good definition of what they are.



But the point is that the horse is feeling something, mentally and not physically, that causes it to take action. It may not have an exact parallel to a human emotion, but I don't see that it's so different we must classify it as something definitely-not-an-emotion.

You know, twice now, I have said that "ANIMALS HAVE EMOTIONS, THEY ARE JUST NOT LIKE OURS". I don't understand why you keep trying to make out that I'm claiming they do not... or are your comments actually addressing someone else? I don't know that we actually have a different point of view, but it's weird to me that you don't seem to be reading the entire post, or perhaps are responding to someone else while quoting me. Not sure about that.

[quarky]

So far, though, this approach, anecdotes by pet owners and dog handlers and folklore being repeated as science seems to indicate that such interpretations are not reliable, but fraught with anthropomorphic interpretation errors.It is irrelevant to a biological discussion on whether animals might be able to experience emotions that might lead to depression and suicide.

And frankly, the question is merely a special case of argumentum ad hominem - poisoning the well (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well).

I have a lot of respect for you, first gained in the thread about the BP well blow-out in the Gulf Of Mexico.

So, I'd like to un-poison the well, if that's possible.
The thread title allows discussion other than depression and suicide in other species. The suicide and depression anecdotes I've heard were at a dolphin research center. Even the janitors at that institute had PhDs. It was an exciting place to be at the time, much as Antarctica is today.

The elephant suicides I'd heard of were admittedly, less reliable.
One could imagine why such events might be under-reported, if you're trying to run a complex research, utterly dependent on grants.

NPR's Science Friday just ran the story about the rat empathy. We can site pragmatic reasons for empathy; it increases the chances of one's own dna moving into biological relevance. Vampire bats practice empathy...or is it just anthropomorphizing our own, legitimate style of empathy onto the bat?

As per art and music in other species, I'm reminded of being taught that man was the only tool-using species. Now, there's more tool users popping up.

Whale songs certainly qualify as music, by the standard definitions. One could claim that they are merely really long and complex bird-songs, that happen to change a lot, and the purpose of the song is rote, instinctual mating call stuff.

We could also claim the same for our music. And our empathy.
So, i think its possible that there is a flip-side to the anthropomorphizing:

The assumption that we are the only ones that "fill in the blank", I think, can taint the science. The right perspective would fall between anthropomorphizing and anti-anthropomorphizing. I think I spelled those words wrong, btw. Tough ones.

In the early 60's, the attitude was that we were the only animal that played.
If dolphins exuberantly leaped from the water, they were trying to shed parasites. Same with otters sliding into the water. Play was not allowed, except for humans.
Now we've seen Ravens use tools and solve puzzles. Even the invertebrate octopus is showing some smarts. Emotions? They are so poorly defined.
If other species do have emotions, analogous to our own, they would be mammals, presumably, with well developed brains. That's my prejudice. I can't have an octopus with emotional issues.

If a dog's exuberant greeting of its people, after they've been away, isn't an emotional outburst, than how can we judge the validity of our own similar emotings?

[quarky]

You know, twice now, I have said that "ANIMALS HAVE EMOTIONS, THEY ARE JUST NOT LIKE OURS". I don't understand why you keep trying to make out that I'm claiming they do not... or are your comments actually addressing someone else? I don't know that we actually have a different point of view, but it's weird to me that you don't seem to be reading the entire post, or perhaps are responding to someone else while quoting me. Not sure about that.

What if they are just like ours?
Would we know?
We're still debating whether they have any emotions, but if they do, I can't see any evidence that those emotions aren't like ours. They nurse their babies. Oxytocin flows. Some build houses, of sorts. We've got a lot in common.

[Amapola]

What if they are just like ours?
Would we know?
We're still debating whether they have any emotions, but if they do, I can't see any evidence that those emotions aren't like ours. They nurse their babies. Oxytocin flows. Some build houses, of sorts. We've got a lot in common.

Yes, but while you are basically a bipedal ape and a predator, a horse is a grazer and a prey animal. As a predator I don't think you have the same experience of life that a prey animal does, and to me, it's really strange to think that you *would*. Why would you and a goat experience seeing a dog in the same way?

