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Comment by rtpg | Hacker News Reader

>The researchers claim the animals ran on the wheels because they enjoyed it, which could be a little bit of anthropomorphizing, as no one has been able to prove that animals other than humans experience emotions.

Is this really the state of the art? I thought the entire animal rights movement is rooted in the idea that animals can experience emotion

This is pretty great research, seeing a slug in a running wheel is particularly silly

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There's proof and proof. No one has managed to prove other humans experience emotions, or even exist. Given a hypothetical model of a continually manipulated memory and consciousness you could even argue that you can't prove that you yourself have emotions (you might merely have the mistaken belief that you experience them).

To take a more pragmatic approach to proof (good enough but not absolute) Humans and some animals experience emotions. At the very least most Mammals. Probably not all animals. A trickier proposition would be whether all vertebrates do, that's a different level of debate entirely.

If you can't take things like the Monkey fairness tests as a sign of emotions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg&feature=player_d...

then you have a standard of proof that a lot of humans wouldn't meet.

I'd highly recommend the Blackfish documentary about killer whales regarding mammal emotions (trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OEjYquyjcg).

Especially this part where a mother is separated from its baby, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWFo6kf21Hw ; it gives pretty good insight about whether animals can experience emotions.

Yep, I absolutely agree. Even if mammal emotions have not been scientifically "proven", I think there's a lot of strong evidence that they do experience most or all basic emotions.

It's not like it's very shocking that they would, either, considering humans aren't that distantly related from them.

As someone who has two cats, and has had a dog and a cat previously, I'm always amazed when I come across people who categorically state that animals don't have emotions. Spend a small amount of time with a cat or a dog, and it becomes pretty clear that they have moods and emotional states, albeit simpler ones that humans. I realise that domestication will have changed animals and their environmental responses, but I find it very hard to believe that dogs or cats would have developed emotions from scratch in the ~10,000 years since they were domesticated.

In my experience, those who claim animals don't have emotions are usually justifying some kind of behaviour; in one case, it was a hunter, and another, someone who was generally unpleasant and cruel to animals. The former was otherwise a nice guy, though I found his hobby extremely distasteful; the latter was an irredeemable arsehole.

Spend a small amount of time with a cat or a dog, and it becomes pretty clear that they have moods and emotional states

Completely agree. Anecdotal I know, but I've experienced a few cases that make me certain that cats (and therefore other animals) do, indeed, have moods and emotions.

The first time I was away from my cat for more than a day (I was away for three), she sat in my front window the entire time and wouldn't leave. I had a friend feed her and she barely left to eat, wouldn't play or otherwise interact. When I got home, she saw me through the window and started meowing and pawing at the window. When I came in the door, she flopped on her back on the ground in front of me and started purring.

A friend of mine has a cat that she had to bottle feed. He (the cat) is now ultra-protective of her and gets extremely jealous when she pets her other cats - occasionally going so far as to attack the other cats for it, or not letting her pet him afterwards.

That's only two of many examples. The stories that I've heard from dog-owner friends make a good case for dogs having emotions and moods too.

We have a cat like that. He was taken from his mother too young, so over attached some. He gets upset if my wife pets any of our cats in front of him, and will sit approximately six feet away, facing away, and ignoring us if we call him over (generally you just have to look his direction). His ears twitch, so you know he heard you, he's just too stubborn to give in.

> In my experience, those who claim animals don't have emotions are usually justifying some kind of behaviour

I agree. Similar things were said historically to justify slavery.

This poses an interesting ethical question.

If a subject is not known to have emotions or not. Should the party that would be inflicting emotional pain on the subject have the burden of proof (that the subject does not in fact have emotions)? Or the party that would not inflict it?

If there's a plausible chance of the entity being able to experience emotion, then the burden of proof needs to be on the inflicter. "Plausible" because inanimate objects like rocks obviously cannot ever have emotions.

