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Rats free each other from cages (2011)

nature.com

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Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#141

Post by randcraw »

xg15 wrote: post #73

I found the counter-argument rather strange: > At issue is the definition of empathy. “This work is not evidence of empathy — defined as the ability to mentally put oneself into another being’s emotional shoes,” says Povinelli. “It’s good evidence for emotional contagion and that animals are motivated to coordinate their behaviour so that distress is reduced, but that is nothing new.” (Emphasis mine) How could this d…

How to demonstrate empathy? Easy. Conduct experiments in which the caged rats undergo a range of living conditions from idyllic to neutral to outright torture. If the free rat favors freeing the tortured rat over the idyllic rat then it shows greater empathy.

Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#142

Post by Dylan16807 »

justratsinacoat wrote: post #136
Dylan16807 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, that was a quick 'discussion'! Glad you came along! You're welcome! The discussion of how there is an impulse for people to get upset and defensive when told they're wrong, and how it impedes learning, is very well established. It's not worth wasting time on a weird side argument about it. The answer is just 'yes, that happens a lot'. Edit: > Thanks for the downvote! Hey, feel free to continue with the rest o…

>The discussion of how there is an impulse for people to get upset and defensive when told they're wrong, and how it impedes learning, is very well established. It's not worth wasting time on a weird side argument about it. The answer is just 'yes, that happens a lot'. What the hell? I guess that's what I must have been talking about! Thanks for informing me of what I was talking about! I totally agree that "people t…

> Thanks for informing me of what I was talking about!

That's what the line you quoted said. If you were replying to something else, you screwed up quoting. I can't tell you what you meant, but I can tell you what you quoted and said 'is this true?' about.

I'm not trying to shape the discussion as a whole, I'm trying to say "that one line? don't do that"

I did reply to an off-topic line with an off-topic line. I wanted to be clear what I was downvoting, and that it wasn't your opinion.

Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#143

Post by sporkologist »

Amezarak wrote: post #100
thevardanian wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

..and then we'll take a look at each other and realize that perhaps we humans have choice to act humanely, or to act no differently and start a cage fight on a global scale. The latter is true today anyways. The point isn't how they treat each other necessarily, but how we treat them in light of the knowledge of their "individual" characteristics, not unlike human beings. So we humans then extend the gift of life to…

Many animals kill not just for survival but for play and sport. Any cat owner has observed this behavior.

Play and sport are fine-tuning the animal for survival (eating, or avoiding being eaten, or finding a mate). It's practice.

Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#144

Post by MrBra »

sporkologist wrote: post #143
Amezarak wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many animals kill not just for survival but for play and sport. Any cat owner has observed this behavior.

Play and sport are fine-tuning the animal for survival (eating, or avoiding being eaten, or finding a mate). It's practice.

Exactly, I said the same thing in my comment below (only in a somewhat more exotic way..) but it was just misunderstood and pushed down. :)

Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#145

Post by xg15 »

randcraw wrote: post #141
xg15 wrote: post #73

I found the counter-argument rather strange: > At issue is the definition of empathy. “This work is not evidence of empathy — defined as the ability to mentally put oneself into another being’s emotional shoes,” says Povinelli. “It’s good evidence for emotional contagion and that animals are motivated to coordinate their behaviour so that distress is reduced, but that is nothing new.” (Emphasis mine) How could this d…

How to demonstrate empathy? Easy. Conduct experiments in which the caged rats undergo a range of living conditions from idyllic to neutral to outright torture. If the free rat favors freeing the tortured rat over the idyllic rat then it shows greater empathy.

That was, in (slightly) less horrible form, what they did. It's apparently still disputed that this shows empathy, however.

For your experiment, you could counter-argue in the same way: Maybe the free rat was just particularly tired of the torture screams and that's why it freed that rat first...

Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#146

Post by tremon »

senand wrote: post #135
tremon wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be constructing an argument like "if suffering is not immoral, then you must also think that torture is moral". That's a straw-man argument. It is a perfectly valid position to assert that inflicting suffering is morally wrong while at the same time rejecting that all suffering is morally wrong. When someone says that something is not immoral (or evil), they can be arguing to things: either it is moral, o…

That just suffering by itself is not immoral is quite obvious. We were talking about _inflicting suffering_ the whole time. And, to be even more precise, about knowingly inflicting suffering by human beings. Therefore all the questions you stated are besides the point. Now it seems the next argument that will come is that we as human beings are also animals and part of nature, and therefore we can also kill other ani…

Well, a female mantis occasionally decapitates its male mates after copulation. Does that mean that it is moral for women to do the same to men?

No one is arguing that nature is moral.

Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#147

Post by chongli »

netcan wrote: post #133
placebo wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rat doesn't know that...

The rat doesn't (necessarily) know it's selfless to free the other rather. He's acting on instinct. That's the question at hand:are these moral instincts, are they a shared trait with people's.

What the heck does the term moral instincts mean? Are a snake's instincts immoral for driving it to eat the rat?

Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#148

Post by chongli »

xg15 wrote: post #73

I found the counter-argument rather strange: > At issue is the definition of empathy. “This work is not evidence of empathy — defined as the ability to mentally put oneself into another being’s emotional shoes,” says Povinelli. “It’s good evidence for emotional contagion and that animals are motivated to coordinate their behaviour so that distress is reduced, but that is nothing new.” (Emphasis mine) How could this d…

It can be demonstrated quite readily in humans, through media (literature, movies, TV). It happens all the time! If you've ever heard or uttered the phrase "I know exactly what the character is going through!" then you've witnessed it.

It can't be proven in the sense of mathematical proofs, but then, nothing in reality can.

Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#149

Post by technothrasher »

MrBra wrote: post #131
adevine wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was my perception as well: the rat immediately tried to mount the rat that had been trapped. My issue is not with the results of the study, but with interpretation. I think it's possible to explain the desire to free the other rat purely in selfish terms without any nods to altruistic or empathic behavior.

Reproduction is not selfish. It's for species survival.

Reproduction is not for species survival. "Species" is simply an arbitrary label we've assigned as part of the system we use to categorize living things, and doesn't even really match reality very well.

Reproduction is for gene survival. We are simply throw away machines our genes have developed in order to propagate themselves.

Re: Rats free each other from cages (2011)

#150

Post by taneq »

xg15 wrote: post #73

I found the counter-argument rather strange: > At issue is the definition of empathy. “This work is not evidence of empathy — defined as the ability to mentally put oneself into another being’s emotional shoes,” says Povinelli. “It’s good evidence for emotional contagion and that animals are motivated to coordinate their behaviour so that distress is reduced, but that is nothing new.” (Emphasis mine) How could this d…

> That the captive rat was somehow causing distress to the free rat and the free rat was solely motivated to reduce that distress without any concern for the other rat.

Isn't that what empathy is, though? Distress caused by the perception of another creature's distress?

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