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Can we know what animals are thinking?

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Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#31

Post by csomar »

lngnmn wrote: post #12
_dps wrote: post #7

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 are being downvoted because you are making strong claims without having anything to back it up. You are free to have your own definitions of things but people like to have the same. This helps in carrying on a useful conversation.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#32

Post by XorNot »

jdavis703 wrote: post #30
csomar wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cats and Dogs are very aware of human beings, and no, they are not interested in killing or eating you.

As someone who gets chased by a dog at least once a month on my daily commute I'm pretty sure they do want to eat me. Maybe a couple are just trying to herd me but I think you underestimate their prey drive.

A lot of cities have a feral cat problem. Very few have a feral dog problem, because a feral dog problem rapidly becomes a feral dog pack problem, and it turns out a pack of feral dogs is pretty good at hunting people.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#33

Post by dTal »

lngnmn wrote: post #12
_dps wrote: post #7

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…

Why don't you just call what you are talking about "language", instead of contradicting what literally everyone else means by "thinking"?

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#34

Post by csomar »

jdavis703 wrote: post #30
csomar wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cats and Dogs are very aware of human beings, and no, they are not interested in killing or eating you.

As someone who gets chased by a dog at least once a month on my daily commute I'm pretty sure they do want to eat me. Maybe a couple are just trying to herd me but I think you underestimate their prey drive.

I'm pretty sure they are not (unless it is a pitbull or something). Most breeds of dogs will not attack humans. They are aware of the difference in physical strength.

Also, if they are real aggressive, I assume a catastrophe has already happened or is in the making (especially with a child?). The authorities have not intervened yet?

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#35

Post by lisper »

jdavis703 wrote: post #30
csomar wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cats and Dogs are very aware of human beings, and no, they are not interested in killing or eating you.

As someone who gets chased by a dog at least once a month on my daily commute I'm pretty sure they do want to eat me. Maybe a couple are just trying to herd me but I think you underestimate their prey drive.

> I'm pretty sure they do want to eat me.

I don't know if you're being flippant or not, but the desire to eat humans has long been bred out of the domestic animal gene pool (and, frankly, out of most of the wild animal gene pool as well). The dogs who are chasing you almost certainly just want to establish their dominance over you and defend their territories. It's also possible that they want to play.

But any dog that is chasing you, or any other human, needs to be put on a leash. You should have a chat with the dog's owner and point out to them, politely but firmly, that an off-leash dog chasing people s serious liability risk for them. And if the dog doesn't have an owner you should call you local animal control.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#36

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 »

I think the more rational position would be that animals do think, as we are animals, and we think. To claim that animals do not think has no basis outside of our own condescending perspective. If we cannot prove one way or another then I feel my position is the more rational and should be the default position.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#37

Post by tpeo »

sddfd wrote: post #11
lngnmn wrote: post #5

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…

It's quite convenient to think that, because we eat animals. I'm not a vegetarian, I enjoy steak and pork chops a lot. But I think animals, especially cows and pigs, are more conscious of their existence than we like to think. I tend to agree that speech plays a central role in how our thoughts are organized, but I think the importance of being able to articulate oneself /with language/ as a measure of consciousness…

I don't see how it would be "convenient", since it doesn't seem necessary that an animal be conscious for us to require ourselves to not harm it out of a moral concern.

Babies are either unconscious or have a very low degree of consciousness, but infanticide is still morally abhorrent.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#38

Post by Xcelerate »

As someone who isn't a vegetarian (and who feels guilty eating bacon if I start thinking about it too much), I can't help but to wonder if eating meat will be considered the "barbaric" practice of this generation for future generations. I'm sure previous generations didn't consider their barbaric practices to be such at the time.

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#39

Post by danielam »

While the particularities may be interesting, much of what's said isn't surprising (though for Cartesians, it may be, and the author does throw Descartes' name around a few times). There is a great deal of confusion about this subject and a number of philosophical errors in the comments (w.r.t. language, religion, qualia, zombies, etc). For those who do want some perspective, I recommend starting with Feser's introductory book "Philosophy of Mind" [0] as well as a series of blog posts he's written on the subject (such as [1] and [2], as well as a blog post with a long list of links on the subject and related subjects [3]).

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Beginners-Guide-Edward-Fes...

[1] http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/04/animal-souls-part-i....

[2] http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/08/animals-are-consciou...

[3] http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/05/mind-body-problem-ro...

Re: Can we know what animals are thinking?

#40

Post by dTal »

csomar wrote: post #27
jbuzbee wrote: post #6

Obligatory: https://img.ifcdn.com/images/e7aa1c63573be10d2cb7b18edc55b0d...

I'd disagree and say that animals do in fact "talk" or convey meaning. I have raised multiple dogs and with time your understand their needs: I want to eat, I want to play, I want to show you something (or alert you of something). These are the three things that most dogs will learn to convey to you. We consider that animals are of a lesser species so that we can take advantage of them without any "legal or moral" co…

>We raise animals against their will

To be fair, I don't remember being asked either.

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