Ian, I believe most animal nervous systems function on the basis of simplified representations we like to call maps. From worms and bees, to dogs and humans, our neurons create a virtual world to represent the real world surrounding us.

And those maps (complete, with annotations the likes of "here, light", "here, danger" or "here, food") are formed and modified from experience and are kept in memory. The more complex the CNS, the more detailed the maps, both in spatial information and contextual (and even emotional) parameters.

So, keeping in mind that the predominant sense in dogs is olfaction (so your dog may be experiencing the squirrel's presence even it cannot see it), your dog remembers the squirrel in the tree long after it ceased to sense its presence by having placed it in his mental map of the world known to him. That is why he may go looking for the squirrel under the tree he last saw it a week later, when there is no squirrel anymore.

In this sense, yes, a dog may be capable of accommodating the concept of "intruder" or "potential lunch if I ever go hungry" on his map. However, keep in mind that pareidolia is not only a visual illusion. Because trying to comprehend the world around us (including how other nervous systems work) is but another set of mental maps.

And (something I remember drilled into me ever since my freshman year) the map is never the territory.

It all comes down to the question of what role language plays in concepts.

I once watched a film of a man who had had a stroke and had lost the ability to write - he had also lost the concept of writing. His use of spoken language was perfect except where he wanted to use words that referred directly to the process of writing. He had great difficulty in retrieving words like "pen" or "write".

I believe that there is a connection between this instance of a stroke and what is termed 'Anton's Blindness'. In the case of Anton's Blindness patients have lost their sight as a consequence of brain damage (usually to the visual cortex, I believe) but, surprisingly, they are unaware of what it is they have lost.

I suggest that the above provides evidence that a concept is not a 'free standing' mental 'object' which, once created by experience and language, can be used independently of experience. What this evidence seems to suggest is that what we mean by concepts are the set of cognitive states and expectations primed by the actual experience or else stimulated by the use of a sound to substitute for the experience itself.

From this perspective, although it is granted that language certainly adds new dimensions, sophistication of use and applicability to concepts and cognitive states generally, what we actually mean by concepts are, perhaps, more properly referred to as - 'primed modes of cognition'.

It therefore follows that animals can have simple concepts.

Each response so far is of real interest. Neither writer is disposed to defend a necessary connection between language abilities and the possession of concepts. This is my view too. But it may sharpen the analysis to ask, how low does the bar go? Using Dimitrios' notion of maps, it would seem that any organism with goal-directed behavior would be in possession of maps like this, including worms and bees. Are there organisms at the "low end" whose goal-directed behavior is generated by sensory stimulus alone in the sense that when the stimulus is removed, the goal is removed, and thus the behavior stops (changes)? If so, the notion of concept would seem to have no application to such organisms. (I have in mind their fitting the model of a Cartesian mechanical organism.) Can we just go "sub-linguistic," without going immediately into the "mechanical"? Mustn't my dog's being in a state of *knowing that* the squirrel is in the tree be a mental state with propositional content? Isn't it true or false?

Ian,

Give me a little time to think about what you are asking - but, in the meantime:-

Can there be a concept associated with the word 'Abstract'? (I do not mean subtract or take away here). What could be its basis?

hello again Ian :) , and hi Christopher,

oh yes think there is an interesting concept associated with the concept "abstract", and I think that it can be very revealing. For Peirce, intuition is very close to hypostatization : = regarding the abstract in a concrete form, like for example understanding time in terms of space? Or rather space - if you like - in terms of movement?

Let me also think a little bit more about this question, and in terms of pragmaticism...

Good night..

Anne

Ian,

I am not the sharpest tool in the box when it comes to pure logic and linguistics. But, if I understand you correctly, perhaps this thought experiment might be interesting.

Let us suppose that we train a dog to expect a treat to be found in a round box around 25% of the time. 75% the time the round box contains no treat at all. The dog would most certainly associate the round box with treats and would investigate whenever a round box was encountered.

So much for round boxes. Square boxes, on the other hand, ALWAYS contain a treat. The dog encounters both kinds of boxes in equal measure over some considerable period of time. Now, if the dog is presented with the situation of an un-investigated round and square box - which will the dog investigate first?

If such an experiment was conducted and we found that most dogs investigated the square boxes first what would we conclude? Does this show that the dogs know that the round box may or may not contain a treat and if so would this show that the dog was using some sort of language?

I am probably really wide of the mark here.

There has to be cognition in some form or the other before recognition. Recognition without cognition is not possible.

Christopher,

I think your thought experiment is useful because it can help us decide whether *mere* conditioning is the kind of phenomenon for which we are required to invoke concepts as part of the explanation. Here I think Hemanta may be on the right track in the response above. You might, after all, train me in the same way. And I would go for the square box because I recognize it *as* the square box. My view is that I would employ the concept 'square' under those circumstances as part of a perceptual belief. What we would wonder, then, is whether or not the dogs are doing that too.

To return to your question about the role of the abstract in such contexts (and thank you Anne for weighing in with the pragmatist's view :), I think some notion of abstract, or perhaps better, *general* representation is required here--even if this notion is given in terms of maps (to refer again to the initial entry above). Some representation, act, procedure, recognitional capacity, must be brought to bear on what is presented to the cognizer. One sense in which this representation is general or abstract is that is must have counterfactual properties. It must be applicable to repeat cases. (To speak in terms of maps, this is an essential condition for orientation.) This general or abstract nature distinguishes it from the cases to which it is applies. This is because in perceptual contexts, they are unique, non-general, one-time particulars. I don't see a way around this basic set up for simply being a cognizer in perceptual contexts.

I would say if your dogs have such representations, they have concepts. Perhaps one question now is whether such representations came be possessed "piecemeal"? or must they be possessed as part of a framework? (A map, e.g., is more than the representation of a single trail.) Do your dogs possess a framework of general representations such that they recognize the square box *as* square (and presumably *as* not round)? And if so, when they recognize the box, is their representation non (sub?) propositional? Or is it propositional in some sense, but non-linguistic? (The idea of maps is tempting here, because it seems to relieve us of the commitment to attribute propositional content. But does it do so at the price of the full conditions of recognitional capacity?)

Food for thought!

Is it possible to generalise what an animal can and can't understand? Are there not different levels of intelligence and conceptual understanding within the animal world in the same way as humans? I am very intuitive with animals, and I have possessed cats and dogs that go beyond what is considered the norm in their behavioural demonstration of intelligence. So does intelligence relate to their understanding of a concept ?

William,

Whether or not the capacity to recognize a chair as a chair carries with it, necessarily, the capacity to use, sticking with English, the symbol 'chair' is one way to get to the heart of the matter here. I seems to me that my dog perfectly well recognizes a chair as a chair and yet, of course, does not possess the ability to use the symbol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aGj-Y0shIs

You might find this interesting. This is a short clip of a BBC documentary showing capuchins lying. In a book on emergence I read that male apes (i think they were apes), who demonstrate their interest in females by showing them their erections, would sometimes attempt to commit adultery with the mates of other males. The ape would place his hand in such a way as to hide his erection from the male but still allowing the female to get a good view. This shows that these animals possess a sort of "theory of mind", they are thinking about what others are thinking, as well as the ability to manipulate symbols.

