Do animals THINK as we humans do?

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130525041341AAnZPBF

Yes, Animals Think And Feel. Here's How We Know

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/07/150714-animal-dog-thinking-feelings-brain-science/

How do animals think?

http://agriculture.vic.gov.au/pets/care-and-welfare/how-do-animals-think

Do Animals Think?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199911/do-animals-think

Does behavioural plasticity in animals result from thinking/mental plasticity?

I'm sure they think, but what do they think about?  I have two adopted cats.  One seems to be smarter than the other.  She was a feral kitten (about 6 months old) when she decided to live in my house.  I had tamed her somewhat with a dish of milk, and each day for a few days, I put down a dish and talked to her and patted her as much as she could stand.  One day I forgot to put out her milk at the accustomed time.  After a while she came over to me and made eye contact and licked her lips.  I think she not only thought about something but she knew how to make contact with a strange species. 

The other one is extremely affectionate but also seems rather stupid.  

I also have a rabbit.  She seems to be fairly clever.  When she was just a little bunny, I used to give her a small towel.  She learned very fast that if she covered herself with the towel, I would come over and say "where's the BUNNY?".  She would then throw the towel off and come to get patted.  This was a game that she seemed to think was fun and would initiate a lot of affection, which is the only thing rabbits like more than food.

If by thinking you mean can animals reason, the answer is yes. If you mean philosophical thinking, there is no evidence.

I have not seen sufficient information on how humans think so I have come up with my own classification as follows.

1) Basic reactive thinking

2) Thinking guided by intellectual reasoning

3) Intuitive thinking

In every human there is varied degree of development of capacity to think in these three different ways. Some humans may have less capacity for intellectual or intuitive thinking. Scientists may have highly developed intellectual thinking. Prophets and Saints may be using considerable intuitive thinking. I think animals are guided primarily by basic reactive thinking and very little of the other two. The intuitive thinking in case of animals can be seen in the migration of birds and the wild beasts of the serengeti

Apart from this, in case of humans there seems to be some kind of a subtle apparatus or machinery which is able to get hold of the alphabets of the known language stored in the memory and construct words and sentences and create thought waves which can be detected by the mind but not the ears. These thought waves are then supplied to the vocal organ (speaker) which converts these thought waves into sound waves which can be heard by the ears. All thought waves are not supplied to the vocal organ but only those approved by the intellectual faculty.In case of animals, this apparatus must be in a very rudimentary form, therefore dogs can only bark and so on.

I think humans evolved from amoeba over a period of many cycles of birth and death and he continues to evolve even today. And amoeba evolved from fundamental particles of physics. So what is an animal today can become a human after many cycles of birth and death.

Marcel, great question.

Philosohers will probably give a next-question-answer like "what do you mean by "thinking"? (Oh I saw now Vitaly has started already!)

I can try to provide some reasoning: "Animals' behaviour shows that their brains do operate on obteined representations of the perceived". One can imagine this representations as some level of conceptualisation. Now... why "brains". Well, not only animals with CNS have paths of perception-dependent and learning behaviour. 

One possible further path of reasoning will be related with "what is an instinct". And we may start turning arround intents and emotions. Higher species do show having both.

For me this provides a basis for what we call thinking. But what do we call "thinking" in fact?

Velina

Merriam-Webster dictionary

Simple Definition of thinking

Popularity: Top 30% of words

: the action of using your mind to produce ideas, decisions, memories, etc. : the activity of thinking about Something (animals I presume 'yes' based on interactions with dogs?)

: opinion or judgment (animals I presume 'yes' based on interactions with dogs?)

: a way of thinking that is characteristic of a particular group, time period, etc.

(animals, I presume 'yes' based on interaction with dogs?)

Full Definition of thinking

1 :  the action of using one's mind to produce thoughts (if animals dream they produce thoughts?)

2a :  opinion, judgment b :  thought that is characteristic (as of a period, group, or person) What do you think?

How can you capture 'invisible' thoughts from a brain you do not have yourself and in addition from an organism that cannot explain in human language what they think?

As per my own day to day experience; animal can think. Because animal like dogs, buffaloes and other pet animals can recognize their nearby like people or animals by showing their reaction towards them. My views are based upon my experience. If they need water to drink, i observed animals showing moments of their heads towards water bucket. It means the animal have memory and can think.

People study trees without having access to the roots of the trees versus people study animal behaviour without have access to the mental thoughts guiding animal behaviour?

http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1985-11411-001

http://www.dpz.eu/fileadmin/content/Kognitive_Ethologie/Publikationen.pdf/Menzel_Fischer_2011_Animal_Thinking_An_Introduction_Struengman_Forum_Report_MIT_Press.pdf

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ana_Pinto30/publication/239879286_How_Intelligent_Is_Machiavellian_Behavior/links/0deec51c30f319680f000000.pdf

Book How Intelligent Is Machiavellian Behavior?

If humans/animals cannot guess the thoughts of conspecifics/heterospecifics, do the interpretations during intraspecific/interspecific communication/behavioral interactions follow the principles of a lottery game? 

