Slog
News & ArtsThursday, January 29, 2009
Life The Love Mirror
Posted by Charles Mudede on Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 4:51 PM
I can't stop thinking about these robot pets.
What it is that's disturbed by their artificial affection is the affection that real pets show their owners. Can a cat or dog really love the human it depends on for everything? Aren't these animals we pet and play with really just robots, as Descartes once thought? Movement with no meaning, or movement with limited meaning—food, food, and more food. How can a dog honestly love a human? A human can love a cat, but how is it possible for this to happen the other way around? The love of the pet is really a love directed at a kind of mirror. To love your dog is really only to love yourself.
3
"Aren't these animals we pet and play with really just robots, as Descartes once thought? Movement with no meaning, or movement with limited meaning—food, food, and more food."
Charles is providing plenty of fodder for his detractors today.
I'd like to start a blog of Mudede's posts accompanied by a Prayer Warrior-style silhouette with a banner underneath reading "BATSHIT!"
Charles is providing plenty of fodder for his detractors today.
I'd like to start a blog of Mudede's posts accompanied by a Prayer Warrior-style silhouette with a banner underneath reading "BATSHIT!"
4
First penguins, now pets. I'm glad I'm old enough that I can ignore the exasperation I feel from this anthropocentrism.
5
"The love of the pet is really a love directed at a kind of mirror. To love your dog is really only to love yourself."
You say this like it is a bad thing. Since you have often spoken of your dislike of pets, what does this say about YOU?
You say this like it is a bad thing. Since you have often spoken of your dislike of pets, what does this say about YOU?
6
By the same token, isn't the love of a child just a response the child makes in order to secure food, shelter, protection, love, etc. in return?
I don't understand the desire for robot pets. Actual living creatures, regardless of their motives, at least have a motive and can evolve a response thet satifies both parties. If they receive food/love/shelter in return for their affections (or simulation of them) they will continue that behavior. if they do not they will stop or change the behavior. Robots do not have a motive/response choice. They just have a program and will carry it out regardless of what is received in return.
It is so obvious you have never owned a cat.
I don't understand the desire for robot pets. Actual living creatures, regardless of their motives, at least have a motive and can evolve a response thet satifies both parties. If they receive food/love/shelter in return for their affections (or simulation of them) they will continue that behavior. if they do not they will stop or change the behavior. Robots do not have a motive/response choice. They just have a program and will carry it out regardless of what is received in return.
It is so obvious you have never owned a cat.
8
I don't really understand this sentence: "What it is that's disturbed by their artificial affection is the affection that real pets show their owners."
What about people who love cats and hate themselves?
Isn't the general tendency to like anything that likes you back? Tit for tat strategies are incredibly simple yet effective.
What about people who love cats and hate themselves?
Isn't the general tendency to like anything that likes you back? Tit for tat strategies are incredibly simple yet effective.
9
Riddle me this, jerk - I tend to my dog. Does that make the affection (non-sexual, thanks) she apparently shows towards my partner or child unreal, despite the fact they don't tend to her needs? Or do you contend that she somehow confuses them with me? ("All you people look alike," maybe?)
My cat gets her food and water from automatic feeders. If she never saw me fill them, or change her litterbox, do you believe she would spurn my family?
And what of a friendly stray who used to come visit my house when I was a child, who got nothing but affection from me?
OK, you're not an animal person, but this argument is specious
My cat gets her food and water from automatic feeders. If she never saw me fill them, or change her litterbox, do you believe she would spurn my family?
And what of a friendly stray who used to come visit my house when I was a child, who got nothing but affection from me?
OK, you're not an animal person, but this argument is specious
10
what you said doesn't make much sense to me.
in a way even humans are very complicated robots.
mammals have very similar emotional pattern to humans. they just can't learn maths. anyone who had had a dog knows a human master can understand if his pet is happy or sad or angry and vise versa.
dogs are adult baby wolves. their love to their masters are very similar to a baby's love to his/her mother. you can't say only mother loves here baby and baby don't know what's love just because it's easier for you to sympathize with the mother.
in a way even humans are very complicated robots.
mammals have very similar emotional pattern to humans. they just can't learn maths. anyone who had had a dog knows a human master can understand if his pet is happy or sad or angry and vise versa.
dogs are adult baby wolves. their love to their masters are very similar to a baby's love to his/her mother. you can't say only mother loves here baby and baby don't know what's love just because it's easier for you to sympathize with the mother.
11
Can a cat or dog really love the human it depends on for everything? Aren't these animals we pet and play with really just robots, as Descartes once thought?
What do you mean by love?
Can a wife or child really love the human it depends on for everything? Aren't these humans we screw and play with really just robots, as Descartes once thought?
