My first thought in watching that was: how do people perform experiments on primates? Or really, what type of person could do such a thing. Do I have too much feels or are they just somewhere in the narcissistic/sociopathic spectrum?
Itâs all to easy to attribute human reactions to animals. Every magician who has a pet (dog or cat, usually) has tried doing tricks on them. Theyâre excellent to practice on because they can be misdirected, just like humans. But they donât âgetâ the fact that something magical has happened.
We donât know why this orangutan reacted the way it did. It would only be through repeat performances of this trick on this and other orangutans that one would be able to see if they seemed to understand that something unexplainable (to them) has taken place and they react with puzzlement, delight, or wonder. Or frustrationâa reaction many humans have to magic tricks.
Being a veterinarian who has worked zoos, and worked with primates, I can easily say that many of the things we attribute as âhumanâ arenât. Very possibly not even âprimateâ in some cases, but I think youâd be surprised at just how little separates you from the other great apesâŚ
(and if you want to know this on a personal level, Iâd suggest figuring out how to do some volunteer work with primates).
I hear you mang, and I have the same feels, but we know a lot about brain structure and chemistry because many primates died, pretty much all of biologic psychology (anti-depression medication for one example) comes from a path that leads back to animal experimentation.
I remember an interview with Jane Goodall. She was asked if chimps have emotions. She said something like ⌠well they donât have human emotions because they arenât human. They have chimp emotions which are just as real and might be human-like in many cases.
You could as easily apply any of those arguments to any human other than yourself. I think itâs pretty arrogant of us to automatically ascribe such different motivations to our own when we see animals behaving similarly to us.
I canât be the only one who was hoping that the reaction would be enraged feces-throwing.
The idea of humans being completely separate from animals has crumbled steadily since day one, and I donât see any signs of it stopping. The idea that animals donât have emotions is no longer plausible to anyone who has ever owned a pet, and even more recent ideas of âuniquely humanâ behaviors have fallen.
In addition to primates, dolphins, elephants, octopi and a slew of other animals have been show to construct and/or use tools, sometimes teaching the behavior to their offspring. Many animals have been shown to communicate with each other through what could arguably be considered language (whale songs, bee dances, prairie dog calls, etc.), not just general ideas but specific, detailed information. Even when it comes to human communication, primate sign language isnât the only candidate- the African Grey parrot Alex (short for Avian Language EXperiment) went beyond simple mimicry, showing the ability to identify colors and shapes, to count, and understand concepts such as âbiggerâ, âsmallerâ, âoverâ, âunderâ, and even âzeroâ.
While I agree that it would be interesting to perform the trick multiple times for different orangutans and see what happens, the extreme skepticism against a fully-grown orangutan âgettingâ a trick which has been shown to genuinely puzzle even infant humans seems pretty unwarranted. At this point in our knowledge it seems like the assumption that it wouldnât get it is the extraordinary claim.
Well, you could try it on Trump and see what happens, I supposeâŚ
That seems like a lot of mental acrobatics to get around the very simple notion that the orangutan was, at very least, surprised by the disappearance of the chestnut that he was watching so closely. We donât know if he was âlaughingâ or âfilled with wonderâ, no, but I think we can Occamâs Razor this video to say that the orang got a kick out of this magic trick.
not shown: the orangutan kicks the magician
Oh man, that orangutangâs reaction was wonderful
Kreegah, bundolo!
There was an interesting article in New Scientist magazine a year or two back about signing with gorillas and bonobos.
Although they were able to answer an impressive number of questions, the odd thing was, that apparently they have never asked any questions of us.
Someone who loves these animals. Someone who can see wonder beyond the limits of their own subjective experience. Someone who wants to help.
Keeping intelligent being like an orangoutang engaged and stimulated is both vital for their health and challenging. They learn fast. So why not try a magic trick? Toddlers learning object permanence delight in âwhere did the ball goâ tricks. Both of my daughters did. So why not treat this young orangoutang to the same loving âexperimentâ humans do with their own children every day?
What is âwrongâ about that âexperimentâ?
He should go a step further and teach the orangutan how itâs done.
S/heâll become the leader of the troop in no time.
Hmm, or possibly murdered by them.
When one of the early explorers (Peary?) first visited Inuit (or whatever is the modern term; Iâm afraid I havenât kept up) he asked a lot of questions but noticed they asked none of him. So he asked why. They told him that in their culture it was impolite to ask questions, but they realised that this was not so in his culture and made allowances for him.
This is not a criticism of Jane Goodall, but she comes from an earlier period of primatology/psychology/neuroscience when thinking was still very influenced, if unconsciously, by the idea that humans were essentially different from other mammals. Since then this idea, which is derived from the Abrahamic religions, has been steadily weakening as its premise is perceived as wrong.
In the 1960s and 70s it was still believed that it was rare for infectious diseases to cross between species, something which has turned out to be completely wrong.
The mere concept of chimp emotions being human like is the same fallacy as âman being descended from the apesâ. It looks as if emotion preceded logical thought, and that our emotions, chimp emotions and dog emotions have much common ancestry, and have simply diverged as species diverged from the mammalian lineage.
(Itâs actually worse than that because so much psychological research has been conducted on white middle class students that results in some cases may not be typical of the human population as a whole. Not only speciesist but ethnist.)
You totally missed the implied subject of my post. The magic trick was just that, with a human interacting with a primate & demonstrating empathy.
The experiments I was referring to were laboratory experiments- because in watching that I have a hard time making a leap to âletâs do some experiments that, were it human, would be tortureâ
@Awallace230 got it:
