Elephant paint...

Not at all. I'm saying I don't know if animals have the kinds of neural reactions we define as feelings or not. I'm also saying there's no way for us to tell. Every example of an animal showing what appears to be human defined feelings can also be explained by learned behaviors. Senses are not the same as feelings. Again, I'm not saying they don't have feelings. I'm saying these behaviors can have other explanations. Instinct plays a big part... Yeah, and these same indicators can also be explained by learned behaviors.Don't take this the wrong way. Personally, I'm a big believer in animal having feelings. But unless you can read their minds you just can't know if they're feelings or not.

Doesn't this apply to every other human being as well?How do you know I have feelings?I'm just not sure how we can differentiate beteen other people and animals on the criteria that you have given?

Yes and no. Because you can talk and I can talk and we both can talk and talk talk talk talk talk talk talk...What are you going to do, ask the elephant if it had feelings? It's easy. We talk. They don't.

Hi Taz,I think maybe you have misunderstood where I am coming from.

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I read an article a few months ago on this very subject. So far, researchers have been able to prove that 3 species beside humans could recognize themselves in the mirror: dolphins, chimps, and elephants.

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Yes, I agree. I am saying that I am suspicious of the painting, not that elephants have theory of mind. They clearly do have theory of mind.

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I'd like to see some kind of scientific evidence suggesting the elephant can create perspective on its lonesome like you claimed it to be.

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That's not what I meant. I am saying that I doubt the elephant could create the artistic technique of perspective independently. I think it s simply recreating the picture it has been taught to paint. The perspective was put in there by the human trainer, the elephant is just copying the picture. It is most likely painting the same "elephant holding flower" picture again and again. It (I'm guessing) does not understand that what it is painting is an elephant.That is my guess anyway. I only mention theory of mind because it suggests that I might just be wrong about this; maybe it does know it's painting an elephant. The theory of mind concept seems as though it might be related to the concept of recognising that a picture of an elephant represents an elephant.

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You're clueless most of the time aren't you?

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Hey, I'm clueless all the time!Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : Clarity and typo's.

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"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

If a mute human displays all the normal human symptoms of distress/anger/fear/etc. etc. etc. do you consider them to be any less distressed/angry/fearful etc. etc. etc. than any other human?How much of our emotional state is conveyed non-verbally anyway?If an animal displays exactly the same symptoms of feelings that we recognise in humans regardless of linguistic or verbal ability can we not reasonably conclude the same feelings are present in those animals?I just don't think that your description or definition so far is sufficient..................

Animals make noises, and have behaviors, as well as facial expressions. They quite obviously feel stuff. And we can sometimes tell what they are feeling. There are many indicators that give us clues as to how they are feeling. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand why the Orca's fin droops when in captivity, and their life expectancy goes down, from 80 years, to 20.I can tell a dog is happy when he wags his tail. Isn't it obvious, and easy to tell that this dog is happy?

Although I will agree that emotions displayed by animals can be similar to humans (I would not be surprised if it is much more exact in
the mammals at least), there is a difference between feeling emotions and the ability to perceive and reason.I suspect that the ability to reason is vastly underestimated in many animals, and exaggerated in others.

Haha, exceptions don't make up the whole, dear.Since people who are mute can communicate to us by other means and there's nothing else physically different about them than other humans, we can deduce that they have feelings just like the rest of us.Elephants, on the other hand, can't talk at all. A mute person is an exception to the rule. A talking elephant is an exception to the rule... oh wait, there's no such thing as a talking elephant! Oh come on, you and I both know we were talking about communication and not strictly just verbal communication. When we "talk" to each other on this forum, I don't see you refer to it as "write". No, because any of that could be explained by learned behavior.It's like natural selection. We don't pay attention to all the negative learned behavior. We even get rid of our pets if we perceive them to behave badly. But we keep the ones that we perceive to behave well. We are literally selecting what kind of behavior that are acceptable in animal. Of course we're going to select those learned behaviors that make us feel good, which include but not limited to those resembling human emotions.Tell me, how often do we keep around the pitbull that just mawed a 5 yr old? You want me to start calling you names?

Ho ho ho, this is going to get you killed one of these days.Wagging the tail is a sign of being in a state of arousal. A K9 that's about to bite your face off will wag his tail.The reason you, like most people, believe wagging the tail means happy is because we as society only tend to select those dogs that behave well when they are aroused.

