Like, do we feel more pain than a fish would? More euphoria than mice could feel?
Why do you assume we have a higher state of awareness? I would start by defining what you mean there because it’s relative. Elephants are very aware, dolphins have fucking sonar, birds can feel the magnetic fields of the earth. Humans tend to think how they experience the world and reality is a “higher state” but that is a false assumption, imo.
We barely understand how other humans feel. I’d venture to say it’s pretty profound to really make that connection. Usually it’s in retrospect when you can see how someone really felt or what they meant in a moment. Then we’re talking about other animals? Who fucking knows man. Pandimensonial shades of the color blue
Probably the opposite.
Our “higher reasoning” and “state of awareness” (needs defining) gives us the ability to do thigns other animals can’t. For example chronic pain sufferers are taught how to manage their pain with a variety of CBT techniques. Not something you can teach a dog or cat.
People in intense periods of intense suffering may have thw ability to dissociate from the experience (“go to their happy place”) to lessen the pain experience.
We’re not aware animal shave this ability.
If anything mammals of all kinds that feel pain don’t have our higher cognitive ability to help manage and supress it.
Having said that it’s possible we feel more emotionally complex pain. Pain induced from our own minds by remembering trauma or imagining painful situations. As someone pointed out below a dying animal probably isn’t thinking about the loss of it’s family as it’s dying. But it will be feeling the pain of dying acutely.
I have been stung by bees/wasps several times, and the times when I was youngest and the least self aware were the worst. I was in absolute screaming agony as a small child. Then one day as an adult I was startled to be stung and found the experience to be completely different. Sure, it hurt and was really sharp like someone just jabbed a needle into me, but my response was to laugh, not cry. I also have the capacity to just not give a fuck (I recognize the cause of the pain isn’t going to kill me) when I’m in a fair bit of pain and just do something else (provided I can still physically move, which isn’t always a given) and this is helpful for tuning it out.
So from my personal experience, I would say absolutely: animals have it worse, not better.
My guess is that awareness plays into it through humans’ perceptions of time. We can both anticipate and recollect pleasurable/painful experiences in ways fish probably can’t. We can use our imaginations to torture ourselves, or mentally escape painful circumstances.
How this balances out in terms of intensity? Idk lmao
Emotions evolved a long time ago and pain and pleasure are even older. They are essencial for survival of organisms and the intensity is apropriate for their function. It is therefore reasonable to think other organisms feel them with similar intensity. If anything, they need to rely on them more, so the experience could be more intense for them. There’s surely going to be quite a bit of diversity though.
Edit: Let me add that this is an awsome question. Thanks for making me think about the way other people, animals and different organisms experience the world. I love it!
Having seen my dogs uncontained levels of excitement and euphoria as well as grumpy and depressed days first hand I would say not.
