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UCLA Study Finds Laughter in 65 Species, from Rats to Cows

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Re: UCLA Study Finds Laughter in 65 Species, from Rats to Cows

#111

Post by medstrom »

alecst wrote: post #85
jrlocke wrote: post #80

This is an unpopular opinion, and should be wielded very carefully, but I think something often lost in these conversations is that the existence of a human behavior in an animal is not sufficient evidence that it's backed by the full weight of the human-like mental states. It may well be, but additional evidence must be presented. As humans, we're strongly prone to anthropomorphize–I'm capable of ascribing human fee…

How come for you the starting point is that animals do not have feelings and emotions like us, and that we have to have evidence for it? Why isn’t the starting point that they do have feelings like us and we have to find evidence against it? Really, other animals are so similar to us on every dimension except language that I wonder why people reason this way. Mammals in particular. I’ve seen Denver the guilty dog. Sh…

Even more concerning, who's to say a simpler mind / smaller brain would experience less sorrow? Maybe our large brains actually put a cap on the sorrow we are capable of, due to interference, and a simpler brain is capable of experiencing pure sorrow so much more deeply?

Re: UCLA Study Finds Laughter in 65 Species, from Rats to Cows

#113

Post by uhtred »

bckr wrote: post #2

This is one of the most beautiful ideas to have ever entered my awareness. Laughter is hard to beat in terms of sheer beauty--the more of it in the universe, the better. And on same planet what's more!

I find it sad that not many people seem to laugh genuinely. So many people do the fake laughter, wiping away imaginary tears, at things which just aren't funny but which they seem to think they should appear to find really funny in a group.

Re: UCLA Study Finds Laughter in 65 Species, from Rats to Cows

#114

Post by me_me_mu_mu »

alecst wrote: post #85
jrlocke wrote: post #80

This is an unpopular opinion, and should be wielded very carefully, but I think something often lost in these conversations is that the existence of a human behavior in an animal is not sufficient evidence that it's backed by the full weight of the human-like mental states. It may well be, but additional evidence must be presented. As humans, we're strongly prone to anthropomorphize–I'm capable of ascribing human fee…

How come for you the starting point is that animals do not have feelings and emotions like us, and that we have to have evidence for it? Why isn’t the starting point that they do have feelings like us and we have to find evidence against it? Really, other animals are so similar to us on every dimension except language that I wonder why people reason this way. Mammals in particular. I’ve seen Denver the guilty dog. Sh…

Also animals have they own languages it’s just they use smell or grunt or bop

Re: UCLA Study Finds Laughter in 65 Species, from Rats to Cows

#116

Post by jdavis703 »

alecst wrote: post #98
Tepix wrote: post #52

There are often discussions about what makes humans special and things like self-awareness, humour, sarcasm, tool usage, ethics etc are brought forward. I think there are hardly any fundamental differences between humans and other animals. We've merely reached an intelligence threshold that allowed us to develop better languages and writing and that means knowledge can be collected and passed on much much better. Lau…

There’s one major distinction between humans and animals: language. Not like “me want banana” language like in apes but like fully “ideas within ideas within ideas” language, with recursion and case and noun classes and all that. It’s incredible. It’s astonishing. We are like gods compared to other animals. And ever since we have had language (not even that long — ~50k years or so) we have been using it to tell stori…

I see nothing immoral in a bear eating a human. It’s just being a bear. But just like any other social animal, as humans we’re of course going to kill that bear so it stops eating us. It has nothing to do with us being superior than a bear. We just don’t want to die like any other animal!

And as humans I see nothing wrong with eating other animals (outside of animal cruelty, e.g. factory farms). As animals, we naturally eat each other. If there is something immoral about this, does that mean a rabbit is morally superior to a fox?

Re: UCLA Study Finds Laughter in 65 Species, from Rats to Cows

#117

Post by jdavis703 »

elif wrote: post #65
Tepix wrote: post #52

There are often discussions about what makes humans special and things like self-awareness, humour, sarcasm, tool usage, ethics etc are brought forward. I think there are hardly any fundamental differences between humans and other animals. We've merely reached an intelligence threshold that allowed us to develop better languages and writing and that means knowledge can be collected and passed on much much better. Lau…

It's also curious that we feed an animal that laughs (cows) to an animal that doesn't laugh (cats) and somehow construct logic to justify it all morally. I find myself in that weird cult, despite personally having an animal free diet for decades.

After 14 years of eating a plant-based diet my partner got a cat. Then I started buying the cat raw meat. Shortly after I became an omnivore again. I still try to minimize meat for my own health and the climate, but it’s hard to argue about the ethics of meat eating while feeding an obligate carnivore.

Re: UCLA Study Finds Laughter in 65 Species, from Rats to Cows

#118

Post by menzoic »

Tepix wrote: post #52

There are often discussions about what makes humans special and things like self-awareness, humour, sarcasm, tool usage, ethics etc are brought forward. I think there are hardly any fundamental differences between humans and other animals. We've merely reached an intelligence threshold that allowed us to develop better languages and writing and that means knowledge can be collected and passed on much much better. Lau…

Also keep in mind all of our perception or judgements about who is more superior are being made by...humans

Re: UCLA Study Finds Laughter in 65 Species, from Rats to Cows

#120

Post by abeppu »

Tepix wrote: post #52

There are often discussions about what makes humans special and things like self-awareness, humour, sarcasm, tool usage, ethics etc are brought forward. I think there are hardly any fundamental differences between humans and other animals. We've merely reached an intelligence threshold that allowed us to develop better languages and writing and that means knowledge can be collected and passed on much much better. Lau…

I think even if laughter is something we have in common with lots of animals, humour still seems rather special to me. Laughing when tickled doesn't clearly indicate anything special is going on, but constructing and telling a joke requires not just language at the level of a structured system of symbols carrying meaning, but also a kind of counterfactual theory of mind. A humorist understands and manipulates expectations in order to violate them in a nonthreatening manner.
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