How do you know that they don’t? And conversely, how do you know any other human than yourself do?

Do books grieve? I ascribe the same kind of interaction to llm's. They work on a different substrate than us and their perception of reality, if there is any, will be wholly different than our perception because of the constraints of the substrate itself.

Not to mention the lack of continuity of existence kind of precludes any deeper and more meaningful interactions with the self.

I am not saying that they are unable to feel, but at the current structure and ephemeral existance they are unable to do so, they lack the minimum prerequisites.

>Do books grieve?

Is there any ordered state changes occurring in books?

>they lack the minimum prerequisites.

And these minimum prerequisites are? There are a number of scientists that would love your empirical evidence.

>lack of continuity of existence

Eh, the lengths of timelines that LLMs can execute for, and this is in singular execution and agentic evolution is ever increasing. There isn't any time based requirements either. For example I can give you all kinds of drugs that turn off and on your conscious awareness and this doesn't stop self interaction when you're awake.

Do whales grieve?

They exhibit behaviours that seem to defy alternative explanations, though I doubt anyone could say for certain whether they do or don’t

You could have an alternative explanation: large animals invest lots of food energy in their offspring, and so the slimmest chance that a calf might not be dead is worth lots of effort. Say one in a thousand actually revive.

Here's an article about orcas: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64559047

It seems that an orca invests so much in a son that it's like an all-or-nothing one way ticket to pass her genes on. (She might get second try later, but the probability is much lower.)

You might also argue that although there may be a non-emotional argument for why grieving could be beneficial, it’s possible or even likely that evolution encoded this instinct in something like emotions. Just how evolution encoded the tendency to care for one’s family and community in emotions for humans.

Yes! Which leads into strange territory, because we can say that attachment is not entirely rational, but is influenced by genes pointing us toward more successful reproduction, without concern for creating knowledge. But then this environment of instincts is the environment we've built up all our cultural store of meaning in, it's the human condition, so the argument can be turned around to say that meaning isn't entirely rational. So even gene-driven attachment isn't meaningless, but at the same time, I don't want to be bullied and herded around emotionally by little nucleic acid spirals just so they can replicate themselves.

> They exhibit behaviours that seem to defy alternative explanations

No, they really don't. The article says

> indicated an inherent, strong maternal attachment to the calf

Yeah, that's not grieving.

What if I told you that marine biology is a large and rigorous field that is not fully encapsulated by TFA?

I would say that someone acting in good faith who was referring to something other than what is described in the article would have said so and would have said what they were referring to, which you again have not done. I would also note that "seem to defy alternative explanations" is not remotely "rigorous" and is not a conclusion or consensus within the field of marine biology, which you do not represent. It is telling that you write "Kudos to the author for not being so bitter and jaded, like me, and reporting this thinking some change might come" when you imply here that there are some other behaviors (which you are keeping tight to your chest) that already "seem" to defy alternative explanation, while implicitly agreeing here that inherent strong maternal attachment isn't grieving.

I don't engage with people acting in bad faith or who write such snotty comments that are intended as oneupmanship but not to impart information. Goodbye.

Indeed. The same goes for widows at funerals. I mean, has anyone ever dissected the brain of a grieving human and said “aha hah! Here it is!! The grief!”

No, of course I haven't been doing that, and it's going to be a while before I would have collected a representative sample anyway, if I had been.

> Do whales grieve?

Just as much as any human that isn't me, as far as I can tell from all available evidence.

So, yes, I absolutely believe they grieve, just like I believe humans who aren't me grieve.

I hope that’s just because you haven’t had a reason to grieve… Either way, hope you are well!

> I hope that’s just because you haven’t had a reason to grieve… Either way, hope you are well!

Thanks, stranger.

I'm old enough that I have experienced significant grief a few times in my life.

Given our mortality, we should welcome some degree of situational grief, as grief is the absence of a previous love that we were lucky enough to experience in the first place.

Of course, there are also profoundly unfair versions of grief (like the loss of a child) that I wish nobody (or no whale, for that matter) would ever have to experience.

"That isn't me" in the above comment means "I know I can grieve, but I can only tell indirectly other people can do so as well."

It doesn't mean "I've never felt grief".