Do animals think?

Wasn't sure where to put this, so medical sounded best.

For whatever reason I JUST thought of this now in my life. I was wondering if it's proven animals like domestic dogs and cats think, or wild animals. Not just instincts, but if they have a real thought process. If they do, then how do they understand it, since surely they don't know a language, the knowledge of what things are around them so they'd have no idea how to interpret their thoughts it seems. Or if they can't think, say so.

Hello Friend:

I do think animals do think. I know studies done with monkies,
had proven they can communicate and using computers they also
can talk and I think there is a gorrila that uses sing language to
communicate in a zoo some were.
When it comes to cats and dogs, I think they can think because my dog
a female Rottwailer starts to jump up and down when I get home,because
she wants to get in from the backyard to play. She also knows when I'm
about to give her a bath,she will not come any were close to me.I hope this helps.

It sort of does, but my main question was how do they make sense of it? How do they realize what they're thinking? Animals don't know language, and thinking isn't instinct...so how do they do it?

I have to say at least some animals clearly think dolphins, Killer whales, Apes. You cant say animals "don't know a language" because some clearly do and have some rather complex ones. Killer whales for example not only communicate with a rather complex Language but even have different dialects depending on where they are from.

Lesser animals are much harder to determine because they often communicate in exotic and alien ways to us. Ants for example can communicate a common message to millions using only smells. We still dont really understand how this works. Like when a million army ants decide to move to better hunting grounds. Who and how is the chemical message started and decided? Does the queen make the choice or does the entire colony cast their chemical vote and majority decides??

Hello Friends:

I forgot to tell you that wolves also communicate,they
"tell" each other when to move, to were to move,were is water,
were game can be found and even the weather.
Have anyone here had heard when a wolf howls and another
wolf answers in the distance! They are communicating!!

[edit on 2/6/2006 by warriorwolfpr]

Do animals think ?

Well , first of all one does not need a language to interpret their thoughts . For example ... Babies can think and have self-awarness but they do not know a language . They can dream and feel emotions and understand them . Stuff like their parents yelling or hunger and warmth .

There is also only 3 animals who are proven to have self-awarness ( If thats what were talking about ) and those three speices are :
Human
Chimpanzee
Orangutan

Whales , Dolphins and Apes are not proven to have self-awarness .
But maybe when day they will be .

Dolphins have indeed been proven to be self aware. In scientific terms, self-awareness is observing an animal's reaction to its mirror image. If the animal is able to realize that the image is of itself, then it is said to be self-aware.

These experiments have been conducted one bottle-nose dolphins and they have passed.

www.earthtrust.org...

Do animals think? Well, yes... We think.

I would hazzard a guess, that every animal think's. Some may not be as self aware as human's are, but that of itself is no reason to say they don't think. Just because animal's don't seem to think in the same manner a human would think, also again, is no reason to say they don't think. If we ever meet an alien, his way of thinking would be just as alien to us as our favorite pet's way's of thinking are.

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
Dolphins have indeed been proven to be self aware. In scientific terms, self-awareness is observing an animal's reaction to its mirror image. If the animal is able to realize that the image is of itself, then it is said to be self-aware.

These experiments have been conducted one bottle-nose dolphins and they have passed.

www.earthtrust.org...

Oops , my bad .

The only things that are alive and dont think are insects.
Animals think how ever they do not act by constient, if they would back up or understand something it is because they would fear something.

So doing something in the animal world like killing it's ok think
They lak that special part where they separate bad from good.
Animals dont feel sorry, only afraid also they dont think like what they will do tomorrow.
They think and act on the moment.
Migration is a instinctual part, simply i feel too cold i head in other parts.
There are no animals thinking okay i'm going to leave earllier this seson
or i'll find some how a way to stay here i just need to warm my body up.

So lol animals dont make plans and they dont think on long term impact, they dont think of tomorrow.
Advanced animals like dolphins apes can brake the rule a little sometimes
out of fear or reward, but still no plans for them either

I think this is what separated man from other animals the ability to think in time and it evolved from there on, thats how civilisations take place.





