[0167] Two Down, Two To Go
└ posted on Monday, 24 May 2010, by Novil
The current story arc started with this strip: The Quesion of All Questions.
- Wikipedia: Puppy love is an informal term for feelings of love between young people during childhood and adolescence, […] The term is often used in a derogatory fashion, describing emotions which are shallow and transient in comparison to other forms of love such as romantic love.
- Wikipedia: Emotion in animals considers the question of what emotions certain species of non-human animals feel, […] Often expressions of apparent pleasure are ambiguous as to whether this is emotion, or simply innate response, perhaps to approval or other hard-wired cues.
- Richard: True feelings. The privilege of middle-aged white men.
![[0167] Two Down, Two To Go](/comics/2010-05-24-[0167]-two-down,-two-to-go.png "[0167] Two Down, Two To Go")
Cool and subtle. Aweome. 😀
Exactly my line of thought whenever I read stuff about the minds of dogs, after having owned one for thirteen years. I mean, durgh.
Your comic makes me smile every time there’s a new one, even before I read it. Bright spot of my day, without a doubt.
ha ha, I love this one 😀 love is everywhere at any age.
The transcription for the wikipedia entry on emotion in animals is different from what it says in the comic…
I don’t always like “Sandra and Woo”…
But this one is wonderful.
No, it’s exactly the same. Note the […].
@Hawk, no, it’s the same. The “[…]” skips a few sentences.
It’s funny to see how fast somebody can recognize from the font that it is Wikipedia. And then to think about it that 10 years back I was struggling with a modem. “We live in fast times” My parents always said. Now I get older I see what they mean…
But now a little bit more on-comic. It’s again a good comic and also a good story-arc. I really wait for the next one.
Aha! Touché. Love isn’t limited to adults.
Why just white men?
pardon my language but that is flucking funny! Havn’t seen someone with a potential for such comedic geniuses like this since Benjamen Croshaw!
I’m already quite surprised by the reactions. I thought this one would be among our least popular strips…
Novil, you are sadly mistaken. The usage of Wikipedia to enumerate humor is extremely awesome. XKCD is proof of this.
Indeed, I love the poke at the scientific community and Wikipedos, kind of a fun strip in a less heavyhanded way.
Or, for some, at no age ;( *cries*
It’s a very pointed reference and therefore very funny, Novil. Be surprised if you must, but don’t turn away the praise because it’s very much deserved this time! 🙂
The words “what emotions certain species of” are the only words the same in the first part of that second entry. Also the word immediately following the […] is different between the comic and the transcript as well.
@Novil, I think there are a few things…
a) you’ve hit upon a rather interesting “hypocrisy by the elites”, a category which makes for good humour… in this case, it’s that despite all the findings in evolution, psychology, and so on, there still persists this old-fashioned notion that humans are fundamentally different from other animals… though the evidence points increasingly to there being no unique thing about us. It was once thought to be language. Or tool use. Or mirror-recognition… or abstract thinking… all of which have been shown in other animals. And there has even been a human language discovered that in structure is more like animals languages (Piraha). Despite this, there’s a hardcore group of people who just won’t let the old notions go, because they’re scared to admit the alternative.
b) I think that many of us have had our own feelings belittled by people who supposedly know them better. So it’s also relatable.
To be fair, Woo is a rare case of an animal advanced enough to communicate with human beings
Also, [CITATION NEEDED]
What is that, Wikipedia? Why is Sandra’s father lookin things like that up in the first place and what’s that conclusion at the end anyway? XD
You just HAVE to love the expressions of those two, sooo adorable. X3
I can’t tell, is she proving the website wrong or right?
Its funny how the father claims that one has to be middle-aged to have ‘true feelings’,
when i fact its the “…emotions which are shallow and transient in comparison to other forms…” that are true feelings,
uncensored,
unfiltered,
unscrutinised
emotions which are true and genuine,
similar to
“emotions in animals”,
“inate responses”
and “other hard-wired cues”
…not the
intelectualised, head-heavy, over-analised, rationalised, logical, sensible, emotionless, reasonable
emotions of the middle-aged…..
