Why do you assume we have a higher state of awareness? I would start by defining what you mean there because it’s relative. Elephants are very aware, dolphins have fucking sonar, birds can feel the magnetic fields of the earth. Humans tend to think how they experience the world and reality is a “higher state” but that is a false assumption, imo.
I know I am aware of my awareness... I'm not entirely convinced elephants and dolphin are, not saying they aren't either...
By asking "why", you have proven the basis of my assumption.
This is a long one, I apologize for any unnecessary verbosity, but I find this conversation to be important and a short comment just doesn't do it justice.
Anyway, it seems that you are taking a somewhat antiquated, but still prevalent view on consciousness - the more "old-school" behaviorist approach that is. It also seems like there's a few discussions happening on this comment thread. Your original post has an assumption in that humans have an objectively "higher" state of awareness followed up with a question on whether or not this preconceived idea would impact the intensity of emotions. I'll try to keep this information in mind with what I say.
To better communicate what I want to say first, I'll take your first statement to be true, regardless of further discussion. I more thoroughly explained the existing evidence in response to another person here. But to summarize, our ability to analyze stored information, to the extent we can, seems to help us cope with intense feelings. This gives the answer to your question: probably not - other animals may feel equal or more intense emotions by measurable standards.
But, hey, we're onto a slightly different topic, so why not talk about that. You've posited that the human capability to ask "why" gives us an objectively higher state of awareness. This statement is a tough one to put forward, even for the most renowned philosophers, who have thought this through far more than I have. It runs into road blocks with questions like:
Until we answer these questions, among many others, I see no reason to confirm that our ability to ask "why" (self-reflection), is the go-to for determining consciousness. Nor can I find a reason to let this impact my actions. I see it more as an interesting distinction that might exist between species. I do not know how much that distinction is, but it's something to think about. But again, I feel that matters just about as much as other capabilities like speech, hearing, reading, thermal control, movement, empathy, etc. They seem to be helpful evolutionary adaptations, but I hold none of them higher than the other. After all, their importance is impacted by my personal bias. I imagine bats would hate to lose echolocation, yet I, a being who holds no importance in echolocation, am much more scared of losing my ocular vision.
This is off-topic, but the above thought process has led me to consider consciousness more carefully in my actions. My current approach is that I ought to value another being for their individual abilities and desires. Meaning, I value any other human's want to have subjective societal values like the right to vote. However, I can reasonably assume a pig, chicken, dog, cat, or any other non-human animal does not care about voting. Rather, many of them seem to do things like avoid pain, comfort others (empathy - some family, some others in a herd, some just anyone they are near), and seek hedonistic joys like having their skin scratched/muscles massaged, eating nutritional foods, and playing with one another (again, to some extent). So, I will consider their subjective wants to the best of my abilities.
That's my current take at least. It seems the more I learn from others, the less confident I feel about any particular meta-ethical approach to understanding. --
How?
Probably the opposite.
Our "higher reasoning" and "state of awareness" (needs defining) gives us the ability to do thigns other animals can't. For example chronic pain sufferers are taught how to manage their pain with a variety of CBT techniques. Not something you can teach a dog or cat.
People in intense periods of intense suffering may have thw ability to dissociate from the experience ("go to their happy place") to lessen the pain experience.
We're not aware animal shave this ability.
If anything mammals of all kinds that feel pain don't have our higher cognitive ability to help manage and supress it.
Having said that it's possible we feel more emotionally complex pain. Pain induced from our own minds by remembering trauma or imagining painful situations. As someone pointed out below a dying animal probably isn't thinking about the loss of it's family as it's dying. But it will be feeling the pain of dying acutely.
I have been stung by bees/wasps several times, and the times when I was youngest and the least self aware were the worst. I was in absolute screaming agony as a small child. Then one day as an adult I was startled to be stung and found the experience to be completely different. Sure, it hurt and was really sharp like someone just jabbed a needle into me, but my response was to laugh, not cry. I also have the capacity to just not give a fuck (I recognize the cause of the pain isn't going to kill me) when I'm in a fair bit of pain and just do something else (provided I can still physically move, which isn't always a given) and this is helpful for tuning it out.
So from my personal experience, I would say absolutely: animals have it worse, not better.
Emotions evolved a long time ago and pain and pleasure are even older. They are essencial for survival of organisms and the intensity is apropriate for their function. It is therefore reasonable to think other organisms feel them with similar intensity. If anything, they need to rely on them more, so the experience could be more intense for them. There's surely going to be quite a bit of diversity though.
Edit: Let me add that this is an awsome question. Thanks for making me think about the way other people, animals and different organisms experience the world. I love it!
Having seen my dogs uncontained levels of excitement and euphoria as well as grumpy and depressed days first hand I would say not.
yep, I dont know that i've ever been as excited about anything as my dog did when it was time to go on walkies - or as excited about dinner time.
My guess is that awareness plays into it through humans' perceptions of time. We can both anticipate and recollect pleasurable/painful experiences in ways fish probably can't. We can use our imaginations to torture ourselves, or mentally escape painful circumstances.
How this balances out in terms of intensity? Idk lmao
We say that we as humans have “higher reasoning” but most of, if not all of, our reasoning is predicated on animal instincts. People are capable of thinking through their actions and emotions and such, sure. Those same people also don’t always do so. How many times have you or someone you know let their emotions get the better of them, even if they are “aware” of them? That’s not really any different from a spooked horse running off or a hurt dog trying to bite the person trying to help.
“Higher awareness” is much the same. In fact many animals have senses far greater than ours (like a dog’s sense of smell) or which we lack entirely (like sonar.)
All mammals at least have similar brain structures with the same general set of glands and functions. Even the way humans think and feel and reason is different from one another, but we can still identify core emotions in one another. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that just because animals don’t experience the world exactly like us, doesn’t mean they don’t have similar feelings and reasons for feeling those things.
Not more intense, but deeper and more complex. There's still the pain stimulus, but it comes with the burden of knowledge. "Will I survive this? What will happen to my family? Why is this happening?" I'm sure pain is quite intense in lesser animals, but the intellectual response is simpler or altogether absent.
I'm not sure tbh. I think our level of consciousness is probly more intense empathetically. It's a web and we can all be connected on the same frequency.
But I'm not a fish. I think they are more steady going, while we trip over ourselves. So I would say yes to your question. I'm not a scientist (:
Ive heard ppl say stuff like "oh that animal doesnt feel pain it's not intelligent" but idk i always just assume the animal has feeling and could be hurt.. so thats why i havent been able to kill bugs. (Bc you can see their eyes and stuff! Theyre alive and everything.)
I think we are more capable of analyzing the emotions we feel, which probably makes them more intense.
If I'm dying, and I know I'm going too die, I will be thinking about my family and what my death might do to them. If I'm a deer, I doubt I'm thinking about all that while I'm doing. I think that adds a level of intensity to it.
I mentioned it in a different comment, but it has been put forward before that we may feel less intense emotions exactly because of our extra reasoning capabilities.
One example put forward is that we understand an ending to our pain. For some animals, they may not know all possible ends to their feelings, and thus might feel intense sensations of fear, pain, helplessness, etc. There have been some horrific experiments done in the past to illustrate that many animal species learn that they have no way out of painful situations and just give up when options are exhausted. A human might endure knowing that it is just an experiment, but a dog knows no reason that something like an electric shock experiment would eventually stop. Our ability to self sooth, whether it is irrational or not, seems to help us in these situations.
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