Emotions? Sure.
Like us?
I dunno. Does irate fury at being woken up mid nap count as “like us”?
they obviously have emotions, just a bit less complex ones, but it’s pretty clear they’re not just robots
Just because we understand their emotions only on a basic level doesn’t mean they’re not more complicated.
There is a lot we don’t understand and can’t understand.
How do you know cats don’t experience sonder? Did you ask one? No, you just assumed
Two monks were passing by a little pond where there were some ducks, and the first monk said, “Look at how happy those ducks are!”
The second monk said, “You are not a duck. You can’t know if they are happy.”
The first monk replied, “You are not me. You can’t know that I cannot.”
“Fuck you, feed me” - cat
Eh, we can leave our cats for a week with plenty of food, etc., and they’re still thrilled when we return.
emotions yes. Like us, I don’t have the capabilities to determine if their emotions are like ours.
My cat: I pissed three times on your stuff while you were away because fuck you and your shitty ‘healthy’ food
Same evening: cuddles? cuddles! cuddle me human, yes scratches behind the ears!
They don’t have emotions like us but they have emotions similar to ours.
Lol if you meant to invoke the thought of Korean culture vs. American as an example, I think it worked!
Humans can have more complex emotions. We can be stressed about theoretical concepts that animals just are not equipped to understand. We can be excited by the prospect of future events.
Most animal emotions are immediate. They enjoy some food they eat, they find a nice warm spot to bask in, they see a predator and run away. Most animals lack the mental capacity to think beyond the immediate.
I mean, that could just be a fault in observation. The same line of thinking was utilized by people like Thomas Jefferson to validate his own use of slavery.
The language we use to describe intellect and emotions are inseparable from biased interpretation by humans. Can all humans “stress about theoretical concepts”? If a human lacks the ability to do so, do they become less human, or more animalistic?
If that’s the case, then there’s also something more complex going on - animals can certainly learn to anticipate things at specific times, like food, a dog gets excited by a doorbell because they knew that means somebody is coming, they can get stressed out by innocuous things if they associate it with bad experiences like beatings.
Not saying you’re wrong, but it warrants further explanation, because as is it doesn’t match the simple experience of living with a dog.