I love Foamy, the Squirrel now even more for having given me the link to this site
awww… they’re so happy though… why would you want to harsh on that with semantics? leave ’em alone. there’s plenty of time for melancholic contemplation later 😉
I’m not so much into Wikipedia so I had to think a while to get the joke XD”’
You are once more disproved Wikipedia ^^
Richards expression in the first pannel is awesome: “Shallow and transient… yeah… sure…”
To make Richards reaction even more sarcastic I think.
He’s even rolling with his eyes XD
Sadly it also relates to his situation beeing a widower 🙁
@Novil: Was this intended?
This is really good. I think people (me for sure) like comically overturned prejudices.
And Sandra with Woo look awesome here. I can relate. When I’m cuddling my cat, with her purring and me wanting to purr if only I knew how, the feelings are very similar.
The humor is good, but I’m almost too distracted by the cute to enjoy it.
Yes, I really like the humour in this one too. In fact I’m planning on tweeting it 🙂
Sandra looks like she’s walking on sunshine. Whoa-oh-oh.
@Icalasari, here read up:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/03/animal-minds/virginia-morell-text
Erm, the Vaio is upside down. Unless that’s deliberate, that’s wrong. 😛
Really entertaining comic. I really like some of the philosophical undertones you might not realise that you put into it. (Some that are less obvious then the main plot of the strip)
Those who believe that animals don’t have emotions don’t own pets. That, and are really, really unobservant.
Let’s see… I’ve heard it said a million times that animals at the very least feel fear and aggression. To say that they don’t feel emotion contradicts this. Also, if they didn’t feel emotion, we’d all be extinct due to the lack of fear.
And if they don’t feel emotion, what on Earth else could these expressions and this body language be? Even if you think of play as mere imitation hunting, it must trigger some sort of response in them, or else they wouldn’t do it. Or anything at all, for that matter.
And furthermore, if our perception of emotions in animals is false, they would be meaningless to other members of the same species. A growl means “go away” to a wolf as much as it does to a human. If we’re genetically related to animals, why should the affection of a mother be robotic instinct in something that isn’t homo sapien? And what about the great apes?
A feeling is a response to stimuli. When you scold a dog, they’re most likely going to look guilty. If they felt nothing, they wouldn’t have that response.
And how else would you explain a cat’s purr?
There are so many holes in the logic behind the “animals feel no emotion” theory that it shouldn’t even be considered science. Long live the emotions of animals!
Empathy is what makes us understand what’s going on in others – or at least make educated guesses. It takes us a while to learn to use this ability and even in people of old age can be led astray by it. Children even often “humanize” lifeless objects and infer feelings in them, that they of course don’t have.
People also tend to infer feelings from animals, when observing them and it’s possible, maybe even probable that they are right – yet AFAIK, what science really reminds us of, is that this is usually a subjective projection and we can’t be certain that other animals think or feel in a way similar to ours.
Some of the folks with dogs might have observed that their animal seems to follow some shows on the TV or at least some kind of particular scenes; on the other side it’s almost certain that dogs can’t even discern 2D images.
Personally I DO think or believe that animals feelings are similar to ours and maybe even some of their thoughts; I WANT to believe it; and I would wish everyone to at least accept it as a possibility and respect other animals accordingly. Yet I’m also aware that as far as hard, objective research goes, we still don’t know almost anything about how it really feels to be an individual of another species.
Well, everything is subjective when you get right down to it- we can’t be sure of anything, they say- science knows that, philosophers know that, theologists know that… it gets so that eventually you either give up (like middle-aged white men) or believe in anything. I lean towards the latter, myself.
Thing is, since most science requires observable phenomena that can be recorded, I can only assume that the extreme similarity between the expressions, vocalizations, and body language of humans and animals is simply ignored- deliberately, it sometimes seems.
My point is that the evidence stacked against “no emotions” is very high. Perhaps I’m not a qualified zoologist, but I think my own personal observations, rose-colored as they may be, are more than enough to at least give the idea of emotive animals support.
Of course, I just realized that once you become a middle-aged man, our culture expects us to not have any emotions anymore… if what people have told me is any indication. 😛
I actually am pretty certain that emotions are just simple instincts and neuro-chemical responses to outer and inner impulses, glorified by humans in their limitless arogance to exalt themselves over non-homo sapiens beings
probably should have said this long ago but I will be away for awhile missing comic updates! for 2 months. >>…..looking forward to catching up btw! 😛
@tymime (and others)- I couldn’t agree more. Being a dog lover, and having had quite a few over the years, I do strongly feel that animals (dogs especially) do feel and show emotions. Perhaps it’s partly from their long association with humans (tens of thousands of years) … but in videos of the interactions of wild canid packs (ie, wolves), they certainly appear to demonstrate many similar emotions.