Example:

What thoughts can produce the 'same' smile, where the expression of different smile shapes might be considered as a simple example of behavioral plasticity perhaps consistently differing between individuals?

It's a great pleasure for me to believe that my cat was an outstanding thinker. The research works like this one: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259006521_Language-Trained_Animals_A_Window_to_the_Black_Box make me sure that I'm not absolutely wrong.

Article Language-Trained Animals: A Window to the "Black Box"

It is obvious that animals like food, and can be trained to do/ask things when food is provided... It requires memory, and Learning to make associations between a stimulus (e.g. a command combined with a gift) and an act/response (as in a circus), and what else? Communication about thinking (e.g. I like that or I don't like that) without words

Fish can be trained to pull a robe connected to a bell to call the person who feeds them....

Interesting is that animals can do things in the presence of humans they will never do in the absence of humans. Does this imply that humans increase behavioral plasticity in animals extending it beyond the nature range of plasticity? How much behavioral plasticity related to thinking/Learning is hidden, e.g. only revealed in exceptional conditions?

A biologist Dr Reznikova (http://www.reznikova.net/AI_CUP.html and her other works: http://www.reznikova.net/Publications.html) thinks that animals are able for categorization. How do you describe thinking as a concept? What about new metaphoric sign combinations "suggested" by animals to their instructors? 

Excellent point! Thinking to create something new, like art. Any concrete examples for animals available? Are decorations in bowerbirds associated with animal art/creativity to transmit a (more attractive) message to others?

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=bowerbird+decorations&qpvt=bowerbird+decorations&qpvt=bowerbird+decorations&FORM=IGRE

How to make a distinction between 'thinking' and 'trial and error' approaches to be more efficient as an animal? 

O la la... Marcel,  it has started to be a hard issue here. Animals do things in the presence of humans differently and vice-versae...

Hm let us take the cognitive capacities of dogs ...On wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_intelligence) one may see the best example of animals that live in and "via" human presence. It is suggested there that  their augmented cognitive capacity is somehow due to humans. Now if we start thinking of DNA as a complex of codded rules that develops in time as an constraint-adaptive system, we may imagine that the "constraints" in terms of life-time experiences that this animals have chared with humans (during so long time), pushed the canis lupus DNA changes in the intelligence direction. Following our model of it.

The problem is that in such a system, the DNA adaptive effect is caused by means of all type of constraints on the life-time adaptive behaviour, as well as by means of cross-individual DNA reproduction. That will give a sort of Markov chain.

But with such reasoning, one may deduce that this has happened sinse the very beggining (now I'll go to the Big Bang, oh...)

So I concider that the development of brain processing such as we now concider "intelligent", has arisen far before homo.

The question is what thinking is? Some specific operations (processes) on mental representations that run in order to guide the behaviour whithin the environmental constraints? The most trivial debate here is "äre they related necessariily to language".

So, as I told, O-la-la...

Velina

Interesting! Thinking could be disconnected from language, just based on feelings guiding behavior accepting that feelings is a kind of unspoken language?

The dance of the bees transmitting information about position and direction of pollen ressources is unspoken language based on thinkng?

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00168595#page-2

When bees compare dances to make decisions which information to use, they think, right?

I'm not sure if the bees' waggle dance represents thought.  The bees have evolved so that they act collectively to solve problems like "which direction do we go to find this treasure trove of pollen/nectar?"  It is tempting to think that this is the result of thinking, but I think it is actually a scenario embedded in their genes.  Something like, if you see a bee doing the dance, respond by going off in the given direction to find something good.  I don't know how this is encoded, but I think this is true - for bees and for other hymenopterans, like ants and wasps. 

Apparently paper wasps( Polistes Fuscatus) can recognize faces of hive-mates.  Is this thinking or a genetically coded process?  It surely looks intelligent, but I'll bet on the genetic answer.

Absolutely agreed, Marcel.

"Thinking could be disconnected from language, just based on feelings guiding behavior accepting that feelings is a kind of unspoken language?"

I do think the same. Now - let us try with the linguists and the philosophers.

Wonderful source, thank you!

Velina

Instinct (automatized responses) will evolve in (very) predictable environments, but how to copy with a 'novel' and dynamic environment without thinking what to do next?

And what might be the association between 'animal thinking' and 'animal intelligence'?

E. g.

http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/361/1465/23.short

Perhaps animals can think when they take a decision, without necessarily taking the right or wrong decision in a novel environment?

This last, Marcel, was perfect.  No way.

Sorry for coming in so late. By all means: yes, provided trhat we enlarge and deepen our understading of thought and knowledge - from an anthropological take to a broader scope: animal-take.

in fact the Animal Studies are seriously concerned with this issue - hence approaches ranging from literature, to psychology to biology to philosphy, f.i. 

Think animals can think because they are like us have brain even though their brain's size & sophistication are different from human beings'.  Within the animal kingdom, their species are so diverse, hence their brain sophistication & thinking level also vary.  Evidence of animals can think can be exemplified through their problem solving skills like how to find food / hunting in groups, escaping from danger, defending & nurturing their young, can feel sad, angry etc. i.e. they have souls (cognition & emotions) like us.

