Re: Do other species feel love?

Kippers wrote:
I know this question cannot be answered conclusively but I don't
think
it is totally beyond reach. Certainly with great apes we have a
pretty good idea of the emotions they feel due to how similar their
reactions are to us in many scenarios. There is no doubt that this
question is much harder to answer for species less closely related >> to
us but I don't believe it is totally beyond the reach of scientific
enquiry.
I agree with this, but it does imply redefining love in terms of
outwardly observable behaviors, which depending on your redefinitions
would get you different results... and different people contesting the
results.


Maybe we could do better than this. Could we find patterns of brain
activity when people are feeling love and compare it to other primates
when we think they look to be experiencing similar emotions? Do we
have any understanding at all of the biochemical reactions behind
different emotions such as love and if so can we witness something
similar in other animals? Might it be possible for us to identify
emotional states within others purely based on brain activity and
biochemical reactions?

I think patterns of brain activity would be pretty conclusive, at least in primates. After that we'd have to prove the parts of the brain activated are really homologous, and maybe you wouldn't even get the same result (like if maybe some birds felt love, but felt it with a different part of their brain or something). Or you'd get homologous parts activating when it obviously isn't love for the animal (say, if the homologous parts in rats got activated when they were eating, or running in a maze, or whatever... would that mean rats really, really love to eat ? Or that they don't love at all, because that bit of the brain is used for something else ? Or just that their brains are wired differently from ours ?)

But all this speculation depends on knowing how the brain works, which I don't. So maybe what you're suggesting would work even beyond primates, I don't know.

.

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