The Complexity of the Animal Mind Do animals think? This question has been debated for centuries and no clear answer has yet to be decided. By looking at television, comic books, and children’s literature it would seem that animals do think and act intelligently. The fictional characters are given human movements, behavior, and language. In contrast, science, philosophy, and many other academic fields do not believe animals to think, feel, or behave intelligently. Animals are merely machines that have neither feelings nor conscious thought (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). René Descartes first expressed the view of animals as machines in the early 1600s. It was not until Charles Darwin speculated about animal mental experience …show more content…
Terrace (1984) believed that Washoe’s multi-word requests were not grammatical. They were merely “creative juxtapositions of signs” (Terrace, 1984). This was also found to be the case in other chimpanzees—Nim, Ally, Booee—along with Koko the gorilla. These animals were showing signs of learning and possible signs of thinking. Upon later review of the video footage from the teaching sessions, Terrace (1984) found that an interaction between the primate and handler caused the signing. The trainers gave unintentional cues causing the primate to make a certain response in order to receive a reward. Boysen, Rumbaugh, and Savage-Rumbaugh (1978) express the view “that there is no evidence, other than richly-interpreted anecdote, to suggest that Washoe and other signing apes are producing anything more than short-circuited iconic sequences.” This data confirms that primates were not thinking about the words, but became classically conditioned to respond. Other animals have not shown any language learning abilities. Is there any evidence that animals think without language? Yes, there are two studies with elephants that display thinking. First, young male elephants in Africa formed groups in order to raid villages. These “problem elephants” (Hoare, 2001) intentionally raided the crop fields of villages located on the edge of their territory. The elephants did not attack individually, but only in groups. Hoare (2001) noted that
The article Animals Mind by Virginia Morell claim the idea that animals are smart. Virginia talk about Irene a recently graduated from Harvard University who experimented with a gray parrot named Alex. Irene teach Alex to reproduce sound of the English language. Alex learned to talk and count to six and also he can difference flavors and colors. Virginia said that animals are capable to think, and they can learn things from humans. The author point dogs understand human’s forms of communication. She also suggests that animals has a higher mental abilities: good memories and also creatively. Virginia support the main idea that animals are smart. If animals can learn and memorize and understand signs is because they can think. So animals have
This video is about The Behaving Brain; it explains how the brain and amnesia work. According to the video, neurons duties are to receive information from other cells, process this information, and transmitting it to the rest of the body. This is done by traveling through dendrites, to the soma, to the axon, to the terminal buttons. Constant nerve flow helps regulate our metabolism, temperature, and respiration. It also enables learning and the ability to comprehend. The brain is connected to the brain stem, which is connected to the cerebellum, which is connected to the limbic system. The limbic system is made up of the amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus, and thalamus. The cerebrum is the largest part of the brain, where things are
When I was taking psychology 101, we were tasked with an animal metacognition research project. Metacognition is the ability to anylize our thoughts. In other words, to be aware of our existence and our selves in the world. While conducting research, I found a very special case of a primate. This primate's name was Koko. It's thought that Koko has been one of the few primates that has been able to master a certain degree of sign language. Many think its only a case of watching and repeating, but many experiments have been conducting to reinforce the idea that Koko can actually make her own decisions based on physical cues. A very interesting case, yet theres still not a clear answer among scientists as to weather any non-human species poceses
There are many reasons on why I support his claim. For instance, The article states, “They feel pain, suffer,and experience stress, affection, excitements and even love.” This can change the way we see animals because animals are just like humans with the same emotions and feelings. Animals are also very similar with cognitive abilities as humans. For
Have you ever heard a parrot repeat what a human has said. Is this a sign of intelligence or is it mimic. I believe that animals are intelligent. Animals use their intelligence to find food, a mate, and a home.
The Bonobo monkey can learn and use language. In Des Moines, Iowa, a twenty six year old Bonobo Kanzi, can communicate through many symbols. As it states in Source one,”... the symbols refer to familiar objects…” This sentence shows that Kanzi has been trained to recognize everyday objects that resemble the many symbols. Kanzi combined symbols to create larger meanings.
4. One of the most important thinking abilities that humans have that other animals apparently do not have is the ability to
Jeremy Rifkin provides many scientific experiments done on animals to support his claims of animals being similar to humans. I do not agree, animals may have characteristics and abilities to enhance some skills but they do not compare to the cognitive mentality of humans. Animals react based on instincts and energy. Although Rifkin uses the gorilla named Koko, Koko was an exception, she was involved in a controlled experiment. Humans react on cognitive thinking, if they were to react based on feelings or instincts one would be in a huge pickle.
According to Descartes’s language-test argument, he was a firm believer that animals and non-human deities are incapable of thought. Therefore, animals do not have minds. Descartes believes that one of the main components that separate a human from an animal is that humans are capable of using language to communicate and animals are not. In a way, it seems as though he sees animals as robotic creatures that do not possess a soul or a mind like humans do. He sees the actions of animals as being caused by their instincts rather than rational thought. I personally believe that animals do have minds, the only difference is that humans are more capable of complex cognition whereas animals are less intelligent in comparison and have a more simple
One reason that i believe that animals can learn and use language is that scientists have shown that they can. In the article “Speaking Bonobo”, scientists were able to teach Kanzi, a bonobo, actually learned how to communicate using various symbols. He along with seven other bonobos are now living inside of a house where they use what they have been taught to do what humans would consider normal day-to-day activities, like using the microwave and opening doors. The bonobos are shown to be able to reach stage four of the language spectrum when Kanzi and his sister actually communicated vocally with each
Are movies able to think? This question is usually answered with no or how would a movie even think? Although these answers aren't particularly wrong, there's another answer to that question that mixes things up a bit. Yes. The camera's point of view and a two dimensional screen are usually all we get out of a movie. Bits and pieces of what characters are really thinking are shown, nothing too in depth or complicated about it. However, ‘Inside Out’ is the exception. ‘Inside Out’ makes it possible to see into the mind of a character.
In the story "Can Animals Feel and Think?" it said that people think animals are just "animals." When people
One of the most controversial topics in modern philosophy revolves around the idea of non-human animals being considered human people. Controversy over what makes up an actual person has been long debated. However, society deems it as a set of characteristics. The average person normally does not realize how complicated a question this is, and in fact many scientists, philosophers, and individuals will side differently on this specific topic. I personally do not believe that animals are capable of being human people, but throughout this argumentative paper I will address critical views presented from multiple philosophers on why this seems to be the case.
The chapter states that if animals are conscious, their conscious level probably varies from the simplest feelings to thinking about the common problems they can face, and ways to avoid it.
The best example for this is that of a baby. Newborns have no capability of the use of language. But they still know how to ‘think’ as they know what is happiness or what is pain. Nature has made them born with a language-independent system for thinking about objects. Another example that is applicable here is that people, sometimes, think visually and do not need language to give them information about the visual world. They can look at a person’s face and make a hypothesis of the emotion that they see.