The yellow rat snake that may enjoy some human contact.

[smy_749]

Its funny what people can convince themselves of when they really want to. Maybe the turtle is hungry, and she normally feeds him by hand? Maybe the turtle thinks it feels good to be massaged, but doesn't give 2 shts about the lady. Or maybe the turtle just happened to walk by and she thought it was towards her....

[Mikoh4792]

Originally Posted by smy_749

Its funny what people can convince themselves of when they really want to. Maybe the turtle is hungry, and she normally feeds him by hand? Maybe the turtle thinks it feels good to be massaged, but doesn't give 2 shts about the lady. Or maybe the turtle just happened to walk by and she thought it was towards her....

exactly, I would take it to be the possibility that the tortoise has associated food and care with the lady before I'd ever think it was for affection.

[DOBERMAN]

I hear what you guys are saying. Its very easy for anybody to anthropomorphize, even zookeepers. But I think that outright saying she has no idea what she is talking about is a little arrogant considering she has had four years of experience with reptiles. Would those who say that a reptile can not be affectionate, but a cat can, be confounded in a never ending circular argument of semantics? A cats "affection" can be similarily attributed to nothing more than self preservation - by way of obtaining food or shelter or safety.

What I would like to submit to this argument is that the most intellectual and profound scientists of history often were philosophers as well. In fact one could say that at the highest levels of science, for which there are formulas and equations and insights we mere mortals of pseudointellectual debate cannot understand, is that science and philosophy or "religion" actually don't seperate more divisively as you would think, but actually start to relate to one another and become more cohesive.
Inquiry into scientific juggernauts, for example, Descartes or Newton, and any other major historical scientific figure for that matter, will reveal this.
One good book I can think of that everybody who is interested in this debate should read is The Tao of Physics. A great movie that also broaches this subject is Artificial Intelligence by Spielberg. There are other numerous books and movies that delve deeply into this matter. In fact, you could say that, especially in the genre of science fiction, this subject is investigated quite prolifically. Is an emotion real, is it something we can quantify, or simply just a mere set of algorithms, whether it be a smart computer or alien being? Can we even properly define an implied emotional response? Is it that it simply exists within our mind, that our perception of a heartfelt act is all that affection is, and the mere recognition of it justifies its existence?

More food for thought
I watched a documentary a few years ago about a boy who was born with half of his brain and the doctors said that he would never be able to speak or understand language, for that part of the brain that creates and processes that function doesn't exist. Years later, he could speak and understand language quite fluently. The neuroscientists decided that the other parts of his brain made up for that initial defeciency. Does this not say that we should be wary of appropriating certain capabilities to certain parts of the brain? For that if a reptile does not have a "limbic" system that it cannot remotely feel affinity or affection for anything?

[Mikoh4792]

Originally Posted by DOBERMAN

I hear what you guys are saying. Its very easy for anybody to anthropomorphize, even zookeepers. But I think that outright saying she has no idea what she is talking about is a little arrogant considering she has had four years of experience with reptiles. Would those who say that a reptile can not be affectionate, but a cat can, be confounded in a never ending circular argument of semantics? A cats "affection" can be similarily attributed to nothing more than self preservation - by way of obtaining food or shelter or safety.

Only 4 years? How about those of us who have been breeding and keeping snakes specifically for decades? I wouldn't say it's arrogant, it's reasonable. Well exactly, in regards to your point you made about the cat, it could just be self-preservation and not emotional attachment.

What I would like to submit to this argument is that the most intellectual and profound scientists of history often were philosophers as well. In fact one could say that at the highest levels of science, for which there are formulas and equations and insights we mere mortals of pseudointellectual debate cannot understand, is that science and philosophy or "religion" actually don't seperate more divisively as you would think, but actually start to relate to one another and become more cohesive.
Inquiry into scientific juggernauts, for example, Descartes or Newton, and any other major historical scientific figure for that matter, will reveal this.
One good book I can think of that everybody who is interested in this debate should read is The Tao of Physics. A great movie that also broaches this subject is Artificial Intelligence by Spielberg. There are other numerous books and movies that delve deeply into this matter. In fact, you could say that, especially in the genre of science fiction, this subject is investigated quite prolifically. Is an emotion real, is it something we can quantify, or simply just a mere set of algorithms, whether it be a smart computer or alien being? Can we even properly define an implied emotional response? Is it that it simply exists within our mind, that our perception of a heartfelt act is all that affection is, and the mere recognition of it justifies its existence?

