I get the impression that what you are doing is deliberately trying to distance humans from other animals, thinking that if we can do so many different things like build cities and write novels and make movies and perform brain surgery and all that kind of stuff, then obviously we’re made of something different to other animals. Logic may tell you that, but I think you’ll find that science tells you otherwise. Every human accomplishment is built on the basics of our animal nature. That is the foundation of what we are
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once again, if we are no different than animals, we dont have any responsibility to them at all. the lion eats the lamb, he doesn’t bring it hay.
What I would find satisfactory is if you could demonstrate that key research into animal behaviour was clearly and beyond reasonable doubt coloured by a desire to read human-like qualities into animal behaviour.
sure, think of the titles involved, ‘animal behaviorist’ someone who doesnt belive in animal emotions would hardly become an animal behaviorist. atheists, dont become priests,
You might also find it useful to demonstrate that it is generally impossible for humans - be they scientists or otherwise - to recognise otherness, or to see the differences between human motivations and those of other animals.
its not impossible, i do it, thats why im not an animal behaviorist.
While you’re at it, you could also take the time to show me how emotions in humans are anything other than chemical signals which we then attempt to rationalise with our forebrains;
they are chemical interactions, im not saying they arent and never have. but that line of attack just makes us animals, not responsible for other animals, you know, the whole lion and lamb thing.
you could also show me how it is that the same structures that are present in both a human’s brain and a monkey’s brain actually perform different functions
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sure, we can alter our programming, they cant. a drug addicted monkey, will always be a drug addicted monkey, a human can go to AA, change his progranmming.
At this point, I’m not even asking you to prove a negative - I have presented you with two positive assertions - that anthropomorphism is inevitable
i never made the argument it is inevitable, you made that up. i said that the bias inherent in an animal behaviorist finding reasons to belive in animal emotions makes their ‘evidence’ invalid.
again, ask a priest if G-d exists, you may think he is biased in favor of G-d.
and that similar structures perform different functions - which you may now set about disproving, if you feel so inclined.
i didn’t make that argument either, i said that similarity doesnt equal sameness. but thats a nice try to put the onus of evidence on me.
im still in the negative position. i dont thinmk animals have emotions, do you have any objective evidence to the contrary?
Again, a subtle but important difference that I shall endeavour to clarify. I have not at any stage claimed that animals experience emotion in the same way as humans do. Most other animals lack that enormous and unweildy rationalising human forebrain that I mentioned earlier, so their experience of emotions is going to be different to ours. That does not mean that they don’t experience emotions at all, which seems to have been your claim all along.
even if we** assumed **that similar structures equal same function, maybe we experience emotions because of that forebrain and they dont because they lack it. ithink you may have just shot yourself in the foot.
And I have already explained why I am not simply assuming that similar structures have similar functions. Therefore my original premise - that animals experience emotions, have feelings, have affective consciousness - remains valid.
it was an invalid assumption before you brought up the forebrain, now you have provided a biological basis to find seperate the similarity of structure from the sameness of function.
it seems like your digging a deeper hole now.
that said, youre just making hte samearguments as you have been the whole thread. trying to construct arguments to put the onus of evidenc on me aint going to fly. if you thin animals have emotions, then you are asserting an argument needing evidence.
