> It was always possible for me to perceive sentience, feelings and emotions from a variety of beings
My mom has always had this ability. We had some horses in a pasture behind our house, and one day we noticed most of the horses had been removed and only one remained. My mom could instantly tell that the one remaining horse, named Pete, was sad to be alone. "Pete is so sad, she's all alone" my mom observed while we were looking out the window. Literally, not 5 seconds later, a couple of horses came walking out from behind a shed in the pasture. I laughed and teased my mom. I guess Pete wasn't as sad and alone as she thought.
In other words, how do you know you're perceiving the feelings of animals correctly?
I think this is the point you're making, but this isn't "perceiving sentience" (whatever that means), it's literally just projects your thoughts and emotions onto an anthropomorphized version of whatever animal you're looking at. Which is the same thing the GP was/is doing, but they haven't "matured" enough cognitively to realize it yet.
I'm GP and I never mapped human emotions to other species. Amongst many species I see this with, I looked at cephalopods and can see sentience. This was unrelated to me consuming them, they taste yummy and there are plenty of them.
So with your standard, I was wrong and my inferior brain was anthropomorphizing, until a greater consensus was suddenly reached from researchers and governments that makes me right? I mean its not something I was advocating for, its just surprising to me how many weren't perceiving this at all. Like when you find out that some people don't have visual dreams, or find out that you're the person that doesn't have visual dreams and everyone else wasn't speaking in hyperbole and actually have a different experience.
this reminds me of a small fish that used to visit me during my dives, it would take me to things he found, bottles, coins, shells.
was not the first time it happened because the same fish with the same markings (im quite sure of it) would visit me.
so im thinking what is going on here? how is it that a fish is able to recognize me in my gear and comes to me in the same vicinity?
it appears to be communicating too by leading me to stuff he finds. it lets me even pet it which it seems to enjoy.
again i dont know what its thinking but from these actions one might strongly conclude that there is some sort of sentient mutual awareness and that its able to engage in both recognition, my presence and subtle communication (by showing me treasures he find)
I guess my point is perceiving feelings is not limited between two humans only (obviously super tough with text alone, it is something else.
My mom has always had this ability. We had some horses in a pasture behind our house, and one day we noticed most of the horses had been removed and only one remained. My mom could instantly tell that the one remaining horse, named Pete, was sad to be alone. "Pete is so sad, she's all alone" my mom observed while we were looking out the window. Literally, not 5 seconds later, a couple of horses came walking out from behind a shed in the pasture. I laughed and teased my mom. I guess Pete wasn't as sad and alone as she thought.
In other words, how do you know you're perceiving the feelings of animals correctly?