I'll say yet again... I think animals have emotions, but I don't think they are necessarily what we experience, because they are different species, adapted to different environments and ways of life.

This is how I see the conversation at this point, or why we are having it: Humans have emotions. Since we have the emotions that we have (however you might like to explain or define them) then other animals will have EXACTLY our same emotions, because our emotions are "better" (somehow) and not allowing the animals to have our exact same emotions is "bad" (somehow). Or the animals are somehow diminished if they don't have our exact same emotions. So if for example a dog feels subordinate to a leader and has certain feelings about it, that would be "bad" but it's "good" if we say the dog is feeling joy.

To me, Quarky, your idea that animals have our exact same emotions is a sort of judgement on our emotions being "better" than the ones the animals have and that somehow the animals wouldn't be seen as important or that somehow they would be less than us, if they do not have our exact same emotions.

I don't see it that way. I think the way a goat sees and experiences the world may not be anything like the way I see it, but it's just as *important* as the way I see and experience it. I don't think the way I experience life is "better". I think it's just different. To me, it does not diminish a horse in the least that my horse does not experience joy upon seeing me - it experiences something else, maybe respect for a leader, maybe a happy expectation of being fed and being treated well. It might be sort of *like* joy, but I don't think that's exactly what it is - and since I myself am not a plains-adapted grazer who lives in herds, I may not be able to fully realize or understand that emotion. It's OK with me if horses have their own emotions and humans have theirs. I don't have to make them be just like me in order to honor and appreciate them.

[quarky]

Yes, but while you are basically a bipedal ape and a predator, a horse is a grazer and a prey animal. As a predator I don't think you have the same experience of life that a prey animal does, and to me, it's really strange to think that you *would*. Why would you and a goat experience seeing a dog in the same way?

I'll say yet again... I think animals have emotions, but I don't think they are necessarily what we experience, because they are different species, adapted to different environments and ways of life.

This is how I see the conversation at this point, or why we are having it: Humans have emotions. Since we have the emotions that we have (however you might like to explain or define them) then other animals will have EXACTLY our same emotions, because our emotions are "better" (somehow) and not allowing the animals to have our exact same emotions is "bad" (somehow). Or the animals are somehow diminished if they don't have our exact same emotions. So if for example a dog feels subordinate to a leader and has certain feelings about it, that would be "bad" but it's "good" if we say the dog is feeling joy.

To me, Quarky, your idea that animals have our exact same emotions is a sort of judgement on our emotions being "better" than the ones the animals have and that somehow the animals wouldn't be seen as important or that somehow they would be less than us, if they do not have our exact same emotions.

I don't see it that way. I think the way a goat sees and experiences the world may not be anything like the way I see it, but it's just as *important* as the way I see and experience it. I don't think the way I experience life is "better". I think it's just different. To me, it does not diminish a horse in the least that my horse does not experience joy upon seeing me - it experiences something else, maybe respect for a leader, maybe a happy expectation of being fed and being treated well. It might be sort of *like* joy, but I don't think that's exactly what it is - and since I myself am not a plains-adapted grazer who lives in herds, I may not be able to fully realize or understand that emotion. It's OK with me if horses have their own emotions and humans have theirs. I don't have to make them be just like me in order to honor and appreciate them.

Well, my question was strictly in the realm of "what if"?
Its not a cross I bare.

Yet,
I suspect that herbivores and carnivores have all manner of knowledge about each other. Their lives are different, but they are intimately entwined, and have been, for ages. They have co-evolved.

I don't harbor a drop of 'better', as per emotions and animals. If anything, I'm aware of Buddhist stuff that implies emotions are the thing that is worth overcoming entirely.

I'm simply speculating the possibility that emotions aren't all that special; that maybe there's just 4 different flavors of them; that all the kids are doing it.

By kids, of course, I mean goats and the like.
I reject the notion that our emotions are somehow more complex and deep and unfathomable. And that we are clearly in a separate category: the special category that we invent to define our specialness in relationship to all other mammals on this Earth.

[Amapola]

Well, my question was strictly in the realm of "what if"?
Its not a cross I bare.

