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/sci/ - Science & Math

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6458176 No.6458176[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

Do tiny animals feel emotions? I mean extremely base ones. Like if you almost step on an ant and it runs away, is it feeling fear, or is it just running away because it knows it's a good thing to do? Also when you knock over an ant's ant hill, they'll rebuild it immediately. If an ant sees you knock it down, do you think that ant feels any sort of feeling, even the most basic "FUCK" or does it just go and build it back without any care?

I realize this can't be tested but is there any sort of knowledge of tiny animal brains that could lead to an answer to this?

pic obvi unrelated

>> No.6458178

>>6458176
Only mammals and some reptiles have a conscious brain or the feeling of being someone and making decisions based on good or bad emotions/feelings

>> No.6458179

If it doesn't have a nervous system, it doesn't feel.

If it doesn't have a brain, it doesn't think.

If it doesn't think, it can't have emotions.

>> No.6458185

>>6458179
>>6458178

thanks.

>> No.6458205

>>6458176
nobody will know, but you betcha they feel fear and hunger and pain

people telling themselves that insects who have nerves like us wont feel pain just like us are just making excuses for their cruelty

>> No.6458219

>>6458176
That grill looks underage

>> No.6458223

>>6458179
> If it doesn't have a brain, it doesn't think.
this is wrong

>> No.6458254

>>6458179
>thinking=feeling
Idk about that one anon

>> No.6459689

>>6458179
insects have all those

>> No.6459714

>>6458254
I'm inclined to agree with this.

Maybe we need to put the question in a different light, like "Why do humans feel?".

Why would evolution promote "feelings" except as a way to reward or punish certain behavior?

>> No.6459743
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6459743

>>6458176
Insects are pretty much robots.

Do robots have emotion? Probably not. But how do we define emotion?

>> No.6459748

>>6458219
Not in cat years.

>> No.6459752

>>6459743
read Heidegger and Goethe

>> No.6459754

>>6459752
Make me.

>> No.6459771

>>6459752

>Heidegger and Goethe
>knowing shit about what insects feel

I mean, if I wanted to be tongue in cheek I'd recommend Kafka

>> No.6459772

>>6459714
Because it's reproductively favorable to have a neurological response to various stimuli.

>> No.6459776
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6459776

the closer an animals neural structure is to ours, the closer its experiences can be said to be emotions. But that isn't to say they don't feel or experience something as equally morally valid that we have no comprehension of. Imagine aliens coming down and torturing us because we can't feel "zorg," yet they have nothing comparable to "emotions."

The way evolution works, though, you never start from scratch. There's always something that gets copied and modified. Ultimately, mental pain is comparable to physical pain because it is indeed based on that. They can show up in unusual ways, too. The feeling of someone violating a social norm is not anger (which respondents typically call it). When you record them and look at their faces, they're actually feeling disgust. It's perhaps not a huge surprise that in addition to OCD people being "afraid" of germs or being unclean, many also have obsessive "fears" of becoming homeless, socially degenerate, etc.

It might be plausible to say that spiders, which aren't social, don't experience anything like embarrassment. But they could feel something similar, even something we don't have anymore.

This question is very similar to the qualia problem which I answer in the same way: someone's experience of red might be my experience of purple. But since no one ever reports that their perception of colors switches around randomly, it's likely that this is fairly hard-wired. Since that part of the brain is incredibly similar across people, we can surmise that any differences in color perception are likely to be minor. Of course they still exist - my right eye is ever so slightly more red than my left. On the other hand, as you get older your perception of low-frequency notes changes. Experienced composers often tune their own pianos to awful pitches in order to write music that sounds they way its supposed to sound to other people. So probably audio does indeed vary by person.

tl;dr Emotion is just another qualia problem.

>> No.6459780

>>6458254
Pretty sure tumblrite SJW's show you can do a lot of feeling without any thinking.

>> No.6459818

Fruit flies seem like they have moods.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2908595/

But what they actually feel, who can say?

>getting flies high on cocaine is a component of serious scientific research

>> No.6459830

>>6459818
according to my high school science teacher, a disproportionate number of studies involve getting animals high for no other reason than that they're experiments designed by college kids.

>> No.6459916

For 200 000 anatomically modern humans existed. For 150 000 of those years they used the same tools, same weapons, never were anything more than nomadic hunter gathers.

Then one day about 50 000 years ago, something changes. New tools were finally invented, little huts were constructed, agriculture began. And not only did this happen in just one place, but pretty much everywhere in the world simultaneously.

Why?

This fascinates me.

>> No.6461825

>>6459748
I died

>> No.6461833

>>6459916
the aliens came and introduced us to their ways. They had been watching is for 150,000 years and were getting frustrated at our lack of ambition and stupidity, now they continue to watch us, and are waiting for us to discover the new dimensions where we can travel to and help the aliens survive by basically becoming their worker slaves

>> No.6461848

>>6458176
>pic unrelated
idk mate take her to bed and I think she'd qualify as a tiny animal

>> No.6462146

>>6458176
>emotions
>>>/x/

>> No.6462167

>>6459916
The ice age ended?

>> No.6462168

>>6462167
no

>> No.6462248

>>6462146
you're a twit

>> No.6462301

>>6458219
don't most grills break after several years? most kitchenware isn't that well made these days

>> No.6462574

>>6462146
when dix /sci/ become a place for fedora autists

>> No.6462628

>>6462146
LOL

>> No.6462632

>>6462167
There have been multiple ice ages (at least 20) last one ended 10 000 years ago. Ice ages come in sycle with warm seasons, which it is now

>> No.6462637

>>6462301
Nowadays stuff is designed to break
http://imdb.com/title/tt1825163/