Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Do Animals have Emotions?
What emotions do you have when you see the Earth and the Universe? How do you 'define/describe' these feelings in words?
Can animals have emotions or 'feelings' (click to see Wikipedia view)? What's your view?
Clearly they don't have the vast knowledge database that humans have but are they capable of 'expressing their feelings' or is it just a mimicry of humans? And if they cannot express it in the form of writing does that preclude them from having any 'emotions/feelings'?
Generally speaking:
There is no definitive taxonomy of emotion. Meaning there is no definite scientific classification of the wide variety of emotions exist in human beings.
Emotions are experiences that associate with wide ranges of feelings, thoughts and behaviors. In this increasingly complex world, our emotions continue to evolve according to our experiences.
Only a few generations ago, people would never imagine what is it like to experience things such as EMF Radiation Damage, Operation - Stress Test, Global Climate Crisis, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Cutting Out the Middleman, or even just handling the amount and variety of information made available to us through technology.
Throughout time, we have developed all kinds of complex emotions. With technology, interactions between human beings and other living organisms increased exponentially. These experiences must have significant impacts on animals, that they have learned meanings of certain human emotions. There are incidents where they show a deep level of understanding, to the extent that they reflect such emotions through the same expressions that human beings have shown.
Here are a two evidences for your viewing:
What would cause this expression (having a bad day?)
A Baby Caribbean Hermit Crab on a Mint Leaf ('thinking about something?'):
Labels:
animals,
caribbean islands,
dog,
dr.gordon chiu 趙汝威博士,
emotions,
expressions,
feelings,
mimicry