On a personal meatbag level emotions are magical and something ineffable.
From a scientific stance, chemical make brain go happy or sad and there's nothing special or magical about that. Every emotion we feel is because it was evolutionarily valuable for us to do so.
That's a very closed definition of grieving. So by your definition a future perfectly simulated human brain cannot grieve because no chemicals are involved?
Whether anything a perfectly simulated human brain (or other organism see the fruit fly simulated brain) does is actually real - in the same sense it’s real for you and me - is still up for debate i think.
Assuming it’s possible to perfectly simulate a human brain
They can pretend to, of course, and use the language of grief, but if you can't feel the cold bottomless pit that has bored through your gut then you aren't really grieving.
You could have an alternative explanation: large animals invest lots of food energy in their offspring, and so the slimmest chance that a calf might not be dead is worth lots of effort. Say one in a thousand actually revive.
It seems that an orca invests so much in a son that it's like an all-or-nothing one way ticket to pass her genes on. (She might get second try later, but the probability is much lower.)
You might also argue that although there may be a non-emotional argument for why grieving could be beneficial, it’s possible or even likely that evolution encoded this instinct in something like emotions. Just how evolution encoded the tendency to care for one’s family and community in emotions for humans.
Yes! Which leads into strange territory, because we can say that attachment is not entirely rational, but is influenced by genes pointing us toward more successful reproduction, without concern for creating knowledge. But then this environment of instincts is the environment we've built up all our cultural store of meaning in, it's the human condition, so the argument can be turned around to say that meaning isn't entirely rational. So even gene-driven attachment isn't meaningless, but at the same time, I don't want to be bullied and herded around emotionally by little nucleic acid spirals just so they can replicate themselves.
Indeed. The same goes for widows at funerals. I mean, has anyone ever dissected the brain of a grieving human and said “aha hah! Here it is!! The grief!”
I would say that someone acting in good faith who was referring to something other than what is described in the article would have said so and would have said what they were referring to, which you again have not done. I would also note that "seem to defy alternative explanations" is not remotely "rigorous" and is not a conclusion or consensus within the field of marine biology, which you do not represent. It is telling that you write "Kudos to the author for not being so bitter and jaded, like me, and reporting this thinking some change might come" when you imply here that there are some other behaviors (which you are keeping tight to your chest) that already "seem" to defy alternative explanation, while implicitly agreeing here that inherent strong maternal attachment isn't grieving.
I don't engage with people acting in bad faith or who write such snotty comments that are intended as oneupmanship but not to impart information. Goodbye.
> I hope that’s just because you haven’t had a reason to grieve… Either way, hope you are well!
Thanks, stranger.
I'm old enough that I have experienced significant grief a few times in my life.
Given our mortality, we should welcome some degree of situational grief, as grief is the absence of a previous love that we were lucky enough to experience in the first place.
Of course, there are also profoundly unfair versions of grief (like the loss of a child) that I wish nobody (or no whale, for that matter) would ever have to experience.
You can give them emotional signals, but I feel like it's cruel to do so and would recommend against it.
Insofar as grieving is an inherently, fundamentally a very particular chemical process, the answer is a resounding “no”.
If you simulate that chemical process in a computer, if necessary a quantum computer?
You don't even need quantum imo.
On a personal meatbag level emotions are magical and something ineffable.
From a scientific stance, chemical make brain go happy or sad and there's nothing special or magical about that. Every emotion we feel is because it was evolutionarily valuable for us to do so.
That's a very closed definition of grieving. So by your definition a future perfectly simulated human brain cannot grieve because no chemicals are involved?
Lmao.
Whether anything a perfectly simulated human brain (or other organism see the fruit fly simulated brain) does is actually real - in the same sense it’s real for you and me - is still up for debate i think.
Assuming it’s possible to perfectly simulate a human brain
do humans? or is it only because we're the ones doing the research and so we say we do?
i think most people are automatons and can be programmed.
it is the most moral thing to program people to operate in ways that causes least harm to everyone else around them that has to live with them.
people like certain foods, outrage, and gambling/fomo.
> do humans? or is it only because we're the ones doing the research and so we say we do?
...literally on this article.
Nope.
They can pretend to, of course, and use the language of grief, but if you can't feel the cold bottomless pit that has bored through your gut then you aren't really grieving.
How do you know that they don’t? And conversely, how do you know any other human than yourself do?
Do whales grieve?
They exhibit behaviours that seem to defy alternative explanations, though I doubt anyone could say for certain whether they do or don’t
You could have an alternative explanation: large animals invest lots of food energy in their offspring, and so the slimmest chance that a calf might not be dead is worth lots of effort. Say one in a thousand actually revive.
Here's an article about orcas: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64559047
It seems that an orca invests so much in a son that it's like an all-or-nothing one way ticket to pass her genes on. (She might get second try later, but the probability is much lower.)
You might also argue that although there may be a non-emotional argument for why grieving could be beneficial, it’s possible or even likely that evolution encoded this instinct in something like emotions. Just how evolution encoded the tendency to care for one’s family and community in emotions for humans.
Yes! Which leads into strange territory, because we can say that attachment is not entirely rational, but is influenced by genes pointing us toward more successful reproduction, without concern for creating knowledge. But then this environment of instincts is the environment we've built up all our cultural store of meaning in, it's the human condition, so the argument can be turned around to say that meaning isn't entirely rational. So even gene-driven attachment isn't meaningless, but at the same time, I don't want to be bullied and herded around emotionally by little nucleic acid spirals just so they can replicate themselves.
Indeed. The same goes for widows at funerals. I mean, has anyone ever dissected the brain of a grieving human and said “aha hah! Here it is!! The grief!”
No, of course I haven't been doing that, and it's going to be a while before I would have collected a representative sample anyway, if I had been.
> They exhibit behaviours that seem to defy alternative explanations
No, they really don't. The article says
> indicated an inherent, strong maternal attachment to the calf
Yeah, that's not grieving.
What if I told you that marine biology is a large and rigorous field that is not fully encapsulated by TFA?
I would say that someone acting in good faith who was referring to something other than what is described in the article would have said so and would have said what they were referring to, which you again have not done. I would also note that "seem to defy alternative explanations" is not remotely "rigorous" and is not a conclusion or consensus within the field of marine biology, which you do not represent. It is telling that you write "Kudos to the author for not being so bitter and jaded, like me, and reporting this thinking some change might come" when you imply here that there are some other behaviors (which you are keeping tight to your chest) that already "seem" to defy alternative explanation, while implicitly agreeing here that inherent strong maternal attachment isn't grieving.
I don't engage with people acting in bad faith or who write such snotty comments that are intended as oneupmanship but not to impart information. Goodbye.
> Do whales grieve?
Just as much as any human that isn't me, as far as I can tell from all available evidence.
So, yes, I absolutely believe they grieve, just like I believe humans who aren't me grieve.
I hope that’s just because you haven’t had a reason to grieve… Either way, hope you are well!
"That isn't me" in the above comment means "I know I can grieve, but I can only tell indirectly other people can do so as well."
It doesn't mean "I've never felt grief".
> I hope that’s just because you haven’t had a reason to grieve… Either way, hope you are well!
Thanks, stranger.
I'm old enough that I have experienced significant grief a few times in my life.
Given our mortality, we should welcome some degree of situational grief, as grief is the absence of a previous love that we were lucky enough to experience in the first place.
Of course, there are also profoundly unfair versions of grief (like the loss of a child) that I wish nobody (or no whale, for that matter) would ever have to experience.