In case any are interested, the book is Emergence by Steven Johnson.

William,

Your answer made me wonder..

Does the world have a grammer?

When a small dog pushes a chair towards the table so that it can climb up and see if there is any food - is the dog also pushing a symbol?

In addition to Sean's story: I've made friends with some

crows. One of them, the bravest one, I named Friedrich,

in honour of Frederick II who wrote a book on ornithology.

Friedrich got the most walnuts since he dared to

approach me closest. Unfortunately he was constantly

being attacked as soon he was in the air with the

nut, before he was able to find a hiding-place.

On one day Friedrich obtained a walnut and was soon

building a concealment for it near me, in the presence

of a greedy fellow crow. I was wondering because hiding

made no sense here.

Friedrich covered the nut with moss while being watched.

Then he presented his back to the other crow, thereby

covertly snatching the nut with his beak. He flew away.

The other crow approached the supposed tibit and

got aware that it was being fooled, but it was

too late. Friedrich and the walnut were in safety.

Regards,

Joachim

I think it would be helpful, at this point, to keep in mind that a set of structured human thoughts we call science has set up symbolisms and concepts as a way to approach the neuronal processes underlying and eventually giving rise to conscious experience.

Trying to bootstrap these onto animals brains will sure fit in many ways (as we demonstrate not a small number of structural and functional similarities). However, we should also be aware of the peril of getting trapped in a circular argument - and an incomplete one at that.

Do we know what exactly a concept is and how it functions in the human brain before going looking for it in other animals? Or are we utilizing a gross approximation that may lead us to erroneous conclusions?

Dimitrios has now opened a Pandora's Box (or a William Gibson Black Box?) by asking, what is a concept? It is, of course, exactly the right question. I attribute the use of concepts to Joachim's crow for broadly similar reasons that you might attribute the use of concepts to me: behavior. What if the crow turned out to be an artificial one. Say Joachim's strange genius neighbor constructed Friedrich as a state of the art robot complete with revolutionary AI programming. If the biological version of Friedrich has concepts, does the robot version have concepts too?

I guess I intend to bring up two questions here. Isn't it impossible to know what a concept is merely by reference to the material substrate of mind and its activity? So, as it were, the exclusively third-person point of view, on behavior and brains, may not have what we need for an answer. Thus, mustn't some conditions of the first-person point of view be included in the idea of what a concept is? Isn't part of what matters, in terms of whether Friedrich is using concepts, is whether he is experiencing the experiences we associate with his behavior?

Let's postulate here that a concept may well be an irreducible quantum of consciousness.

A concept is not a mere group of coactivating synapses or a pattern of neuronal activity. It is the recognizable awareness of this underlying event.

Ian's original post precipitated this yet I deemed this realization intriguing enough to deem it own thread (( https://www.researchgate.net/post/Proposing_Concepts_as_the_Quanta_of_Consciousness))

The premise is this: Consciousness is a hard problem mainly because its very definition is elusive, at least in in a reduction-able and qualia-free way. However, by proposing a functioning definition, we can bypass these problems.

The perception of a chair or a squirrel in a mammalian brain, at some point of neuronal processing, cease to be just light and darkness, lines and surfaces, colours and textures and they animate the corresponding concept. It is at that moment that the animal become conscious of them as they breach the threshold of recognition.

So, in this light, concepts may well be the quanta of conscious experience.

Dimitrios, two questions of clarification. We have a pretty clear idea of the causal phenomenon of objects reflecting light, emitting sound, etc., and of these forces impacting sensory organs which stimulate nervous activity which may produce movement or behavior in an organism. This is, as it were, the "outside" or third-person or scientist's perspective on perception. We also have an idea of human conscious experience of perceived objects. One sees the chair; one hears the squirrel, etc. This is, as it were, the subjective or first-personal perspective on perception. You seem to mention a third thing: "just light and darkness, lines and surfaces, colors and textures...." Is this a physical phenomenon? perhaps in the eyeball? Or is this already a conscious state? If a conscious state, in what sense is the organism "having" it?

Secondly, when we say a concept is "the recognizable awareness of this underlying event," 'THIS' seems to refer to a group of coactivating synapses, etc. Is this object of awareness meant to be understood as from the scientist's (third-person) perspective or from the subjective (first-personal) perspective? Asked another way, what is this awareness an awareness of? For subjects confronted with chairs I take it that it should be an awareness of a chair.

Ian, thinking about the dog in your original question and its olfactory dominance, also brought me to the other end of this: blind people too think in concepts and they do have a concept of a chair and a squirrel. Even if they make no use of vision (our predominant sensory modality) what triggers their recognition of a chair or a squirrel? It might be tactile or sound or olfaction and all these senses provide the neuronal inputs ("just light and darkness, lines and surfaces, colors and textures....") that climb up the complexity ladder, from layer to layer - until they animate the corresponding concept.

The moment a concept gets animated, the individual becomes aware of it, for example seeing a chair. He or she is conscious of experiencing it. Before that, there are only sensory components triggering synaptic events.

Sometimes, certain aspects of the sensory input has to be eliminated for a concept to be animated as these aspects either cause interference (by co-activating unrelated concepts) or contain information that clashes with our expectations.

Consider why it takes longer to recognize the object in the picture as a chair. Is it because the multiple legs also trigger our centipede concept or that our chair concept expects four legs?

Returning to the animal world for a moment.

I have owned several dogs and I 'know' without any doubt in my mind that these companions had a sense of "self".

If even dogs have the dichotomy concepts of 'self' and 'other' then it would seem to be pretty conclusive that you do not require language (as we understand it, anyway) to give rise to the dichotomous concepts of "self" and "other".

Evolutionary psychologists might argue that we are built with the concepts of self and other already installed. However, I think that there is evidence that the self/other conceptual dichotomy emerges as a result of experience - and at quite a young age.

I believe that young parents learn to recognize the emergence of these mutually defining concepts when they hear the difference between the child crying because it is distressed and the 'willful' crying that happens sometime after the emergence of the self/other: - as when the child is trying to get attention.

So, how do these concepts emerge? I believe that, in humans at least, a large part of the answer lies in the eyes - the eyes have it!

My research points strongly to the possibility that the principle determinant for brain development is the structures implicit in experience. I believe that the concepts of "self" and "other" emerge as a result of what is implicit in the behavior of the mother's (or father's) eyes combined with other bodily sensations. Implicit in these combined experiences is an'OTHER' point of view and, of course, the "self".

This process is facilitated by the structure embodied by the eyes themselves - they are round and they move in unison. Bright identifiable eyes are very common among social animals. Indeed, when social animals have eyes at the side of the head resulting in a reduction of the available implicit order, evolution has often supplemented the available order with additional patterns around the eyes.

From this we may speculate that evolution seems to involve creating structures that then give rise to fundamental concepts as part of a two-stage perpetuating process. Evolutionary psychology does not take place in the brain - but in the body!!!!

And let us consider this 'primordial dichotomous concept' - does it differ from other concepts in any significant way?