To understand interspecial relationships, look at the relationships cats and dogs form with other cats and dogs: Cats are solitary, coming together only for sex. The only long-lasting relationship in a cat's life is the kitten-mother cat relationship. Thus the cat-human relationship is an unnaturally prolonged one of dependence of the overaged kitten on the giant mutant mother cat.
In contrast, adolescent and adult dogs interact as part of their pack, working together to achieve common goals. Further, dogs work to advance in the hierarchy. Thus dog owners have a boss-subordinate relationship with their pets -- if they're lucky and don't have a subordinate-boss relationship.
What do you mean by love?
Can a wife or child really love the human it depends on for everything? Aren't these humans we screw and play with really just robots, as Descartes once thought?
To understand interspecial relationships, look at the relationships cats and dogs form with other cats and dogs: Cats are solitary, coming together only for sex. The only long-lasting relationship in a cat's life is the kitten-mother cat relationship. Thus the cat-human relationship is an unnaturally prolonged one of dependence of the overaged kitten on the giant mutant mother cat.
In contrast, adolescent and adult dogs interact as part of their pack, working together to achieve common goals. Further, dogs work to advance in the hierarchy. Thus dog owners have a boss-subordinate relationship with their pets -- if they're lucky and don't have a subordinate-boss relationship.
12
We have no idea what they're thinking. But on the other hand, how well do any of us know what other humans are thinking?
There must be some mutual benefit going on here, above and beyond the simple I feed you so do what I ask transaction. Cats for one, are notorious for not paying the slightest attention to human commands. Yet they will, in their own good time, come and sit on our laps and purr.
Why? Who knows. Some animals seem to get along well with humans and others not. When I was a kid I lived with a grandmother who kept canaries and parakeets. The parakeets were playful, allowed to fly around the apartment, and insanely curious about everything the humans living in the apartment did. The canaries sang beautifully, were shy, fearful and sometimes seemed terrified of the slightest sound or movement. You could just tell they'd never willingly live with humans. The parakeets seemed completely agreeable to the arrangement...delighted even. But...who knows.
Perhaps we amuse them in some way. Perhaps some animals are more curious then others, and humans seem strange and interesting. We give them food. But...affection? You'd have to understand what that is to a particular animal and we probably never will. And maybe that's the crux of it. It isn't only love we want from them. We want trust. We want to know we are trustworthy. Where there can really be very little mutual understanding possible, there has to be a lot of mutual trust. It isn't just love we want to see in their eyes. It's trust.
There must be some mutual benefit going on here, above and beyond the simple I feed you so do what I ask transaction. Cats for one, are notorious for not paying the slightest attention to human commands. Yet they will, in their own good time, come and sit on our laps and purr.
Why? Who knows. Some animals seem to get along well with humans and others not. When I was a kid I lived with a grandmother who kept canaries and parakeets. The parakeets were playful, allowed to fly around the apartment, and insanely curious about everything the humans living in the apartment did. The canaries sang beautifully, were shy, fearful and sometimes seemed terrified of the slightest sound or movement. You could just tell they'd never willingly live with humans. The parakeets seemed completely agreeable to the arrangement...delighted even. But...who knows.
Perhaps we amuse them in some way. Perhaps some animals are more curious then others, and humans seem strange and interesting. We give them food. But...affection? You'd have to understand what that is to a particular animal and we probably never will. And maybe that's the crux of it. It isn't only love we want from them. We want trust. We want to know we are trustworthy. Where there can really be very little mutual understanding possible, there has to be a lot of mutual trust. It isn't just love we want to see in their eyes. It's trust.
14
When it comes to humans and their animals, you are just an outsider looking in, Charles.
Why do you keep trying to convince us there is nothing there, just because there is nothing there for you?
Animals have personalities, memories, eccentricities. You need to get to know them to learn this. You don't seem to want to. That's okay. Except sometimes these posts seem like you're trying to convince yourself you are not missing out, on a very basic and age-old connection that many other humans partake in. You deny the worth of the relationship just because you don't want one yourself. Sort of like a childless woman who claims to despise children.
Why do you keep trying to convince us there is nothing there, just because there is nothing there for you?
Animals have personalities, memories, eccentricities. You need to get to know them to learn this. You don't seem to want to. That's okay. Except sometimes these posts seem like you're trying to convince yourself you are not missing out, on a very basic and age-old connection that many other humans partake in. You deny the worth of the relationship just because you don't want one yourself. Sort of like a childless woman who claims to despise children.
18
That's the thing about cats. They're perfectly willing to take the food, shelter, etc. and ignore the person who provides it. If a cat comes and curls up with you all by itself you know that you've made a friend.
The robo-pets are poor substitutes for those benighted souls who aren't allowed to have a real live, eating pooping shedding friend in their domicile. And they know it!
The robo-pets are poor substitutes for those benighted souls who aren't allowed to have a real live, eating pooping shedding friend in their domicile. And they know it!
