Animals feel pleasure???! wha??
Posted by LucidAnne on Sep 05, 2007 · Member since Jun 2006 · 1564 posts
who'da thunk it?? ???
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=07-P13-00035&segmentID=6
The World's Largest Collection of Vegetarian Recipes
That's odd. Because I thought this was a well established fact in terms of biology. At least, in my biology classes - from as far as 4 years ago! - I was taught that animals feel pleasure. Of course, those facts mainly focused on the mating process and reproduction.
But, either way, I didn't think this was something new.
Maybe this researcher is behind? lol
Did the author of this article never have a pet?? Or is this person one of those with no sense of humour....
The mind boggles.
I don't find his arguments very convincing at all. For an example, sweet nectar is an adaption which plants use to attract pollinators, and this in no way establishes an argument that animals have a sweet tooth for nectar (other than the fact that sugar is high energy, and an important source of food for high calorie burners, like hummingbirds).
I still don't understand why people don't see that humans and animals are NO different. The ONLY difference is a larger neocortex, but all mammals have neocortex's, they are just a little smaller, especially the frontal lobes, so animals see things like a human child does (neocortex is the wrinkly outer layer of the brains of mammels). In fact, the human brain does not fully develop until about the age of 23, and the last thing to develop is the frontal lobe, which is the reasoning part of the brain. So if you can remember what the world looked like when you were...say 7...then you know exactly how an cat or dog sees the world. Can a 7 year old feel pleasure? Yes? Then a animals can feel pleasure, it is as simple as that. They want a scientific answer? I am full of them!
Now reptiles, who have no neocortex may be different. To answer that one, test a human fetus who has no neocortex yet. The more primative parts of the brain are the first to develop. Can a fetus feel pleasure? I don't know, they can't speak because they have no neocortex, and the speach center of the brain is located in the parrietal lobe (middle between front and back) of the neocortex.
But insects...I have no idea if they feel pleasure or not. We are not evolved from insects so our brains and their brains are very dissimalar.
Interesting note: have you evern seen a human brain and a dolphin brain next to eachother? The sign of intellegence is the number of wrinkles in the neocortex, humans have a LOT. But a dolphin's brain almost looks identical to a humans, you may not be able to tell which one is human, which one is dolphin. But dogs, cats, monkeys, etc, have way less wrinkles. I thought that was interesting when I saw that in neurology class.
Although all eukaryotes are believed to have common ancestry animals and humans are very different, and the differences go further than the neocortex. We differ in embryonic developmenr and tissues, and many species of animals share almost identical DNA sequences despite morphological differences and vice versa. However, I think what you may have meant was specifically the brain, and the sensation and perception similarities in animals because of the neocortex.
Animals have perception but proof of the perception of pleasure is definitely something that needs more experiments to establish.