Earlier quoted context omitted.
> we are very much trained to believe we shouldn’t anthropomorphise animals We shouldn't anthropomorphize animals. Instead, the point here is that emotions are not anthropic; humans do not have a monopoly on emotions. Which is to say, we should be sure not to think that "grief" means the same thing for an orca that it means to a human; yet naturally animals do grieve in their own ways. (Heck, "grief" doesn't even mea…
yeah, the funny thing about the anthropomorphism debate is that supposedly the thing that makes humans different from (other) animals is our "advanced" brain, i.e. language, civilization, etc. in other words, all the ways we have to manage emotions, and all of our "non-emotional" functioning. So we have somehow evolved to be able to better manage emotions. Ok, so if we grant all of that, then haven't we just said tha…
Insects don't have emotions, they barely have hyper specialized sensors as brains.
However, emotions efficiently direct behaviours in mammals. They enact immediate and persistent responses.
We can say without much doubt that emotions in mammals are similar to our own emotions.
The big unknowns are animals further away from us, which are demonstrably intelligent, like birds and octopuses.