All Or Nothing Paradoxes.

[lucusloc]

Disagree with all that too. And to clarify, Im not ascribing them human levels of capability. That would probably be called anthropomorphism...

And that is exactly what I am talking about. That calf got a dopamine hit that lit up the reward centers in its little brain. It has not capability for emotion beyond that. Is it gong to write a sonnet about that day at the creek? Wax poetic about whatever it is that fired off that dopamine rush? Is it even aware of what kicked that rush off in the first place? At least past the instinctual level where that stimulus is rewarded in the first place?

Humans can process their emotions, both for internal introspection and for external consumption by others. That emotion can be distilled, refined and redistributed in both direct and indirect ways. We can artificially create communication that triggers similar emotion in others, using visual media, music and basically anything else. We can decouple the stimulus from the result. We can even graduate these emotions into finer and finer categories, developing whole philosophies about how and why and whatever else. We can intellectually experience emotion through memory and internal association, thus decoupling the feeling itself from the actual chemical rush that is triggered from natural stimulus. This itself can trigger other emotional responses, bot reinforcing and resisting, depending on the free association we have developed within our own mind.

This, as near as we can figure, is all pretty much unique to humans. Yes, some other species seem to be able to communicate basic emotional response to other members; joy, sorrow, fear etc. but none of them seem to be capable of distilling that down and intentionally re-triggering that response for social or personal reasons after the fact. That is a uniquely human trait that allows for a much deeper and more nuanced emotional response than any animal has demonstrated the capability for. It is not unreasonable to say that we perceive and experience emotions far more profoundly than any animal has the capability for, because we, quite frankly, have far more intelligence to devote to the endeavor.

 

[TTSX]

But is the horse in pain?

Depends who's riding it, I suppose. If Mimi, then yes. In more ways than one

 

[Koda]

And that is exactly what I am talking about. That calf got a dopamine hit that lit up the reward centers in its little brain. It has not capability for emotion beyond that. Is it gong to write a sonnet about that day at the creek? Wax poetic about whatever it is that fired off that dopamine rush? Is it even aware of what kicked that rush off in the first place? At least past the instinctual level where that stimulus is rewarded in the first place?

Different levels of evolutionary directions does not validate that animals are not capable of experiencing emotions on a human level.

 

[lucusloc]

Different levels of evolutionary directions does not validate that animals are not capable of experiencing emotions on a human level.

I submit that is does, because it is those very directives that dictate how emotions are processed and experienced in the first place. They cannot experience human levels of emotion because they do not have the wetware capable of processing that level of emotion in the first place. You want human levels of emotion? You need human level of processing power to experience that emotion.

 

[Koda]

3 different species all experiencing the same levels of suffering, happiness, frustration....

All in one photo. The paradox is unsolved....

 

[Xaevian]

Let's boil this down to something real simple-like:

Other animals aren't humans,
But humans are just another animal.

Unless we were brought here by aliens:

 

[Koda]

I submit that is does, because it is those very directives that dictate how emotions are processed and experienced in the first place. They cannot experience human levels of emotion because they do not have the wetware capable of processing that level of emotion in the first place. You want human levels of emotion? You need human level of processing power to experience that emotion.

Again, Im not anthromorphatizing animal emotions with human emotions. I know of no science that supports your position.

 

[lucusloc]

Again, Im not anthromorphatizing animal emotions with human emotions. I know of no science that supports your position.

other than all the studies into animal cognitive abilities?

 

[Koda]

other than all the studies into animal cognitive abilities?

Can we recap that your position is that animals are not capable of human levels of emotions?

 

[lucusloc]

Can we recap that your position is that animals are not capable of human levels of emotions?

yes, and emotional experience is based on cognitive capability. A lobster is capable of less emotional response than a cow, and a cow less than a human.

 

[Koda]

yes, and emotional experience is based on cognitive capability. A lobster is capable of less emotional response than a cow, and a cow less than a human.

What is a "human level of emotion"?

 

[Xaevian]

What is a "human level of emotion"?

Homicide?

 

[Koda]

Homicide?

That's a crime not an emotion. But one could argue experiencing grief from the loss of a loved one, there are examples of animals experiencing this.

 

[TTSX]

Schrodinger's lobster doesn't have the same ring to it

 

[Xaevian]

That's a crime not an emotion. But one could argue experiencing grief from the loss of a loved one, there are examples of animals experiencing this.

