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Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free
31–40 of 51 posts
Re: Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free
#32I understand "empathy" to mean the ability to feel someone's emotions/pain/etc. What this demonstrates is that rats will go to another rat's aid, and nothing about their internal models for doing so. It is oversimplifying to say something like "oh it's helping the other rat for selfish reason X", but it is equally misleading to apply human models of mind, which we have due to our unique ability to introspect and shar…
There was a time when explorers observed a primitive tribe exhibiting empathy or even morality might exert the same kind of hand-wringing as you did about whether it is actually so.
Same thing happened with chimps and the discovery of tool use. Jane Goodall was met by the same resistance. It is a characteristic, I would assume of the social organism as a whole. We have a lot in common with our little burrowing social friends. Empathy being one of them.
Altruism is also indicated by leaving the sweets for the trapped rat.
Im not a neuroscientist, but I can guess the mirror neurons are at play.
Re: Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free
#33maybe less empathy and more, hey you can help me
Re: Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a time when explorers observed a primitive tribe exhibiting empathy or even morality might exert the same kind of hand-wringing as you did about whether it is actually so.
Same thing happened with chimps and the discovery of tool use. Jane Goodall was met by the same resistance. It is a characteristic, I would assume of the social organism as a whole. We have a lot in common with our little burrowing social friends. Empathy being one of them. Altruism is also indicated by leaving the sweets for the trapped rat. Im not a neuroscientist, but I can guess the mirror neurons are at play.
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Re: Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free
#35My question is: why don't we show more empathy towards animals? The experimentations and vivisections, urban sprawl and deforestation, the abandonment of pets when they become inconvenient - we as humans don't consider the cruelty of our actions. We figure as long as it can be profited from or paved over, it's justifiable. It's not. One day mankind will grieve because of the suffering we have caused animals. But by t…
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Re: Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free
#36Video showing the rodents in action http://www.newsy.com/mobile/video/study-rats-show-each-other...
Re: Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
"When one man dies it is a tragedy, when thousands die it's statistics." - Stalin (not confirmed). Empathy is irrational, since it relies on identification with the other being. It's always easier to identify oneself with a living being than to a piece of meat. On the other hand, it's also very rational; it's a much better strategy than if it was guided by pure knowledge, since it optimizes cooperation: otherwise, yo…
The only actual source I've ever seen for that Stalin quote was the fictional Stalin from the computer game Command and Conquer: Red Alert. Is this quote actually attributed to the real Stalin? Has the quote been floating around since before 1995 or so, when that game was released?
Wikiquotes has a segment on this quote.[1] It's uncertain whether Stalin said it to Truman at the Potsdam conference, or whether the quote was actually said by someone else and misattributed to Stalin, but it is certain that the game designers didn't make it up for C&C: Red Alert.
[1] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin#Misattributed
Re: Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a time when explorers observed a primitive tribe exhibiting empathy or even morality might exert the same kind of hand-wringing as you did about whether it is actually so.
Same thing happened with chimps and the discovery of tool use. Jane Goodall was met by the same resistance. It is a characteristic, I would assume of the social organism as a whole. We have a lot in common with our little burrowing social friends. Empathy being one of them. Altruism is also indicated by leaving the sweets for the trapped rat. Im not a neuroscientist, but I can guess the mirror neurons are at play.
I think what they try to avoid is anthropomorphization. It's not a good idea to make assumptions that assume human-like characteristics -else we end up with cartoons.
It's not to say that animals are incapable, but such assumptions cannot be made without the insight being held suspect.
Re: Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same thing happened with chimps and the discovery of tool use. Jane Goodall was met by the same resistance. It is a characteristic, I would assume of the social organism as a whole. We have a lot in common with our little burrowing social friends. Empathy being one of them. Altruism is also indicated by leaving the sweets for the trapped rat. Im not a neuroscientist, but I can guess the mirror neurons are at play.
I think what they try to avoid is anthropomorphization. It's not a good idea to make assumptions that assume human-like characteristics -else we end up with cartoons. It's not to say that animals are incapable, but such assumptions cannot be made without the insight being held suspect.
Much has advanced in science since. We now know the role of various hormones and chemicals that influence our emotions. Oxytocin, adrenaline, etc. The trick to get out of anthropomorphization is to avoid being human-centric when making the observations. i.e. put on an alien hat and observe human behavior the way we might observe animal behavior, and then based on that say that one acts in a similar way to the other, and reason they may have similar motivations.
Re: Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free
#40I am continuously amused by how humans get in a huff when people anthropmorphize animals' actions... "surely it can't be empathy!" ... "we don't know if the rat is _really_ feeling the trapped rat's pain!!"
The question is: why not? Who are we to say that rats (or dogs or cats or crows or elephants or . . . ) can't feel another's pain?
Dogs have been known to show emotion. Elephants have been known to show emotion. Chimp mothers express sorrow when their child dies. And so on.
But people will come up with contorted explanations for these phenomena: dogs must 'smell' some pheromone that triggers such behavior... chimp mothers are only grieving because it's loss of a valuable tribe resource ... or things to those effect.
You know what? Believe what you will. But I have seen more empathy coming from animals than some humans (see Dick Cheney).