Things get a little more complicated with plants, such as trees and flowers, but even there I would say it's pretty implausible that they experience emotion.

I live with two cats, and try pretty hard to keep them happy. However (even though I don't feel I'm a terrible person... ;) ) I don't think that the two cats I live with are people. I think you can make a distinction between "cats have emotions" and "cats are people who have emotions", and I think that the latter is what people must mean by "cats don't have emotions".

I don't quite get what you are implying here. "cats are people" is a patently bogus claim whereas their possession of emotion is hardly worth debating.

> "cats are people" is a patently bogus claim

There's a pervasive idea or feeling in a lot of people, I think, that animals are not just machinery, but actually very limited people, akin to mentally disabled humans, and should be treated as such (animal rights protesters, at least some vegetarians, etc). I don't think that this is patently bogus, but I do think it's not very likely.

I think when people start talking about animals feeling pain and having emotions, they don't mean that those animals have the sensory and neural hardware which produces and consumes pain signals and emotions (which is "hardly worth debating"), but that there is someone experiencing that pain or those emotions. If that's not what they mean, then the mere fact of pain or emotions wouldn't carry any impact higher than rerunning a horror film.

The whale is also pretty good. It's a documentary about a killer whale that was stuck in an inlet in Canada for years. It does a job at pulling strings, but it sold me on the animals have emotions bit. http://www.thewhalemovie.com/

This realy impressed me: Koko the Gorilla watching a sad movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWxCM6llL60

Pug watches Homeward Bound https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnstd0ASQHg

Human are animals too in the end. We are just a bit more evolved than the other animals, emotion wise. So, I think emotions just evolve with the species. Maybe the mice are starting to get emotions for liking running in a wheel. The slug is just coincidence I would say.

Russell Stannard can explain it very nicely: http://fixyt.com/watch?v=IF54xqYhIGA

>We are just a bit more evolved than the other animals, emotion wise

his point is that we don't have a scientific way to measure emotions.

In my opinion if we have emotions we should demonstrate that other animals don't not the opposite.

Why do you assume that we are more evolved? The only evidence we have is that we are better at building and using tools. "More evolved" can be defined in a lot of different ways (why are we more evolved than a wasp?) I think the idea that humans are more evolved it's just a anthropocentric assumptions.

I actually made a similar argument in a graduate psychology class at an ivy league as things got a bit heated over whether animals could suffer. I might have said something like, "If you get hit in the face in such a way you can't use words, how can I know you're actually suffering?"

When working in labs studying brain function, the oddest thing I found was the huge resistance in what or what not an animal can do. Even in the face of years of research by big and small names, even with video, even when you train an animal and show them. They couldn't even provide a good hypothesis on why it was not so. It was argued circularly like trying to talk a paranoid schizophrenic out of their false world-view. Very frustrating. I would usually just tell them that if they could find a reason it wasn't so, they could easily get a nature paper out of it.

Could you provide an example? I'm having trouble understanding what you mean.

It could be as simple as a mouse being able to discriminate white from black or low tones from high tones. Sometimes I think the culture in some areas of science has become twisted. It really has to be experienced to be believed.

Ah, are you saying that scientists had trouble accepting the idea that a mouse could discriminate white from black? It seems like a repeatable test would be pretty convincing evidence. What justification was there for ignoring it?

> I thought the entire animal rights movement is rooted in the idea that animals can experience emotion

I thought it was rooted in people's knee-jerk anthropomorphic emotions, science be damned...

(Not saying they're right or wrong; they may well be right - but pretty much everyone I know who is involved in that movement does so for un-scientific reasons)

Animal rights seem like a predominantly ethical issue to me that has little to do with science.

It's an ethical issue because it's likely that they have emotions. For instance, there is not a widespread movement for the ethical treatment of rocks. If science moved that likelihood close to certainty, the animal movements would gain lots of traction, which is what might be happening already

Insects are animals.

Jellyfish are animals.

I don't think they can feel the great range of emotions mammals can.