Yet,
I suspect that herbivores and carnivores have all manner of knowledge about each other. Their lives are different, but they are intimately entwined, and have been, for ages. They have co-evolved.

I don't harbor a drop of 'better', as per emotions and animals. If anything, I'm aware of Buddhist stuff that implies emotions are the thing that is worth overcoming entirely.

I'm simply speculating the possibility that emotions aren't all that special; that maybe there's just 4 different flavors of them; that all the kids are doing it.

By kids, of course, I mean goats and the like.
I reject the notion that our emotions are somehow more complex and deep and unfathomable. And that we are clearly in a separate category: the special category that we invent to define our specialness in relationship to all other mammals on this Earth.

Glad to know you don't think we're special... :D Neither do I, of course.

Disagree about predator/prey. I really do think they see things differently, in fact very differently, just from observing livestock for a lifetime. I've also observed human beings not understanding what is going on with the minds of the livestock, or most other animals, over and over again. Special training has to take place before I'll even allow another human to help me work animals. This is because without careful training, they continually misunderstand what is going on in the mind of the animal and then proceed to muck everything up. If emotion is a sort of universal experience, how is it that human beings consistently and continually fail to understand what the animal is experiencing and what is going through it's mind?

I grant you, a wolf pack might understand how to "work" a herd of reindeer, but I doubt the reindeer and the wolves have the same emotions; they are sort of two sides to a coin, maybe. But that's just me; carry on! :)

[Pup]

You know, twice now, I have said that "ANIMALS HAVE EMOTIONS, THEY ARE JUST NOT LIKE OURS". I don't understand why you keep trying to make out that I'm claiming they do not... or are your comments actually addressing someone else? I don't know that we actually have a different point of view, but it's weird to me that you don't seem to be reading the entire post, or perhaps are responding to someone else while quoting me. Not sure about that.

My reply where I quoted you, post #81, was written to support and amplify your points.

It's weird that you didn't read it that way, and instead assumed it was a challenge, or argument, or something.

Oh well. Whatever.

[EHocking]

I have a lot of respect for you, first gained in the thread about the BP well blow-out in the Gulf Of Mexico.

So, I'd like to un-poison the well, if that's possible.I'll help by apologising for taking the ad hom objection a little too far.
My reasoning was that you appeared to be going down the track, "If you never had a puppy in your life, you can't understand my (your) argument.".
I was trying to head that line of argument off, since it is unneccessary to the discussion.

So hopefully no harm, no foul and we can both continue without emotions getting in the way.;)The thread title allows discussion other than depression and suicide in other species. The suicide and depression anecdotes I've heard were at a dolphin research center. Even the janitors at that institute had PhDs. It was an exciting place to be at the time, much as Antarctica is today.But again - anecdotal only.
By coincidence I saw a documentary highlighting the annual Japanese dolphin kill and one of the main antagonists was the "Flippers" trainer who related the story of one of the Flippers committing suicide.
A very moving story, but a story only. I have yet to see scientific discussion of the subject. Another reason for my poisoning the well comment, e.g., "You've never had a puppy or nursed a dolphin, therefore never experience their (potential) emotions.".
Not the case. I'm just trying to keep our emotions out of the discussion, since this is the Science section of the forum.
The elephant suicides I'd heard of were admittedly, less reliable.
One could imagine why such events might be under-reported, if you're trying to run a complex research, utterly dependent on grants.That's a cop out IMO. There is a huge amount of research into conserving/preserving wild elephants, with mountains of observations of their interaction with each other, predators and their environment.
The only discussion on suicides that I know of is from folklore and campfire stories. To say that there is no interest in the "emotional" make up of a group of elephats is misleading.NPR's Science Friday just ran the story about the rat empathy. We can site pragmatic reasons for empathy; it increases the chances of one's own dna moving into biological relevance. Vampire bats practice empathy...or is it just anthropomorphizing our own, legitimate style of empathy onto the bat?I wouldn't argue about empathy between animals of the same species. As you say there it is probably a very useful evolutionary advantage for pack animals. Much like Amapola, though, I'd question whether this empathy is much more than a pack survival instinct. For instance, did the free rat attempt to calm the other rat? That would indicate a level of empathy above mere survival instinct?
Just observing an animal helping another trapped animal (of the same species) might not show anything "higher" than merely a pack instinct.
As per art and music in other species, I'm reminded of being taught that man was the only tool-using species. Now, there's more tool users popping up.