[edit on 6-2-2006 by pepsi78]

Alrighty then, but in the case of whales and dolphins and such, how could they ALL know the same language and whateverything means. That would have to mean their born knowing it wouldn't it?

SFRemmy,

Are you born knowing how to communicate at the level you do today? Even if another species was born with the gift of language immediatly, for it's species of course, in a way, that would make them more advanced then human's in the manner of language. We're not born with the ability to voice what we think immediatly.

pepsi78,

Many species of insect's, for instance bee's not only have a language of their own, but can also recognize a person's face. How do you know what an animal think's? Are you sure 100% animal's don't think about the welfare of their welbeing and offspring's well being? You have to remember, animal's aren't human's. They think differently then human's, they have different reaction's to emotion's then we do. They still think. They still dream.

Human's have a wider range of abilities then animal's. Better adaptability to new enviroment's. Strong sense of self awareness. Higher intelligence. This is what seperate's us from lower animal's, but we're still animal's. Do animal's think like human's? No, they think like other member's of their species think. Do we think like a bird, an insect, a crocadile? No, we think how our own specie's think's. If an alien being come's to earth, million's of year's more advanced then us, by some of the defenition's given here, they would think we're lowly animal's incapable true understanding and thinking. By their viewpoint, they would be correct!

The only thing that i had sustained is that animals do not think in the future.
Think act reaction on spot.
A animal if he is sleepy he will sleep, if he wants to drink he will but all on spot.
He can forget and remeber that his thirsty for example.
But rational is planing, a animal will never plan he cant.
A animal can make decisions only on spot when his faced with them.
For migrateing it's the same, he feels cold so he migrates there is nothing planed.
Rational decisions includes planing, of course planing includes artificial evolution.
For example birds may build nests, but one speces will always build it the same while humans will build it in alot of ways.
SO it's found that its not artificial evolution but genes at humans we can say yes we are capabile of evolving things.
Natural has in natural evolution like a flower that evolves to stages.
And artificial evolution where man makes evolution posible by tools.


With the laguege it's in our genes it's genetic the genes will change at a step of years and year of existance so it's caryed by gens.
Just like with cancer if you had problems in your familly you might get it.
So the evolution of our genes is always a factor.
When man first was he didint know how to comunicate even if some one showed him to.
Why because he was primitive.
later man started makeing plans and started gathering in groups, the first
thing that started man but i can be rong is organisation by thinking in time.
For example planed to all meet by sign when the sun set or in the morning
to go hunting.

Animals dont have that because it's the stucture, it's primitive.
Take apes okay so they say we come from monkey busines.
You might teach it some tricks but it will stop there it has a limit to what it can do.
That also brings god in but i dont want to start on this topic, this is not the place.




[edit on 7-2-2006 by pepsi78]

But rational is planing, a animal will never plan he cant.

Many species do plan. Predator's plan their hunt's pretty well enough. Some species have long term memory, they don't easily forget.

Rational decisions includes planing, of course planing includes artificial evolution. For example birds may build nests, but one speces will always build it the same while humans will build it in alot of ways.

So, because human's have more sense of creativity then bird's that mean's they're able to plan and birds aren't? was nest building alway's just an instinct for birds and building shelter's for human's was never an instinct?

I don't know about ALL animals, but the ones I have come into contact with certainly DO think. I am sure their thoughts are very different from mine, all species are wired differently for living.

There was a study done that stated dogs can understand the language as well as a 2 or 3 year old child. My dog prooves that everyday.

He thinks about going outside, eating, sleeping, moving so my toddler wont run him over with her little Noddy car, stuff like that.

I wish he would think more about my car payment and things like that. But alas, he's not wired that way......

Many species do plan. Predator's plan their hunt's pretty well enough. Some species have long term memory, they don't easily forget.

