Products You Never Knew Existed

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Ibby

Like, i'm serious - if anyone can help me understand, i'm not asking in a rhetorical, no-they-don't sort of way - i'm legitimately dead curious as to whether we can be sure that they really do have the sort of emotional concept of 'enjoying' something they prefer that we do.

You can have empirical evidence of preference, by giving access to both, and checking frequency of use. You can have empirical evidence that brain areas associated with pleasure get activated by certain experiences. But, like glatt said, you can't be certain that other humans experience what you consider pleasure, let alone creatures with a different brain, different sensory apparattus, and drastically different life experiences.

But, if you consider the hypothesis that pleasure is just one way of reinforcing beneficial behaviors in the Rube Goldberg structure of the brain, then a marked preference (reinforced behavior) might be evidence for what the animal would experience as pleasure, if there were no other behavior reinforcers (ie pain when choosing the other alternative) detected.

eta: As for the puppy, one possible behavior modifier to look out for might be aversion to novelty in consumption. If the puppy's water is almost always lukewarm, it may be surprised and suspicious if the water is cold one day. Dogs aren't usually known for being particularly picky, but it would have to be something to rule out if an experiment were attempted.