[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

Anyhow, as for "self-awareness", what about bears (or a lot of other animals, but I'll use bears) and the whole "it's not a good idea to get between a mother bear and her cub" thing? I don't know where you draw the line between plain old instinct and "self awareness" but it seems to me that the mama bear and the bear cubs all are aware that they are part of a family and wouldn't that signify "self-awareness"?

Obviously animals recognize what is familiar to them, and this IS INSTINCTIVE. The familial relationships that animals have is probably better understood in terms of the instinct for survival. A mother bear is conditioned to be a mother biologically, and she exercises this function through nurturing and protecting her offspring. It facilitates the survival of the species, something she cannot cognify, but something she has been conditioned to perform through eons of evolution.
I do not know much about bear behaviour, but I would assume—as is the case with most species—that once a cub is old enough to lookafter itself, the familiar relationship with its mother ends. If there truly were feelings involved in this relationship, I would expect a bear to at least visit its mother from time to time; but I expect that most bears are not even accustomed to sending post-cards to their parents.

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

The mama obviously has an emotional attachment to the cubs, and the cubs obviously know where they fit in the world.

We project emotions onto animals as a way to describe their responses in terms with which we can relate. There is nothing obvious at all about the presence of emotions in a bear. Only that they exhibit behaviours which we would construe as emotive, because homosapiens are insatiably DRIVEN by their emotions. When bears observe us, they probably would expect that every task, behaviour, and response to stimulae is performed out of the same instinctive survival mechanism that they experience. But on the contrary, when you kiss your wife (girlfriend?); when you play tackle-football; when you wash your windows; when you laugh; when you type on your computer keyboard, it is not the result of your pursuit of survival.

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

And this one is probably all "instinct" but you could look at a bear fattening himself up for the winter snooze and come to the conclusion that he's planning for the future. Maybe. Planning for (and even realizing you have one) the future would = self-awareness.

I disagree. If this were indeed the case, then it would be necessary for bears to learn the importance of hybernation. as I understand it bears are instinctively conditioned fore hybernation through behavioural mechanisms. this is quite a different matter than what you are suggesting. Future planning requires a decision making process; for bears, there is no decision to be made, they simply do as they have been conditioned to do.

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

Neato topic. I can't really understand why it's debatable that animals have emotions though. It seems pretty clear to me.

As previously noted, I believe animals exhibit responses and behaviours which we anthropopathically project and interpret to be emotions. I don't believe it is beyond the pale of debate, but that is not to say I do not believe that animals have emotions. If they do, it is in a very limited and simple sense. I can tell when my dogs are happy or depressed, but by the same token, I cannot provoke my dogs to "feel" a certain way. Quite simply, my presence in conjunction with their good health will ALWAYS result in their acceptance of their circumstances as appropriate, which makes them appear "happy". When they are sick or if I or my wife is away from the house, they behave in a manner consistent with "sadness". There are a number of mitigating factors which effect the simple state of the matter, but by and large, animals are almost perpetually what we would call "happy", anless something is amiss. Does this constitute emotion? or is it merely something which we have labeled as such because of our own profound emotional attachment with our animals?