This is pure speculation that is at the cookie dough stage and has not yet been in the oven - and it has probably been said before anyway:

I believe that severe autism is a result of the failure of the self/other dichotomy. It is very difficult to 'get into' the autistic mind and this fact brings home to us how enormous the change was between just being conscious and then being conscious with a 'self'.

When language spawns concepts as a consequence of its own structures we are aware of the concepts even as they form and we label them and place them in our respective maps to use a later time. Rarely (if ever) do they have a really profound effect upon us as is the case with the 'primordial' concepts of self and other. Perhaps it is a little too poetic, but the emergence of the self/other dichotomy reminds me of the moment when a single egg cell splits into two. There also seems to be a sort of phase change in the overall behavior of the 'system'.

I wonder if we might speculate that the enormous effect that the concepts of self and other have upon is due - in part, BECAUSE they occur before language. They may be what might be termed 'distributed concepts' that have an overall effect upon the way we see the world rather than occurring discretely.

Nice pics

My simple answer to the original question is NO.

Every phenomenon has its own rhythmic matrix that qualifies it. The human being is a phylogenetic polyphonic and polyrhythmic animal able to turn sensory-motor learning into a problem, making a relatively unpredictable, ambiguous use of the faculty to reproduce nearly all the rhythms that define the natural phenomena that fall under its perception.

This is the soil from which emerge "concepts". A concept is a system of mnesic correlations equipped with a sense, acquired by an individual who distinguishes himself from his surroundings, in the relationship with its environment. Out of this hierarchy of relationships the concepts do not exist, but there are systems of sensations, perceptions, emotions.

Ian, there is a vast literature on animal "concept" learning, in which there is understandable debate about exactly what constitutes a concept worthy of the name. For example most people these days rule out "concepts" based on the perception of statistical regularities, like being able to discriminate trees from dogs, and instead reserve the name for more abstract relationships, like sameness, or number-of, etc. But there is a lot of evidence that many species that lack language (all of them except us) show sensitivity to some very abstract concepts, and of course many more that show sensitivity to distinctions between classes of things (prey vs predator, etc). In fact, if non-linguistic animals had no such sensitivity, then there is no possible basis for language to evolve, because no word could have a meaning.

BTW, the use of the word 'concept' in animal studies:

http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/050701_parrotzero1frm.htm

http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/biowissenschaften_chemie/bericht-45070.html

http://phys.org/news/2012-05-insects-master-abstract-concepts.html

Regards,

Joachim

@ Joachim

For their survival and reproduction, all biological systems with a receptor system (sense organs), make use of specific behavioral strategies, genetically prescribed and applied ontogenetically.

Individuals who are part of a given species, strictly adhere to behavioral strategies genetically prescribed for that species, so uniquely and repetitive (stereotyped behavioral). In terms of "character", however, each individual can present characteristics different from those of another individual. In any case, these differences are always closely subordinated to the phylogenetic constraint.

This is what happens when the animal, vertebrate or invertebrate, lives in its natural environment. Any behavioral theory born from the observation / experimentation on animals kept in captivity, it is a theory that says nothing of natural behavioral attitudes of that animal. Zero. It just says how much this animal can be trained, domesticated, subdued, how much can be useful for anthropic purposes.

You can also teach a lion to play with the ball, but if you leave him free in the bush and hope that lion will organize a football team ....

Claudio,

> Any behavioral theory born from the observation /

> experimentation on animals kept in captivity, it is a theory

> that says nothing of natural behavioral attitudes of

> that animal.

if we could show that under laboratory conditions

a species can drive a car, summarize a book and

write a research paper, this would of course say

nothing about its behavior in nature. But it would

tell something about its brain architecture.

Regards,

Joachim

The short answer is "Yes." Animals do have concept learning. Look of research by AA Wright, R Cook, and others. It may not be what you mean by "Concept learning" but scientifically, many animals can learn concepts and gerneralize it to new stimuli. This includes dogs.

The investigation of reality, can have several paradigmatic models of reference. In the scientific field, we can count at least two, one, more grounded, I'll call "pre-Quantum-Relativistic Scientific Model" (pre-QRSM), the other, emerging, I'll call it "post-Quantum-Relativistic Scientific Model" (post-QRSM) .

The pre-QRSM is based on a static view of reality. According to this model, there are "fundamental elements of reality", irreducible: from their combination, derive the objects and phenomena we observe, inside and outside of us. Each different combination is headed by a code. If you know the code, and have the material to be combined, and the tools to operate, you can artificially reproduce that particular natural combination. A certain combination of "building blocks" generates a certain structure, which generates certain processes that respond to certain functions. Following this investigative approach, the scientists are hunting for key pieces and hidden codes, at all levels, atomic and supra-atomic, inorganic and organic, animate and inanimate. Seeking pieces and codes of all kinds, including pieces of concepts, pieces of consciousness, pieces of thought, and the codes for the architecture of brain and cells and so on. Since the key piece for terrestrial biological life, is the liquid water, wherever there are traces of water (Mars?), there may be, or there may have been, biological life. They assign a primary ontological value to the "fundamental elements of reality", and consider the relationships and interactions, as a fact derived from their existence.

The post-QRSM, on the contrary, is based on a dynamic vision of reality. According to this model, each element of reality is a micro system of relations, set in a macro system of relations. Nothing of what we observe exists in and of itself. This model is based on a relationship theory in which the only relevant fact under the physical profile is the relationship between different events in space-time. The reality is intrinsically dynamic, and takes shape from perturbative phenomena, which by generating potential gradients, in-form the energetic phenomenon and all its manifestations. There are not pieces of a mosaic, but relationship systems. Their identity and their existence is determined by being part of a particular system of relationships which manifest themselves solely in the correlative and functional availability of a complex series of energetic and sub-energetic processes.

Even when we talk about "concepts", we should say to which investigative model we adhere to. Otherwise we do not understand each other. I adhere to the second one. In any case, speaking of "Do animals (Particularly Those Who Appear to have no language ability) use concepts?", I see no good reason to associate animals subjected to experiments, such as those referred to by the three links posted by Joachim, to the human babies, as it is done in the articles reported.

The anthropo-metric model and the adult-metric model, are scientifically acceptable?

This is a fascinating discussion for many reasons:

1. I like the "wild" and "animals". That doesn't mean I subscribe to PETA and its modes & objectives. I eat meat.

2. I'm involved with imaging, pattern recognition and AI. So, at a fundamental level, I want to learn the cognitive process.

3. I like bloviating and bloviators.

I haven't read all your contributions fully yet, but I shall attempt it despite the seeming "mountain of a mole hill". Please pardon my layman approach as I'm not trained in this thought process as many of you appear to be.

1. Dogs have been too close to the humans and have adapted to similar cognitive processes (or vice versa)? So have cats and some other popular pets.

2. Crows are fascinating creatures. As a child in India, I've had the experience of observing the cognitive characteristics of crows, monkeys, ants, bears, dogs, cows, elephants etc. in large statistically sound data sets. My observations fascinated me then.

