Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free
sciencenews.org
sciencenews.org
It is oversimplifying to say something like "oh it's helping the other rat for selfish reason X", but it is equally misleading to apply human models of mind, which we have due to our unique ability to introspect and share that introspection with other members of our species.
Models such as kin selection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection) attempt to explain altruism within an evolutionary model, but even if there is a totally different cause for this particular altruistic behavior (and even if it is shown to be almost wholly altruistic, rather than just indirectly self-beneficial, assuming such a distinction exists), there are very few grounds to assume empathy.
The most interesting result to me is that the rats demonstrate distress at seeing the suffering, and cease upon release. But before talking about empathy again, we must show that the distress is its own separate thing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voight-Kampff_test#Voight-Kampf...) rather than mere frustration at failed attempts of rescue.
So, sure, we've learned something, but I don't think we've demonstrated empathy.
Altruism is also indicated by leaving the sweets for the trapped rat.
Im not a neuroscientist, but I can guess the mirror neurons are at play.
It's not to say that animals are incapable, but such assumptions cannot be made without the insight being held suspect.
The notion of aid implies it has a mental model of the other rat and that it consideres the other rat as a rat that needs help.
I don't understand why people always think of humans as outstanding and totally different from other species. Or do you think that humans are only exhibiting kin selection too and that empathy is nothing but a ideological concept? How do you prove empathy in humans? (And please apply the same rigor.)
I think we should be just as careful ascribing internal models to human actions that we observe, where we might be even more tempted to jump to conclusions because we think we must be familiar what goes on in other humans' minds.
So, to summarize, I think humans really do feel empathy (I know I do, and I choose to believe others do too), and I know humans will often engage in altruistic behavior. I'm not certain that without empathy we wouldn't engage in the altruistic behavior, though it's likely we'd engage in less. So yes, I do actively apply the same rigor to this area where ethics, philosophy of mind, and neuroscience are meeting. It's a fascinating topic! But it's an area that's easily politicized (morality takeaways tend to be applied quickly...) so I always err on the side of careful interpretation.
There are plenty of possible ways things could work out. For instance, if the rats have figured out that the humans can identify individual rats and treat them different (which they might figure out if the humans have done several kinds of experiments on the same rats because each experiment would have a control group that gets different treatment), the rat outside might think "the humans but this other rat in the cage--if I let it out, then when they come back they'll be distracted putting it back in, and might leave me alone".
Or maybe it would be good to let the other rat out so that if danger arrives, you can go hide in the cage.
Or it could make sense to have the other rat out so that the two of you can more quickly explore the environment and find a way to escape.
The main point is that you can't really attribute letting the other rat out to empathy, as there are many other possible explanations for why a rat might let another rat out.
If I had to guess, people are taking things a bit personally as an attack on their pets, as though requesting further evidence of higher order processing is insinuating that their pets don't really have the feelings they believe their pets do. (Nobody here commenting on the experiment's conclusions is claiming this, as far as I can tell; they're just asking for more conclusive and objective evidence before they believe such conclusions can be made.)
Some of the 'reasoning' being used ("Just ask any dog owner") is eerily familiar to the kind of reasoning people use when justifying homeopathy ("It worked for my cousin's ailment", which in the extreme leads to lovely things like Rhino poaching and whale hunting, something I'm sure these people abhor), the paranormal and supernatural ("I sensed something [and my senses are obviously infalible]", which in the extreme leads to a reduced quality of life), religious extremism ("Just ask anybody who's heard God's voice") etc.
But their actions should still count as a precursor to empathy. I believe these things are a continuum and divisions along the way are pretty arbitrary. For example does a parrot talk or is it just pattern recognizing? To that I say, what is the difference? Can we say talking is more than simply pattern recognition recursed to the next level?
Consider Searle's Chinese Room, where he argues that since a human following a program to translate Chinese does not understand Chinese then a machine running the same also does not understand and hence is not 'strong AI'. I do not agree with his conclusion as I find such a distinction to be meaningless. You can't define what a mind is, human or not, by whether its aware of its operations. That is too slippery a concept and not necessarily an advantage. You can only observe and enumerate what properties the mind does (not) exhibit.
