Elephant paint...

If my hair isn't half an inch long, I'd be pulling it out right now.

Do animals not instinctively do exactly these same things too? That was the point of my question. Are there any specific human emotions which you deem to be not exhibited by or shared by animals at all?You mention love specifically. There are examples of animals exhibiting most of the behaviour we associate with love in humans. Signs of parent sibling love are highly prevalent. Some animals even put humans to shame in terms of sexual/romantic/mate love if their actions are anything to judge such things by. Regardless of the highly specific cause of emotion in in your particular case, getting "pissed off" or experiencing irriatation/anger seems to a pretty widespread emotion in the animal kingdom.Lets not confuse highly specific causes (which will be not only very species specific but potentially very individual even in different humans) with the more general cause and identifiable emotional responses these result in. Experiencing the adulation, respect and envy of ones peers promises all sorts of "treats". Look at the average rock star for a relatively extreme but related human example.........I would argue that the human appreciation of "applause" and the elephant's are not as dissimilar in terms of cause and effect as you are assuming. Now I am really riled up. :yawn:

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They squirm and cry and do all other things instinctually to get at our soft hearts.

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And so why shouldn't we assume animal babies squirm and cry for exactly the same reasons? You don't need a neural net capable of calculus to feel love, sadness or fear. There the same basuc reactions used to motivate us, why shouldn't they be the ones motivating our mammal relatives to acoid danger and seek to procreate?

That's the point! There's no way for us to know if human babies have feelings or not (and don't play dumb and point out they feel pain... that's not the kind of feelings we're talking about). Any exchange of feelings that we can know for sure is strictly one way.There was a user by the name of crashfrog who argued that human life doesn't start until the toddler phase, or at least sometime after the baby phase. Straggler, how many times do I have to repeat myself before you stop putting words in my mouth? This is getting annoying.I have never said animals don't share the same feelings as we do. I said there are certain emotional states that we humans have that we can never know for sure animals have. For example. Feeling pride when the audience applause at what you've just performed.And as I said at least several times now, I'm a big believer in animal sharing the same feelings as we do because I'm an animal lover. But honestly, if someone asks me to prove animal can feel proud or pride, I'd be calling them names to avoid answering the question. And this exhibition of "love" can be explained by animal instinct, the instinct to protect one's young for procreation and passing on the gene purposes. Well, I'd be right there beside you. But there is a difference. There's no way for the animal to tell us it feels proud and pride after it drew that picture. You... pigmentally challenged!Edited by Taz, : No reason given.Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

Well this seems to fly in the face of the accepted view of child psychologists. Have you ever had a cat that brought it's latest prey to you? A cat that appears very pleased with itself and which seems to want you to acknowledge it's catch? A cat that to all intents and purposes appears to be "proud" of it's evident ability and success..............?Animals may not have the depth of emotion that humans do and they certainly don't heap layer upon layer of rationale and complexity on top as we humans arguably do - But nevertheless they seem to display very similar behaviour in very comparable circumstances. And with a surprising degree of subtlety. And a human's reaction cannot be explained by instinct? WTF?Simply adding layers of self awareness and rationality to such behaviour does not remove the fact that it is at base instinctive in exactly the same way you are describing for animals. There is no way for it to tell us other than by comparable behaviour to a human in such a situation. Minus the explicit communication part.My son is nearly three. He takes enormous pride in completing his jigsaw puzzles. I know this not because he has told me but because he drags me to come and see him do them and the stands up with his chest pumped out and a beaming smile on his face as he applauds himself upon completion.Does the elephant upon completion of it's task show signs of contentment and eagerness to demonstrate it's success to those who would appreciate such things?I don't know. But if it did I think "pride" would be as good a description of it's emotional state as any other. You self aware, over-rationalising emotional monkey..........

Off the top of my head, there are two other explanations for this behavior. In the wild, the cat would sometime bring back live or dead prey to its young to show it how to hunt. The house cat may feel you don't know how to hunt so it would bring back its prey to show you the way to do it. The other explanation is the primal instinct to offer sacrifice to a superior being. This would actually explain why people began sacrificing to the gods in the first place. And all of these behavior can either be explained by learned behavior or instinct. Since they cannot tell us they actually feel that way, there's no way for us to know for sure. Sure, it can. But at the same time, I can tell you that after I performed the Mozart Clarinet Concerto many years ago with my college orchestra, my pride level was way up there. Depends on how you see it, I guess. You're coming from the naked-person-under-clothing perspective while I'm coming from the clothed-person perspective. Um, dragging you to see him do it is a way of telling you. I was talking babies, not toddlers. I don't know. My dogs seem pretty excited when they stand up on their hind legs. Of course we give them treats everytime they do it. If you want to call it pride, why not. I'd have a hard time convincing someone that doesn't believe the elephant could feel pride that such display is pride, though. You... round eyes!

