File :-(, x, )
That Gomez
So. I stayed over at my cousin's house tonight and was engaged in conversation with her boyfriend. The guy INSISTS that dogs, dolphins, and monkeys are the only animals who can feel emotion, based solely on the fact that they have larger brains. He argues that one of 4chan's beloved creatures, the almighty feline, cannot give emotion and is only capable of taking it from you.

What are /an/'s thoughts? I personally have issues with this, having been a cat owner all my life and have witnessed actual affection and love from my feline friends. Thoughts?
>> Anonymous
>>133340

eh, that guy should die in a fire

but on a more serious note... cats can give emotion... ever notice how your cat knows when you're feeling bad or sick? or how it brings you dead animals? it adopted you as part of it's family... feeling the need to look after you because either you're sick or too dumb to feed yourself!
>> Anonymous
everything with a brain feels emotion to some extent even if those emotions are fear, lust, and aggression, and only felt as intensely as hunger

higher mammals like cows and cats and such are simply more emotinally in tune with humans and thus their emotional responses are more readily recognizable
>> That Gomez
>>133355

He states that "fear", "lust" and "aggression" are programmed into the animal as instinct. And I can see why he would say that, as it's at least on some level, true. But as>>133350says, They do feel your sick, they do bring you presents, and that sort of thing. I wish I'd thought of that point to bring up to him.
>> Anonymous
>>133358
emotions ARE instinct. they're psychological responses to stimuli in the world. Humans just have very highly developed emotions. Your friend is an idiot and does not know what he's talking about and your thread is the equivalent of crying because your big brother said there is not a doggie heaven.
>> Anonymous
sounds like this guy is a real life troll
>> Anonymous
I hate pushface cats.
>> Anonymous
>>133391
Me too. It's a deformity, not a desirable trait. Also the OP's cousin's boyfriend is either a retard or an IRL troll.
>> That Gomez
>>133488
worse: He's extremely christian.

Since you're all so dead set on the point of most animals having emotions, is there some point you can give me next time we have this discussion? The only one I can think of is penguins and jealousy and being hurt if they let another penguin come too close to their life partner.

He's also dead-set on the fact that homosexuality is a learned behavior in humans specifically, but I'll not go into that.
>> Anonymous
why did you make this topic? did he pwn you in conversation?
>> Anonymous
>>133497
Christianity doesn't rank animals by emotional capacity. If he insisted that only humans can feel, that might be religious. Singling out species randomly is just his own personal stupidity.
>> Bitter Anon !!WJLRQ1cwCyZ
>>133497
A good rebuttal to people that say animals cannot feel or have emotion, invite them to play a game of "Fight, Fuck, or Flee". ALL emotions can boil down into one of those. Jealousy? Fuck and fight. Anger? Fight. Longing? Fuck. One that occasionally trips up the stupid: Hunger. Hunger is a physical response, not an emotion.

As for homosexuality.. Let me get my internet toughguy response out of the way first: Give me an hour alone with him, and I'll prove him wrong.

Next time he begins to say that homosexuality is a learned behavior, please refer him to the following books:

"Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity" by Bruce Bagemihl.
"Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape" by Frans de Waal.
"Peacemaking among Primates" by Frans de Waal & R. Ren
Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People" by Joan Roughgarden
"Homosexual Behaviour in Animals, An Evolutionary Perspective" by by Volker Sommer and Paul L. Vasey
>> Anonymous
pigs are smarter than dogs or cats. Why did you're cousin's boyfriend not include them?
>> Anonymous
Okay, the biggest problem here is that it's not the SIZE of a brain that matters in regards to intelligence, logic, and emotion, but the amount of convolutions (to dumb it down for your fucking retarded friend, the amount and depth of folds). Otherwise, cows would be fucking geniuses, as their brains are larger than a human's brain. Here's an example that your friend might more easily identify with: male human brains are larger than female human brains. Does that mean that males (besides BitterAnon) are more emotional? If he says yes, call him a fucking faggot.
>> Anonymous
Whales and elephants have large brains, too; larger than ours, anyway. You'd think they'd be *extra* emotional, if you used his argument.

"Emotional" is a silly concept since we can only try to relate another species's behavior to our own, when they may "feel" entirely different. There is no absolute measurement of emotion.

Relatedly, I've been thinking about animal behavior, and I am wondering if anyone can come up with an example of an animal that can be vengeful, like we can. I've got nothing.
>> Anonymous
     File :-(, x)
>>133527
>>I am wondering if anyone can come up with an example of an animal that can be vengeful, like we can. I've got nothing.