In fact they totally lack a brain limbic system, and it is presumed they can't.

Yes, this means that I believe it is unethical to torture a dolphin or a dog, but I don't give a damn for mosquitoes or flies.

What science do you suggest they are ignoring?

I wouldn't call it "knee-jerk". It's not a reaction to a new thing. It is the new thing. Animals not having rights has been the norm for a long time.

> What science do you suggest they are ignoring?

All of it - again not saying they're wrong, just that the overall mindset I've seen is "I believe animals have emotions, and that's what matters" or "we don't need proof, it's just obvious", not "I have collected evidence beyond anecdotes that animals have emotions". By knee-jerk, I mean people tend to believe first, and look at the evidence either later or never.

(Though to be fair, much of the animal-non-rights movement seems to be similarly non-scientific :P)

Perhaps (I think you could say similar things about the average supporter of any mainstream issue.) I support animal rights, but evidence came out that they don't feel, I would find that extremely comforting.

> (Though to be fair, much of the animal-non-rights movement seems to be similarly non-scientific :P)

Much of the "animal non-rights" movement is anti-free speech (e.g. ag-gag laws) (and is the recipient of lots of government hand-out money, tries to convince that government that peaceful protesters should be classified as 'terrorists' for pushing an agenda that is detrimental to their business, etc), so they should be opposed by more than just the animal rights people.

Have you had a look at The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness?

We declare the following: “The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non- human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.”

http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConscious...

Everyone I know, who has a conviction that other humans experience emotion, believes it for unscientific reasons.

I don't know how credible this is, but scientists have apparently declared that some non-human animals have consciousness: http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConscious...

>The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.

I think that the criticism that it is wrong to read emotional responses in animal behavior runs somewhat counter to evolution as it assumes that our emotional responses have not developed from our mammalian ancestry, but have rather sprung fully formed from somewhere. I tend to see the concept of anthropomorphism as something of a Abrahamic position, as it only makes sense if you already think of humans as being separate from animals and nature in general.

The "Abrahamic position" comment was interesting, although I'm not certain I understand what you meant.

I do know that while the nomadic culture of Abraham's time used animals for sacrifice and the necessities of life, the Torah explicitly states that animals have souls[1]. The Bible goes on to say animals have an affinity to God[2] and will go to heaven[3].

[1] Gen 1-20-21, 24, 30 (translation from Hebrew word nephesh)

[2] Ps 148:7-10, 150:6

[3] Isa 65:25, Rev 5:13-14

What I was getting at is that in the Abrahamic tradition, while animals may sometimes be considered to have a form of soul, they are still kept very distinct from humans, who are considered made in gods own image. In some other cultures, such as Hinduism, although the form that a soul inhabits affects it, the soul itself can move from animal to human and back again over cycles of reincarnation, so there may be less resistance in those cultures to the idea that humans are part of a continuum rather than being a separate class of entity.

But here's what people say about "dominion" in the bible.

http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/2860/what-do...

In Psalms 145:8-21, God is described as exercising dominion over creation with compassion and loving kindness.

As an aside, I think dominion also refers to harnessing and utilizing natural resources in an economic sense. In Genesis chapter one, God mentions the word 'good' seven times, each time in reference to His creation.

The eighth time the word good is used is for gold[1], the eternal symbol of commerce.

[1] Gen 2:12

> This is pretty great research, seeing a slug in a running wheel is particularly silly

I think having some (seemingly) humourous bits in research is a great way to make it presentable to the public. Personally I found if very funny.

Sometimes yes. Other times the silly bit becomes the headline and the rest is ignored.

ah yes, good point.

