It is likely that animals have some kind of underlying grasp of concepts although it may be different from human beings, especially as it does not involve language.

Of course, it is not possible to grasp the experience of animals' mental states fully, but it does seem that communication is of a sophisticated level. There may be varying degrees, and my recent jokey question is do bed bugs have consciousness? They seem to have a strong instinctual will towards survival. It may come down to the varying degrees of evolution of consciousness in the various kingdoms, ranging from mineral, vegetable, animal and humans. Even within the categories it appears that there are vast differences in consciousness, intelligence and behaviour repertoires.

I can think of three major elements to rational thinking: its form is linguistic, its structure is logical, and its orientation is (ostensibly) self-interest (either direct or indirect). Under that definition, animals do not have rational thinking because they lack language. And intuitive thinking, which allows for action without explicit knowledge of the reasons for action is similarly excluded.

Animals do have communications systems though, and therefore skills, and human intuitive thinking can be a better (esp. faster) way of solving problems, avoiding danger, dealing with people etc. In fact, think about most real life conversations--they are almost entirely intuitive. Who's thinking explicitly about what to say next?

Person A: Hi, how are you?
Person B: (*I'm not so good but do I want this person to know that? I mean, do I really trust them? Probably not, so I should just lie and say I'm fine. But wait, lying is unethical, isn't it? I remember that Kantian thing. Yes, honesty is the best policy. No, wait, I'm being irrational. It's a white lie. No one gets hurt and I'm acting against my self-interest by being open with everyone, right? But Kant... Stop being nuts, even Kant would have said he's fine. The dude had huge books to write. He'd hardly stand here all day debating how to respond to what is any case just a non-literal customary linguistic tic with no real concern behind it... etc etc)

In fact, when you get right down to brass taxes, who's doing much rational thinking at all that leads to anything concrete? We do plenty of post hoc rationalizing to make us feel good about our irrational behaviour though.

Btw, I've renamed the thread to suit your OP and moved it to a more suitable category.

(+Obviously animals can behave rationally (monkey grabs nearest banana rather than farthest one and eats sooner--et voila, monkey behaved rationally), but that does not imply they are thinking rationally, seeing as thinking rationally requires the logical connection of concepts and that becomes slippery, indistinct, and somewhat incoherent without an appeal to human language. E.g. No form of animal communication inheres recursivity, negativity, hypotheticals etc. These are exclusive to human language.)

Do animals have rational thinking? — Athena

Of course.

Do animals have communication skills? — Athena

Of course.

Is intuitive thinking rational or maybe something better? — Athena

Intuition is a shortcut to an answer in the absence of sufficient evidence to draw a logical conclusion. It is based on recalled experience and knowledge.

In fact, when you get right down to brass taxes, who's doing much rational thinking at all that leads to anything concrete? We do plenty of post hoc rationalizing to make us feel good about our irrational behaviour though. — Baden

:up: :up:

Yeah, allegedly even some homo sapiens do. :monkey:

Yes, some animals can think rationally. It depends on how you define 'rationally' of course. If you define it as, 'the brain processing humans do', then its not. I don't ascribe to this definition, but many do implicitly.

Here is a crow using a stick to get food. Do you think this is rational?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjfrxkEpfX8

Here is a crow using a stick to get food. Do you think this is rational? — Philosophim

How can you assess rational thought, except through problem-solving? Problems arise in nature all the time and animals need to solve them in order to survive and reproduce successfully. Whoever's ancestors were able to solve most of their problems inherited the most sophisticated brains. These are the cognitive front runners, AFAWK. However, living things also have mental attributes other than rational intelligence that vary greatly in range and style and function, which are far more difficult to quantify and compare.

There is no big fat black line between one species and its nearest kin - evolution is an n-dimensional continuum. We inherited our intelligence, communication skills, mimicking ability, empathy, instincts and emotional repertoire from previous iterations of great ape.

