Comment on Pademelon

• RubberElectrons@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  We all know they do. It just makes compartmentalizing other… activities easier for some people.

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  • NielsBohron@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    But they are not human emotions, so to assign human emotions to animals is a misnomer.

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    • daddy32@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Until we have better understanding and dictionary for their emotions, using names of human emotions instead can be a good approximation.

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      • grrgyle@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I’m not even sure a shared taxonomy of human emotions is particularly accurate, given how differently people sense even nameable emotions.

        But they’re still valid emotions ofc, just kinda unknowable

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      • NielsBohron@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        using names of human emotions instead can be a good approximation

        It can be, but it can also be a gross misrepresentation. Outside of higher mammals, it seems safer to me to assume that their emotions are extremely dissimilar and human emotions are poor analogues at best.

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    • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨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.

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      • NielsBohron@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        My pets express themselves pretty clearly, despite having much more limited ability to communicate across species lines.

        They express wants and needs, not emotions. Assuming that they have emotions that are the same as human emotions is anthropomorphization. They might have some analogous emotions, and boredom in a mammal might seem similar to human boredom, but where do you draw the line? Can a dog experience ennui? Can a cat experience a lack of fulfillment? Can a snake experience depression?

        I feel reasonably confident in stating that I believe animals are conscious, just to varying depths.

        I don’t disagree, but you can’t say that animals that evolved consciousness in completely different environments and with different senses and neurology would experience emotion in the same way as humans. Apes, sure, they are really close and probably the easiest argument for human emotions in non-human species, but other mammals get farther and farther from human experience and emotion, and it’s presumptuous of humans to assume that the experience emotions the same way. Read “What Is It Like to Be a Bat” for some of the philosophical and scientific issues with assigning human emotions to other mammals.

        And other intelligent animals that are further removed from humanity on the evolutionary chain would have even more alien emotions. Humans can feel empathy for an octopus or African Greys, but can either of those animals feel empathy for humans? What about curiosity? They seem curious, but how can we know if they experience curiosity that is anything like human curiosity?

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• IMongoose@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨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

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  • spacesatan@lazysoci.al ⁨2⁩ ⁨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’

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    • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨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

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