Poll: do animals feel love?

Buffoon

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I'm going to say that yes, animals do feel what we humans might classify as love. But if I'm honest, I'd cynically suggest that this brings us down to the level of animals, rather than elevates animals up to our level.
 

Hurr Durr Derp

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I do believe that animals are capable of feeling affection. I'm not sure if I would call it love, though. It's pretty much impossible to find out because it's not like you can ever really know what someone is feeling, let alone something of an entirely different species. If I had to take an uneducated guess however, I'd say that love is a strictly human emotion.
 

Casual Shinji

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My dog feels love.

Though, it's much more of a enslaved kind of love.
 

ntnimara

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all living organisms benefit from affectionate treatment

mammals are the only ones that I know that seem to feel emotions and display them, usually cause it seems their brains are a bit more complex in the emotions department. this was probably evolutionary, since they had to take care of their live born..


I mean, there are reptiles and birds that stick around with their eggs till they hatch, but once that's done, they might eat their young...

also mammals tend to have social organization, either a wolf pack, or a lone polar bear mother and her cubs.

also mammals play with eachother, often in an affectionate way.

I guess what I'm saying is: because mammals show to have a better developed sense of self, as individual and as individual being as part of a community, they also have emotions and show affection to others.

Before you can offer love, you have to know you exist as an entity.

without that, it's like asking: can John give you chocolate from a box that John has no notion of it's existence?

non-mammals seem to be much more instinctual, which is what happens when you have limited/reduced or no sense of self

EDIT: John won't even understand what chocolate is since he cannot understand what box containing chocolate is.
 

Galad

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Since they can't talk, they can't exactly explain us what they're feeling..
 

Valksy

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I strongly believe that our cats feel love. Take our tortie - she spots a human from her group and she sits up a little straighter, puffs up her chest, her pupils dilate in pleasure and she adopts a specific facial expression and will begin to purr (she has a V8 motor in her chest, we are sure of it). Everything about the way her posture changes makes me feel sure that it is an emotional response. She will do it before she has even been noticed.

Oh, and one of my household was quite ill this week and all the cats (4 of them) clustered round and wouldn't leave her be and would poked at her and snuggle with her. It wasn't kitten behaviour, I recognise that, it was affection and nurturing.
 

Alita_99

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What exactly is love? Is it just a strong emotional bond designed to protect other members of our species, forged by millions of years of evolution? If so, some higher evolved animals most certainly do, to a lesser extent than we can. Jane Goodall has described mourning behaviors in chimpanzees, mother chimps carrying around the bodies of their dead babies for several days. Sad stuff.
 

Arcticflame

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I'm not sure I follow the logical progression of your biology teacher.

He/She sounds like they have thought up some ridiculous justifications as to what love exactly it.

When it comes to it, Love is simply an emotion. A chemical in the brain triggered by recognition. You can get lovey dovery and mushy all you want, but that is it's purest form.

It is very, very obvious that animals experience this same emotion, Dogs mourn for partners, parents mourn for dead children. The animals care for each other in a further method than simply taking care of one another, they display affection for each other.

Love is a way of making sure the parents stay together to take care of the kids. It is there as a process of natural selection. However irrational it may seem, love is beneficial in spreading genes, and therefore is a widespread Phenomenon.

After all, how did humans get love? They didnt one day after learning to speak, and becoming "civilised" suddenly experience a new emotion. It existed before that. And if that is the case, then it clearly existed when humans were still just another animal.
 

Kurokami

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neoontime said:
In my biology class we eventually got off topic and started talking about animals and their emotions. My science teacher classified that animals feel bonds rather than love in a sense that they only form relationships in order to get something out of it. What do you think escapist.

P.S. I checked and found no direct polls or threads to this through page 4
No, they can form a 'bond' based on reliance as your teacher told you, but they don't feel 'love'. In fact your pet wouldn't recognize you as Dan (supposing your name is Dan), he'll associate your scent with the type of behavior that results in him getting food and then repeating it. Sure, they may still feel the need to protect your familiar scent against whatever else is lurking around, but I wouldn't call it love, no.
 

AngloDoom

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neoontime said:
My science teacher classified that animals feel bonds rather than love in a sense that they only form relationships in order to get something out of it.
I think that's the nature of being biological. People get something out of love.

Personally, I think 'love' is difficult enough to classify, but using your teacher's example, yes they do.
 

brazenhead89

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I'm occasionally sceptical that animal love isn't entirely selfish, but this video has always amazed me, and even warmed my almost permanently-blackened heart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNv2A4Kfx4k&feature=related

I bloody love cats.
 

Dexiro

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I'd say no, but my pets have convinced me otherwise.

I used to have a cat and a dog which seemed to hate each other.
We gave away the dog though because it was an annoying bugger and ever since then my cat has been acting really weird, like he eats 3x as much and doesn't clean properly. It's like he's missing part of the family :c

They did used to snuggle each other too after they terrorized each other for hours, it was kind of cute ^^