Snakes, dogs, cats, horses-- anthropomorphism

True-- maybe unconditional love is selfish. ?

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Originally Posted by ZinniaZ

True-- maybe unconditional love is selfish. ?

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I think all love has a small touch of selfishness ;)

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Originally Posted by littleindiangirl

I think all love has a small touch of selfishness ;)

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I don't place conditions on my love. I may not particularly like that person much, for whatever reason, but I would gladly trade my life for them. Call me quirky. :rolleyes: ;)

Zinnia, not trying discount how you feel but your argument for the possibility of snakes having emotions comes crumbling down when you realize that there is a physiological basis for emotion. Emotions are not just some thing that is floating around out there and takes place in humans and other primates (and maybe even other mammals). Emotions are produced in areas of the brain, and reptiles quite simply LACK these areas of the brain where higher-order reasoning take place.

From a biological standpoint, its quite simply impossible for snakes to experience emotion in the way that you describe. I encourage you to research the topic and you'll find that the reptilian brain is one that simply responds to stimuli and functions on instinct. Emotions are just not possible with the set of equipment that nature has provided them.

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Zinnia, not trying discount how you feel but your argument for the possibility of snakes having emotions comes crumbling down when you realize that there is a physiological basis for emotion. Emotions are not just some thing that is floating around out there and takes place in humans and other primates (and maybe even other mammals). Emotions are produced in areas of the brain, and reptiles quite simply LACK these areas of the brain where higher-order reasoning take place.

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That is fine-- but I am not actually trying to argue that reptiles HAVE emotion. I am arguing (but more musing than trying to prove a point) that maybe emotions are just a human construction. Maybe emotions such as we describe and believe we have-- are ONLY instinct and drive based reactions.

If that is true-- which I think it is somewhat-- then it follows that other creatures have similar instincts and drives so we could construct emotions for them just as we have for ourselves. My argument is that maybe emotions are just instinctive repsonses. We think we feel happy, sad, love, hate, but those feelings are related to survival and to feelings of security and stress.

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Originally Posted by elevatethis

Zinnia, not trying discount how you feel but your argument for the possibility of snakes having emotions comes crumbling down when you realize that there is a physiological basis for emotion. Emotions are not just some thing that is floating around out there and takes place in humans and other primates (and maybe even other mammals). Emotions are produced in areas of the brain, and reptiles quite simply LACK these areas of the brain where higher-order reasoning take place.

From a biological standpoint, its quite simply impossible for snakes to experience emotion in the way that you describe. I encourage you to research the topic and you'll find that the reptilian brain is one that simply responds to stimuli and functions on instinct. Emotions are just not possible with the set of equipment that nature has provided them.

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Originally Posted by ZinniaZ

That is fine-- but I am not actually trying to argue that reptiles HAVE emotion. I am arguing (but more musing than trying to prove a point) that maybe emotions are just a human construction. Maybe emotions such as we describe and believe we have-- are ONLY instinct and drive based reactions.

If that is true-- which I think it is somewhat-- then it follows that other creatures have similar instincts and drives so we could construct emotions for them just as we have for ourselves. My argument is that maybe emotions are just instinctive repsonses. We think we feel happy, sad, love, hate, but those feelings are related to survival and to feelings of security and stress.

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Emotions are a chemical cascade produced by certain areas within the brain. R-Complex brains don't have the 'emotion center'.

Hm. Thinking.

Snake:
Out on a rock in africa. Giant bird swoops down, but misses. Snake flees. Later, snake on rock again. A branch from a tree falls nearby, looking very much like a bird. Snake flees. (Or freezes-- whatever the snake's instinct is in that situation.

Kitten:
Laying out on the deck. Strange dog enters yard, leaps onto the deck, grabs at kitten, narrowly missing. Kitten flees. Later, on deck again. A small child runs up on the deck and approaches kitten, looking much like the earler dog. Kitten hisses and flees.

Is there emotion in either creature? Does the snake fear? Kitten? Are you saying that because the snake doesn't have adrenalin coursing through he isn't feeling anything?

I'm suggesting that you learn a little bit about the brain..... :rolleyes:

Instinct or Schminstink?

Based on your argument, which seems to be that we have reactions for which we are not responsible for initiating and that these responses are due to the stimuli of fear or anger or security (completely taking as an aside that we CAN control being in situations in which fear or anger or security are likely to be present or absent) and you have decided to call these instinctive (which you also seem to question) reactions emotional responses.

There isn't much that scares me, but what does doesn't make me mad.

There's a few things that make me mad, not afraid.

Security is different things to different people and as there is no constant, measuring it, quantifying it, it is virtually impossible to have a measurable constant to base whatever measurements you take to determine if "security" has been achieved.

I suspect that at one time we did have instincts with which we were in very close communion. I suspect that a couple of hundred years ago you would have been closer to the mark you seem to be aiming for.

Now though, with all the culls that have reproduced, all the removal of threats that honed our instincts, the need to have them at all, instincts that is, I don't think they are as evident or prevalent as in the past.

Anthropomorphism is an interesting quirk that many people have. I firmly believe that some mammals experience some of the same, or at least very similar, feelings that we do. We've seen it in dogs, whales, hefalumps and others. They do seem to have traits that could be directly experienced by us and ours by them.

Reptiles and feeling as I think mammals can? Mayyyyyybe with some of the bigger monitors or tortoises, maybe even cobras though I am very skeptical of them. I do not think the rest of the reptile world feels things the way we do though.

I sort of wish they could but then again, would your snake be angry/scared enough at you to want to assert it's dominance by some threatening behavior? Would your snake harbor a grudge for keeping it in a rack? Would your males see you as a threat to their ability to procreate? Would they join the Rodent Liberation Front and sue for equality?

Maybe it's best that they don't feel as we do.

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Originally Posted by ZinniaZ

Hm. Thinking.

Snake:
Out on a rock in africa. Giant bird swoops down, but misses. Snake flees. Later, snake on rock again. A branch from a tree falls nearby, looking very much like a bird. Snake flees. (Or freezes-- whatever the snake's instinct is in that situation.

Kitten:
Laying out on the deck. Strange dog enters yard, leaps onto the deck, grabs at kitten, narrowly missing. Kitten flees. Later, on deck again. A small child runs up on the deck and approaches kitten, looking much like the earler dog. Kitten hisses and flees.

Is there emotion in either creature? Does the snake fear? Kitten? Are you saying that because the snake doesn't have adrenalin coursing through he isn't feeling anything?

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What you just describe isn't an emotion in either creature. It's the fight or flight response.... It's a biological response to stress perceived as a threat or danger.