In fact, when you get right down to brass taxes, who's doing much rational thinking at all that leads to anything concrete? We do plenty of post hoc rationalizing to make us feel good about our irrational behaviour though. — Baden

Post-hoc rationalisation probably was the original form of 'rational thinking', as social group-animals it was pretty important to justify/rationalize our actions.

So you know, it seems that Plato/Socrates (contra the Sophists) got us on the wrong track with this weird ideosyncratic notion of rational thinking to arrive at the truth.

Even within the categories it appears that there are vast differences in consciousness, intelligence and behaviour repertoires. — Jack Cummins

I remember when there was a lot of excitement about chimps recognizing their image in a mirror. Of course much more research has been done since then.

The ability to recognize one’s own reflection is shared by humans and only a few other species, including chimpanzees. However, this ability is highly variable across individual chimpanzees. In humans, self-recognition involves a distributed, right-lateralized network including frontal and parietal regions involved in the production and perception of action. The superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) is a system of white matter tracts linking these frontal and parietal regions. The current study measured mirror self-recognition (MSR) and SLF anatomy in 60 chimpanzees using diffusion tensor imaging. Successful self-recognition was associated with greater rightward asymmetry in the white matter of SLFII and SLFIII, and in SLFIII’s gray matter terminations in Broca’s area. We observed a visible progression of SLFIII’s prefrontal extension in apes that show negative, ambiguous, and compelling evidence of MSR. Notably, SLFIII’s terminations in Broca’s area are not right-lateralized or particularly pronounced at the population level in chimpanzees, as they are in humans. Thus, chimpanzees with more human-like behavior show more human-like SLFIII connectivity. These results suggest that self-recognition may have co-emerged with adaptations to frontoparietal circuitry.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5390703/#:~:text=The%20ability%20to%20recognize%20one's,highly%20variable%20across%20individual%20chimpanzees.

I can think of three major elements to rational thinking: its form is linguistic, its structure is logical, and its orientation is (ostensibly) self-interest (either direct or indirect). Under that definition, animals do not have rational thinking because they lack language. And intuitive thinking, which allows for action without explicit knowledge of the reasons for action is similarly excluded.

Animals do have communications systems though, and therefore skills, and human intuitive thinking can be a better (esp. faster) way of solving problems, avoiding danger, dealing with people etc. In fact, think about most real life conversations--they are almost entirely intuitive. Who's thinking explicitly about what to say next? — Baden

I know all that but hell will freeze over before I can explain it as well as you did. :heart:

:lol: My arguments are based on my own struggle with language and especially ordering my words so they make sense and rational thinking. Such as choosing the right words to title a thread. I am terrible at that.

I led a team of volunteers to help a young woman in a nursing home. When leaving, a young man with a very low IQ made it through a locked gate, that I could not get through because obviously the gate was locked and obviously it was necessary to have a code to get out of the secured building. But my dim-witted friend did not take time to think through the problem. He put his hand through the gate and opened it from the outside. Quite obviously our "thinking" can make us stupid. And if I were to be lost in the wilderness, I would want him to help me get out. I have known a few low IQ people who think more like animals and I mean this as a complement.

I knew a gentleman who ran from the WWII soldiers who killed everyone in his family. As a young child, he had to survive on his own in the forest. I asked him how he did that and he said he watched the animals and learned from them.

"Who's thinking explicitly about what to say next?" I am thrilled you got why I thought this thread was important. The more I thought about our thinking versus animals, the less sure I was about our own thinking! I know there is soooo much I do not know and how many books I try to read are over my head. I never habituated the steps of logical thinking so my struggle to learn seems futile. I have gone through life in a state of daydreaming and it is amazing I got this far.

But my dim-witted friend did not take time to think through the problem. He put his hand through the gate and opened it from the outside. — Athena

He was thinking rationally: looking at a problem and finding a solution. He did it quickly, because it was very simple problem. (One might question the rational thought-process of the genius who designed the gate.) Reason is nothing more complicated than finding the connection between cause and effect, then projecting the if-then dimension. A causes B; therefore, if I affect the function of A, then B alters accordingly.
Reason and one's relative facility in reasoning has very little to do with verbal proficiency or fluency. Individuals with too deep a regard for what is said by those who speak authoritatively are some times fooled into believing what they're told rather than what they themselves are able to discern.

