I think it's pretty dumb to say they don't have feelings.. Any living thing with a brain has feelings and emotions. We don't know goes on in there tiny brain. The people on here trying to say animals don't have emotion or feelings are ignorant and probably shouldn't have any pets. Fish aren't going to have emotions about u because they r supposed to be in a lake or ocean and we keep them in little aquariums
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sure we know what's going in their brains, as well as ours, ever hear of an EEG, or even better yet MRI imaging where you can see in real time the blood flow and activity in the brain. It is pretty solid science.
Again, fish simply do not have the wiring to feel emotions, certainly not what is commonly considered emotional responses.
It really all has to do with brain structure and size, there being a direct correlation between the size, density and crenulations and giri
(folds and crevices which afford greater surface area for the cortical tissue) of the cerebral cortex, the greater these attributes are, the greater a sense of "self" and more cognitive processing of instinctive behaviors.
We humans carry on every day acting on instinct that has been modified and filtered by generations of socialization and codification in order to facilitate the survival of the group.
Keeping on the topic of water critters, Dolphins possess a brain size/structure very similar to ours and research has confirmed their intelligence many times over.
What has also been discovered that is unique in the animal kingdom and has only been seen in a few higher primates is a sense of self awareness.
Most animals and even infants up to about 18-20 months of age really make no distinction between others and themselves. a simple example is that an infant or a cat is hungry, in their mind EVERYONE is hungry and experiencing the same sensations they are. It is actually the basis for the terrible twos', At that age children begin to develop a sense of self and start to assert that sense of self because "I don't
have to do what mom says" they understand they have choice unique to themselves.
anyway, the dolphin research entailed simply taking a magic marker and drawing simple symbols on their bellies in a way that they had to go look in a mirror to see it. Very quickly the dolphins began to show each other their symbols and essentially compare them and would eagerly go to the surface to get a new symbol drawn on them. The real kicker was when they started to show a preference for one symbol over another and once they had the symbol that they personally liked, they refused to allow it to be changed and would primp and preen in the mirror and in front of one another. They clearly showed that they were self aware in that the recognized themselves as individuals.
Do Dolphins Have a Sense of Self? - National Wildlife Federation