Basically your default position is to assume that animals and humans are different emotionally unless it can be absolutely shown otherwise.My default position is to assume that if animals exhibit comparable reactions to comparable circumstances then the reaction is indicative of the same identifiable human emotion, albeit without the added complexities of self awareness and layer upon layer of rationalisation that we humans indulge in.Given that we are animals I think my position has a better basis in reality.You talk about animals reactions being either instinctive or learned. But this applies equally to humans.You talk about 'treats' and learned behaviour. But this applies equally to humans. The only real difference is that the 'treats' can be more socially complex as befits a more socially complex species (Communicated praise, social status etc. etc. etc.) OK. But if it looks like a "proud" elephant and it quacks like a "proud" elephant.......................Then I am not sure on what basis it isn't a "proud" elephant? At least in the sense that it feels contentment and wishes to demonstrate it's achievement to those who it thinks will appreciate it. You instinct denying ape.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Well this video was originally sent to me in an email. Someone then replied to all of us, and pointed out some youtube videos of elephants being tortured.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1AR_Zife-cI have been intrigued by all this, and really would love to know what the elephant is feeling. I believe that we cannot know exactly what it feels, but we can get it pretty close by examining all the clues. As in the picture of the "happy puppy" it is quite obvious that the puppy is content.I think we all agree here that animals have feelings, and even science is starting to prove that. Taz even "believes" animals have feelings, but is not sure what they are. I say we can know what they are, but maybe not down to the exact detail.So I did a search on elephant painting. It seems as though it originates in Thailand? That is also where the torture video was taken. Neither the youtube video, or this web-site( Access denied ) represent all treatment of elephants. It does give us a glimpse into the world of elephants. It seems the elephantartgallery is a place that cares about the elephants and their preservation. They indicate the elephants are painting abstract from their own minds. The question still remains, are they being forced to paint(the ones in the first video)? I think that is a big clue in understanding if they enjoy the painting or not. We could also examine what they paint, just the way a psychologist examines the paintings of a child to see if the are happy or not. I wold not know how to go about doing this, but just a thought.

I mean this more of a general reply then one specifically to you, riVeRraT. But your post provided nice quotes for me to use to put some context around what I'd like to say. Agreed. Of course, this is exactly the same with humans, too. (I have not viewed the video)I find this type of question almost laughable Do you seriously think a 200lb man can "force" a 2000lb elephant to do anything?
The man may be able to teach the elephant to do something... but if the elephant emphatically doesn't want to do it, then the elephant ain't gonna do it.When an animal does not want to do something, you know it. They will claw, bite, scratch, try to move away, try to resist... animals are not subtle.
When a very large animal does not want to do something, you absolutely know it. If you don't die, you'll likely be maimed for life if you weren't careful.What does this tell us?We still don't know "for sure" that the elephant likes painting since we don't speak elephant.However, we most certainly do know "for sure" that the elephant at least "doesn't care" if he's painting or not.At the very least, the elephant is indifferent.Likely, the elephant is having as good of a time doing this then it would be doing whatever it is elephants do for fun.It's just unlikely (as it even is with humans) that we'll ever be able to judge "exactly" how much of a good time the elephant is having.Anyone who thinks this is a result of abuse should think about what would happen if someone actually did try to abuse an elephant. They likely wouldn't survive the ordeal.And, of course, you give a 500lb gorrilla a banana... whenever he freaking wants one.

No, I do not think it, I know it.
Watch the video, and do some research on elephant torture. I would say we do not know for sure that the elephant doesn't care. It will do what it is trained, or tortured to do.Elephants may do things on their own for fun, but it is also quite possible that an elephant/human relationship will introduce things to the elephant, that the elephant might now consider fun.Just like a person playing fetch with a dog. To me dogs, obviously can love this action, but would not be able to do it on their own. Once you teach a dog this activity, the dog will even go get the stick, and bring it over to you to throw.I wonder if an elephant would go over and grab a paint brush if it was lying around, and encourage a human to set up the easel and paint. That would be a pretty clear indication that the elephant wants to paint.

No. I do want to watch the video, but I don't have time.If torture is involved... then why are we asking if the elephant is enjoying themselves or not? Doesn't the question kind of become pretty obvious in such a case? The entire question of "is the animal really enjoying itself" only makes sense if we exclude practices of torture. Unless... you're going to start arguing that elephants may actually like elephant torture? That seems rather silly.Or are you saying it's impossible for an elephant to paint unless they were tortured? Another clear indication is if the elephant isn't tortured, and continues to paint. Even if "trained" to do so.

Unless you watch the video(s), and read through the whole thread, then you cannot effectively debate this. You are making assumptions on things we already went over. You are also asking questions that make no sense, if you read the thread.Edited by riVeRraT, : correction

Which is exactly why (at the very beginning of my first post!!) I said I did not watch the video and I was just making more of a general statement.If you want to "effectively debate this" with people who have watched the video... why are you talking to me? I told you right away that I did not watch the video.

You should not have put your 2 cents in then, it makes you look a little foolish. Not only that you are accusing me of things I already went over.

Of course!(its right there in the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1AR_Zife-c)ABE:I too am not convinced that the elephant is really painting "from its heart". All the other elephant paintings are very abstract, and look pretty much the same. The one with perspective seems to be highly sophisticated training. I don't think the elephant really knows what its painting.It doesn't really seem to be painting against its will. But that could be a result of the effectiveness of the training.Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.