RE: Do Fruit Flies Have Emotions?
May 15, 2015 at 11:12 am
(This post was last modified: May 15, 2015 at 11:12 am by JuliaL.)
As always, the answer to your question is, "It depends on your definition of emotion."
The definition used in a neuroanatomy course I took was (as far as I remember) any neurological response to stimulation. A quick search gave a similar, but more clear and specific:
So yes, flies have emotions..... maybe, depending on whether you are insisting that the 'and' makes the definition require subjective experience and if you think subjective experience can be shown in others.
The definition used in a neuroanatomy course I took was (as far as I remember) any neurological response to stimulation. A quick search gave a similar, but more clear and specific:
Quote:4. Working definition: (Scherer, 2000) “Emotions are episodes of coordinated changes in several components (including physiological activation, motor expression and subjective feeling/experience) in response to external or internal events of major significance to the organism”
So yes, flies have emotions..... maybe, depending on whether you are insisting that the 'and' makes the definition require subjective experience and if you think subjective experience can be shown in others.
So how, exactly, does God know that She's NOT a brain in a vat? 
