RE: Do Fruit Flies Have Emotions?
May 15, 2015 at 9:26 am
(This post was last modified: May 15, 2015 at 9:27 am by bennyboy.)
First of all, the existence of sentience or primitive feelings are not the criteria most people use for determining whether an animal should be protected. For the most parts, it's "Pets and people, keep 'em. Anything else: eat 'em, kill 'em, or make them work." As for personhood-- get real. A gorilla's not a person, so a fly is a few orders of magnitude from being called one.
Also, it depends what you mean by emotions. I'm sure that insects have some level of subjective experience, and some instinctive reponse to stimuli, and that these interact. Why not? However, the question is whether the flies experience their behavioral priming negatively "Eeek. Do you feel something in the air, Johnny? Something just ain't right, I tell ya!" or is it just a complex reflex?
Also, it depends what you mean by emotions. I'm sure that insects have some level of subjective experience, and some instinctive reponse to stimuli, and that these interact. Why not? However, the question is whether the flies experience their behavioral priming negatively "Eeek. Do you feel something in the air, Johnny? Something just ain't right, I tell ya!" or is it just a complex reflex?