It seems they have there is some electrophysiological evidence.

for example:

Lin, et al. PNAS,2007 104(14):6066-6071

I join Darren, Joachim and Melissa with a yes and want to point to website with a good overview about studies on that topic with pigeons. There were experiments to “concepts” as early as the sixties.

http://www.pigeon.psy.tufts.edu/avc/huber/default.htm

To give an example: In one experiment, pigeons successfully identified the concept “tree“ on unknown pictures. This finding was independent from the kind of representation of a tree that was shown, whether it was part of a tree or a complete one, several or a single one, near or far, or in which season the picture of the tree was taken:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/np6nu85

The same was true for the concept “water”.

The real issue is the "how" to better understand animals. We do always understand animals definitely from the "human" way. However, the instrument we used may not really be enough to say if there is really "something" to say about animals. Though Aristotle already in his study mentioned about the capacity of animals (brutes) to have also "sense knowledge" but this is not the "real knowledge". So, eventually, it boils down to the capacity of human understanding. This is also the trouble of "anthropocentric" approach to epistemology. The modern period boils down epistemology to "what humans can possibly know". At the end, Protagoras may still be relevant in saying that "man is the measure of all things."

The way concepts are defined in behavior analysis, I would definitely say 'Yes'.

This is a good research paper about concept formation in pigeons:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1333220/

Animals in hierarchical societies must have concepts to identify individuals and their rank. If they don't have such concepts, a recognition and identification of an individual is not possible.

My mundane opinion! The "Human" is the "King" of the animal dominion, not the Lion. Whatever cognitive process we as humans have naturally acquired is the confluence of Millions if not Billions of years of cognitive evolution. Unless, you are limited to the Biblical Genesis mode of our most improbable lineage, ONE ADAM AND ONE EVE and their creation by the transubstantiation of "stones & bones". Such understanding of animals (Human & not) is neither recent (historically) nor unique. If you study the eastern cultures, there is clear evidence of our recognition of it. The western (Abrahamic) thought process precludes such notions. In contrast, the Hindu Mythology (I know little of this), clearly accommodates such concepts.

The activities of animals during the last horrendous Tsunami is an example of the cognitive process in animals that we have lost over millennia as a result of using foot wear. The anecdotes from Thailand and Indonesia of the flight of animals prior to the Tsunami to higher ground was the result of their intuitive awareness of the vibrations on the ground that warned them of the impending disaster. Or, perhaps the "birds told them" from up above? They somehow seem to have not only communicated this to each other but in many instances were responsible for saving other human lives as well. Diametrically in contrast, people in India actually were fascinated that the water on the beach had receded so far exposing the bottom of the ocean that they all went to the beach to explore in astonishment while the other animals fled "uphill". Well, you know the results. We humans have lost this cognitive perception as we have insulated ourselves from the vibrations in the ground with "foot wear". Poor SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio)! We need "hi-Tech" Tsunami warning instead.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/85210325@N04/10242907544/

I believe that a behavior, any behavior given by any process of a system of correlations endowed with a degree of subsistence (condition of resonance), such as to make it distinct and / or distinguishable (even when not observable) from the context of the relationships it forms part of (a confinement process, in general is equivalent to a phenomenon of localization), presents different degrees of integration. A behavior is such, when it is based on memory processes. The processes of memory, in turn, can occur in various forms of integration.

I have the impression that we are talking about "concepts" and "mental behavior" without having first clarified what it is, in physical terms, a thought. The risk is that of confusing different levels of integration of the same physical substrate, , using terms and definitions that are good for a certain level of integration, but do not go well when applied to other levels of integration. Do we have some idea of what this substrate is? Because it is not "energy".

Take the word "concept".

A "concept" is an abstract idea or a mental symbol, typically associated with a corresponding representation in a language or symbology. Is a notion that the mind makes, about what something is, in its essence.

Concept is a term of Latin origin which derives from the verb "con-cipere", consisting of cum, "with," and capere, "take", or, "take with", "understand, perceive by intuition, realize". The concept is the idea that comes to mind clear and obvious in its meaning.

@ Wilfried, are you sure the use you do of the term "concept", referring to non-human animals, is legitimate and correct?

"If they don't have such concepts, a recognition and identification of an individual is not possible."

Why?

In the organization of condensed matter, and even more in the organization of biological matter, atoms, molecules, systems of molecules, cells, cell systems, etc.,"recognize themselves" without having concepts. Is not it?

Personally, I prefer speak of "mapping out the environment". In any process of confinement is implied a degree of mapping out the environment, within which the confinement process takes place. The mapping out of the environment can be passive or active. In the mineral and vegetable kingdoms, the mapping out is only passive. In non-human animals there are combinations of the two, and different degrees of mapping out.

In primates, but also in other animals, the behavioral stereotypy is related to genetically transmitted mapping out , with some margin of epigenetic variations, though not comparable to that available to Homo Sapiens et Faber .

"Recognition and identification of the environment", takes place through processes of interference (signal amplification or suppression, resonance, super-resonance, phase couplings, tension couplings, etc.), between oscillating systems (energy dimension) and tensor systems (non-energy dimension).

The use of the term "concept", not to mention the disproportionate use of the term "consciousness" which is also made in the scientific field, in referring to non-human behavioral (Homo Sapiens, Homo Sapiens et Faber), is unjustified and misleading.

Claudio,

thanks for your reply.

"In the organization of condensed matter, and even more in the organization of biological matter, atoms, molecules, systems of molecules, cells, cell systems, etc.,"recognize themselves" without having concepts. Is not it?"

I agree. Molecules do not recognize each other. They follow the electrical field forces. There is no mind which recognize anything - it's only the game of physical forces. This interaction of molecules is not the original question.

Mammalian in social groups are able to recognize individuals and they know the rank or other individual characteristics. This is possible if there exists a concept "individual". This is different to the concept of con-specific - also an concept.

I know, your idea is a physical interpretation of such phenomena. This is an interesting idea, indeed, but it is only a kind of an elegant high level mathematical description. Mathematics is in this case only a tool, but not a mechanical description in the kind of cause and effect. The mathematics fits but we do not understand nothing (double negation for strengthening).

You wrote:

""Recognition and identification of the environment", takes place through processes of interference (signal amplification or suppression, resonance, super-resonance, phase couplings, tension couplings, etc.), between oscillating systems (energy dimension) and tensor systems (non-energy dimension)."

It is nice, if it is possible to express the behavior of complex organisms like mammalian (or human) with such mathematical tools. I agree, there is resonance, may be super-resonance, but not in a physical manner with mystical waves, but in a computational manner of information. The wet computers (brains) realizes the shapes of other con-specifics by resonance of stored schemata with recognized ones.

May be, I misunderstood your description of such mapping out the environment, but I do not see a deeper understanding in this matter using such mathematical "concepts".

Well, the term ‘concept’ (conceptum: "something conceived") is rarely precisely defined, and the intended role of concepts within "ontology" is itself subject to a variety of conflicting (and sometimes intrinsically incoherent) interpretations. It seems, however, to be widely accepted that concepts are the products of human cognition.

@ William

If it is not so, if "the word concept may apply to any object of thought (signal) abstracted (generalized from particular instances) from the environment (noise) by any sentient being .... which includes animals, plants and even individual microbiological cells and biofilms ", well, then it's essential to be explained, not summarily but in full, in which theoretical model is added to the meaning of "concept".

@ Wilfried

"...it is only a kind of an elegant high level mathematical description".