What about the great apes?
>> Anonymous
>>133529
I dunno, would one group attack another just because they had fought before? And what about inter-group violence? Do chimps and gorillas hold grudges?
>> Bitter Anon !!WJLRQ1cwCyZ
>>133525
>>133527
Oh I totally agree that men aren't more emotional. If they were, I wouldn't fuck them.

You both bring up good "duh" arguments about brain size (ie whales are emotional gods). I'd like to know how someone would respond to that without sounding like a complete moron.

As for vengeful.. just about every animal. If you kick a cat, it may pee in your shoes. If you hit a bee hive, they will sting the fuck out of you. Yes, you could say the latter is simply protecting their home, I suppose, but isn't revenge a protection response? Someone does something to hurt you (or something you care about), and you respond in kind?
>> Muhamed Christbergstein
>>133529
cats definitely hold grudges. holding a grudge is the counter emotion to preference. there is no question among anyone who has ever kept a pet that these pets will at one point or another demonstrate that they prefer one person over another. In so doing they demonstrate both preference and a grudge because their dislike for certain people will not change over time.
>> Anonymous
>>133532
I don't mean short-term responses at all, and I don't mean just displeasure with a certain being, but planned, hurtful behavior after the fact, just for the sake of causing pain, even if you know that other being will never hurt you again.

I've never owned an indoor cat, so I don't know about having one piss in my shoes (or on anything mine), but that is interesting.
>> Bitter Anon !!WJLRQ1cwCyZ
>>133540
As our messiahicly named friend said, dislike is a form of revenge. I think humans just have better memories and are more viscous in general, so instead of responding immediately, we wait until they no longer expect us to retaliate.
>> Anonymous
>>133544
Dislike is only a form of revenge in societies that place value on interaction and teamwork.
>> Anonymous
I dunno about cats but dogs are pretty smart and can understand up to 20 human commands and if you buy now we will throw in a canon printer or digital camera for free.
>> Anonymous
The only emotion known to be the sole property of humans appears to be spite. Everything else we share with other species. Although, this is based on the lack of spite in chimps that don't have universal empathy either, so I wouldn't be surprised if bonobos turn out to be capable of being spiteful.

Proof of emotions can be found in all amniotes, so they probably evolved in some extinct amphibian. Reptiles can feel pleasure and displeasure, which are your base emotional responses. Cephalopods also experience and express an array of emotions, even though they must have evolved them independantly. Fish and modern amphibians however show no clear signs of being emotional.
>> Anonymous
>>133553
Yeah, spite is a better description of what I meant than vengeance. Thanks for that.
>> Anonymous
>>133527
Cats can definitely be vengeful. If you did something to piss off my old cat, like say, bring home a kitten or take him to the vet he'd get you back. Usually by peeing on your pillow AS YOU WERE SLEEPING ON IT. Even if he didn't do it while you were there he would do it and then go hide behind the toilet because he already knew he'd done something bad (which I'm as certain as you can be that he did on purpose).
>> Anonymous
DAR thread is DAAAAAR
>> Anonymous
>>133588
Just to add: sometimes he would wait several days (about a week) before "getting even", however we always knew it was coming after a vet trip or after we'd brought home a new cat. This was of-course not just him marking his territory again either. If he were just peeing somewhere in the house that'd be the case, instead he would deliberately find something of my mother's (usually) or occasionally something of mine.
>> Anonymous
That cat looks like it has cleft lip
>> Anonymous
>>133600
That cat looks like it has DAAAAAAAAAAR!
>> Anonymous
Of course cats have emotion. I've seen many cats come in to the shelter I work at who get very depressed and refuse to eat. Your cousin's boyfriend is an idiot.

Also, goldfish and rats are smarter than dolphins, proving brain size means nothing.
>> Anonymous
>>133612
I'm pretty sure goldfish are pretty stupid, don't they not have any short term memory?
>>133600
It probably does, cleft palate is a congenital birth defect in smash faced cats.
>> Anonymous
all animals feel SOME sort of emotion, whether is basic, instinct driven rage or contentment.
>> Bitter Anon !!WJLRQ1cwCyZ
>>133688
I had a fancy-tail goldfish once that was blind in one eye. Every now and then he freaked out, like he suddenly realized he couldn't see. He swam in circles most of the time, then would suddenly start swimming in random directions, fins speeding up, like he was having some kind of seizure or badly dancing, then he would settle down and swim around. Awesome fish.

