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Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free

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Re: Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free

#41

Post by ars »

zeroboy wrote: post #5

My 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…

> My question is: why don't we show more empathy towards animals?

Because animals are not humans, and trying to raise animals to the level of humans does not do that - rather it lowers humans to the level of animals.

As much as you have compassion for animals don't confuse them with humans.

Re: Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free

#42

Post by webnrrd2k »

ajays wrote: post #40

I 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. C…

I agree. Animals feeling emotions is one of those things that I believe, but can't prove. It just strikes me as another version of the "humans are the center of the univese" theory. Also, it's hard for me to believe that nature hasn't come up with emotions before humans evolved. I'm not saying I understand it very well, but the major brain structures responsible for emotion go back fairly far along the evolutionary tree.

Lastly, I just have trouble believing that what I see with my own eyes isn't emotion.

Re: Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free

#44

Post by stewbrew »

anateus wrote: post #24

I 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…

"What this demonstrates is that rats will go to another rat's aid, and nothing about their internal models for doing so."

The notion of aid implies it has a mental model of the other rat and that it consideres the other rat as a rat that needs help.

I don't understand why people always think of humans as outstanding and totally different from other species. Or do you think that humans are only exhibiting kin selection too and that empathy is nothing but a ideological concept? How do you prove empathy in humans? (And please apply the same rigor.)

Re: Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free

#45

Post by stewbrew »

tzs wrote: post #3

That doesn't necessarily show empathy. In a dangerous environment, for instance, it can be better to have others around to lessen your individual risk. It could be freeing the trapped rat in the hope that when the big nasty humans come back they will pick the other rat.

Given their mathematical and statistical skills, somebody will soon start hiring rats as financial consultants.

Do you really think this is the simpler explanation?

Re: Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free

#46

Post by lusr »

stewbrew wrote: post #45
tzs wrote: post #3

That doesn't necessarily show empathy. In a dangerous environment, for instance, it can be better to have others around to lessen your individual risk. It could be freeing the trapped rat in the hope that when the big nasty humans come back they will pick the other rat.

Given their mathematical and statistical skills, somebody will soon start hiring rats as financial consultants. Do you really think this is the simpler explanation?

I'm not sure if you are aware of this or not: www.artmarcovici.com/rat-traders

Also, I believe it's implicit in parent's post that evolution would produce more rats whose behaviour increases their likelihood of survival. The rats don't need to understand how their behaviour ensures their survival, or that it can be modelled with game theory, etc.

Re: Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free

#47

Post by lusr »

tzs wrote: post #22
tikhonj wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why empathy and pragmatism have to be mutually exclusive. You can think of empathy as a heuristic for choosing an optimal action: in a lot of cases, one way or another, helping out a fellow rat is beneficial, so empathy is an advantage. Especially as a rat, you don't have the capacity or time to use a significantly more accurate method to choose an action anyhow.

They aren't mutually exclusive, but you can't infer one from behavior unless you eliminate the other as a possible explanation.

It fascinates me that there are so many intelligent people posting here that are unwilling to accept this very basic principle, or debate it, instead choosing to dismiss it outright with various logical fallacies.

If I had to guess, people are taking things a bit personally as an attack on their pets, as though requesting further evidence of higher order processing is insinuating that their pets don't really have the feelings they believe their pets do. (Nobody here commenting on the experiment's conclusions is claiming this, as far as I can tell; they're just asking for more conclusive and objective evidence before they believe such conclusions can be made.)

Some of the 'reasoning' being used ("Just ask any dog owner") is eerily familiar to the kind of reasoning people use when justifying homeopathy ("It worked for my cousin's ailment", which in the extreme leads to lovely things like Rhino poaching and whale hunting, something I'm sure these people abhor), the paranormal and supernatural ("I sensed something [and my senses are obviously infalible]", which in the extreme leads to a reduced quality of life), religious extremism ("Just ask anybody who's heard God's voice") etc.

Re: Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free

#48

Post by lusr »

Dn_Ab wrote: post #29
tzs wrote: post #3

That doesn't necessarily show empathy. In a dangerous environment, for instance, it can be better to have others around to lessen your individual risk. It could be freeing the trapped rat in the hope that when the big nasty humans come back they will pick the other rat.

I think the rats are intelligent or desensitized enough to have learned that the humans are no threat. But it could be something similarly simple. Like an advantage to helping those as a function of distance measured by genetic similarity, when in a foreign environment. Especially as social animals, strength in numbers type thing. So those who helped each other tended to survive to pass on those genes. Still selfish…

I suspect that this sort of behaviour is indeed a precursor to empathy. I think the debate would be greatly improved if all parties could agree on a definition of "empathy", and then identify whether the experimental design justifies a conclusion regarding empathy, as defined. (As an aside, my problem with Searle's Chinese Room is that Searle never explains how he believes the human mind "understands" and a machine does not. How can you compare the human mind with a machine if you can't define it in comparative terms?)

Re: Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free

#49

Post by stewbrew »

lusr wrote: post #46
stewbrew wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given their mathematical and statistical skills, somebody will soon start hiring rats as financial consultants. Do you really think this is the simpler explanation?

I'm not sure if you are aware of this or not: www.artmarcovici.com/rat-traders Also, I believe it's implicit in parent's post that evolution would produce more rats whose behaviour increases their likelihood of survival. The rats don't need to understand how their behaviour ensures their survival, or that it can be modelled with game theory, etc.

I am well aware that rats don't have to "understand" these processes. There is a shift in perspective underlying this argument though that doesn't help when discussing whether a rat is capable of recognizing another rat's distress (i.e., empathy) or how it perceives the situation from a subjective point of view.

Re: Rodents exhibit empathy by setting trapped friends free

#50

Post by anateus »

stewbrew wrote: post #44
anateus wrote: post #24

I 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…

"What this demonstrates is that rats will go to another rat's aid, and nothing about their internal models for doing so." The notion of aid implies it has a mental model of the other rat and that it consideres the other rat as a rat that needs help. I don't understand why people always think of humans as outstanding and totally different from other species. Or do you think that humans are only exhibiting kin selectio…

I do mention that humans are capable of sharing their introspections with each other. There are a lot of issues with this, and philosophy is busy figuring that stuff out (from qualia on). This is why I choose to accept the common explanation that empathy plays at least some role in human altruism.

I think we should be just as careful ascribing internal models to human actions that we observe, where we might be even more tempted to jump to conclusions because we think we must be familiar what goes on in other humans' minds.

So, to summarize, I think humans really do feel empathy (I know I do, and I choose to believe others do too), and I know humans will often engage in altruistic behavior. I'm not certain that without empathy we wouldn't engage in the altruistic behavior, though it's likely we'd engage in less. So yes, I do actively apply the same rigor to this area where ethics, philosophy of mind, and neuroscience are meeting. It's a fascinating topic! But it's an area that's easily politicized (morality takeaways tend to be applied quickly...) so I always err on the side of careful interpretation.

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