>I know anthropomorphizing animals is a no-no these days
Well, I think you are making a good point here, so I wouldn't write it off on that basis. In the rush to avoid anthropomorphizing animals, people sometimes go to the opposite extreme and assume that things like "taste" are uniquely, exclusively human experiences and can't be extended to animals.
That seems to attribute full ownership of a category of experience to humans, and to me that kind of assumption is more problematic, if we're talking about the excesses of anthropocentrism. I think your explanation makes perfect sense.
"Pufferfish produce a potent defensive chemical, which they eject when threatened. In small enough doses, however, the toxin seems to induce "a trance-like state" in dolphins that come into contact with it"
There are reports of dogs repeatedly licking the toxic cane toads in Australia. Some are speculating the dogs are "addicted" to the "high" from a non-fatal dose of the toxin the toads excrete in their sweat. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/17/dogs-licking-cane-t...
Some potentially deadly foods are considered a tasty delicacy. See, fugu [0]. Which can be really, really really poisonous [1]. It makes cyanide seem harmless in comparison.
Although I just learned from Wikipedia that apparently we figured out how to raise non-poisonous pufferfish. Neat.
you can get that in koreatown in LA as well (probably elsewhere too but that's where i've had it). the taste is pretty subtle but it's weird that it squirms in your mouth.
It's a competition of sorts. There used to be people where I work who would one-up each other on spicy food. They were long past the point where you could actually taste anything but the "heat", but they wanted to see who could take the most punishment.
I have a Japanese friend who explained the fugu thing to me (at least, the way he saw it). Every once in awhile a group of people die when they eat fugu that's not prepared properly. So when you go out with your colleagues you try to work the latest such incident into the conversation, and then you order fugu. The goal is to eat it with the supreme nonchalance while trying to make your coworkers visibly nervous.
I have practiced eating spicy food in Singapore. But I was still well within the "this can be tasty" envelope.
> The goal is to eat it with the supreme nonchalance while trying to make your coworkers visibly nervous.
We eat raw pork mixed with raw eggs and raw onions on a bun in Germany. But nobody there thinks it's particularly dangerous. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mett)
I have more than ten years of experience studying cetacean diets and have personally retrieved and identified several octopus, squid and cuttle species in dolphins and seals stomachs. I know what I'm talking about.
On the other hand, many people eat octopus, some even eat it alive. If eating octopus would produce the slightest drug effect, I think that we, humans, will know it :-)
And yes, of course there is a lot of bibliography available about dolphin behaviour.
I have seen dolphins swim in the wake of a ship and I strongly believe they did it just for the kick of it. Maybe they showed off to the dolphin girls, who knows?
Even more than that it is believed by many. The idea being humans evolved to enjoy sweet for the reasons you pointed out - it means carbohydrates which are dense in calories. Humans evolved to enjoy a certain amount of salt as it is essential to our survival; bitterness tends to be found in toxic things and is generally not palatable as a last warning to avoid ingesting bad food; Sour can be enjoyable but it also signals under ripe fruit and rotten meats as well as dangerous acid levels in some instances. Umami is thought to encourage the consumption of important amino acids.
It makes sense that earlier ancestors who maybe found bitter very enjoyable and sweetness not so enjoyable died off from a lack of calories or eating poisonous things before reproducing. And it makes sense that while across cultures people eat very different foods, you see the same patterns in terms of umami and sweet being considered desirable and bitterness often rejected.
In fact the human tongue is considerably more complex than traditionally assumed. For example, besides the umami taste receptors recently proven to exist there are also studies looking to see if we have taste receptors for "fat", "starch" and even "metallic" flavors, among other things.
The chemical reaction between molecules and how the brain decodes the signals produced by them is fascinating when it comes to the flavor of things.
I think reading the article that the risk is much overstated for sexy story-telling purposes. Dolphins of course do not choke if their mouth is full or blocked. They breath by the spiracle in the top of their head.
I would even argue it's the opposite. The book by biologist Frans de Waal - Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?[1] was in a lot of best book lists.
It's a no-no always because it's poor reasoning. Saying "these days" is a way to paint it as some kind of fashion above which the commenter is. In this specific case, I reckon dolphins have taste buds too, so it isn't really anthropomorphizing. I think it's a good hypothesis.
Actually, it's the "we shouldn't anthropomorphize" which is poor reasoning. Because of course we should, we should just call it something else.
I am not really aware of any mammal behaviour that I cannot somewhat relate to at gut level. You may say I anthropomorphize, or you may say I equate, it doesn't really matter. There isn't a physiological or neurologic feature we don't share, me and all those other mammals. I have some language and some reasoning power to top it all off with, but our sensations, reactions, emotionals, motivators, fears, pains and joys are clearly of very similar nature. Of course they are - they run on the same basic hardware architecture.
And now, if you will excuse me, my dog wants to go for a walk. I know exactly what he means.
This is my line of thinking as well. Physiologically we are extremely similar to other mammals, especially when you take a look at the extreme fringes of life and realize how utterly different from us it can be. It's logical that large portions of our life experiences are the same, too. The differences are mostly fine details.
If you want to find where our perceptions differ from that of a cat or a dog or an elephant, I believe that anything cultural or learned in nature is a better place to start. If every human experiences it, it's likely that other mammals experience it too on some level.
I suspect that if our experiences shared few or no similarities, humans would've had far less success in the way of keeping, training, and befriending animals. The ability to accurately empathize with other creatures has to have jump-started the process in many cases.
Neither your example or the start of the thread seem like anthropomorphizing. Both "liking" the taste and "enjoying" outdoors or exercise are well established reactions in numerous animals. Anthropomorphizing is most easily described as the subject using human-like reasoning or rationalization. Sure, the classic definition is broader than that with angry weather. I do agree with your point regarding g mammalian comparisons, but it's not clear to me that was demonstrated.
I fully concur. We and other mammals inherited many of our behaviors such as emotional attachments, social bonds, play, etc from common ancestors. It seems reasonable to me that our experience of these is similar to that of the common ancestor, and therefore that other Mammals experience of them is also similar to ours. Not the same maybe, but similar.
I am saying "these days" because from what I understand in past times anthropomorphizing animals used to not be as frowned upon in literature. I might well be wrong though of course! If so apologies, I did not mean to imply it as a fashion or as a negative, just that sometimes I feel that the simplest explanation (dolphins like a treat) should win over the more complex one (octopuses must have some great nutritional value)
maybe it's just they like the taste? it's not like we don't go out of our own way to find some delicacies just because we are in the mood for them.
I know anthropomorphizing animals is a no-no these days, but trying to explain everything based on "nutritional value" seems a bit narrow minded...