21–30 of 234 posts
No. Animals don't think, because thinking requires language, based on it conceptual thinking and related brain circuitry which animals still didn't evolve. Signaling systems and elaborate warning cries do not account for a language. Animals only feel. They have emotions, environmental clues and heuristics, everything but a language and hence no thinking by definition. That is exactly what some call non-verbal,'animal…
Citation needed.
No. They don't. Animals live in the moment and understand causal relationships within time and space. They don't abstract their thoughts and form assemblies or sciences or write histories. Though they understand causal laws better than humans sometimes. Hence you can't teach an animal like you would a human. But you can train an animal. This works on habit, not on abstract thought. Both animals and humans can be trai…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless you use an extremely narrow definition of "thinking" (yours is not commonly accepted among animal researchers, and is IMO too tautological to be useful), this is clearly disproven by decades of animal cognition research. Animals can form future-oriented plans, engage in risk management activities, can remember inventories of items stored in safekeeping locations, develop "cultural" dialects to their vocalizati…
Definition of thinking, like definition of sex, or any other biological trait cannot be broadened. That would yield nonsense. Thinking implies language. Without language it is feeling. Period. Learning from experience, map making and even planning, as one might see in case of machine learning and other branches of AI, does not require thinking. It is a lower level of activity, relative to abstract reasoning, like pat…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless you use an extremely narrow definition of "thinking" (yours is not commonly accepted among animal researchers, and is IMO too tautological to be useful), this is clearly disproven by decades of animal cognition research. Animals can form future-oriented plans, engage in risk management activities, can remember inventories of items stored in safekeeping locations, develop "cultural" dialects to their vocalizati…
Definition of thinking, like definition of sex, or any other biological trait cannot be broadened. That would yield nonsense. Thinking implies language. Without language it is feeling. Period. Learning from experience, map making and even planning, as one might see in case of machine learning and other branches of AI, does not require thinking. It is a lower level of activity, relative to abstract reasoning, like pat…
You mean like the patterns the puffer fish creates to attract mates?
No. They don't. Animals live in the moment and understand causal relationships within time and space. They don't abstract their thoughts and form assemblies or sciences or write histories. Though they understand causal laws better than humans sometimes. Hence you can't teach an animal like you would a human. But you can train an animal. This works on habit, not on abstract thought. Both animals and humans can be trai…
One day, when I found the dog looking excitedly down a drain I said 'Rats!'. Now if I say 'Rats?' she goes and looks. I know she is thinking - 'I lost a rat down there once and I'd desperately love to make its acquaintance again'.
I do not think that there is much difference between the way we and other animals think. We get confused in the same way and even subconscious things like 'infectious yawn' see to pass freely to the horse and the dog and back to me. Some people have a hard time accepting that animals do think and whereas I recognize the easy peril of anthropomorphising subjects - I also suspect a political unwillingness and discomfiture in accepting animal intelligence.
Obligatory: https://img.ifcdn.com/images/e7aa1c63573be10d2cb7b18edc55b0d...
We consider that animals are of a lesser species so that we can take advantage of them without any "legal or moral" consequences. Like we eat animals on a regular basis. We do deadly trial medicines on them. We raise animals against their will (like birds) and cage them.
I'm always afraid that if I knew what my cat was thinking I'd be disappointed. Like "I wonder if I can kill and eat him?"
I'm always afraid that if I knew what my cat was thinking I'd be disappointed. Like "I wonder if I can kill and eat him?"
Cats and Dogs are very aware of human beings, and no, they are not interested in killing or eating you.