Emotion

[LV426]

A debate was going on in another room and someone said that they felt that animals did not experiance emotion.

So what do you think? Are animals incapable of showing emotion? Is all they have instincts? Or can they even put humans to shame in their capacity for emotion?

[Wraywolf]

I have a cat. One day, he appeared outside in some bushes. He was a stray, and I gave him some food. He hung around, and eventually we took him in. Now, a year later, he is always sleeping on my bed, he comes when I call, and he follows me around the house sometimes. I don't feed him anymore, my mom does, but he still seems to demonstrate a kind of affection towards me. I'm not sure if I’m imagining it or not, but based on this, I would say animals can experience a few emotions.

[SoulScream]

I have 3 cats. And they have so much attitude, it is immposible for them not to have emotions. They have moods,thusly they must feel. That's my theory. that and I had a cat several years ago, and while I was in the hospital for a month he used to sit and look at my pictures that were on the wall in the livingroom and slept in my bed for about 2 months every night once I came home. Obviously he missed me.

Animals react to things, display mental and habitual reactions. I believe they have emotions.

[Ahroun]

I don't doubt at all (also cause of the experience i have) that animals have emotions. Sometimes much deeper then humans too.

Ahroun

[Wolf-Bone]

I think there's varying degrees. Like cats and dogs, okay. But for example, chickens always seem to be either nervous or apathetic.

[lordragoon]

"A pathetic race who believes in good and evil and likes to think their pitiful instincts are emotions."

I don't think humans really have anything more than responses to the enviroment and chemicals, but if that's what you mean, animals are much more emotional than we humans. Of course, I've seen a religous experience triggered by a tiara looking magnet and love caused by a couple splashes of dirty water. It's an odd world.

On a less cynical note, I do think that animals - those with a brainstem - are much more intelligent than we give them credit for. Except poodles and those spanish sounding rat dogs. Those things are like rodents.

[YoungFang]

Good topic,
Emotions hmm those are the things that chages in hormone levels cause right? Happiness, sadness, anger? All animals that are physically enabled to do this, can. Insticts are relative to emotions. Eating releases endorphines (sp) causing a rise in happiness. If it were just instincts animals would just be working robots and probably less willing to use their instincts. I think the two are very strongly linked.

There are still differences though and that is higher level thinking. Which, if you got down to it, is just a newly installed set of instincts - to do well educationally, to get a career and to socialise. You can see this in a lot of animals still though. Animals learn to do things from each other and each have their own social environments.

The only difference I personally see between us and them is that we like to be a little more complicated.

PS
(Sorry if I seem a little irate, I don't think I do, but I'm very hacked off about getting a bill yet again for my dead grandmother to pay)

[VenomWolf]

Well I'm no scientist but I have raised many different kinds of animals and there is no doubt in my mind that they can and at times show emotion. I think each animal just has a different way of showing it.

[LV426]

I dunno Wolfbone I had a chicken when I was a kid that was more faithful than a dog. I think what you invest in an animals is more or less returned and sometimes a bit more.

[Wolffy13]

I work at a Humane Society and I can tell ya' that dogs and cats definitely show emotion. I have seen dogs and cats become depressed because they were at the shelter. They also show plenty of fear there, the poor things. I tell you what, they even know when their time has come when they are slated for euthanasia.
I also have a cat of my own that everytime he is scolded or gets a shot from the vet, he runs off and pouts (not literally, but about as close as a cat could get).

[Swimmingbird]

If you all just want to get down to it animals are actually better then humans. They have reached a perfect harmony of emotion and instinct. Meanwhile we deny ourselves instinct and think we are above that, that is all that kept us balanced. So with denying this we are actually making ourselves worse off. Emotions need a balance with some sort of primal setting at least or even just a setting at all. Hopefull you all understand what i am trying to say.