Intuition is a shortcut to an answer in the absence of sufficient evidence to draw a logical conclusion. It is based on recalled experience and knowledge. — Vera Mont

I think Baden gave a good explanation of why all thinking is not equal to rational thinking.

We could get into what emotions have to do with our thinking and question how rational we are when we are emotional. The book "Emotional Intelligence" explains how emotions mess with our thinking, and the more recent study of what hormones have to do with emotions and judgment. I used to clean a bar and on football game nights, the bar would be trashed! Watching football increases a man's testosterone level, which results in more aggressive behavior than adding a few beers, reducing one's inhibition and I should have gotten a bonus for cleaning on those nights. :grin:

Your post triggered the next thought about experience and knowledge. Individually, we are different in our ability to learn. More dramatic is the fact that baboons like to eat termites as much as chimps. They watch the chimps make tools to fish the termites, but they do not imitate the behavior, although they want the termites just as much as the chimps. I think that is equal to me wanting to understand math, and I just don't get it.

I hope we think as much about how we think as we think about how another animal thinks. Intuition is not rational thinking because there is no language involved. My point about going through the gate is knowledge can prevent us from knowing.

Reason and one's relative facility in reasoning has very little to do with verbal proficiency or fluency. Individuals with too deep a regard for what is said by those who speak authoritatively are some times fooled into believing what they're told rather than what they themselves are able to discern. — Vera Mont

The argument about chimpanzees and their ability to communicate is more complex than whether they learn a language or they can not.

As a matter of learned culture, some Chimpanzees in the wild do have warning calls that identify a predator. In the learning stage, a young chimp may see a leaf fall and make the sound for an eagle, or see a wild pig and make the sound for a predator cat. The adults will look for the pedator and ignore the warning if they do not see it, or if they see it, they will repeat the warning. In time the young will make the correct sound at the correct time. Our cats and dogs may be very good at communicating with us but wolves do not have that kind of relationship with humans. The difference between domestic and non-domestic animals in the genes. Just as the learning difference between chimps and baboons is in the genes.

Here is a link explaining rational thinking requires language, not just warning sounds for predators.

Abstract
This article deals with the relations between language, thought, and rationality, and especially the role and status of assumptions about rationality in interpreting another's speech and assigning contents to her psychological attitudes—her beliefs, desires, intentions, and so on. Some large degree of rationality is required for thought. Consequently, that same degree of rationality at least is required for language, since language requires thought. Thought, however, does not require language. This article lays out the grounds for seeing rationality as required for thought, and it meets some recent objections on conceptual and empirical grounds. Furthermore, it gives particular attention to Donald Davidson's arguments for the Principle of Charity, according to which it is constitutive of speakers that they are largely rational and largely right about the world, and to Davidson's arguments for the thesis that without the power of speech one lacks the power of thought. https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/34534/chapter-abstract/292961457?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Post-hoc rationalisation probably was the original form of 'rational thinking', as social group-animals it was pretty important to justify/rationalize our actions.

So you know, it seems that Plato/Socrates (contra the Sophists) got us on the wrong track with this weird ideosyncratic notion of rational thinking to arrive at the truth. — ChatteringMonkey

Is it rational to believe illnesses are caused by the gods? Is it rational to believe a god created man from mud?

Do animals have rational thinking? Do animals have communication skills? Is intuitive thinking rational or maybe something better? — Athena

I suppose a bare minimum has to be symbolic representation akin to something that arises with language use. Animals do not have language, if by "language" one has in mind propositional knowledge.

There may well be other aspects to thinking that are not related to language, but we don't know what they are. We are back to speaking about these things through language. So, until we have some proposal as to what non-linguistic thought is, we are stuck.

