Just because your thinking doesn't mean you can't be eaten,by aliens or even some maybe not intelligent but still capable of eating you earth creatures.
Superior aliens...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x0BSgLKnSk
What do animals think?
- Thread starter don_equis
- Start date
Just because your thinking doesn't mean you can't be eaten,by aliens or even some maybe not intelligent but still capable of eating you earth creatures.
Superior aliens...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x0BSgLKnSk
are you sure with that? I think that thoughts are made of images, associations, feelings.. it's fancy.. only when you need to express your thoughts, to tell them or to write them they assume the form of symbolic language. but until you think to yourself, inside your head there are no language symbols. language is just the way to express thoughts, and absence of the language does not mean absence of the thoughts.
I thought only otters did that...:helpme:
Mr. Daystar
In a bell tower, watching you through cross hairs.
What are they thinking?......They're thinking, "what in the fuck is wrong with these people?!?!?!"
dick van cock
Closed Account
Funny, you asked right now! I was talking over this subject with one of my rabbits ("Boss") yesterday. He told me that human consciousness is overrated:
"By a peculiar weakness of human nature, people generally think too much about the opinion which others form of them; although the slightest reflection will show that this opinion, whatever it may be, is not in itself essential to happiness. Therefore it is hard to understand why everybody feels so very pleased when he sees that other people have a good opinion of him, or say anything flattering to his vanity. If you stroke a cat, it will purr; and, as inevitably, if you praise a man, a sweet expression of delight will appear on his face; and even though the praise is a palpable lie, it will be welcome, if the matter is one on which he prides himself. If only other people will applaud him, a man may console himself for downright misfortune or for the pittance he gets from the two sources of human happiness already discussed: and conversely, it is astonishing how infallibly a man will be annoyed, and in some cases deeply pained, by any wrong done to his feeling of self-importance, whatever be the nature, degree, or circumstances of the injury, or by any depreciation, slight, or disregard."
(Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life; ch. 4, sec. 1)
"By a peculiar weakness of human nature, people generally think too much about the opinion which others form of them; although the slightest reflection will show that this opinion, whatever it may be, is not in itself essential to happiness. Therefore it is hard to understand why everybody feels so very pleased when he sees that other people have a good opinion of him, or say anything flattering to his vanity. If you stroke a cat, it will purr; and, as inevitably, if you praise a man, a sweet expression of delight will appear on his face; and even though the praise is a palpable lie, it will be welcome, if the matter is one on which he prides himself. If only other people will applaud him, a man may console himself for downright misfortune or for the pittance he gets from the two sources of human happiness already discussed: and conversely, it is astonishing how infallibly a man will be annoyed, and in some cases deeply pained, by any wrong done to his feeling of self-importance, whatever be the nature, degree, or circumstances of the injury, or by any depreciation, slight, or disregard."
(Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life; ch. 4, sec. 1)
Well I am not sure of anything but the people who study the mind and thought believe that language is necessary for thinking. For example nobody remembers thing from when they were infants. It is believed that memories need a symbolic framework to exits or the memories are just vague feelings. Studies of people born blind and deaf also show that the period before language is a blank. Inspiration is still a wonder and come from many sources like the unconscious and feelings. But even during creativity the mind uses the meanings imbedded in language to make sense of whatever. The mind must assign meaning to what ever it encounters. If you can think without using the meanings you learn from infancy then you must be different from the human race. Thoughts come to language for take form. This is my understanding. To see what I mean checkout linguist Noam Chomsky.
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20021122.pdf
http://www.chomsky.info/books/mind01.htm
Dick, I must say your rabbit is brilliant, is he lop-eared or "regular" i have a theory...in any event, my cat Grissom was less eloquent:
"You know it's funny, I just feel like biting every once in a short while, it's nothing personal."
I thought it was funny he used the term personal (since it is based on being a person) maybe cats have their own word for that...I think I'll ask him next time he decides to go all anthropomorphic on me...
Facetious
Moderated
Interesting topic !
Growing up, I had always heard that animals can't reason. Yeah ? Well BS !!
I have a cat that can play most humans like a fiddle.
There is a human being under that fur coat . . . it's a bit . . . . well . . . different. He knows our every move, language, etc. ask me some questions.
Growing up, I had always heard that animals can't reason. Yeah ? Well BS !!
I have a cat that can play most humans like a fiddle.
There is a human being under that fur coat . . . it's a bit . . . . well . . . different. He knows our every move, language, etc. ask me some questions.
Maybe you have to ask what do you mean by 'thinking'. Animals know stuff, but they do not know they know. Nor can animals know things that they can only imagine, they cannot know what has not happened to them - that needs what some one above calls symbolic language. So animals cannot know about stuff that has not happened to them.
But something strikes me about symbolic language. I am profoundly deaf. To learn to read and write english I first had to learn some sign language. I wonder what would have happened if I had never learned it. I think I still would have developed some way to think. Maybe we are born with an ability to think in symbols even if we are never taught a particular symbolic language.
Also, I think (that word again) that say a dog 'thinks' differently to say a hen. A dog is much more intelligent than a hen - pretty stupid. And a hen think differently to say a worm?
Mel
But something strikes me about symbolic language. I am profoundly deaf. To learn to read and write english I first had to learn some sign language. I wonder what would have happened if I had never learned it. I think I still would have developed some way to think. Maybe we are born with an ability to think in symbols even if we are never taught a particular symbolic language.
Also, I think (that word again) that say a dog 'thinks' differently to say a hen. A dog is much more intelligent than a hen - pretty stupid. And a hen think differently to say a worm?
Mel
Until someone is capable of doing any translation with an animal, we'll never know. Do they have imaginations? I think so. Watch cats play and toy with dead mice or see a chimp use a twig for digging out termites. I know they dream. I had a dog that would make slight howls, whimper, growl, wag his tail and even move his feet while sleeping. Someone said animals dont have languages. Have you never seen any documentaries on doplhins, whales or elephants? Great arguments say they do. Maybe we are just too arrogant to believe they might.
dave_rhino
Closed Account
Agreed.
I'm not sure how anyone can say they know for sure that animals do or don't think.
Unless you are an animal, you don't know. No one does.
I'm pretty sure that my cats are thinking about how insane and clumsy I am...and about new places to hide to attack from when I walk by.
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