I think this point you made works against you. Aren't you for the notion that snakes can feel "emotion" towards humans?

[MDT]

Being born with half a human brain far and away out-paces being born with an entire reptile brain. Heck, your example of a cat....a mammal brain is much more developed than a reptile brain. There is this class, called Comparative Anatomy....it kinda goes over this stuff.
Doberman, I applaud your convictions, dude, but the development (or evolutionary need) for affection just isn't there for a reptile.

And....I said I was tapping out of this one. Crap, I hate getting drawn back in.....

You guys go ahead and beat yourselves silly with wishes and "observations"...

[smy_749]

Originally Posted by MDT

Being born with half a human brain far and away out-paces being born with an entire reptile brain. Heck, your example of a cat....a mammal brain is much more developed than a reptile brain. There is this class, called Comparative Anatomy....it kinda goes over this stuff.
Doberman, I applaud your convictions, dude, but the development (or evolutionary need) for affection just isn't there for a reptile.

And....I said I was tapping out of this one. Crap, I hate getting drawn back in.....

You guys go ahead and beat yourselves silly with wishes and "observations"...

MDT...I thought we quit? Lol. Anyways 4 years experience sounds alot like she studied some vertebrate classes in college and had a poster of a cornsnake in her dorm....

I had 4 years experience when I was like 13....and unlike these days, when I was young I used to read books about reptiles all day.

[DOBERMAN]

"Only 4 years? How about those of us who have been breeding and keeping snakes specifically for decades? I wouldn't say it's arrogant, it's reasonable. Well exactly, in regards to your point you made about the cat, it could just be self-preservation and not emotional attachment."

I am not discounting the breeders or the immersed members on this site and their experiences. I am stating that someone's opinions who specifically works with reptiles for 4 yrs for 40 hrs a week who actually sounds quite intelligable should not be discounted either. I am a skeptic a heart, and I approached her viewpoints with skepticism. Having said that, I don't want skepticism to get in the way of understanding things I'm skeptical of.

" I think this point you made works against you. Aren't you for the notion that snakes can feel "emotion" towards humans?"
I'm not being partisan in this discussion. I acknowledge the seperate ideologies that arise in debates of this nature. What I've come to understand, with my modest education and life experience, is that pure emperical data does not necessarily explain the complexities of life.
This is why I had brought the historical figures into this thread, to state that hard science and philosophy, while seemingly at opposite ends of the spectrum are not disconnected. That, in trying to understand the true nature of life, being what science is, cannot be solely attributed to diagrams or equations or a set of emperical values. That on a transcendent level, whereby these profound and admired "scientists" could not simply explain things by hard "science" - that being the accumulation of data, they had to look into other areas of introspection. Philosophy or religion - intangible subjects. One cannot understand the physics of light because it is a bunch of photons, packets, at the same time particles, and yet a wave, but pure energy, and E=mcsquared meaning that energy has mass, yet it also can move at the speed of light which means that it has to be massless, for anything with qauntifiable mass cannot move at that speed for it contradicts the laws of inertia, and to have no mass means it doesn't exist, yet somehow can transmit information.....
Well, to digress, Is that linear thoughts, those that are shaped by quantifiable results, for example, that the absence of a certain portion of a brain, is drawing a line in the sand. But a line at higher resolution, is not in fact a line. It's symmetry is, at a microscopic level, haphazard and non-linear. The lines are blurred. Cue Thicke's number 1 hit on the top ten. This is what drove great scientists to take into consideration non mathematical, non-emperical approaches to understanding things and at the same time go crazy in the process. And then, they would submit that, in the exploration of the topics, that more questions were raised then answered.
This is why the "theory of everything", as most modern scientists (and philosophers) strive for, will most likely be unapproachable. Hawking is still perplexed.

Hey what did you guys think of last nights UFC? Shame Roy Country Nelson lost. He's my favourite. But the stats, the tale of the tape, were against him from the beginning.

