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I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on this. I love animals. No one who knows me would ever suggest otherwise. But I do not believe animals posses the human characteristics of love, compassion, empathy, etc....
I'm going to outside and hug one of my cows. After all, they are animals and they are capable of loving me, right? I feed them and take care of them. I spend a ton of time with them. Surely they love me. Or is it only dogs and cats that are capable of this complex human emotion.
What about my son's hamster? Does he love me? The fish don't even seem to know I'm in the room.
lol, then you have the wrong kind of fish.
mine swim to the glass when i walk past the tank, if i put my hand into the water they swim to my fingers and brush against them...my fish do actually not only know im in the room but enjoy interaction with humans and not just for food...
this includes the koi and commets in the pond and more so my cichlids who sincerly have personalities.
hamsters in my mind are a slightly different kettle of fish, along with snakes ect, they are solitary animals by nature, while many grow to truly enjoy interaction with their people, they do not need the "companionship" side of things like animals that typically form family groups do. because of this their emotional set is completly different.
for example a rabbit or a rat is a highly social animal, they require social interaction to feel safe, comforted, and reassured of their place in the world, a social heirarchy...
a syrian hamster however would normally kill another syrian in thier territory unless its breeding season, they have no need for those social interactions.
and i personally feel ALL animals are capable of complex emotion. as i said, ive known many, from doemstic to livestock to exotic...
answer me this...
if love is purely a human emotion...
is that true of anger and frustration....both are complex emotions and dogs have been proven to display frustration and anger when pushed to their limits.
and i just realized, this is all completly off topic. LMAO.
I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on this. I love animals. No one who knows me would ever suggest otherwise. But I do not believe animals posses the human characteristics of love, compassion, empathy, etc....
I'm going to outside and hug one of my cows. After all, they are animals and they are capable of loving me, right? I feed them and take care of them. I spend a ton of time with them. Surely they love me. Or is it only dogs and cats that are capable of this complex human emotion.
What about my son's hamster? Does he love me? The fish don't even seem to know I'm in the room.
Why do you want to compare different species? A cat is not a cow nor a hamster nor a fish. Their brains are completely different. Whether cows or hamsters are capable of developing these types of emotions I don't really know, not having ever lived with one. But I know cats and dogs, and they are.
But yes, we can agree to disagree on this if you'd just please stop with specious comparisons, they make no sense and discredit everything else you say no matter how reasonable.
Basic emotions arise not from our higher brains, but from the deep, primitive parts that we share with everything that has a backbone. Emotions like fear and love are instinctual, they aren't rational functions of our brains like the ability to contemplate mathematics. It would be much safer to assume that cats do experience a full range of emotions than to assume that they don't.
I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on this. I love animals. No one who knows me would ever suggest otherwise. But I do not believe animals posses the human characteristics of love, compassion, empathy, etc....
I'm going to outside and hug one of my cows. After all, they are animals and they are capable of loving me, right? I feed them and take care of them. I spend a ton of time with them. Surely they love me. Or is it only dogs and cats that are capable of this complex human emotion.
What about my son's hamster? Does he love me? The fish don't even seem to know I'm in the room.
What is with everything this days having to be one extreme or the other? It can either have human emotions or nothing, but not something in between?
You could say they don't possess human characteristics, but they possess animal characteristics. Some of those animal characteristics are akin to what we call emotion, feelings, etc.
Hug a cow, go right ahead! Is a cow capable of this? I don't know! I haven't spent time with cows. Ask Temple Grandin, I'll bet she would have a strong opinion on this matter (though I don't actually know which side she would come down on as far as whether cows truly exhibit something like emotion or not).
But once again we have one extreme or another. Either ALL animals have the same capacity or they ALL have NONE? This is clearly not the case. Otherwise, you can't explain the differing mental capacities of, say, chimpanzees vs cows or even horses vs cows or dogs vs cows. It's not just assumed that different animals have different capacities for such things; there is CLEAR EVIDENCE of this from observation over many decades, centuries in some cases.
We're not talking about a black and white, human capacity vs (non-human) animal capacity. It's a whole range of animal capacity, from human on down to a single-celled organism. So yeah, there's a difference between what your dog or cat can feel and what the cow can feel, most likely.
Why do you want to compare different species? A cat is not a cow nor a hamster nor a fish. Their brains are completely different. Whether cows or hamsters are capable of developing these types of emotions I don't really know, not having ever lived with one. But I know cats and dogs, and they are.
I think you just made MMs point. You compare a cats brain/emotions to that of a human. Stating they have the same capacity for human emotions and reasoning. So cats and human brains are the same but cow and pig brains are different?
So where did you study Neuropsycology?
i also wanted to add...
humans are, in all biological terms ANIMALS just a different evolutionary animal, but an animal all the same...
so what the heck makes us so special?! why are we the only ones allowed to have so called complex emotions...
the emotion of "love" is instinctual after all, its not a learned behaviour...it is our instinct as a race to "love" and why do we "love' exactly? typically to reproduce and raise offspring.
love is simply a more human term for connecting with a mate, reproducing and having offspring...
a more human term for nurturing your child
a more human term for the social bond a human has with their "family" group.
what...in your opinion mississipi...DEFINES love if not the dictionary terms...what is love to you?
im very curious, because i think mabe the definition of "love" has been lost...
I apologize if this post is redundant. I have only read page one of this thread . . . the OP is posting from the perspective of the cat owner . . . my post is from the perspective of the cat. I don't think it is up to humans to decide what is RIGHT for all species . . . cats crave the outdoors and I feel it is purely selfish to keep them restricted to the indoors. Yes, some cats who are ALLOWED (why do humans have the say over all creatures?) to go outside could be hit by a car or suffer other unfortunate occurrences . . . but freedom comes with risk. If you ask the cat, I think they would take the risk. Why else would they try to dart out of the house at every occurrence of the door opening? I just want to advocate for the cat, a natural creature who deserves to be able to explore outside and revel in nature.
I think you just made MMs point. You compare a cats brain/emotions to that of a human. Stating they have the same capacity for human emotions and reasoning. So cats and human brains are the same but cow and pig brains are different?
So where did you study Neuropsycology?
On the contrary I did not say that cats have capacity for HUMAN emotions. I said that cats have the capacity for love
my statement:
Quote:
No, of course animals don't have human emotions, they have the emotions of their own species. Animals love.
Cats have cat brains, and cat brains are capable of emotions such as love. Since they are capable of this emotion, the emotion is not human emotion, it is a cat emotion.
Cows have cow brains, and not knowing any, I have no idea what their brains are capable of, given the chance for development, but I would not be surprised to find out that an intelligent cow has capabilities for certain emotions too, depending on the genetic make up of any given cow.
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