Sorry I cannot follow you. I do not see what has to do with mathematics, to present a physical description of what could be the type of relationship between different levels of reality.

Wilfried! "I agree. Molecules do not recognize each other." You better be open minded about this. Don't get caught "flat earthed". Cancer research is essentially disproving this contention these days. Very intelligent folks are designing molecules that can recognize carcinogenic molecules/cells and attach to them.

Caudio! "widely accepted that concepts are the products of human cognition". If that were so then the question itself would be moot. In my opinion, it is tantamount to "us being made in the image of God". I think it was the other way around. We humans made God in our image (true in many cultures both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic) because we were unable to conceive of anything else at that time (energy, matter, infinite intelligence, transubstantiation, whatever). Just being practical not conceited. Similarly if we are the ones defining "concept", then of course we could gratuitously (superciliously) leave out beings "beneath us", I suppose. BTW I'm unaware of any such restriction of meaning for the word "concept" in many other languages I know. The "widely accepted" bit is perhaps among the Abrahamic origin cultures. No such thing in eastern cultures (non-Abrahamic). In any case, we are here to dispel the "commonly accepted" notions!

The real question should be:

If a human was born deaf, mute and blind, would that human have the ability for "concept" without ever having acquired the skills of language? Did the Neanderthals have "concept" before language? The answer should be an unequivocal, Yes! What about the innate concept of "self preservation" that all creatures possess? What would you attribute that to?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/85210325@N04/10221987094/

"Recognition" on a molecular level is not the same as if a conscious mind recognize something or someone. In the first case the term "recognition" is used in a metaphorical sense. We use it if we mean the surfaces of some peptic molecules or nucleotides fits to some specific biological surfaces.

Why do we sink so deep in this discussion? I thought we discuss the mental abilities of animals, not molecules?

Certain flower blooms recognize when the sun goes down and close their pedals for the night. This is a sense of 'recognize' which, in its explication, we have no need of recourse to the notion of 'concepts'. There's no work for the notion of concept to do here. The account of the "flower-system" is biophysical, and certain physical processes are triggered by the light of the setting sun. Nowhere are we required to attribute concepts to the plant to make sense of its recognition.

After his dinner, my dog waits for me to initiate my treat dispensing routine (which is embarrassingly elaborate). As I move toward the jar, he recognizes THAT I am getting him his treat. Wild, excited behavior ensues. Here, since I believe he is aware of what I am doing, the account of his state cannot be completed without reference to the concepts I've used in the THAT-clause above. To recognize THAT I am getting him his treat, is recognition in a different sense than the flower bloom's recognition, and for this very reason. If my dog is recognizing THAT I am getting him his treat, then he himself is employing the concepts 'treat', 'getting,' etc. To give an account of his state without reference to these concepts would be to give an incomplete account.

Perhaps the eight ball recognizes where the cue ball is insisting that it go. But surely this is a different sense of recognition than the sort of recognition that uses concepts.

This is the essence of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and machine learning. Isn't it? Soon we will debate if machines can do what we doubt some animals & other life forms can. I remain open minded to this discourse with vested interest. I continue to enjoy the variety of erudite responses.

A simple experiment that could be performed to shed more light on this issue. Show some cattle (chicken, I doubt? not enough room upstairs) copious amounts of videos about what happens at a slaughterhouse and see if the cattle would grasp the concept and become agitated when corralled in to the butchering area. I'm sure Ian's canine friend would catch on if he saw videos of what happens to his kind in the far east. Wouldn't want a visa. I apologize for being distasteful. No pun intended. However, my point was that not only are they certainly endowed with the faculty of concept but some have developed a keen sense of intuition which is a combination of "concept", "recognition", "forethought", "action" and more. More so than some among us claim in our lineage. Perhaps it is not as simple as two molecules seeking each other until we get down to the infinitesimal meson or pi-meson or what else? At this point I throw my arms up and say omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, whatever etc.... Again, I beg your indulgence for the slang laymen terms I've used, please correct me.

Just like Ian's favorite canine anecdotes, I have many more fascinating monkey, elephant and cow stories besides others. I'll post some 1st hand photos to illustrate my points as I find them. Now, I have the motivation to do so.

Take the concept associated with the word ''tree''. We learn this word when we are a toddler but would we able to learn that word and to use it appropriatly if we did not have a built-in perceptual tree category. The capacity to recognize trees is an tacit knowledge that is a common mammalian visual perceptual competence. So a lot of our tacit knowledge is common tacit mammalian sensory-motor knowledge. Animal do not have explicit conceptual knowledge because they do not have language but they have implicit sensory-motor knowledge.

Perception is a function less integrated than the mental representation, but more integrated than feeling, which is more integrated than reacting, which is more integrated than excitability.

In the act of perceiving: space, time, energy and any other physical or mental entity (concepts) does not exist!

There is no need for these physical entities to be (conceptualized): every biological system is to its environment, as are the muscles to the bones.

It is through "interpretation" that the world takes shape (conceptualized)!!

Our pre-verbal humanity , perceived the world as a system of vibrating fields, each with a sound and a particular rhythm. Homo Sapiens et Faber gives a name to the World! Very different way of being.

I emphasize: et Faber.

Through the Breath-Sound-Speech, through its magical and mysterious power, through its ordering function, its power to give form (Logos-Consciousness) to the formless (Chaos-Unconsciousness) and the power to give voice (logos-life) to silence (chaos-death), the World ceases to be merely lived to also become "interpreted". With this troubling re-birth in the womb of Breath-Sound-Speech humanity thereby sees itself forced to look at itself in its not being the World, but only part of it, forced to give some sense to the painful and never completely resolved detachment from the belly of the Great Mother Earth. And it is here in the excruciating attempt to sew together the wound resulting from the estrangement from the Maternal Breath that the human being finds refuge in the "archetypical triad" which forms the basis of all internal representations of external reality, whether pre-rational and pre-verbal, or rational and verbal: from this point on, its place in the World would be between Earth and Sky (Homo Erectus), an elective agent of connection (medium) between "its own image reflected" by the mirror of the "Earth’s anima" and its own image reflected by the mirror of "Sky’s anima"...... each with its own quota of "consciousness".

In this reflective relationship ("its own image reflected by the mirror") is summarized the identity of human psychological birth [Messori 2011, 2012], its potency-dynamis being correlated to action-energheia, its giving of itself as a presupposition of possibility, a possibility that makes it inevitabile to leave the relationship of continuity with the World, a relationship which, as is true for every other animal maintains the human being in a dimension of in-fusion-ante-rem with the Great Mother Earth, to enter the dimension of detachment from it, in a relationship of contiguity brimming with unknowns and hence tragic.

A tragicalness that we discover expressed in the myth of Oedipus, of which M. Graves gives us the following version :

"Narcissus was marked, in his short life, by the maternal intentionality which the myth wishes modulated in Tiresias’ warning (“Your son will live until he knows himself”, which means “until he stops nestling in the conscious womb of you, his mother”) and, true to this “norm”, he avoided any relationship, keeping himself to a solitude that we could define as “autistic”. Until the day when, gazing at his reflection in a pond, as was his wont, he saw it rippling thanks to a spiteful puff of air from Zephyrus, the spring wind, and so saw his image in the water disappear: no longer, in this image, a Narcissus reflecting his existential condition of a oneness with the maternal intentionality, but, all of a sudden, a reflective him in his own autonomy, in his self-knowledge emerging from the norm that had led him to this point. The unbearable distress due to this laceration led him to stab himself to death".