[Mikoh4792]

Originally Posted by DOBERMAN

I am not discounting the breeders or the immersed members on this site and their experiences. I am stating that someone's opinions who specifically works with reptiles for 4 yrs for 40 hrs a week who actually sounds quite intelligable should not be discounted either. I am a skeptic a heart, and I approached her viewpoints with skepticism. Having said that, I don't want skepticism to get in the way of understanding things I'm skeptical of.

You only tell us what kind of experience she has, but you haven't given us a reason to believe that the tortoise going up to her and her scratching it's neck is anything worthy of consideration. Why would you mention that part if you aren't going to argue for it?

I'm not being partisan in this discussion. I acknowledge the seperate ideologies that arise in debates of this nature. What I've come to understand, with my modest education and life experience, is that pure emperical data does not necessarily explain the complexities of life.
This is why I had brought the historical figures into this thread, to state that hard science and philosophy, while seemingly at opposite ends of the spectrum are not disconnected. That, in trying to understand the true nature of life, being what science is, cannot be solely attributed to diagrams or equations or a set of emperical values. That on a transcendent level, whereby these profound and admired "scientists" could not simply explain things by hard "science" - that being the accumulation of data, they had to look into other areas of introspection. Philosophy or religion - intangible subjects. One cannot understand the physics of light because it is a bunch of photons, packets, at the same time particles, and yet a wave, but pure energy, and E=mcsquared meaning that energy has mass, yet it also can move at the speed of light which means that it has to be massless, for anything with qauntifiable mass cannot move at that speed for it contradicts the laws of inertia, and to have no mass means it doesn't exist, yet somehow can transmit information.....
Well, to digress, Is that linear thoughts, those that are shaped by quantifiable results, for example, that the absence of a certain portion of a brain, is drawing a line in the sand. But a line at higher resolution, is not in fact a line. It's symmetry is, at a microscopic level, haphazard and non-linear. The lines are blurred. Cue Thicke's number 1 hit on the top ten. This is what drove great scientists to take into consideration non mathematical, non-emperical approaches to understanding things and at the same time go crazy in the process. And then, they would submit that, in the exploration of the topics, that more questions were raised then answered.
This is why the "theory of everything", as most modern scientists (and philosophers) strive for, will most likely be unapproachable. Hawking is still perplexed.

Hey what did you guys think of last nights UFC? Shame Roy Country Nelson lost. He's my favourite. But the stats, the tale of the tape, were against him from the beginning.

Good read. It was interesting but I don't see where you are trying to get at. It seems to me like you are trying to sound smart without contributing anything to this issue.

So you give credibility to a zoo keeper of 4 years experience while you try to condescend these "profound and admired scientists"?

[DOBERMAN]

Originally Posted by mikoh4792

You only tell us what kind of experience she has, but you haven't given us a reason to believe that the tortoise going up to her and her scratching it's neck is anything worthy of consideration. Why would you mention that part if you aren't going to argue for it?




Good read. It was interesting but I don't see where you are trying to get at. It seems to me like you are trying to sound smart without contributing anything to this issue.

So you give credibility to a zoo keeper of 4 years experience while you try to condescend these "profound and admired scientists"?

Condescend? No. I am giving the utmost respect to these individuals of scientific and philosophic repute. Not sure how you missed that.
As far as contribution goes, you have offered none, yet expect me to validate mine further. This is the internet defined.

[Mikoh4792]

Originally Posted by DOBERMAN

Condescend? No. I am giving the utmost respect to these individuals of scientific and philosophic repute. Not sure how you missed that.
As far as contribution goes, you have offered none, yet expect me to validate mine further. This is the internet defined.

You are here talking about how even scientists can't even explain things by "hard" science yet you want us to consider what the zoo keeper has to say by scratching a tortoise's neck. That is not showing the utmost respect for them. You are showing intellectual dishonesty.

I am not here to offer any, which is why I am not treating this thread like a science class as if I am some professor. But I would say I made a contribution by arguing for the notion that it isn't harsh to never handle your snakes. You would know if you actually took the time to read the thread instead of being so absorbed in your own world. You are talking about things which are irrelevant to this matter and go off on this pseudo-intellectual charade.

Yes since you have so much to say about this matter, I would like you to validate your points, whichever they are since you are "not partisan".