Read Peter Watts' Blindsight if you want to see this line of thinking handled incredibly well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(science_fiction_nov...
Do you really think this is the simpler explanation?
Also, I believe it's implicit in parent's post that evolution would produce more rats whose behaviour increases their likelihood of survival. The rats don't need to understand how their behaviour ensures their survival, or that it can be modelled with game theory, etc.
The question is: why not? Who are we to say that rats (or dogs or cats or crows or elephants or . . . ) can't feel another's pain?
Dogs have been known to show emotion. Elephants have been known to show emotion. Chimp mothers express sorrow when their child dies. And so on.
But people will come up with contorted explanations for these phenomena: dogs must 'smell' some pheromone that triggers such behavior... chimp mothers are only grieving because it's loss of a valuable tribe resource ... or things to those effect.
You know what? Believe what you will. But I have seen more empathy coming from animals than some humans (see Dick Cheney).
Lastly, I just have trouble believing that what I see with my own eyes isn't emotion.
Talk to any dog owner.
:)
I would agree with the dog owner, but then you sometimes hear owners of non-social animals (e.g. snakes, octopuses) claiming their pets have empathy. A few people even claim their cars have empathy.
I can tell when it's happy because it's purring, and when it's working too hard it groans and squeals instead. It lets me know when its hungry (oil change indicator), thirsty (windshield wiper indicator), sick (service needed indicator), or just plain out of breath (low tire pressure indicator).
I don't understand how some people can be so cruel and say that it can't think and feel for itself. They think just because a human built the machine that built this car, that they're automatically superior to it. They just won't take the time to listen.
I used to be like that, but one time... I killed a car. It was by accident and I really didn't mean to do it, but the sounds it was making when it was dying; oh god, the sounds. You would know cars can feel and understand if you heard them.
In fact there is a term for it: muricide.
Rats also practice infanticide.
So, yeah rodent morality is also complex.
We figure as long as it can be profited from or paved over, it's justifiable. It's not.
One day mankind will grieve because of the suffering we have caused animals. But by then it will be too late.
Empathy is the antithesis of power. That's why it will always be the exception in humans.
Are you referring to the Halo Effect? (http://lesswrong.com/lw/lj/the_halo_effect/)
Edit: I don't think I meant the Halo Effect - there was another kind of bias I read about on lesswrong.com, but I cannot find it.
Rat 1, Human 0 ?
That said, I can't even kill spiders. It doesn't make any sense but I've an unavoidable feeling of guilt if I don't release them outside unharmed. Yet I have no problem eating meat. My empathy is irrational.
Empathy is irrational, since it relies on identification with the other being. It's always easier to identify oneself with a living being than to a piece of meat.
On the other hand, it's also very rational; it's a much better strategy than if it was guided by pure knowledge, since it optimizes cooperation: otherwise, you'd either be completely indifferent to someone you can actually help (e.g. injured person near you) or live in mental anguish by the fact that you know that thousands are constantly being killed by wars, curable diseases, etc.
[1] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin#Misattributed
Instead of the way you've been thinking about this, suppose instead that empathy is a straightforward consequence of mirror neurons, which essentially try to model the mental state of others based on their behavior. That might be most useful when dealing with the others in the ancestral social group, but it might also be useful to figure out that that bear over there is probably just protecting her cub, while the tiger last week was probably just hungry, for example. Of course, it would have to be possible to override empathy fairly easily, even in the context of one's own social group, but in the absence of any particular reason to do so empathy might in large part guide one's behavior. Stick people in an environment where food comes from the store, nothing wants to kill and eat you and the animals you encounter most are domesticated or mostly acclimated to humans and one can see how empathy might be applied to all kinds of things it wouldn't be under other circumstances.
This is just a half-baked hypothesis by an amateur, but you get the idea. Brains end up just being good enough, not optimal. If anything, it's a wonder that ours aren't even worse than they are at general purpose computation.
Because animals are not humans, and trying to raise animals to the level of humans does not do that - rather it lowers humans to the level of animals.
As much as you have compassion for animals don't confuse them with humans.