Animal Psychology Question

[Homeloaf]

I was just wondering...

Are humans the only animals that can lose the will to live? Could a dog want to commit suicide? Could a rat? A sponge? A microbe?

Which led me to...

Also, at what point on the anatomical sophistication chain does actual consciousness manifest itself in an animal? Does a worm know it's name?

Which led me to...

Do lower animals have memory at all? Does an amoeba remember what it had for breakfast?

Which led me to...

At what point do animals try to communicate? Do sponges talk?

I have no idea what started this train of thought, but it interests me extremely. I know that some of you dudes have some knowledge of psychology. Any ideas?

Whoa... I just made my first deeply inquisitive post... Now I just need a philosophical/political post, and I'm a full fledged board runner!!!

[earlofqb]

Actually, many animals suffer from depression. Birds are most notable and susceptible to this. They pull their feathers from this until they die. This is truely sad as it is a slow, painful, and agonizing death that once begun no one can fix (a lot of the feathers they pull won't grow back).

The rest of this you'd have to ask someone else. I could guess, but I'm not sure enough to really say much about it.

As far as manifestation of consciousness, I'd say that that begins around the level of common pets (dogs, cats, etc).

Animals do remember, although it might stop around the level of pets (ie microbiologicals probably don't).

Communication is found in nearly every animal. I'd go as far to say that bacteria might even communicate (I know protozoa do, as they send out protein strands after receiving certain chemical signals (ie chemicals released towards the thing triggers reaction. Might not be communication, however its possible)).

Also, never stop questioning things. Keep learning and wanting to learn. Without constantly learning things, we grow saddened and "die in stagnation". Read my signature for more fun

[Ildûrest]

Here's my 26.483154296078 cents on this...

>>Are humans the only animals that can lose the will to live? Could a dog want to commit suicide? Could a rat? A sponge? A microbe?

The will to live is very strong in almost everything; extremely sick and pained animals like dogs usually appear to have a very strong will to survive. Clearly animals that don't have this will not survive, and hence not have offspring. So any genetic predisposition for survival will become more prominent.

Higher intelligence, while it allows us to override such things, also gives great advantages in other areas. Perhaps that explains the birds thing. Perhaps not.


>>Also, at what point on the anatomical sophistication chain does actual consciousness manifest itself in an animal? Does a worm know it's name?

The fairly unique thing about humans is that we have a more united mind. It's general-purpose, like the x86 CPU. (The Mac architecture had separate processors for graphics and sound, for example, and this made it bad for number-crunching.)

Even neanderthals couldn't do what we can, for example, use knowledge of how animals move or how they are built while making hunting weapons. We can think symbolically, we can apply the same symbols to more than one area very successfully. As such, while a dog can learn that a name means "come here", "look at me", or (when shouted) "don't do that", it probably doesn't understand that it is a symbol applied to identify itself.

>>Do lower animals have memory at all? Does an amoeba remember what it had for breakfast?

Amoebas are basically small bubbles of fat with proteins dotting their surface and many things floating inside them. Proteins basically change shape based on a specific stimulus and do little else, but a lot of them working in perfect order will produce something that can perform complex functions on its own. In that sense, if what an amoeba ate recently has triggered some kind of action in its internal structures, then it may effect what it does later. But amoebas certainly can't think, only chemically respond.

>>At what point do animals try to communicate? Do sponges talk?

Earl pretty much covered it. If communication is helpful, it may be happening. From simple chemicals to pheromones to sounds to body language to changes in colour, communication is everywhere. Humans have just taken it to amazing levels.

Gossip is really the same as a lot of those things. Who can help you out, where food is cheap (i.e. easy to get), how to protect yourself (from robbers or from venomous snakes...).

We do communicate other things as well, but, well, I'll let you do the rest of the thinking.

[Homeloaf]

This is cool! I'm actually getting intelligent feedback! Keep it coming! Psychology really interests me, and since I'll have enough credits to graduate by the time I'm a sophomore, I'll probably be able to study it in a couple of years.

[earlofqb]

First, and interesting side-note. Anyone else notice that the Google-placed ads at the top of the page aren't exactly the best ones here? All three of the ones I'm looking at now deal with suicide, and only one tells of preventing it. The rest ask you to take a survey (apparantly to see what's wrong with you). I'm half-tempted to take one of them for the fun of it, and maybe we'll see if I'm suicidal or something.

Second, intelligent feedback is fun. Here's a link for a general purpose sociology site. There are more out there, but this one is fairly good (although I left it a while ago because it started going to Canada after people decided they'd throw their religious and political views under the false question, "does your type believe in this also?". So, after a while of standing on my own soapbox, I left after one of them tried to sue me (yep, got that bad). So, its up to you to look at it. There used to be some cool folks there, so its worth a shot).

[newk]

This is my view, but I'm not sure if its correct.

Amoebas, are not only not concious of crap, but don't think at all. They can't as they have no nervous systems, they are single cells.

OK, nevermind, I know that that is correct for sure, but what follows is just my theories.

Having been around a lot of animals I think that pretty much anything above say...a fish, or an octopus, is concious (mind you, they aren't realated at all, so this was the fault of convergent evolution), but only concious of its own senses and feelings. Only Humans are concious that they exist (self aware) and maybe chimps are getting close.

Make no mistake, though, If something is self-aware, that doesn't mean that it is "sentient" . Many geeks in white lab coats (IE Scientists) think that Homo Neanderthalensis was self-aware, but still, it takes a bit more raw brain power to be totaly considered sentient.

One of the marks of a sentient person is nto just self-awarenes, mut awareness that other people are concious too. More geeks in white lab coats say this realization takes place roughly when you are four or five, maybe three for exceptionaly bright childeren. So are young childeren not sentient? Hell, I don't know. Ask a scientist.

In other words, its a very complex subject that I've become bored with. Lets all eat chinese food and play video games!

[Ildûrest]

Perhaps some terminology trouble here...

The following is subject to the GPL, and says exactly what I want to say (thank you, wikipedia): "Sentience is the capacity for basic consciousness — the ability to feel or perceive, not necessarily including the faculty of self-awareness. The word sentient is often confused with the word sapient, which can connotate knowledge, higher consciousness, or apperception. The root of the confusion is that the word conscious has a number of different meanings in English. (One can easily distinguish the two by looking at their Latin roots: sentire, "to feel"; and sapere, "to know".)"

I think it depends on what you define as sense. I'm not in the mood to think about it right now.

Amoebas, however, do respond to stimulus. Their "brain" is, largely, their cell membrane. It is dotted with proteins that change shape when a certain stimulus appears, and this causes responses.

This for some people would suffice as sensing. I don't know, I think some level of consciousness is required.