And sorry but that is not the internet defined.

[DOBERMAN]

Look mikoh. I'm not here to get into a pissing match with you. I have offered some insight and opinions as to why either side of the coin, whether it be science or philosophy, both have merit in topics of this nature. I haven't taken a side. It looks like you have though, and are expecting me to do the same. My intuition is that you would rather banter than explore.
And as far as being pseudo-intellectual, I have already beaten you to the punch. If you look at my prior posts, I included myself into that statement.
You suffer from "confirmation bias". You will only recognize and appreciate evidence that supports your position. All other ideas to the contrary will be ignored. It's like a virus mikoh and it limits your ability to learn. In fact it is a plague run amok on most internet forums including this one.

From Wikipedia
Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses.[Note 1][1] People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. For example, in reading about gun control, people usually prefer sources that affirm their existing attitudes. They also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. Biased search, interpretation and memory have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series) and illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations).

A series of experiments in the 1960s suggested that people are biased toward confirming their existing beliefs. Later work re-interpreted these results as a tendency to test ideas in a one-sided way, focusing on one possibility and ignoring alternatives. In certain situations, this tendency can bias people's conclusions. Explanations for the observed biases include wishful thinking and the limited human capacity to process information. Another explanation is that people show confirmation bias because they are weighing up the costs of being wrong, rather than investigating in a neutral, scientific way.

Confirmation biases contribute to overconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. Poor decisions due to these biases have been found in military, political, and organizational contexts.

[smy_749]

Good posts doberman. Though I believe science has far more 'leeway' in these matters, I'll agree philosophy and thinking outside the box due play a roll and have helped make important discoveries. Though it still returns back to science to confirm those theories. As for the present, I'll stick to my opinion that they don't feel as we feel, but like I said quite a few times in this thread, science isn't static, and if in the future the evidence is in favor of the other side, then great. (aside from the guilt trip of neglecting all my snakes who wanted to cuddle and watch lord of the rings marathons and I left them in their cages LOL)

[Mikoh4792]

Originally Posted by DOBERMAN

Look mikoh. I'm not here to get into a pissing match with you. I have offered some insight and opinions as to why either side of the coin, whether it be science or philosophy, both have merit in topics of this nature. I haven't taken a side. It looks like you have though, and are expecting me to do the same. My intuition is that you would rather banter than explore.
And as far as being pseudo-intellectual, I have already beaten you to the punch. If you look at my prior posts, I included myself into that statement.
You suffer from "confirmation bias". You will only recognize and appreciate evidence that supports your position. All other ideas to the contrary will be ignored. It's like a virus mikoh and it limits your ability to learn. In fact it is a plague run amok on most internet forums including this one.

From Wikipedia
Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses.[Note 1][1] People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. For example, in reading about gun control, people usually prefer sources that affirm their existing attitudes. They also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. Biased search, interpretation and memory have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series) and illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations).

A series of experiments in the 1960s suggested that people are biased toward confirming their existing beliefs. Later work re-interpreted these results as a tendency to test ideas in a one-sided way, focusing on one possibility and ignoring alternatives. In certain situations, this tendency can bias people's conclusions. Explanations for the observed biases include wishful thinking and the limited human capacity to process information. Another explanation is that people show confirmation bias because they are weighing up the costs of being wrong, rather than investigating in a neutral, scientific way.

Confirmation biases contribute to overconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. Poor decisions due to these biases have been found in military, political, and organizational contexts.

Actually I haven't taken a side. I am just saying I will believe that snakes have affection/emotions towards human beings once it is proven. Until then I am not for or against the notion.

So in that case you are wrong. I do not have confirmation bias.

It's like a virus mikoh and it limits your ability to learn. In fact it is a plague run amok on most internet forums including this one.

Lol you can speak for yourself.



You suffer from mental masturbation
From Google:

Mental Masturbation
Web definitions
Engaging in intellectually stimulating conversation with little or no practical purpose

[franks]

My baby snakes gave me a father's day card... can science explain that?

[franks]

My two cents on the argument is that (like doberman said) people seek affirmation, not information. Most of us subscribe to the point of view that explains what we feel comfortable with, whether it concerns politics, religion, or snake love. I think it is clear here that neither side will convince the other of their truth.