As for communication? Yes, they do, and they seem to be highly efficient at it. Look at bees or birds or dolphins, they have some amazing capacities for communication that we lack.

Intuition is somewhat hard to describe. I don't think it's better than non-intuitive thinking, just different. Though we should keep in mind that our intuitions can be quite wrong.

suppose a bare minimum has to be symbolic representation akin to something that arises with language use. Animals do not have language, if by "language" one has in mind propositional knowledge.

There may well be other aspects to thinking that are not related to language, but we don't know what they are. We are back to speaking about these things through language. So, until we have some proposal as to what non-linguistic thought is, we are stuck.

As for communication? Yes, they do, and they seem to be highly efficient at it. Look at bees or birds or dolphins, they have some amazing capacities for communication that we lack.

Intuition is somewhat hard to describe. I don't think it's better than non-intuitive thinking, just different. Though we should keep in mind that our intuitions can be quite wrong. — Manuel

Very nicely said and so the debate goes on. I had to look for an explanation of propositional knowledge because that is a new term for me.

Propositional knowledge is a type of knowledge that involves knowing facts, and is also known as declarative or descriptive knowledge. It can be defined as justified true belief, which means that a person has propositional knowledge if they:
Believe something to be true
Are justified in believing it to be true
The thing they believe is actually true

Propositional knowledge can cover a wide range of subjects, including: Science, Geography, Mathematics, Self-knowledge, and Any other field of study.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declarative_knowledge#:~:text=Propositional%20knowledge%20asserts%20that%20a,referred%20to%20as%20knowledge%2Dthat.

Having the right language for this discussion is very helpful. Thank you, Manuel.

Yes, some animals can think rationally. It depends on how you define 'rationally' of course. If you define it as, 'the brain processing humans do', then its not. I don't ascribe to this definition, but many do implicitly.

Here is a crow using a stick to get food. Do you think this is rational?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjfrxkEpfX8 — Philosophim

By definition of "rational," I would say no, the crow's behavior is not the result of rational thinking.

I like @Manuel's used to Propositional Knowledge. If the crow questioned if the stick would work, and proposed an experiment and then explained the results, the stick must be this long and have this strength to work, and we tested his experiment and found it to be true, then we have rational thinking. I hope once I learn the language of math I will be able to understand math better. Reading about Propositional Knowledge helped my brain form a degree of understanding about rational thinking. How do we understand anything without the right words?

Your example is very important because we thought only humans used tools, and we made that ability the defining marker of being human. Next, we thought culture is what defines humans and then we discovered social animals have culture. But we still have people who believe humans were made of mud and it was a god who made them so we aren't really animals like all the other animals. I don't think that belief would pass the test for rational thinking, but then when someone comes up with a crazy explanation for believing in something, we call that rationalizing.

Help, my thoughts may not be in the proper order or maybe I am not using the right words? I think I destroyed my argument. :chin:

I'm going to answer in a somewhat longwinded way, but this is a philosophy forum so...

Do animals have rational thinking? Do animals have communication skills? Is intuitive thinking rational or maybe something better? — Athena

I'd say instincts are to some extend rational, if by rational we mean doing things that furthers attaining desired ends. A chicken for instance will instinctually scratch the ground periodically while eating. In doing so there's a chance that they reveal all kinds of tasty stuff like worms or grains that where previously not visible. So the instinctual behaviour of scratching the surface could be said to be rational behaviour if we assume the goal they want to attain is getting food.

The difference with humans is they can't seem to adjust these instincts very much to fit changing circumstances. If you give them a bowl of grains for instance, they will still tend to scratch the surface eventhough in that instance it does very little as they have enough food in the bowl. Humans have an extra capacity to reflect on and reason about certain behaviour, which enables them to adjust more to changing circumstances.

