Mama's Last Hug
by Frans de Waal · first published 2019
5mentions
3recommended by
5HN commenters
2019–2023first – last mentioned
60% recommend40% neutral
A whirlwind tour of new ideas and findings about animal emotions, based on De Waal's renowned studies of the social and emotional lives of chimpanzees, bonobos, and other primates. De Waal discusses facial expressions, animal sentience and consciousness, Mama's life and death, the emotional side of human politics, and the illusion of free will. He distinguishes between emotions and feelings, all the while emphasizing the continuity between our species and other species. And he makes the radical proposal that emotions are like organs: we don't have a single organ that other animals don't have,
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> You could feel the panic and protective instinct in her movements. This comment reminded me of a great book I read called Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves. https://www.amazon.com/Mamas-Last-Hug-Animal-Emotions/dp/039...
on “Spiders are much smarter than you think” ↗In addition to "Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?" another book by Frans de Waal, "Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves" is also well worth the read.
on “Animal magic: why intelligence isn’t just for humans” ↗He's a primatologist, but has been a leader in studying emotion and intelligence in primates for decades. Both this book and his follow up, "Mama's Last Hug", are life-changing reads, literally.
on “Book Review: Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?” ↗I guess that the people considering this controversial, must consider the book "Mama's Last Hug" by Frans de Waal highly controversial.
on “Gorillas have developed humanlike social structure, controversial study suggests” ↗…Neuralink specifically is worth focusing on when discussing this issue? I'd also be happy to listen to good arguments for not experimenting on them at all, since it's not at all obvious to me. I've read Mama's last hug [3] and I understand why we may not want to, but at the same time, the trolley. In my twisted mind we should probably be experimenting on humans more [4]. If after psychological evaluation somebody gives…
on “How Neuralink Keeps Dead Monkey Photos Secret” ↗