What was I talking about again?
>> That Gomez
>>133612
how can you measure something like that? Having it complete a maze is just basic instinct, at least to him. Having them memorize something rather than actually testing intelligence of something like a goldfish seems difficult to me.
>> Anonymous
Does that thing have a fucking hairlip? Get that shit fixed or everyone will hate it and make fun of it just like they do to people with hairlips
>> Anonymous
>>133688
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/21/0358215
One of the googled up things on goldfish possibly being "smarter" than dolphins.
And, yknow, fish are pretty smart in general. African cichlids are thought to have the reasoning ability of young human children. You can also teach goldfish tricks and stuff.
>> Muhamed Christbergstein
>>133977
Animal intelligence is relative to what is required for that species to survive.

Human intelligence exists because as a species we are pretty weak. In combat most other species would kill us. We are slow and so cannot escape that combat. We have no claws, no sharp teeth, no incredibly strong muscles to destroy something.

Because of what we are physically our brains developed so that we began to learn how to manipulate our environment in order to make up for that. A lion vs a man is pretty much always gonna be a victory for the lion. A lion vs a man with a spear is a much closer fight.

The lion on the other hand is born with everything it needs. Sharp claws, teeth, speed, strength, etc. Therefore it has no need to develop intelligence (I mean intelligence in the human sense) to do the things it needs to do in order to ensure survival.

Every trait any animal has has developed to better ensure the animals survival within its niche.

To say one animal is smarter than another is, as they say, comparing apples to oranges. A rat is good at mazes because rodents need to maintain burrows for security and have food stores. Having good spacial recall helps them do this. Because of that they are good at mazes which are quite related.
>> Anonymous
I LOVE CATS.
>> Anonymous
>>134045
tl;dr
>> Muhamed Christbergstein !iX9wdiXS9k
>>134058
that's what i'm best at.
>> Anonymous
>>134042
Retarded study is retarded. They concluded that dolphins are stupider than goldfish because they don't try to excape from enclosed spaces. Also dolphins are supposedly also dimmer since they need to learn new things (funny how that applies to humans too). Considering that dolphins are highly social, use tools, understand language and grammar and are self-aware and none of those have been proven in goldfish...
>> Anonymous
If this man were a website, a raid would be in order...

Cats ftw!
>> Anonymous
>>133340
I fucking despise that cat.

I really want to stomp on it's ugly little head.

in b4 furfag abuse.
>> Anonymous
Cats can't feel emotion, not because they have small brains, but because they are irredeemable evil. Like the Daleks, the only emotion they can feel is hate and smug superiority.
>> Anonymous
What

Dogs show way less emotion than cats
>> Anonymous
oh
>> Anonymous
     File :-(, x)
Heres a good feline emotion argument: their tail.
http://www.xmission.com/~emailbox/tailtalk.htm

Being a cat owner yourself, i'm sure you're familar with cats displaying their emotions through their tail. Dogs do the same thing. If these animals didn't have emotion, there would be no reason to have so many muscles control a tail, or to raise and flatten their fur. Same goes for vocal function. Why would they need to purr if they didn't feel emotions, or have a need to express and communicate said emotions?
Humans do the same thing, only with our faces. (after all, no matter your race or ethnicity, all peoples smile when they are happy)
>> INVALID
>>134595
I've seen cats go through depression, to the point where they don't eat and just.. neglect themselves, be it a loss by death or a change in owners or something....
hell some die when they lose their attached owners.

dogs do it to, and a few other animals.
>> Anonymous
hit idiot with stick, repeatedly
>> Anonymous
>>134591
What? I mean, I know cats can show affection. I've never seen a cat look shameful. Cats are either standoffish, affectionate, playful, or running away.
>> Lenny Walrus
     File :-(, x)
cats are booooring. mongooses. now thats an animal
>> Anonymous
I used to have a cat.. which would go crazy whenever my sister started crying, he would start purring intensly and nudge his head against hers to try and comfort her. He also meowed plenty during this. There's no doubt cats have feelings.
>> Anonymous
>>134878
What's more important is that that makes it seem that the cat might have empathy too.
>> Anonymous
Some things where my cat showed affection:

He would sleep above my head at night for the company. Then lick my nose in the morning until I woke up.

He would climb onto the sofa, and start licking my hair. Guess he thought I was dirty.

When I came back from a holiday while leaving him in a cattery. He recognised me immediately from a distance and came running up to me meowing loudly.

He never bit anyone unless it was play biting. Where he would open his mouth onto your hand but never put any pressure on it, and then lick it afterwards.

He knew how to shake hands with me when I was offering some food.

I miss him, most intelligent animal I have ever known.
>> Anonymous
>>134813
Cats groom themselves to overcome shame.
>> Anonymous
Cats can get pissed. Being pissed is being angry. Anger is an emotion. Your friend is stupid.