Yes but not like you think sort of" that is my prade i will come later for it i'll let it eat some more grass first"
It's a instinct hunters instinct just like maternal instinct it may involve some thinking in the proccess along the way but still primitive.
When you walk on a road and you see it turning left what do you do walk forward in to the wall or go has the road is, and it's not thinking at all
you just take the decision by moment , just let's say you put your hand on fire and by instinct you remove it because it's burning you.
You learned how to swim do you offen think when you swim?, or u just usualy rotate your hand in the water because it's the instinct of not going down.
How many rotations of your hand when swiming do you think of?

So, because human's have more sense of creativity then bird's that mean's they're able to plan and birds aren't? was nest building alway's just an instinct for birds and building shelter's for human's was never an instinct?

Maternal instinct is an instinct isnt it?
Just like you swim birds build nests
I tend to agree with you but not all the way.
To refere to it has instincts i can say that no animal has done something else than it's specific doing.
1 For example birds build nests but they dont build anithing else.
2 Birds build a specific type of nest of it's kind and not other kinds
What if monkeys planed a gatherig at 11 aclock sharp "hey at 11 be there dotn let me down okay", is that really posible?
Do animals ask them selfs what am i going to eat tomorow, i think i'll go for
the atilope.
No they dont they eat what eve they find.
It's posible for planing has you say for an animal but it's partlly instinctual.




[edit on 7-2-2006 by pepsi78]

[edit on 7-2-2006 by pepsi78]

When I first started to learn how to swim, I did have to think about it. It was a natural instinct due to my enviroment that required me to swim. Some animal's already know when they're born due to their genetic trait's brought about by the enviroment. I don't know if bird's have always built nest's throughout the history of their specie's, but somewhere along the line, one species of bird built the first nest for some reason or another. If we could look back through time, I'm sure we'd find an evolution of sort's in nest building. Some bird's today weave intiricate nest's. How'd they come to weave such complex structure's? Why did primitive man start building shelter's?

Primitive man, prior to our current form most likely also didn't think of what they were going to eat the next day. They planned their hunt's as it occured. They picked fruit's as they found them. Same way animal's today do. Something occured that allowed the human species to become more self aware and more creative. This lead to many advances in our way's of thinking and language.

Animal's still think, just as we do. Animal's are still driven by instinct's, just as we are. The only true thing seperating us is our stronger sense of self awareness and our ability to be creative. You give those two trait's to an animal, and they to will start to develope the way we have.

Yep, I gotta agree - animals definitely think. Consider Koko the gorilla, who learned sign language and was able to communicate abstract ideas with her human handlers. She was definitely smarter than some of the people I deal with every day!

Animals are lacking the ego-subconscious to think and process thought. So they do not think. Animals may seem smart for a varitey of reasons:

They have natural insticts coded in the DNA of each and every animal. If its a dog, whatever breed, it has certain charactoristics in thir DNA by the pedigree of the animal. For instance, a labrador, his insticts are to be a reciever and loyal to their master. This was enbedded in the DNA over the time of their pedigree from New Zealand where they were breeded.

Animals throughout their lives, through their experiences, start to form a structure to the instincts, it is only a conisistency agenda. Like when you say the word "treat" the dog knows, from over many times of saying it, that he is getting a snack, and may even run to the place where they are stored.

What is the ego-subconscious mean?

Say a horse is outside in the rain, thundering and lightening everwhere. The horse is like, "Damn this sucks!"

But the horse does not think, "Why am I not in the stable, what did I do wrong, will this happen again tomorrow?"

That is what seperates us from animals, the ego-subconscious, along with many other variables.

AAC

Animals throughout their lives, through their experiences, start to form a structure to the instincts, it is only a conisistency agenda. Like when you say the word "treat" the dog knows, from over many times of saying it, that he is getting a snack, and may even run to the place where they are stored.

Lol, same for man. Bad example. How you describe ego-subconscious sounds like self awareness to me.