  > > The researchers claim the animals ran on the wheels because they enjoyed
  > > it, which could be a little bit of anthropomorphizing, as no one has been
  > > able to prove that animals other than humans experience emotions.
  > Is this really the state of the art? I thought the entire animal rights
  > movement is rooted in the idea that animals can experience emotion

Indeed. That statement surprised me too, since I remember reading a number of sources stating that research pretty much confirms that some animals do experience emotions. So I headed over to wikipedia[1] and saw that although some (most?) research does lean towards confirming this, the scientific community is not convinced, yet. Interesting stuff.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion_in_animals

The "scientific community" doesn't have a unified view on animal emotion, or on any matter.

However, it is widely understood that animals are non-human persons who are aware of their own existence and who feel a wide range of emotions, just like we do. Mice feel empathy[1], elephants grieve[2], birds hold funerals for their dead[3] and so on[4].

But yes, for many scientists the overwhelming evidence that animals are sentient beings[5] with feelings akin to ours is an inconvenient truth, since nearly 20 million animals are killed each year during experimentation in the U.S. alone[6].

[1]http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/researchers-say-mice-feel...

[2] http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/06/when-doves-cry-scientific-a...

[3] http://news.discovery.com/animals/birds-hold-avian-funerals-...

[4] http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201112/e...

[5] http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201306/u...

[6] http://www.statisticbrain.com/animal-testing-statistics/

Some of the experiments historically done (and that continue to be done) on animals are horrific. If animals do indeed suffer as humans do, just think of the massive suffering that must have been caused in the learned helplessness experiments[1], or countless unanesthetized vivisections[2], and the likely millions of animals at this point that have been purposefully infected with terrible diseases to gain insight into treating humans.

Strong evidence does not even matter, when acknowledging the facts and their implications means we have to accept our responsibility and culpability for the terrible crimes we have committed against fellow sentient beings.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivisection

I would not use the animal rights movement as an example of scientific rigour. :)

My wife is a biologist working in animal behaviour. Among her peers, it is widely accepted that animals have emotions. Proving it in a scientifically rigourous manner, however, is extremely difficult.

> is rooted in the idea that animals can experience emotion

Is this really still a question? Isn't it common sense that many animals do have emotions? If you call emotion a state of mind, controlled by a flood of certain hormones/neurotransmitters into the brain, then even the most simple animals will have at least fear emotion. I'm pretty sure most developed animals like elephants, orcas, etc., have pretty complex emotions that are not too far from humans.

Sometimes it seems obvious they do. Other times you think they seem to be having an experience, but it's not really comparable to human emotions. And several times per day you doubt the presence of higher brain functions in the people around you.

Why should the 'emotions' animals can or can not experience have to be like 'human emotions' though? Maybe the dog can be 'sad' in a way that isn't exactly like sadness as experienced by humans, but it's still an emotion, right?

It doesn't matter how it seems though. Fact is they have.

What many are not aware of, is that when they mean "animals have emotions", they actually mean "animals have exact same emotions as human", which is false. But saying that animals don't have emotions is the same as saying that dogs are blind just because they can't differentiate some colors humans can.

> as no one has been able to prove that animals other than humans experience emotions.

Anyone who has ever had a dog who happens to be afraid of thunderstorms will tell you that dogs can very genuinely experience fear.

Fear is an emotion (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fear).

Well that's humans for you. Until proven otherwise, a species lacks intelligence, emotions and self-awareness.

It was not long time ago we'd claim that for our peers, based on silly traits like skin color.

By the way, I wonder where's the "proof" that humans experience emotions. I demand someone prove it to me.

We can't prove that other humans experience emotions; each individual only knows what he or she experiences. It's possible that everyone else is a sophisticated simulation.

It's possible that everyone else is a sophisticated simulation.

I'm not. I'm just the output of /dev/random on a server in Iceland, converted directly into ascii by a line of perl. It is pure chance that anything I post is coming out as understandable words. vyfQUct 18x9t ngm3H60gODwOG2OpRSeSp5 7cMG3fF9

Then why do we expect to prove such traits for animals?

Keep in mind we use said "proofs" to justify how we treat animals used for food, experiments, hunting them for sport, and so on.

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