Do cats and dogs actually feel affection when you treat them right or is it really just an instinct for “more food and drink” etc?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen dogs, cats and other domestic animals smile because they’re happy and show love to their owners for treating them right.
Yeah I see memes but those are either photoshopped or snapped at the perfect moment to make it look like they’re smiling.
This really is the right answer. We dont actually know. We can attempt to translate behaviours and biological mechanisms we know from humans to animals but in the end we cant ask them so we dont know.
If emotions are defined as hormonal responses then we could say “yes”, but that would reduce human complexity to basic chemistry which is too simplistic.
Well, they also have very obvious and complex behavioral responses, as well as similar brain activation to humans. It’s extremely likely that animals experience emotions.
Sure, we don’t really know, but then we’re getting into the ‘philosophical zombie’ question.