Comment on Isn’t the use of strict behaviorism to explain animals kind of obnoxious?
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 6 months agoThere are plants that can get “scared” and warn other plants of danger. Even plants that can uproot themselves and move if they feel threatened. They don’t even have nervous systems in any way that we understand and are capable of locomotion, sensing their surroundings and communication.
Even plants may have feelings.
They aren’t warning other plants of danger. That’s an anthropomorphic interpretation.
They are releasing a chemical. Other plants respond to that chemical in a predictable, biological way.
There is no motive. No intent to save or protect. It’s not a warning. It’s just an evolutionarily advantageous sequence of cause and effect.
While I don't think plants or certain animals actually experience life similarly, aren't our own emotions basically a product of chemicals being released in our brain as a result of certain stimuli?
“Emotions” is a very nebulous term. But we know that abstractions like guilt require certain types of brain function that is only found in humans, dolphins, etc
For the record I believe that dolphins are non-human-persons. So I’m not a “humans are completely unique” kind of guy. But I also don’t anthropomorphize lower order animals :D
Feelings in the sense of “they feel things through a sensory organ and react to that”, same as sight, hearing, touch? Sure!
Feelings like fear? No.
Aversion from pain is not the same as fear, fear is aversion from pain that hasn’t happened yet, it requires the ability to abstract the concept of negative outcomes and expand the aversion from discomfort to possible discomfort.
No plant has been observed reacting to something that it hasn’t experienced at least once before.
Your bias is showing. The fact that we have not observed something is not evidence that it doesn’t exist.
Ok, have you accepted the lord Jesus Christ as your lord and saviour?
Black holes were thought to be only theoretical until we fucking found one.
I give him the same level of acceptance as Allah, Vishnu, Odin, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. There’s a nonzero possibility that they’re real, after all. I try to keep an open mind.
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world 6 months ago
My phone warns me that the battery is low, does that mean that it has feelings and doesn’t want to die?
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 6 months ago
It may. Can you prove it doesn’t?