The point is that there is no requirement of either speech nor any other form of conscious communication for it to be quite evident that a human being is in a state of distress.Given this I am not sure on what basis it is that you conclude that elephants need to be able to talk in order to show obvious symptoms of distress? I am not suggesting that the next time you experience an extreme state of fear, anxiety or distress that you reach for a notepad and paper with which to communicate this to others........I am suggesting that there is no need for either speech or any other form of conscious communication in such circumstances because your reaction will be instinctive and largely involuntary.Much like an animals reaction in fact............ Well that is testable.Place an animal which has never before experienced or witnessed a fellow animal in a state of extreme anxiety into a situation likely to induce extreme anxiety. Then see if it displays similar behaviour to a human undergoing extreme anxiety.If it does then instinctive reaction rather than learned behaviour is the logical conclusion.In which case it would be reasonable to assume that the emotional state of the animal in question is genuinely comparable to that of a human experiencing the same emotional state.I think there are enough ready made examples to verify this without emotionally torturing penguins (or whatever) for the sake of our debate. Then why do animals in the wild who have never been trained or raised by humans demonstrate emotional responses comparable to the equivalent human emotional responses? Depressingly often?There seems to be a macho trend for overly violent dogs in my particular neck of the woods. If you want to illicit an emotional response from me that is worth studying then you will have to think of some truly innovative and devastating insults.But feel free to try if it makes you happy............Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

And the point is there are enough human beings out there who can communicate their feelings for us to deduce that those who can't communicate quite as well as the rest of us also have feelings. You misunderstand me.I'm not saying that they need to talk in order to show symptoms of distress. I'm saying there is no way for us to know they have feelings like we do, or rather there is no way for them to tell us they have feelings like we do.Distress is too much of a general term. Stomp an ant hill and you will see obvious signs of distress from the ants streaming out. And I'm not suggesting linear communication is the only way we can show feelings to others.Let me repeat. There are enough human beings out there who can accurately communicate their feelings to such an extent that we can deduce the rest of humanity can do the same. The same can't be said about elephants. Until we can decipher elephantese or dolphinese, there's no way for us to know. Agreed. If you want to put it that way, yes. However, am I seeing the moving the goal post fallacy somewhere around here? Even though we didn't spell it out, riverrat and I were talking more about specific emotions that are generally attributed to human behavior like love, joy, and sadness. Somehow along the way, you've steered us toward instinctual distress, which is a given in just about everything with a central nervous system. Oh, come on! You don't even need to do this experiment. Just stomp an ant hill and see what happens. Heck, dig out a few earthworms and see what happens. Moving the goal post. We all run around an scream when our hair is on fire whether you're a dog, cat, George W. Bush, or Osama. This ain't what riverrat and I were talking about. There are many types of emotional responses. To clump them all together is an abomination! This is like saying since I like hotdog and you like hotdog, it must be true that since you like to eat earthworms I must like to eat earthworms as well.You've used instinctual responses as a common ground between us and lower animal and somehow you've ended up concluding we also share the same non-instinctual responses. Hahaha you twit...

How do those unable to communicate quite as well (babies, those who are mentally disabled, those who are physically disabled etc. etc.) communicate these feelings? I had not defined any goalposts to move? If you want to erect some goalposts feel free. Yes there are. Are there any human emotional responses which you deem to be completely free of instinct?Which emotional responses do you consider animals to be completely unable to exhibit or experience? Nope. Nothing. Try again.

They squirm and cry and do all other things instinctually to get at our soft hearts. The point is riverrat and I were discussing (wihtout actually spelling it out) about specific emotions like love and whatnot. Pointing out something so universal like distress is cheating. Sure. I'm extremely pissed off at the christian right for ruining my country. Not many people are as pissed off as I am. If that's not non-instintual, I don't know what is. I don't consider, period. All I'm saying is we can't tell if the elephant actually enjoyed the applause from the tourists. For all we know, it's excited because it knows there will be treats afterwards. This was the original point of the discussion between riverrat and I. %^&*$^&#%$&*$#&#^@#*#^%&@$%#$

It's quite easy to tell if a dog is going to attack or not, even if he is wagging his tale. I didn't say wagging the tale is exclusive to being happy, I also showed a picture of a happy dog. Your little point did not counter the point I made, it only reinforces it.

We can't tell if humans enjoy applause, either - indeed applause is a comparatively recent human invention - it isn't intrinsically enjoyable. For all we know, what humans are actually enjoying is receiving some kind of confirmation of social acceptance with its subsequent promise of treats...