pepperlandgirl

In my philosophy book we're discussing the book Why God Won't Go Away. The author uses the example of an antelope to illustrate a point. In his analogy, he points out that an antelope will eat until it hears a noice in the underbrush. The antelope will instantly become alert, but unless a lion appears quickly, it will ignore the noise and continue eating. IOW, it only reacts. It doesn't think ahead and plan. Contrast that to a hunter walking alone in the woods who hears a sound in the underbrush. Earlier, the hunter saw an old leopard track, and the hunter had been chased by a leopard before. Therefore, the hunter, through some complicated brain fuctions, panics and runs.
The point is, humans can think abstractly and animals cannot. (the human will run from the leopard whether or the not the leopard is actually there.)
This brought up the discussion of whether or not the antelope does think abstractly. The Prof and most of the class argued that the antelope is actually smarter than the human for not running when there was no clear danger. I pointed out that the antelope isn't smarter, it just didn't have a sense that there could be danger, unlike the human who has seen the tracks and had the past experience.
Basically the arguement came down to "Well, animals are just as smart as humans, wejust don't know it yet." I think this is a rather foolish stance, but hey, what do I know?

Anyway, I think my question is embedded in this post somewhere. But I'll try to clarify. Is there currently any evidence that animals can think abstractly, plan for unexpected events, and learn to do things that are not based on instinct? (I should also clarify that I am not talking about chimps, etc. The class didn't make a distinction between animals...they were clear they meant all animals.)

Peez

Hi,

There are three points that I wish to make. First, humans are animals, so you should perhaps ask whether any non-human animals think abstractly. Second, you will need to provide a clear definition of abstract thinking. It seems to me that "planning for unexpected events" is a contradiction, and any dog can learn to do things that are not instinctual. Third, this doesn't seem to have anything to do with evolution/creation. I should point out that there are many organisms which have traits that other organisms do not have, this is not a problem for evolution.

Peez

MrDarwin

A very real problem is how you could determine whether or not animals can think abstractly in the first place. You can't ask them, only observe how they react under certain conditions. Any conclusions about what goes on inside their brains have to be by inference. Same goes for animal "emotions".

pepperlandgirl

You're right Peez, I didn't form this as carefully as I wanted to....

One-Abstract thinking was pretty much defined by my analogy...that's how it was defined in the book. The human animal can think "There might be a leopard, I better run" whereas the antelope will only run if he actually hears/smells/sees the antelope, right?
Two-In the class, this actually had a lot to do with evolution, because were discussing how the human brain evolved to that poitn. Unfortunately, nobody in the class actually understands how evolution workds. But that's neither here nore there. I think our brains evolved to be larger and more capable of thought that is not instinctual. They believe that evolution has nothing to do with thinking capabilities. I guess I forgot to mention that any info on how the human brains evolved in relation to animal brains would be helpful.
Three-I don't think non-human animals can learn the same way humans can. That's one of the questions I have.

Mr.Darwin, what can we infer from animal behaivor as far as brain activity goes?

Late_Cretaceous

I am convinced that there are a lot of people who can't (or just plain don't) think abstractly at all.

Mageth

The author uses the example of an antelope to illustrate a point. In his analogy, he points out that an antelope will eat until it hears a noice in the underbrush. The antelope will instantly become alert, but unless a lion appears quickly, it will ignore the noise and continue eating.

And he knows no antelope has ever run when a lion doesn't appear, how?

Perhaps the antelopes are "smart" enough to know that running through the brush is a good way to come upon a predator unexpectedly. Staying where you are when no predator is visible may be the safer alternative. Perhaps it's us who aren't very smart by running?

Further, if one antelope runs, any other antelopes (and other animals) will usually run as well, even though they don't see the predator.

There are some kinds of antelope that, when they see a pride of lions, will watch and parallel/follow the lions if the lions move off. As long as they can see the lions, the lions pose little danger to them. Whether this is purely instinctual or the antelopes "know" that invisible lions are more dangerous than visible lions, I don't know.

Peez

I realize that it is difficult to define abstract thought, but I think that it is important to do so in order to address your question. That we have to resort to an analogy suggests that we are not really clear on what abstract thought is, and without this clarity it becomes very difficult to answer the question. Typically, creationists will try to define it as what humans do and other animals don't, rather than coming up with a good definition and then working out who does it. I can see two separate issues here: could the human brain evolve from a non-human brain, and is the human brain capable of certain types of processes ("abstract thought") that non-human brains are not capable of? These are distinct questions. The first might be seen as a test of weather or not humans could have evolved, while the second would not address the possibility of evolution at all. What do you mean by "the same way humans can"? We cannot go anywhere until you are clearer about what it is that we are talking about.

Peez

pangloss

Chimps have been shown to understand that models are representative of actual things. They have been observed teaching symbolic language to other chimps without human intervention. They have even been seen pointing (MIT linguist Steve Pinker wrote in one of his recent books that chimps cannot do this. He should have checked the literature...).

Or isn't that abstract enough?

gallo

I don't know about antelope. But I have seen my cat in the back yard go into stalking mode in a strange way. When a bird lands on the fence, the cat doesn't try to sneak across the open lawn at the bird, instead it will run away from the bird, towards the house, then turn 90 degrees and run across the yard to the side, then along the side fence to the flower bed in the corner. At that point, it stalks slowly along the bottom of the fence, where the bird can't see it, towards where the bird is.

So is the cat thinking abstractly?

[ May 08, 2002: Message edited by: gallo ]</p>

Mageth

I watched my cat pick up a toy, drop it in a shoe box, bat it around, and take it back out again.

Chimps have also been observed solving problems, such as how to get to a suspended banana. The chimp had to collect several boxes, stack them up under the banana, and use a stick to knock the banana down. Figuring that out took a bit of abstraction.