Is it rational to believe illnesses are caused by the gods? Is it rational to believe a god created man from mud? — Athena

I think in this case something similar is going on as with instinctual behaviour of animals. We are social animals, and tend to create religious/mythological superstructures that promote certain values and social cohesion that benefits the group overall if you would compare it to a group that doesn't have members adhering to their superstructure. Piety, i.e. believing in and adhering to the traditions of your group, promotes social cohesion (Asabiyyah), and can from that point of view probably be considered "rational" in that social cohesion improves overall survivability of the group (which can be considered as the desired end). The flip-side is that like animal instincts it isn't very granular and adjustable to specific circumstances... it's rational only viewed in the context of the longer historical and evolutionary arc.

Socrates (and Plato) thought we could do better than that and started questioning the Gods and turned to rational thinking instead. We will have to see (although we probably won't be there anymore :-)) if that turns out to be a better strategy long-term.

Sure thing!

Strangely, or by synchronicity, we are both interested in the prefrontal cortex because I was writing about that in a thread on free will as yours appeared on the forum.

As far as your idea of the significance of the chimpanzee recognising his or her image in the mirror, it may suggest a form of personal identity based on an image of one's bodily appearance. The recognition of oneself in the mirror is an important point in a child's awareness. Of course, the existence of mirror images may be a detrimental factor in human identity insofar as it creates the potential for narcissistic tendencies and body image issues.

If the crow questioned if the stick would work, and proposed an experiment and then explained the results, the stick must be this long and have this strength to work, and we tested his experiment and found it to be true, then we have rational thinking. — Athena

So then if we took a human, and they did the same thing as the crow without saying any words, we would think that wasn't rational thinking? How did the crow arrive at that conclusion to do what it did to begin with?

Help, my thoughts may not be in the proper order or maybe I am not using the right words? I think I destroyed my argument. :chin: — Athena

Not a worry! We're here to think, and ideas can shift and flow. Honesty, questions, and exploring possibilities are all part of a good philosophical mind.

Individually, we are different in our ability to learn. More dramatic is the fact that baboons like to eat termites as much as chimps. They watch the chimps make tools to fish the termites, but they do not imitate the behavior, although they want the termites just as much as the chimps. I think that is equal to me wanting to understand math, and I just don't get it. — Athena

We're not only different in our capacity to learn, the speed at which we do it and in our ability to retain and recall information.
The baboon/chimp divide may be cultural. Just as humans disregard the habits of tribes with different world-views, it my be that apes disregard the habits of another species of ape. I suspect that if they saw a baboon of high social standing fishing for termites, they would be imitating him quite soon. (Experiment: have a trusted human teach a baboon to do it, then let him in among a troop of youngsters.)

Intuition is not rational thinking because there is no language involved. — Athena

What makes language the criterion for rational thought? Are there not math questions and diagrams on an IQ test? Does the crow deciding to use the short stick to retrieve the long stick to push the cheese near enough the bars so that he can reach it with the short stick require him to explain as he goes?

Intuition is rational thinking. You consider the information available, arrange it some configuration that makes sense, recognize what additional pieces of information you need for a solid, logical conclusion. But you don't have those extra pieces, so you look in memory for any items of information that fits with the pattern you have created. The conclusion you draw is not provable, but it's a working theory you can test. You may not be aware of the process, as it usually happens faster in your brain than you can translate into speech, but in retrospect, you should be able to describe how you arrived at the result.

Language of some kind is important for communication and useful labelling for memory organization, but that doesn't mean deaf-mute people can't solve problems rationally.

Post-hoc rationalisation probably was the original form of 'rational thinking', as social group-animals it was pretty important to justify/rationalize our actions. — ChatteringMonkey

Didn't people have a reason for their actions until somebody forced them to explain? We sometimes need to rationalize actions (decisions) that prove counter-productive, or that others disapprove, but how often does anyone justify preparing food, building a shelter or using a hammer to drive a nail into wood? The rationality of those actions is self-evident.

The argument about chimpanzees and their ability to communicate is more complex than whether they learn a language or they can not. — Athena

They already have a language. The argument is over whether and how well they learn some version of a human language.

