So, got cites on well established observations that wolves “hang around in order to monitor the status of its companion during hazardous situations?”
And yet they clearly have some sort of sensing ability that causes them to show (what appears to be) distress when a threat manifests. It might not be pain as we know it but a cause and reaction is observed so something is telling that worm that a pin threat is present.
Maybe there is something a bit anthropomorphic going on when we think we can conclusively prove that worms can’t feel pain or some analog of it merely because we presume to so completely understand nerve and brain function that we can confidently dismiss the possibility of earthworm pain being possible.
Nope. I don’t think I need to because I’m just throwing down Occam’s Razor to opine that we know pretty well about the social instincts of dogs and related animals, so a dog showing interest (I use that word to avoid the more anthropomorphic term “concern” or “care”) in the status of its companion during a hazardous situation is more likely to be for a reason at least similar to human feelings of compassion than it is for some hitherto unmentioned reason.
Do you have a alternate hypothesis for the dog’s behavior? It’s true that we can’t understand very well all of a dog’s behaviors. But we can speculate on what hypotheses are more reasonable than others.
ETA: I mean hey, I’m not supposing maternal shark’s glowing here.
Some generally do, some view them as much more sophisticated, like a mother holding her child, the emotional bond which may exist can be so strong that others can feel it and be happy from it, a human ability of connecting going way beyond self, way beyond human reason into the realm of the gods.
The problem I’m having is with your very premise–that wolves hang around together so that they can monitor their companions in a dangerous situation. I’m questioning why you believe that, and asking for cites of claims that this happens. I’m asking for scholarly clams that “wolves stick together so that they can act as bodyguards for other wolves.”
Eat you when you fall 
Nobody knows your mental state, either, dude. Just how you act. Does that mean you don’t have feelings?
Same story, but I concluded that it doesn’t require nerves and brain structure to feel pain.
That was not my premise. I don’t believe I every said that about wolves. I may have been a bit foggy in organizing my thoughts. My premise was that dogs appear to show compassion toward their human companions when the humans are in a hazardous situation, or at the very least the dogs show interest (why are they interested? I think the dog having some form of concern for the human is a decent hypothesis. I can’t think of a better one right now).
Then I said that this is not that surprising since dogs are known to be social pack animals. I’ll add now that dogs have a symbiotic relationship with their people and hence, perceive value in their people not dying.
I went on to mention that other canids, even wild and/or different species are social creatures as well. I don’t think wild wolves have ever had the luxury of showing overt concern for their companions–even if they might feel it.
Dogs are different from wolves even though they are related and both social pack animals. Dogs have been bred for millennia to have a relationship with their handlers. They are domesticated and have different agendas than wolves do. It’s is more than plausible to me that part of the agenda for a dog is to protect his human and see the human persevere (not croak).
Sure, but then you need to back that up with some suggested biomechanics on how it’s feeling pain.
No, I don’t. It’s clearly writhing in pain. Occam’s razor says it’s in pain. Someone challenging that perception needs to introduce evidence that it isn’t in pain. And “it doesn’t have a complex enough brain” isn’t evidence, it’s simply reasserting the belief that it doesn’t feel pain. If worms feel pain, pain doesn’t require a brain, ipso facto. So you need to show me evidence that pain requires a brain or nerves. Because the worm writhing in pain is clear evidence that it doesn’t. And “nuh-uh, brains” isn’t evidence against that.
Your exact words were “If the dog is not hanging around in order to monitor the status of its companion during hazardous situations why would it be hanging around?” I took that to mean why do they hang around in general, but I now see that it is also possible that you meant “why do they not run away when danger appears.”
