like i’m watching blue planet and i’m yelling at the tv!

there’s all these yimmer yammer hand-wavey scientific rigor lines where it’s like ‘we may believe that these animals do on occasion have a base brain-related impulse that allows them to experience feelings somewhat like to those of friendship’ or whatever in the script on top of footage that they then describe as ‘it seems as though these two groups [of fish, different species] are old friends…’ in an almost whimsical manner.

can’t they give them some credit! they have eyes and a face, why is it so insane to think they can’t experience friendship or love or joy just like us? ‘buhhu uhhh its only accurate science if we only observe observable behavior’ why?? you’re neglecting a whole part of any living thing’s experience! inner life can’t be hand waved away! even for a mollusk!

and people loved doing this on reddit as well – oh actually your cat doesn’t understand love or joy or humor, it is simply reacting to the physical warmth of your lap, they don’t actually care for you. don’t worry, depth and emotion does not exist!

    • @_number8_OP
      1•11 months ago

      this is a great post, thank you.

      We may never find out. If mollusks do experience emotions, there’s a chance their emotions are nothing like ours. We explain emotional responses through happiness, fear, anger and all that stuff, but who says other animals feel the same? Perhaps sea creatures have an emotional spectrum comprised of degrencre, humber, nage, and dorcelessness, but we’ll never be able to understand those, let alone recognise them when animals express them.

      this is exactly what i mean – isn’t it just so much more interesting and hopeful and meaningful to think about it this way than immediately drawing the line and saying shit like “we cannot just run around and play pretend because it makes us feel cozy.” or “To suggest that a mollusc has an ‘inner life’ is unscientific and goes against our current understanding of living organisms.”

      we’ve developed this consensus at 2023 AD after thousands and thousands of years of complex evolution – clearly we are at the zenith! we have no more to learn!