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  • 1 year ago
Are goldfish able to feel love? Can horses feel shame? Author Peter Wohlleben delved into the inner life of animals. Turns out they are much closer to us than we would have thought.

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Animals
Transcript
00:00This ranking in nature that we have, that we say humans rank the highest and then we have higher animals like chimpanzees, whales and so on,
00:08and then at last comes flies, spiders and so on, that this ranking has nothing to do with science.
00:30We know that flies, for example, move their legs while sleeping, perhaps while dreaming.
00:40There's a lot of things going on among animals. It's perhaps not about intelligence, but it's about emotions.
00:48And what is most important in our life? That our emotions think about love, happiness and so on.
00:54And there in emotions, which are the drivers of instincts, animals are very good.
00:59You find the love-driving hormone oxytocin that we have in our veins,
01:05that brings love to each other, to mothers, to their child, fathers, to their child and so on.
01:11This hormone is also in the veins of goats, horses and even in goldfish.
01:18What the hell does it in goldfish? Are they able to feel love? We don't know, perhaps.
01:23There are also examples of love between different species, for example, between ravens and wolves.
01:29We think that we are the only ones who keep pets, for example, like dogs or cats.
01:36We feel love for them and most owners think, and I think they are right, that those dogs and cats love them too.
01:43But there are also examples between different animal species like whales and seals or cats and crows.
01:51There is a wonderful example described in the book about a crow, which adopts a little kitten and feeds it with rainworms,
01:59because otherwise it would have starved to death.
02:02So this love for even a different species is nothing special to humans.
02:07I think we can't learn very much about animal behavior, because we behave like animals in a good sense.
02:14So we are still able to feel love and we are still able to bring our emotions above our mind, which is a really good thing.
02:22I'm deeply convinced that love is more important than intelligence.
02:26What will all the intelligence be good for when you live in a world that, for example, Donald Trump is creating right now?
02:33When there would be a little bit more, although he is emotionally driven very hard, I would say.
02:38For me, it's more a question of more emotion and less intelligence.
02:43When you go out in the nature, always think that you don't watch birds or not just walk through a forest,
02:50but that you are interacting with all living species around you. And that's really funny.
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