As for the answer, of course there is probably no conscious reasoning at all involved in the pack behavior, any more than a dog thinks about why it buries its food, a cat thinks about why it bathes after eating, or a bird thinks about why it builds a nest. But evolutionary speaking, there are probably several reasons for wolves to move in packs. One is that a pack does a better job of capturing food. Another is that a pack can more readily defend itself-- of course the first choice when faced with a larger predator is to run, but if you have to fight, with five wolves verses a bear, any given wolf has a better chance of surviving than any wolf alone. And that’s the part that is relevant to this issue. Probably your dog isn’t defending you from your attacker–your dog is expecting you to attack, too. It only seems like the dog is defending you because you don’t have the instincts to do your part of the wolf social contract and join in with the barking and the biting and the scratching, and the dog doesn’t have the brains to realize that.
Occam’s razor is philosophy, not science.
I did fall one time just walking along a perfectly flat, dry path in the woods (my shoe got caught on the tip of a fallen branch and I hit the dirt before I knew what happened!). She was there in an instant, poking me with her nose and crying.
Years ago my mom was walking her huge, male Shepherd when she fell and broke her ankle. He came running back and lay down behind her so she could lean on him. He’d never done anything like that before and, in fact, specifically hated when people would lean back on him.
They’re amazing creatures aren’t they?
No, it is a methodology, which is, in fact, used in analytic formulation. It is not a final arbiter but a developmental utility.
This is exactly what I mean when I said that believing animals (and even something as highly intelligent as wolves ffs) are just mindless automatons enables people to not feel guilty when they treat them horribly.
It’s the height of arrogance.
Recently there was a jogger here on the island out on the logging roads who came upon 2 cougars in the road ahead. They were just standing there, staring at him. He turned around to leave and there was the 3rd one, sneaking up behind him. Were the two looking at him a diversion?
Fortunately for him he had bear spray and used it on the stalking cougar. There’s a video of it on youtube.
I think we have no idea of how self-aware and intelligent animals can be.
It can be used as a tool but to just say “Looks like pain, must be pain” is just silly. You may use it to select an initial path to experiment but you don’t use it to make a decision.
In fact, reflexes in earthworms have been investigated by people who didn’t just say “Welp, looks like pain to me let’s go to lunch”.
Well that opens up the can of worms (so to speak) of what “feel pain” means. Absolutely “feeling pain” requires nerves. Specifically, a class of nerves called nociceptors. And reactions to pain can happen without “feeling” pain, even in humans–accidentally touch a hot surface and you will jerk back before you actually consciously feel the pain–your spine is doing the job quickly before the information eventually filters up to the slow brain. So it is possible for an animal to react to “pain” without “feeling” it. Withdrawing from a “painful” stimulus isn’t in itself proof of “feeling” “pain.”
Now, what the dividing line between having a brain complex enough to “feel pain” and having nothing more than an insensate reflex, who can say. In my own opinion, I’d put all vertebrates on the “feeling pain” side of the line, and I’d be equally comfortable putting cnidarians and echinoderms, for example, on the opposite side of that line. Annelids? I’d tend to think insensate reflex, but I’m not married to the conclusion.
Exactly. In fact, “worms display reflexive behavior without experiencing pain” is a simpler and clearer explanation than “Worms found a way to experience pain without the necessary nerves or brain structure”.
You are talking out of your ass. Saying that animals have instincts is not the same thing as saying that animals are mindless, it is stating a cold, hard fact. Humans have instincts, too. Take a random human infant from anywhere in the world. That infant will grasp your finger in their hands, it will suck if presented with a bottle or nipple, it will cry if in any way uncomfortable. None of those are behaviors that the infant has to learn, all are inborn instincts. If the infant is several months old, it will begin to imitate sounds that it hears older humans making. It has to be taught what those sounds mean, but it doesn’t have to be “taught” to imitate those sounds, because that is a natural, inborn human instinct. Humans tend to prefer to hang together in groups while some animals prefer isolation because we have an inborn instinct to be gregarious. To deny that animals have instinctual behaviors isn’t denying that animals have emotions and thoughts–it is admitting that you don’t know what the hell an instinct is.
That makes sense, because the question of whether something feels pain is philosophy, not science.