I see no justified reason to assert that the use of "concepts" is also shared by non-human biological systems. Not within the tradition of Western thinking, nor in the East.

In a therianthropic vision things change. So even in a totemic vision of reality. But I do not think we intend to refer to either of them.

By the way: "Hundredth monkey effect"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredth_monkey_effect

"Not within the tradition of Western thinking, nor in the East." - "Hundredth monkey effect"?

Claudio,

I did not know about this ''Hundredth monkey effect''. It fits well with Jung's synchronicity, with morphic resonance, and with the recent theoretical speculation of Lee Smolin about a quantum precedence principle.

Louis,

there has never been the 100th Monkey (there were just over 60) and there was no mysterious transfer of a behavior. It swam a monkey to the neighboring island. This is just a bad rumor of Gaya disciples (Rupert Sheldrake and others).

Don't believe such crude stories.

Claudio,

what do you want to tell us with such odd stories?

You are conducive to argue that earthworms make use of concepts, and you indignant at the possibility that there might be an unconventional distance communication (telepathy?) between primates?

@ Wilfried

I totally agree with you, the "Hundredth Monkey Effect" is a odd story, but there are many good reasons to believe that there are unconventional ways of "communication" , both between inorganic physical systems, and biological physical systems.

Personally I do not find as many good reasons for what regards the presumed widespread use (unconventional?) of the concepts in the animal , vegetable and mineral kingdom.

@ Ravi

"If a human was born deaf, mute and blind, would that human have the ability for "concept" without ever having acquired the skills of language? Did the Neanderthals have "concept" before language? The answer should be an unequivocal, Yes! What about the innate concept of "self preservation" that all creatures possess? What would you attribute that to?"

I have some questions for you.

In how many ways can be realized the Internal Representation (or mapping out) of the External Reality (IRER), by a biological system?

Do you know some form of IRER that does not make use of concepts, without making the biological system incomplete?

A symbol is equivalent to a concept?

Claudio! The folks that thought the earth was flat until less than 500 years ago used even fancier jargon to justify their beliefs. Gratuitous bloviating does not necessarily change opinions, certainly not the facts.

So before you answer the question with another question, why not at least endeavor to spit up some sort of an answer. Unless of course it is beneath your expertise. I have no clue about the ABC's and XYZ's that you seem to use as cover.

The questions I posed were simple practical ones. Just answer or skip as you would in your exam. If you want a response for your question from me (a laymen among you erudite) then make your query understandable to me. Get down to earth Claudio! Climb down from the clouds of ABC's and XYZ's! Jesting!

BTW if you are unable to answer the deaf, mute, blind human question then perhaps you'd like to take a shot at the other one about showing slaughterhouse videos to the cattle. What do you think will be the reaction to this? Would they understand the concept of TV images of impending death?

I just came back from visiting a friend, his son (Duckie 13yrs) and their dog Sidney, a Pugle! Now, what I saw Sidney do today clearly showed her ability to have a concept. I acted totally extemporaneously and very uncharacteristically for me, made as if I was going to punch Duckie in the chest but stopped just short (mms.). Now Sidney knew me well enough not to bite, but "loved" (concept?) Duckie so much that she yelped in "pain" not in aggression but as if she got hurt. She stopped inches from biting me. Dogs have the ability for concept no matter how you define the word. So do many creatures, in my humble opinion. It is only that, an opinion, corroborated by facts as I see them. But many cultures and people(s) see it so. Some even attribute "soul" to many animals. This is less so among those cultures of the Judaic or Abrahamic origin (about 2 Billion out of 6+Billion). Now it may be convenient for some of us carnivores (meat eaters) not to believe that animals could have the ability for concept. That, I could understand! But associating some cock-a-mammy religious connotation to either conclusively attributing such characteristics to animals, or not doing so, is entertaining to say the least. Lol!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/85210325@N04/10221065324/lightbox/

Just imagine the alternative! Animals & more having concept!

We could train molecules to seek, ID and eradicate disease in the body? I'm sure most of us would gladly, without an iota of compunction, volunteer animals before humans for any trials needed. Or, perhaps send out conceptually trained rats to explore/experiment space paving a safe path for us frail humans?

One special fact about animals (non-human) is that they have enough concept to NOT "go out in hoards" and decimate each other over some silly "concept" or the other (and then NOT EAT) unlike some of us human brethren (hermanos) throughout recent history (2+ millennia e.g., Greeks, Romans, Crusade-ism, Abraham-ism, Adam-ism, Islamism, Imperialism, Nazism, Fundamentalism, Jihad-ism, Communism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Martyr-ism, Sadism, Terrorism!). Note that I've excluded the concept of cannibalism. "Armageddon", a concept of "simultaneous & co-operative self annihilation" that many believers (less than a third of the world) are preparing by praying about, and racing to fulfill? Brain wash! Hoag wash! Only the human animal can come up with this pabulum after pontification. Does that exemplify "concept" a bit better without acronyms while delineating it clearly as what the rest of the animals don't use? A blight on the human plight. Straight talk! OK!

Stay thirsty my friends! Stay open-minded! Even a seemingly flat earth may turn a-round soon! Change Ideas with Words NOT Lives with Swords! Blue Grass Melodies! http://www.shoutcast.com/shoutcast_popup_player?station_id=98721&play_status=1&stn=WJOE - Grateful Dead Radio - All Day, Al...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/85210325@N04/10221987094/lightbox/

Thanks Ravi for your rap on my knuckles, it brings me back to earth (hope so).

From my point of view, in terms of "psychic territory" (psychism:the mental phenomenon belongs to the territory of psychism but it is not equivalent!) what we share with all other forms of biological life, and with any other phenomenological entity, are not the "concepts", but frames of "images", that can assume different levels of integration.

The neuron is originally a cell called upon to perform receptor functions, specialised in translating (via non-computational and nonlinear process), upon kinematic similarity, the physical state variations of the environment, in spatial and temporal neuro-electromagnetic phase correlation. Interfacing with its tensorial dimension (relativistic), this neuron activity, with a specific spatial orientation and existing in a specific temporal fraction, stabilised, for dynamic similarity, in mnesic precipitates (images) of correlative spatial-temporal maps, or sensory maps , and by geometrical similarity in spatial configurations of specific neurons, or neuronal maps (somatotopic maps).

Adhering to geo-environmental and energy constraints that have guided the phylogeny in the process of diversification of the involved biological functions and structures , the neuro-dependent adaptive line responds to the many variables imposed by environmental pressure, diversifying the zoological world, in a multitude of animal forms, oriented by genetics stabilization of specific sensory maps (carriers of a specific spatiotemporal ability to generate interference) and of specific neural maps (as bearers of a specific anatomical and functional value).

Psycho-perceptual activity is the neurological brain-dependent contextualisation of a more general quantum-relativistic phenomena which I assign to the qualia (Alfred North Whitehead) territory, and call psychism (Carl Gustav Jung).