19
descartes knew jack-all about animals. the science just wasn't there yet. we know much more about animals now, we know that they have emotions, and they grieve and they love and they feel sadness and suffering. descartes is obsolete and irrelevant on the subject. let's talk about freud's theories on women, while we're at it, or medieval theories on the flatness of the earth. honestly charles, do you care nothing for validity of your own arguments?
20
The whole robot pets thing is just too weird. As much as my Roomba delights me by sucking cat hair out of the carpet, I have no emotional attachment to that thing. It does not have a name or a personality. It's simply a machine that performs a programmed-in function.
Also, it does not purr or snuggle up with me.
Also, it does not purr or snuggle up with me.
21
ellarosa @ 19, thats all projection without objectivity. sure, they may have something that approxomates human emotion but it is not emotion as we know it. Because they are not .... humans. Think about it, you are projecting.
22
I love myself, I love me so. I took me to the picture show. I put my arm around my waist. I got so fresh I smacked my face.
24
21, that's condescension without research. suck on this and get back to me:
http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/NewsCentre/67668.h…
http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/NewsCentre/67668.h…
25
it's not condescesion, it is value neutral, I've read and heard those arguments, and while there is some merit to other animals having emotions, it is a further stretch to claim they are the "same", because biological imperative dictates that among different dna bearing entities there are going to be distinct differences in emotional response.
26
I'm starting to think that maybe Mudede is a 14-year-old who has never left the house. He forms a lot of hypotheses about stuff he's seen on TV and the internet, but has no idea what the stuff he's talking about actually is.
28
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199907/do…
"Dogs belong to that select group of con artists at the very top of the profession, the ones who pick our pockets clean and leave us smiling about it. Dogs take from the rich, they take from the poor, and they keep it all. They lie on top of the air-conditioning vent in the summer; they curl up by the fireplace in the winter; they commit outrages against our property too varied and unspeakable to name. They decide when we may go to bed at night and when we must rise in the morning, where we may go on vacation and for how long, whom we may invite over to dinner, and how we should decorate our living rooms. They steal the very bread from our plates... If we had roommates who behaved like this, we'd be calling a lawyer, or the police... Biologists, if they weren't victims of the same blindness that afflicts us all, wouldn't hesitate to classify dogs as social parasites."
"Dogs belong to that select group of con artists at the very top of the profession, the ones who pick our pockets clean and leave us smiling about it. Dogs take from the rich, they take from the poor, and they keep it all. They lie on top of the air-conditioning vent in the summer; they curl up by the fireplace in the winter; they commit outrages against our property too varied and unspeakable to name. They decide when we may go to bed at night and when we must rise in the morning, where we may go on vacation and for how long, whom we may invite over to dinner, and how we should decorate our living rooms. They steal the very bread from our plates... If we had roommates who behaved like this, we'd be calling a lawyer, or the police... Biologists, if they weren't victims of the same blindness that afflicts us all, wouldn't hesitate to classify dogs as social parasites."
31
Didja hear the one about the woman who adopted an abandoned mirror as a pet? By the time she turned 50, she had over 100 mirrors in her house. Freaky!
33
Well of course, it makes perfect sense now -- any time you want to steal someone's pet, you just give it some food! Then it instantly transfers all its loyalty/food dependence to you, and will follow you everywhere, pretending to love you so you will give it more food.
It works on children, too. Every time I ate a school lunch, I would think the lunch lady was my mom, and then my real mom would have to feed me something to get me back.
It works on children, too. Every time I ate a school lunch, I would think the lunch lady was my mom, and then my real mom would have to feed me something to get me back.
35
Me too I find it interesting how Charles is always trying to argue that there's nothing worthwhile or satisfying about keeping pets. It's sad, and it makes me wonder how many other things there are in the world that make people feel happy and fulfilled that he has some warped, made-up, philosophical problem with. I'm glad I'm not stuck in that miserable little head of his.
Advertisement
Most Commented on Slog
-
Hating People Doesn't Make Them Thinner by Jen Graves
-
Los Angeles Gay Bar Bans Bachelorette Parties Until Marriage Equality Is Attained by David Schmader
-
Fill in the Blank by Grant Brissey
-
This Reminds Me of the Great Calculator Scare of the Late '70s/Early '80s by David Schmader
-
Idiot Tries to Defend Bigoted Anti-Gay-Marriage Preacher on Anderson Cooper by Paul Constant
-
SL Letter of the Day: Putting It In by Dan Savage
-
Six Moms with Too Much Time on Their Hands and a Shitty Website Decide to Fight Gay Superheroes by Paul Constant
-
Why Mayor McGinn's Wife Canceled Her Family's Seattle Times Subscription by Eli Sanders
-
What the Hell Is Wrong With Seattle's Pride Parade? by Dominic Holden
-
Meet the UW "Swagga Suit" by David Schmader
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
Comments (35) RSS