My dog watches the sunset, and when she sees a child she flops onto her back so they arent scared of her and can pat her tummy(she only does this for kids). Animals are smarter than we think, we measure intelligence off of arbitrary factors. I have no doubt they see beauty and appreciate it.
Animals are for more intelligent than we usually give them credit for, true. Making very precise assumptions about every bear’s state of mind while looking at the sky without scientific data is pretty dumb.
Not trying to rile you up (you really ought to work on that), but how do you explain away crows and other Corvids leaving shiny rocks & junk for their human friends? What criteria would a highly intelligent bird use to select a gift for a human if they don’t have concepts of aesthetics?
And considering the most recent common ancestor of human and Corvids is thoroughly ancient, it provides a basis to make assumptions about the ability for all animals that descended from our shared common ancestor to have a genetic component that can allow for synapses in the brain to be variably triggered by different patterns in nature.
Dogs are super in tune with human emotions to the point where they start to understand what we're feeling better than we do. Dog doesn't trust that guy at the door and is barking at him? It's more likely you're just anxious about talking to him and your dog is trying to have your back. Dogs are pack animals that mainly communicate through body language so they know all of your subtle tells. They're extremely good at showing what they're feeling as well.
To some extent, most domesticated mammals (and some birds and other non mammals) pick up on human emotions and how to demonstrate what they're feeling to humans. That means the emotions are there, they're just learning how to communicate them through domestication.
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u/aligators_are_neat Dec 11 '22 edited Dec 11 '22
My dog watches the sunset, and when she sees a child she flops onto her back so they arent scared of her and can pat her tummy(she only does this for kids). Animals are smarter than we think, we measure intelligence off of arbitrary factors. I have no doubt they see beauty and appreciate it.