It is hard to believe that anyone who has ever met a loving dog or a cuddly cat would deny that animals have emotions.
But some of the most intelligent people throughout history have believed that only humans have emotions and can show their feelings. For example, Seventeenth-century philosopher, René Descartes, was totally convinced that animals were only automatons. He cruelly cut them opened to figure out the mechanisms that made them move.
Since that time, scientists have made thousands of studies on animal neurology and behavior; they reached some astonishing conclusions.
In 2012, a group of some outstanding thinkers including,
Stephen Hawking, agreed to the fact that animals have emotions.
"The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates."
Affective states means certain moments when emotions clearly appear. The declaration says that not only humans have emotions. Animals have their own emotions and feelings as well and they have their own desires and consciousnesses.
Later in 2012,
the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, made a big discovery. The discovery helped advocates when fighting against factory farming, puppy mills and wild animal trade.
Watch the video below to know more and don't forget to share it with your family and friends!
via
The Dodo