Referring to Spin-mediated consciousness theory, by Hupig Hu and Maoxin Wu, we can conceive qualia (singular: quale) as the ‘pixels’ of psychism, the smallest and irreducible image elements, implicate in the indeterministic warp of inter-times (psychism), of the Spin ability to generate interference. On the Planck scale level, we can conceive psychism qualia as the minimum qualifying fractions of the ability to generate interference, implicated in the inter-times as Spin chaotic component.

From an associative and etymological point of view the word image seems to be the most appropriate to synthesize the identity of the psychism functional unit (the quale).

In etymological terms, I link the word ‘image’ to the Greek idol (spectrum) and to the Latin imaginem, but also imitaginem (Porphyrius), hence mimaginem (from the root of the Greek mimos), to imitate, by similarity. Following this meaning, image is given as a principle of similarity, and by extension as the minimum permissible spectrum, undifferentiated, indeterministic and totipotent of dynamic correlations potentially able to generate interference (coupling phase, resonance): in its absence, there can be neither association nor memory or the coupling phase. On an associative level, I link it to the Greek eidelopoios or idolopeo, that which generates spectrum, shadows, images, which Anton Maria Salvini (1653-1729) translated as imaginific. Following this meaning, image is given as a dynamic principle, i.e. the minimum fraction or quid of retention of the indeterministic temporal component, able to generate interference: in its absence, there can be no information, structuring, or energy-mass.

With respect to the physical meaning to be attributed to the term image, we must remember that in the strict sense for an image to be such it must be free of mass.

Claudio! It was never meant to hurt. Sorry you got your knuckles in the way of my flailing. Keep on freely pontificating on RG! Glad I helped you emote! Lol!

Don't forget, thought didn't originate just with the Greeks. Words, ideas and concepts are not the monopoly of any one group or origin of people. Once you start delving in to the minutia of metaphysics then there are some that argue that this entire universe is but just another "concept", a figment of our imagination. We would then have to go into concepts such as telekinesis & levitation. That is a bit past my pay grade.

I'll do my best to read and understand what you have written. However, I can see this is beyond my expertise level already by evaluating the profiles of the participants and contents of the discussion. I'm still a bit mundane, I confess!

My final answer to Ian's simple question based on my cumulative intelligence of 5+ decades and the apparent consensus presently in this discussion is, YES! Animals do use concepts. Particularly those who appear to have no language ability. Claudio, go to LinkedIn and post it as a Poll question and verify for yourself. I'd be interested. Make sure you specify the meaning of "concept" up front.

It occurs to me, having just reviewed this thread, that an inchoate concern I've had is this: a recurring theme in the philosophy of language since its inception in Frege has been that, whatever we may say a concept is, it makes little sense to talk about the use of a concept except within (the context of) a thought. And a thought is propositionally-structured, meaning that it can be expressed in a sentence. And, importantly, it has the property of being true or false. So the bias is to presume that any being that possesses concepts only employs them in thoughts. If this is right, then if I'm committed to the position that my dog employs concepts, I must be committed to the position that he has thoughts. And I would be committed to this position regarding any being that employs concepts.

Of course, as has been noted, cognizers (thinkers) must have evolved from non-cognizers. But noting this fact is of little help in addressing the question at hand. We want to make sense of how non-language users can be among the cognizers. Nor does it help to say some animals recognize their prey, or at least it doesn't help to merely say that. Why would that require the employment of a concept? We might project a thought onto such an animal, because we imagine we would be having the relevant thoughts in such a context. But in what sense is any such thought required to explain them and their behavior?

My idea is that the requirement of the possession of thoughts, and not merely concepts, may make our concern more acute.

I thought that it was the potential correlation of language and concept that we were examining. In my layman point of view, thought and concept must coexist. Language is a different matter. I thought the real question was, do concept and language need to coexist. Can a dog have concept with out the ability of human language to communicate such concept to another dog for example? Am I off-track?

Why do you want dogs to communicate concepts?

Concepts can be acquired through experience

and be inherited. For example the concept

of a spider or snake as an enemy, or how to

make a nest.

Regards,

Joachim

Joachim! My point was a question to you erudite folks with the academic training in these matters. It wasn't, that I "want dogs to communicate concepts" to each other or us, but "do they or not". What do you think? Do they or not? You seem enormously more familiar with birds and other creatures than I could imagine myself to be just by examining the contents of your prior posts.

"Concepts can be acquired through experience and be inherited". Are you agreeing "animals (particularly those who appear to have no language ability) use concepts", as do I? Are we in agreement on this issue then? For surely animals have the abilities that are acquired through "experience and be inherited" too.

Yes, in my opinion many animals do use concepts.

An example is the use of tool. Apes do it, crows,

dolphins, even some fish.

One or two years ago a monkey tried to explain me

the concept of a window. It was in Ulm (Germany).

Near the river Danube is a small zoo that I visited.

A window of the monkey house was slightly opened.

When the monkey saw me he took a chewed green

leaf and pushed it through the slit toward me.

My interpretation of this scene is: the monkey did not

want to feed me, rather, he wanted to show me that

there was an entrance for me to hand him out some gifts.

Regards,

Joachim

Clever German monkeys? I've the experience of clever Indian monkeys. In the US we have clever Turkeys.

When I visited Mysooru India a year ago, we went to the zoo to see strange monkeys behind the cages. When we returned home (a 3rd level well ventilated "flat", light and windows on all 4 sides) I notices all windows and balcony openings were enclosed with steel grid like a cage. And lo and behold the monkeys (2 dozen or so, the entire extended family) were out side on the mango tree checking us strange humans out. Quite a paradigm shift, I'd say! In Bengaluru they even have groups of juvenile monkey marauders http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marauders_(comics) that "gang up" in large numbers to dominate human neighborhoods. Team work concept!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_langur

Ian,

Although elaborated language is a unique human competence, it did evolve primarily as a competence to communicate pointers to sensory-motor categories common to all mammals. The word ''tree'' is learned by a toddler not from a dictionary but from an adult uttering the sound ''tree'' and pointing to a tree. We toddler was already able to perceive trees and thus had this abstract tree visual discriminatory category. So when human invented languages, they did not invent the underlyig sensory-motor dictionaries but only invent mimic pointers and vocal pointers to this underlying sensory-motor dctionary.

Louis (and Ravi and Joachim),

We seem to agree that: animals use concepts. Nor does it seem to disturb us to suggest that the use of concepts takes place only in the context of thoughts.

But surely we would hesitate to grant that all species or genera of animal use concepts? What distinguishes those that do and those that do not? There has been talk of emergent properties, and that's fine. How do we characterize, in the relevant way, types of animals for whom the relevant properties have not emerged? How do we characterize, in the relevant way, types of animals for whom, by contrast, concept use must be part of their accurate description?

Getting back to the condition that thoughts/beliefs must be either true or false, I do not believe that, e.g., caterpillars entertain "content" that must be either true or false. To entertain such content (and I am granting that dogs and monkeys, etc. do), the animal much possess something like a mind. It must have, however rudimentary, a view or "theory" of how the world it occupies is put together. It must have modal capacities, meaning it must be able, at least in a rudimentary way, to entertain the idea that things MIGHT have been one way, but in fact they are another way. (This is to say it must be able to entertain counterfactuals.) I think the cases that have been presented of animals using concepts generally meet these conditions. But I don't think it can be said that all animals meet these conditions.