Whale songs certainly qualify as music, by the standard definitions. One could claim that they are merely really long and complex bird-songs, that happen to change a lot, and the purpose of the song is rote, instinctual mating call stuff.And I would agree with the last, since whale "song" is only "performed" during the mating season and humpback songs are similar, almost identical, within a single population (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_sounds). That, to me, does not qualify as musing - merely communications learned by rote.
We could also claim the same for our music.Not one bit of it. While you might learning music is often a matter of rote, but composing music is quite a different thing and very distinct from animal communication sounds. And our empathy.I would agree. I see no problem with the idea that our "most basic human traits" have a basis in pack survival instincts, in fact that is what I believe to be the case. Ours are much more "elaborate", for want of a better word, merely because of our superior communications capabilities (e.g., speech, writing, art).
So, i think its possible that there is a flip-side to the anthropomorphizing:

The assumption that we are the only ones that "fill in the blank", I think, can taint the science. The right perspective would fall between anthropomorphizing and anti-anthropomorphizing. I think I spelled those words wrong, btw. Tough ones.I guess we're agreeing here - I just take a harder line on the science side and am very, very cautious about accepting anecdotes as evidence as, if you'll forgive me, your softer approach to the subject.
In the early 60's, the attitude was that we were the only animal that played.
If dolphins exuberantly leaped from the water, they were trying to shed parasites. Same with otters sliding into the water. Play was not allowed, except for humans. And thus science has moved on since then, except of course, Charles Darwin published a book on the subject in 1872 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expression_of_the_Emotions_in_Man_and_Animals) and would not have been the first scientist to ponder the subject.
Now we've seen Ravens use tools and solve puzzles. Even the invertebrate octopus is showing some smarts. Emotions? They are so poorly defined.
If other species do have emotions, analogous to our own, they would be mammals, presumably, with well developed brains. That's my prejudice. I can't have an octopus with emotional issues.And I guess that has been my criticism all along. The subject is difficult to discuss if everyone brings their emotional baggage along.

But I am in constant wonder with the natural world and its complexity.
So what if some animals are unable to experience emotion?
If the pain/pleasure response is sufficient for it to evolve, does it matter?

This is similar to the kind of argument I get from religious people, who, because they can not fathom how I can live with (a) god in my life, must mean I live an unfulfilling (an usually the implication, an immoral) life.

Why does an octopus need fulfillment in its life as long as it is eating and mating and perpetuating the species? Evolution doesn't need a purpose for the animals to survive and perpetuate.
If a dog's exuberant greeting of its people, after they've been away, isn't an emotional outburst, than how can we judge the validity of our own similar emotings?This is a non sequitur, the one does not follow the other.

A human can at least communicate how it feels through speech.

[EHocking]

Glad to know you don't think we're special... :D Neither do I, of course.

Disagree about predator/prey. I really do think they see things differently, in fact very differently, just from observing livestock for a lifetime. I've also observed human beings not understanding what is going on with the minds of the livestock, or most other animals, over and over again. Special training has to take place before I'll even allow another human to help me work animals. This is because without careful training, they continually misunderstand what is going on in the mind of the animal and then proceed to muck everything up. If emotion is a sort of universal experience, how is it that human beings consistently and continually fail to understand what the animal is experiencing and what is going through it's mind?

I grant you, a wolf pack might understand how to "work" a herd of reindeer, but I doubt the reindeer and the wolves have the same emotions; they are sort of two sides to a coin, maybe. But that's just me; carry on! :)As Wittgenstein is quoted,
"If a lion could talk, we could not understand him."

[TjW]

And if we understood him, we couldn't believe him, because he'd be lion.

[EHocking]

And if we understood him, we couldn't believe him, because he'd be lion.Is there an UN-nominate button around somewhere?
:covereyes