Our cats and dogs may be very good at communicating with us but wolves do not have that kind of relationship with humans. — Athena

Why would they want to? Wolves have very effective communication skills among themselves. Besides familial and social exchange of vocalizations, postures and gestures, they have quite a sophisticated method of organized hunting.

Do you mean animals besides humans?

@Athena

I'm bringing my response here from your other thread.

No. It is not reason that they use, although they can be described as intelligent. And yes, they can be described as having communication ability.

But animals do not put together an argument to arrive at a conclusion. A valid/sound conclusion is the goal when one is engaged in reasoning. For example, if I have some information on the chance that it's going to rain this morning -- atmosphere, clouds, radar -- I can conclude validly that it's going to rain this morning.

So, an anthropo-exclusive definition, based on argument, rather than discernment of cause and effect, problem solving and practical decision-making.
OK

In Steven Pinker's book, "How the Mind Works", he defines intelligence as
"...the ability to attain goals in the face of obstacles by means of decisions based on rational (truth-obeying) rules."

I don't see how language-use is necessary to be rational. I have yet to receive an answer to the question of how one learns a language without being a rational thinker prior. Being a rational thinker allows one to learn a language, not the other way around.

Acting on one's instincts is still a rational process. There is a reason why instinctive behaviors allow some animal to survive - because those behaviors have worked in the organism's ancestral past. Because they work means that there is some element of truth in the way the animal perceives their environment and reacts to it. Think of instincts as "memories" stored in the organism's DNA to use in similar circumstances in the future.

Learned behaviors evolved as a way to respond to more rapid changes in the environment - changes that instincts are too slow to evolve a solution for. Think of learned behaviors as memories stored in one's brain to use in similar circumstances in the future.

All organisms engage in goal-directed behavior whether it is based on instincts or learned in the face of obstacles either by evolving truth-obeying instincts or by learning with a sensory feedback loop (responding to a stimulus and then observing the effects and then try again, observing those effects, try again, etc.) (truth-obeying rules).

Didn't people have a reason for their actions until somebody forced them to explain? — Vera Mont

I dunno, that is the question right? And that question in turn depends on what you would consider "a reason". Does a chicken have a reason the scratch the ground when looking for food? As I alluded to in a previous post, the chicken also seems to be scratching the floor when it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. So a lot of that behaviour seems to be instinctual. I do think there's a reason, or a 'rationale' to a lot of these instincts, but I also think those are not the result of some conscious rational deliberation... what one would consider "rational thinking".

I think a lot of what we humans do is more or less the same, we do seem to do a lot of things without conscious rational deliberation, out of instinct. Most of these behaviours are probably "reasonable" in that they do serve a purpose or goal, without necessarily having a reason in mind. And so no, often it's only afterwards, when asked, that we consciously think of "reasons".

As far as your idea of the significance of the chimpanzee recognising his or her image in the mirror, it may suggest a form of personal identity based on an image of one's bodily appearance. — Jack Cummins

You made me ask the question, can a chimp recognize a picture of himself in a line up of chimp pictures? That is different from a mirror image. In the mirror, our movement is reflected. What if the chimp realized the movement in the mirror was his movement but that does not mean he could pick out an image of himself in a line of pictures?

I am watching college lectures about humans and primates and the thing that impresses me the most is how extremely picky researchers are! The question must be asked exactly right. They must be as sure as possible that they identify exactly what causes something and their peers are quick to jump on them if everything is not exactly right. This is not normal everyday thinking. It is very disciplined thinking.

About you and I thinking along the same line at the same time, you and I have experienced this often. It is enough to make me ask if we have a psychic connection but then is that even possible? I think that is unlikely but not impossible. I have a very old book about logic and the author warns us never to be too sure of what we think because we can never know enough to be certain. Science is about being as certain as we can be and history is a series of times when the general experience of the moment moves people to think and act the same, such as the hippie movement and then a fascination with drugs such as we have today.