Philosophy v Physics

[TimberWolf]

Has it been definitively proved animals have emotions rather than blind reactions? I know it's been an are of research in the past, did they 'solve' it? It's certainly easy to anthropomorphise, for instance your cat coming for a cuddle but actually it just wants your body heat, but that doesn't rule out emotions. It wasn't that long ago people commonly thought animals couldn't feel pain!

Well birds go through elaborate courtship displays and bond for life. Is that not love? Anger is seen in higher animals, as is fear. What more proof is needed? As for blind reaction, is this not true in humans too? Love is blind they say, and I think there is truth in that. We humans are slaves to our emotions and instincts to a degree perhaps less than in other animals, but we often just aren't aware of it.

[TimberWolf]

Nope, haven't been boozing. Just because we define emotions it doesn't mean they exist.

They've been seen. They've been given name. They exist. At least until such improbable time they're defined not to exist instead, which would be pointless.

[CheeseSlice]

Philosophy v Physics

So lets say you have a PhD in Physics, which translates as a "Doctor of Philosophy in Physics", then who's side are you on in this argument?

[d000hg]

Well birds go through elaborate courtship displays and bond for life. Is that not love? Anger is seen in higher animals, as is fear. What more proof is needed? As for blind reaction, is this not true in humans too? Love is blind they say, and I think there is truth in that. We humans are slaves to our emotions and instincts to a degree perhaps less than in other animals, but we often just aren't aware of it.

Love is a complex emotion, I don't think animals pairing for life counts.
Saying we "see" emotion in animals is not even close to proof. Doesn't mean they don't have them, but "looking happy" is to try and see animals through human eyes.

[minestrone]

Engineers used to get a degree in Philosophy.

I think it was the Philosophy of Science or some other crap title.

[TimberWolf]

Love is a complex emotion, I don't think animals pairing for life counts.
Saying we "see" emotion in animals is not even close to proof. Doesn't mean they don't have them, but "looking happy" is to try and see animals through human eyes.

'Looking happy' could be a human thing sure, but that wasn't my example. Is happiness reserved for us? Who knows. I suspect not, as this is the reward for doing something right, IMO and it seems to make sense for the reward to be present for other species too. Smiling, I guess, expresses this for others to appreciate and may be limited to social species, or us alone.

What is love but a mechanism to bond partners and rear offspring? Is that love exists in other species a contentious issue? Do we find it hard to accept that other animals can feel 'our' emotions too?

[mudskipper]

Has it been definitively proved animals have emotions rather than blind reactions? I know it's been an are of research in the past, did they 'solve' it? It's certainly easy to anthropomorphise, for instance your cat coming for a cuddle but actually it just wants your body heat, but that doesn't rule out emotions. It wasn't that long ago people commonly thought animals couldn't feel pain!

Surely emotions are blind reactions. I don't think "I'm going to feel scared now" - it's a reaction to a situation I find myself in. The physical effect of emotions can be explained by surges of hormones, but the trigger to release those hormones is the emotion.

[Gibbon]

Psychology is one of many likely scientific domains that study and explain those scientifically. Evolution explains the existence of many too. I don't think these are a mystery or outside of the domain of science ,even if they can't yet be quantified because of the number of variables involved in some instances, e.g. love has more than one variable. Much of it is understood though.

Your answer is subjective, it's what you think and there are no examples about why you think that way.

I gave you a clear example about how one mans thought helped underpin the liberal tolerant society we live in. Science didn't do that.

[Gibbon]

'Looking happy' could be a human thing sure, but that wasn't my example. Is happiness reserved for us? Who knows. I suspect not, as this is the reward for doing something right, IMO and it seems to make sense for the reward to be present for other species too. Smiling, I guess, expresses this for others to appreciate and may be limited to social species, or us alone.

What is love but a mechanism to bond partners and rear offspring? Is that love exists in other species a contentious issue? Do we find it hard to accept that other animals can feel 'our' emotions too?

Until recently in western society and still in many parts of the world and indeed in many of our ethnic minorities love has got nothing to do with it. If the partners grow to love each other then thats a bonus.

[ThomasSoerensen]

I thought that physics was an evolutionary branch of philosophy (if I remember Sophie's world correctly).

Historically, there was only philosophy.
All other science branches were seen to be sub-areas of philosophy.

At least this was the picture with the ancient greeks.