The weird part isn’t animals having emotions, it’s that they seem to be expressing them in ways that make sense to us. Everyone who’s had a dog or cat knows they express emotions very differently from us.
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TomMasz@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Heaven forbid an animal have emotions.
lolcatnip@reddthat.com 7 months ago
match@pawb.social 7 months ago
just for that I’m gonna push your coffee cup off the table (love you)
intensely_human@lemm.ee 7 months ago
I’ve had dogs and cats and their emotions make sense to me. They seem to express them in ways that make sense to me.
TrousersMcPants@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Yeah, why is it “just chance”? I don’t understand the idea that animals have no emotions, it’s weird.
RubberElectrons@lemmy.world 7 months ago
We all know they do. It just makes compartmentalizing other… activities easier for some people.
NielsBohron@lemmy.world 7 months ago
But they are not human emotions, so to assign human emotions to animals is a misnomer.
daddy32@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Until we have better understanding and dictionary for their emotions, using names of human emotions instead can be a good approximation.
RubberElectrons@lemmy.world 7 months ago
How do you know?
My pets express themselves pretty clearly, despite having much more limited ability to communicate across species lines.
I feel reasonably confident in stating that I believe animals are conscious, just to varying depths.
IMongoose@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Animal emotions is a hugely debated and studied topic, at least it was 10 years ago. It was a grave sin to anthropomorphize animals that have not been properly studied when I was in school. That comment is probably a tongue in cheek comment on that
spacesatan@lazysoci.al 7 months ago
‘They better not have emotions or holy shit I’m gonna have [more] nightmares about what we did to those dogs/rats/monkeys’
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
it’s more that what we perceive may be not what animals feel, especially as cute behaviors get them more attention, it’s self-reinforcing.
a cat may look like they’re having an existential crisis but may be feeling an emotion humans don’t have, like “ready to hunt but need to conserve limited energy while remaining very alert”
a dog may look happy but actually is upset and hungry so is doing the thing that gets them the treat