I don’t think a rat can be hurt by the pictures because they are too unrealistic: lacking motion, scent, and sound. (I recall a similar problem with octopuses: you can’t use TV to show them anything because TV is too slow—they see the individual static frames with no ‘motion blur’. If a lion could talk...)
Would adding sufficient realism induce, say, helping or empathetic behavior? I don’t know. Some people thought monkeys wouldn’t, but when the experiments were done, the subjects were willing to help others at some cost to themselves. Maybe the rat experiments have already been done.
I probably should have quoted the specific part I was thinking of in that comment:
The best the universe has done so far is to produce us—creatures who both can and do care about injustice and suffering. If you believe in a Grand Design, or some other teleological explanation that results in universal justice, then, go to the mirror right now and take a long hard look, because buddy, you are it—you are as good as it has gotten, so far.
This got me thinking about ① just how empathetic various animals can be towards one another, towards other species, and so on; ② how empathy relates to human intelligence; and ③ how much it relates to simpler forms of distress caused by another creature’s suffering.
I don’t think a rat can be hurt by the pictures because they are too unrealistic: lacking motion, scent, and sound. (I recall a similar problem with octopuses: you can’t use TV to show them anything because TV is too slow—they see the individual static frames with no ‘motion blur’. If a lion could talk...)
Would adding sufficient realism induce, say, helping or empathetic behavior? I don’t know. Some people thought monkeys wouldn’t, but when the experiments were done, the subjects were willing to help others at some cost to themselves. Maybe the rat experiments have already been done.
I probably should have quoted the specific part I was thinking of in that comment:
This got me thinking about ① just how empathetic various animals can be towards one another, towards other species, and so on; ② how empathy relates to human intelligence; and ③ how much it relates to simpler forms of distress caused by another creature’s suffering.