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Do animals "think"

Started by Glitch, March 24, 2014, 07:43:10 PM

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gentle_dissident

Quote from: Baruch on February 25, 2016, 11:06:20 PM
appropriate supplements from the Health Food store.
I've been fine without them all this time. People think I'm about 10 years younger than I am. I feel like a mutant in many ways. Perhaps being a vegetarian is one of those ways.

I decided to be a vegetarian because it felt right to me. I never read up on it. People compare my thoughts and actions to movements and their leaders, and assume that's where I get my ideas. I read craft books. However, It's flattering when I get compared to Dawkins, Chomsky, or other famous people I've never read.

Mermaid

Quote from: Mike Cl on February 25, 2016, 01:01:47 PMAnimals cannot think better than people.
This is a pretty decisive statement here. How do you know that? What is "thinking better", anyway?
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

Baruch

#152
Bioethics really should be a separate string.

A total pacifist would go past a Jain's abstaining ... killing germs in your body is genocide ... oh my!  Jains work hard to avoid accidentally killing insects.  If you have lice, you leave them alone.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

drunkenshoe

Quote from: Mermaid on February 26, 2016, 02:41:49 AM
This is a pretty decisive statement here. How do you know that? What is "thinking better", anyway?

Sometimes I think, people look at this like 'oh they do not have the toys we do, we win!'. 
"science is not about building a body of known 'facts'. ıt is a method for asking awkward questions and subjecting them to a reality-check, thus avoiding the human tendency to believe whatever makes us feel good." - tp

josephpalazzo

Quote from: Mermaid on February 26, 2016, 02:41:49 AM
This is a pretty decisive statement here. How do you know that? What is "thinking better", anyway?

Can a dolphin say, "I think, therefore I am"?


[spoiler] and it has to be said in English...[/spoiler]

Mike Cl

Quote from: Mermaid on February 26, 2016, 02:41:49 AM
This is a pretty decisive statement here. How do you know that? What is "thinking better", anyway?
Well, no, not as decisive as I indicated, I guess.  What does 'better' mean.  I was meant to be vague--so, I guess I'd amend that to say that animals 'think' and by that, I mean reason as well as just abstract thought, more than we have traditionally given them credit for.  I really don't know what 'better' would be.  Different, sure, but how different and in what ways.  We are only just now beginning to understand that that is an area deserving of more study.  Humans are animals, and it seems the more conservative one is in their own thinking the more apt they are to deny that fact.  So, we are not removed from the animal kingdom we are a part of it.  I find it impossible to believe that animals do not have empathy, sympathy, reasoning skills or the ability to think.  So, okay, I stand corrected.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

josephpalazzo

Quote from: stromboli on February 25, 2016, 09:19:24 PM
Blame evolution. Rabbit Cacciatore?  Mmmmm.



Do it with a light tomato sauce, garlic, onions, peppers, mushrooms, black olives, celery, capers... let it sim for an hour, and that meat just melts into your mouth, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, heaven...

stromboli

Need to buy a rifle so I can kill me some cottontails. Mmmmmm.

gentle_dissident

Some people take great delight in talking to me about killing and eating animals when they learn I'm a vegetarian. It's funny to them, because they think they're offending me. I appreciate them coming right out and telling me the kind of person they are.

josephpalazzo

Quote from: gentle_dissident on February 26, 2016, 11:17:49 AM
Some people take great delight in talking to me about killing and eating animals when they learn I'm a vegetarian. It's funny to them, because they think they're offending me. I appreciate them coming right out and telling me the kind of person they are.

Yes, we are very naughty. It's like having a nun, a woman dedicated to a sexless life, and you brag about your own sex life... just to let the other side know what it is they are missing. Anyhoos, no offense taken...

Cavebear

Quote from: josephpalazzo on February 26, 2016, 11:27:10 AM
Yes, we are very naughty. It's like having a nun, a woman dedicated to a sexless life, and you brag about your own sex life... just to let the other side know what it is they are missing. Anyhoos, no offense taken...

Mild apologies for resurecting an old topic, but animal "thinking" occurred to me today.  One cat loves to sit on the bathroom windowsill, but hates running water.  I shower there.  She has learned that if I take the towel off the rack, it means there will running water soon and she runs away. 

She has made an indirect connection to events.  That seems like a thought to me.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on March 14, 2017, 04:35:47 AM
Mild apologies for resurecting an old topic, but animal "thinking" occurred to me today.  One cat loves to sit on the bathroom windowsill, but hates running water.  I shower there.  She has learned that if I take the towel off the rack, it means there will running water soon and she runs away. 

She has made an indirect connection to events.  That seems like a thought to me.

Yes.  My mother's cat must be an anti-cat ... he runs to come see running water.  And yes, he has a full water bowl.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Mike Cl

If recognizing patterns is thinking then my furry children (dogs at this point) think.  I've always thought animals could think.  Any many make and use tools--have to think to do that.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Cavebear

Quote from: Mike Cl on March 14, 2017, 10:55:08 AM
If recognizing patterns is thinking then my furry children (dogs at this point) think.  I've always thought animals could think.  Any many make and use tools--have to think to do that.

Just read or saw (National Geographic?) about some monkeys that smash stones into flakes indistinguishable from the earliest human flakings.  They don't do anything with them we know of.  But maybe that's how it started.

Perhaps in any animal that uses tools (and there many), some thought starts a slow change that leads to another.  In fact, maybe it is the 2nd thought that is most important...
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

SGOS

Quote from: Cavebear on March 14, 2017, 11:09:52 AM
Perhaps in any animal that uses tools (and there many), some thought starts a slow change that leads to another.  In fact, maybe it is the 2nd thought that is most important...
I'm pretty sure animals think, but I don't believe they spend a lot of time pondering their place in the universe or "what it all means."  Thinking I see as being on a scale from one to ten.  Dogs are on that scale, although I hesitate to identify an exact number.