I have had friends who have had other pets (for example, ferrets, birds, one raccoon and even one with a skunk). All of these animals certainly appear to their owners (and to at least this casual observer) to show some emotional response to the family members.
Granted, this is my own experience and observations. I’m not a scientist … heck, I don’t even play one on T.V. … but I still know what I see and “feel”. And, since “feeling” is part of being human, I think I’m going to rely on that in the face of the scientists who want me to believe that, because they can’t “see” or “measure” emotions in animals, they don’t exist.
And I must say, it is interesting how much comment (even from me!) this arc has generated. Dare I say it? This arc has generated quite an EMOTIONAL response!
I wonder who or what the two mentioned in the title are.
When it comes to “puppy love” vs “romantic love”, the first one isn’t necessarily shallower than the second. It all depends on how mature the people involved are (do I care about the other person, or do I just like how great it feels to be with them), and whether people just jump into a relationship without considering the future (adolescents might not believe that there may be an alternative, because the feeling of the first relationship is so strong, but adults might be the same way, because they simply don’t want to care).
@lilspirit16 – Have a nice time! Do come back and visit!
I really like Sandra in the first panel! She looks like a bird or airplane zooming happily around a Cloud patch. 😉
Would you honestly want such a lovely comic to indirectly promote Sony? I noticed the logo was still indirectly recognisable as well, and I think it probably would’ve been better with a generic rectangular badge with no discernible text, but the inverted logo is amusing. Kinda like defacing it as an act of sacrilege!
/not a Sony fan
It’s clearly an Avio computer (just like Haruhi Suzumiya uses ESPON laptops).
This is a cute comic!! 😀
Got a cat that insists on doing that. (The neck hugging bit.)
Sorry for coming so late to the discussion. I just wanted to add something about whether animals have emotions or not and that is that you might be missing an important distinction.
I don’t think any biologist or zoologist would deny that animals have rudimentary emotions; what we would probably describe as a visceral, instinctive emotion. Things like fear, hunger or pain and of course their positive counterparts.
Far less certain are other emotions like happiness or love. This is because it might be supposed that a “Theory of Mind”, a strong sense of self and self-awareness is required for these emotions. Lacking this, your emotions are limited only to bodily needs and self-preservation.
I can’t say whether animals have emotions or not, but for me this is a moot point anyway. They certainly feel pain and discomfort and that is reason enough not to be needlessly cruel. (And yes: I have never owned a pet. But even if I had, that would not change my position. Anecdotes ARE NOT DATA.)
If that’s true, what do black people feel?
This is genius.
First, it may have been puppy love, but it was real for the puppies. I think the expression cmes from thae fact that puppies give their love totally, and affectionatly.
@Myrion
I’m sorry to say this, because, on most things, I am a proponent of science. However, love and other such strong emotions are not something that can be fully described by science. They are part of one’s soul, and that is something that I think, and I hope, that science will never confine and describe. Besides that there are two major flaws in your statement.
1) “Anectdotes ARE NOT DATA”
-You are correct in your statement that a small number of anectdotes are not data, however, when there are thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, etc. of similair anectdotes told by numerous peoples varying by age, creed, and culture, it does support the point that it is not merely a childish fantasy.
2) “And yes: I have never owned a pet. But even if I had, that would not change my position.”
-I’m sorry, but how can you say that you would not change your position. You may be correct, you may not change your position, however, there is an equal (although from a somewhat biased perspective I would say greater) likelyhood that you would change your position. The reason I say this is because you do not have the experience of having a pet to back this up. It would be like (pardon the poor analogy) a blind person saying that they think Van Gogh was a terrible artist (no offense meant to anyone visually impaired). From a scientific standpoint, you are stating your results without ever testing your hypothesis.
I’m not trying to insult you or anything of the sort, I’m just stating my opinion of your assessment of the situation. There remains the possibility that I am wrong, and that all of this can be explained or disproven by science. However, if this becomes the case, I would feel that the world has become a cold and emotionless place (no puns intended), and that I feel would be the ultimate loss of our humanity.