Ian,

I do not think that any animals other than homo sapiens sapiens have thoughts. Only human have a splitted awareness: an regulare animal awareness of the here and now in parallel with a self-enact dream-like awareness. Animal interprets situations the best they can and act on this basis. If they are wrong in their evaluation they suffer the consequences and hopefully survive. Each animal from the most primitive one lives in a specific umwelt. Uexküll's discussion of a tick, saying,

"...this eyeless animal finds the way to her watchpoint [at the top of a tall blade of grass] with the help of only its skin’s general sensitivity to light. The approach of her prey becomes apparent to this blind and deaf bandit only through her sense of smell. The odor of butyric acid, which emanates from the sebaceous follicles of all mammals, works on the tick as a signal that causes her to abandon her post (on top of the blade of grass/bush) and fall blindly downward toward her prey. If she is fortunate enough to fall on something warm (which she perceives by means of an organ sensible to a precise temperature) then she has attained her prey, the warm-blooded animal, and thereafter needs only the help of her sense of touch to find the least hairy spot possible and embed herself up to her head in the cutaneous tissue of her prey. She can now slowly suck up a stream of warm blood."

Louis! I understand how you FEEL. If I were in your shoes I may have FELT the same perhaps but after my cultural, educational and life experience of 5+ decades what I have FOUND impels me to disagree with you completely regarding "I do not think that any animals other than homo sapiens have thoughts.". Purely at an intellectual level not theological. For religion is a matter of personal faith not fact.

"Only human have a splitted awareness", besides copious VANITY! Did "God make us in his image or we him in ours? God's infinite wisdom or our infinite vanity (infinitesimal wisdom)? What do you really think?

Almost everything you attributed to "animals" is true about the human animal as well. I'll list individually if you like. I see you like the "bloody" examples.

Uexküll, I must assume this name to be some accredited scholar. Of what national origin and religious background so that I may understand Uexküll better? Was he by any chance a "flat earther"?

"this eyeless animal" (blind Cyclops? Lol!). Please find the rationale in those writings for my earlier query regarding the deaf, blind, mute human's plight that Charles indicated was like "beating a dead horse".

BTW What is the source of your facts? US News, BBC, Al Jazeera, Scriptures, School, College, Communal Congregation, Google, other? So I may empathize with your perspective better. Please post links.

More to come........after I read your post thoroughly........

More to follow.........

Ah Louis,

So then my dog, and the monkeys described above, and dolphins, etc. are they cognitively are a par with a tick?

Ravi,

I do not think that a dog is deliberating with thoughts and scenarios. That being said, I do not mean to say that my dog is stupid and dumb. It almost can read my intentions sometime. If I decide to give my dog a bath, I try the best I can to act normally and call my dog the most normally I can. As soon as the eye contact is made my dog guess my intention and try to escape. In most eastern religious tradition, the practice of meditation is important in order to help focus our consciousness like animal do, the here and now. Atlhetes at their pic of performance can probably achieve it.

I put a quote from von Uexkull taken from Wikipedia: umwelt. It seems to upset you!!!

Ian,

The reality (umwelt) of different organism is different. The more evolve animals lives in very complex realities. Dolfphins, because they are mammal, have the capacity to cooperate, this is a general mammal characteristic. A group of dolphins can create a dynamic fishing net; they gradually concentrated the fishs within the net and gradually individuals plunge inside to feed. It is their group behavior which make them so efficient. Thus they need to communicate in order to achieve the coordination of their behavior. The more evolve animals, mammals and birds lives in so complex realities, realities that change rapidly and are so varied that these behaviors have by necessity to be learned. It is why all mammal have a high capacity to learn, to learn socially, to dream in order to integrated their learning into their nervous system, and to play in infancy in order to discover and learn and practice the art of sensory-motor attention. The more complex is the realitities (umwelt) of an organism and the more complex is their cognitive capacity to deal with this complexity. Most of our cognitive capacity and creativity is very similar to our primate ancestors; what distinguish us is our highly expandable umwelt. We are a theatrical animal. We have the capacity to embodied all kind of different realities into a variety of theatrical play into which we act as individuals and groups. We think through language in terms of collective mind tools and access all kind of realities and mythically live them. When we walk into a social setting with certain norms and expectancies, we walk into a physical place with a here and now, but we parallely walk into a theatrical play that has tradition in human history. We participate in multiple worlds in parallel.

Aristotle: Man is a political Animal

Darwin: Man descent from primates

Louis: Human theatrical animal

The three definitions are perfectly consistent with each other. The mythical mind of the political animal evolved from the political mind of the primate. It became mythical by the capacity to self-enact narrative, like mammal do in dreams, but parallely during waked time. Primate had to evolved very rapidly political game among members of the tribe in order to evolve in this political environment. This adaptive pressure lead to the theatrical political primate.

Louis! You are making me work hard. Thanks!

I asked because I was curious and not upset. Blood doesn't upset me especially right after the TG Turkey Gorge-out. Ever see Friday 13th? (I couldn't sit through the torture for entertainment). This is not an emotional exercise to me. It is not my vocation as to many of you. It is more of a rational exercise for my acumen.

BTW "like mammal do in dreams"? How is this quantified? Got some animal-linguists? When is the last time they attended "confession"? Just curious not upset yet or atheist or anything like that Louis!

Thrived contemporaneously & prior to WWII? Thanks for the revelation Louis! I'll read and learn. Interesting history Louis.

Jakob von Uexküll: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_von_Uexk%C3%BCll

Anyone interested in domesticated Indian cow & other animal stories illustrating, in photographic clarity, their superior conceptual abilities? Including "thought", "memory", "cause effect analysis", "great unsolicited unilateral affection", etc. I'll answer this based on how many yes votes I see. Let's make RG kind of interactive. Let's see how long I can hold my enthusiasm back. Imagine the most friendly rambunctious little pet dog at the end of your leash. Watch 'em teeth though! Norman Vincent Peal! Go Google!

Are members reading, snoozing, or being "PC" and staying neutral? This is a test!

The story of Santino, the genius's chimp is interesting.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2009/03/09/chimpanzee-collects-ammo-for-premeditated-tourist-stoning/

FAITH! A story of hope, unbelievable courage, heart, love and example for some of us humans too busy complaining about what we don't have rather than "counting our blessings and being thankful and content with our endowments", a prelude to the concept of "perseverance" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoVRLiAMGjk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoVRLiAMGjk

I love this question and also project my perception and understanding on my pets (well, my wife's pets). I tend to agree with Searle that non-humans do not have symbolic communication in the same way we do. Could be wrong: animals are capable of deception and plotting cooperatively. Leads me to wonder. But then there's Quine and the notion that between two humans who speak different first languages there must be different foundations, concepts and world views that make translation always only partial. Quine concludes that that if we cannot know from the others point of view then all differences simply cannot matter or we must fail to communicate entirely. That would leave open a window for our translation of our pets' communications and allow us to assume that we do communicate.