Dig deeper into my response.

 

[Koda]

Dig deeper into my response.

Thats all I could come up with.

 

[lucusloc]

What is a "human level of emotion"?

Tautologically it is a human level of emotion. It is the breadth and dept of the human emotional experience, from simple joy to to the complexities of schadenfreude and even more complex topics that need more than a few words to convey. It is the ability to relive suffering on a mental level, and to share, or even involuntary propagate that suffering through complex behavioral changes and interactions. It is the ability to communicate those emotions to others and to distill out the essence of its meaning, both as personal introspection and as interpersonal interaction. It is the ability to decouple emotion from external stimuli and experience it as its own unique and independent experience. It is the ability to develop deep sociological, cultural and philosophical meanings attached to those same experiences, replicating them across entire demographics that have little interpersonal contact on an individual level. And it is the sum totality of this in its entirety, not just the individual components take apiece. Human emotion is integrated with basically every aspect of our being, from our intellect to our language to our society. We even have different emotional levels reserved for different interpersonal strata, from cultural responses to deep hidden personal feelings, and we can flip back and forth between the different levels at a moment's notice going from happy at a sports victory to reliving a deeply ingrained childhood trauma.

Do you contend there is any animal capable of experiencing such a depth and breadth of capability? Or does such a thing strike you as necessitating the capability of the human mind to comprehend?

 

[Xaevian]

Anyone else find the irony of this thread, "All Or Nothing Paradoxes" amusing?

 

[Koda]

Tautologically it is a human level of emotion.

lost me

Do you contend there is any animal capable of experiencing such a depth and breadth of capability? Or does such a thing strike you as necessitating the capability of the human mind to comprehend?

Koko was a gorilla that learned sign language. At one point in her life Koko signed she wanted a pet kitten. Researchers gave her a stuffed animal instead, and she expressed disappointment and signed that she was "sad". Caregivers then finally let her choose a kitten and it was proven that Koko cared for that kitten as if it was her own. Some time had passed and the kitten (presumably now grown up) had got away and was hit by a car and died. Koko signed sad and cry. Caregivers recorded her making sounds as if she was crying. (I don't know if its physically possible for gorillas to actually cry).

Anyways, I'm not arguing that animals are humans. Its been an interesting intellectual discussion but I still haven't seen any evidence that animals do not experience emotions any differently than humans.

 

[lucusloc]

lost me

Koko was a gorilla that learned sign language. At one point in her life Koko signed she wanted a pet kitten. Researchers gave her a stuffed animal instead, and she expressed disappointment and signed that she was "sad". Caregivers then finally let her choose a kitten and it was proven that Koko cared for that kitten as if it was her own. Some time had passed and the kitten (presumably now grown up) had got away and was hit by a car and died. Koko signed sad and cry. Caregivers recorded her making sounds as if she was crying. (I don't know if its physically possible for gorillas to actually cry).

Anyways, I'm not arguing that animals are humans. Its been an interesting intellectual discussion but I still haven't seen any evidence that animals do not experience emotions any differently than humans.

And, again, you are using examples from the class of animal that is as close as possible to human capabilities without actually being a human. Koko had a vocabulary of a few hundred words, you try to explain to here the concept of schadenfreude, or melancholy, or any number of other deep and rich single words that convey highly specific emotional states. And that is to say nothing of the emotional experiences that encompass entire books. I think Koko is a bit out of her depth.

Sure, we both agree that she can do the basics, but that is the difference between learning how all the pieces move in chess and being a fully qualified grand master. On the scale of emotional capability Koko is no grand master like even your basic low-watt human would be.

And that is to say nothing of the lobster that is mention in the topic a few times. Joy? Sorrow? People have stuck electrodes into what passes for their brains and we cannot even detect a response that fully encapsulates basic pain in the same way a human experiences it. They don't have emotions at all. They have hard-wired responses to external stimulus. That is the only thing that has ever been recorded, no matter how popular Leon the Lobster is on the internet.

And that makes sense considering how much they have to work with. Lobsters "brains" are comprised of human countable numbers of neurons. Like in the barely 10s of thousands range. They have about 100 thousand in their whole body. There are humans who have counted to ten times that number on a lark. They simply don't have the spare processing power to waste on "emotion." They barely have enough to store a generic canned response for a missing limb.