I'll dare make a general claim, and ask please for comprehension (because of its generality):

Animals think more, better, and different from us human - depending in particular studies, species, characteristics, etc.

From an evolutionary standpoint, many insects think better than humans, for they are much more and better adapted. From the point of view of anatomy and thermodynamics, apparanelty many cephalopods think more than humans do. And finally from the perspective of functionality, bacteria, and many collective swarms think differently from humans.

What do these people think? If you know the answer, you will be a specialist in the study of how and why animals think?

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=photos+of+people+that+smile&qpvt=photos+of+people+that+smile&qpvt=photos+of+people+that+smile&FORM=IGRE

That leads me,Marcel, to think of animals that smile.  Dogs smile in recognition of people and maybe of other dogs.  My second cat, the dumber one, is white and so in profile you can easily see her smile turning up.  It's a little trickier with some cats.  Did you know that angelfish recognize the person who takes care of them?  They sail over to meet you and shiver with excitement.  It may only be excitement that food is coming, but maybe not.  Carlos mentions the  cephalopods.  The octopuses and cuttlefish have huge brains, but as I understand it, most of that brain is used in copying the pattern of their environment so that they can disappear into it.   They can produce colorful patterns, even make a kind of hypnotic strobe effect to confuse their prey;  Do they think about this?  I don't know, but they do seem to be very clever IN THIS ACTION.

Well, just as, f.i. Animal Studies show, the point is not so much being an specialist on how animals think, but rather acknowledging that animals are part of our own world, that we share much about it, and that in fact our own life would be impossible without them.

In other words, it is not so much a matter of understanding than sharing experiences. 

Thanks carlos interesting answer

Carlos: "In fact the Animal Studies are seriously concerned with this issue - hence approaches ranging from literature, to psychology to biology to philosphy,"

Marcel: "Perhaps animals can think when they take a decision, without necessarily taking the right or wrong decision in a novel environment?"

Right decision is survival (individual or of the species), wrong is - not. That's my interpretation of the the global "notion" of right or wrong. So they take what we call a decision aiming to be right. The problem is obviousely related to fundamental issues. 

We usually judge is there "thinking" via the behaviour. Let us start from "earlier" (Marcel, I told you that this leads me to the Big Bang)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrrSAc-vjG4

(This video was suggested to me by GM with relation of such questions)

Velina

Plants think or sleep or what else? Some people indeed think that plants behave and follow strategies to succeed.

Marcel, Do they think or sleep... Perhaps one must imagine what is necessary for the survival. For those with CNS it is necessary to sleep. Is that necessary for the others? You know better. Do they think. And we go again to "what does it mean "to think". How we know some act is a decision making? From who is this decision made? We use to accord it to a single entity, becouse we imagine that we perform like that. What if it is a common societal decision? I don't know how do ants proceed.

Chain reactions in multiple social networks?

What a lot of great answers!  Yes, Carlos, we are all part of a greater system.  How to proceed when a lot of people don't even think other human beings are part of the same system?  People treat animals badly but they treat each other probably even worse,  Humans  have a brain but many people act as if they are running only on the emotional brain.   Right now people are trying to frighten each other that if we do the right thing (rescue refugees for one thing) we will have less and even be in danger from these very people.  Sometimes- often - most of the time I feel as if I am more closely related to animals than such people.  whatever the animals are thinking, it is most likely not how to destroy everything else.  Oh yes, there are battles to gain the most respect and accrue the most females.  But there is also great altruism in some groups, think of elephants.  During the big West Nile virus outbreak a few years ago, crows (corvids) were hard hit.  It developed that female crows continued to raise their sister's offspring.  So not everything in the animal world is fighting - there is a great deal of surprisingly "human-like" behavior.  If only we could learn to control ourselves! 

Oh, that DID turn into a rant, didn't it?  Don't worry, I like you animal lovers!

Martha

Yes dear Martha. We can easily identify three main roles by which people treat animals as "animals" (= badly). First, all those terrible agro-industrial enterprises. Those are concentration camps for animals, just like Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and the like. Secondly, animals are subject to be eaten. The ways butchers -in that back-stage kill animals should be a serious concern for us all. And thirdly, even though much more kind, animals are treated as pets.

In contrast, children have a world full of animals that are much more than these three levels. For instance.

Avian intelligence is well-known. From personal experience, I can say that birds certainly 'think' on more than a superficial level. How could they not be thinking, even if it may be at the level of a human child at the age of a year or so?

I have seen a little feathered friend reason things out. I have seen the feathered friend be guided to change his behaviour and do something that seemed unrelated. By following my repeated verbal instructions when he needed help, he got out of a situation that would have hurt him badly.

Basic understanding of language, plus reasoning and indeed 'care' resulted from another incident. Once, when I fell over in front of him and was hurt, with nobody around to help, he asked me if I wanted a drink!

One of the test of thinking is the ability to understand a challenge, think a strategy and devise a means to solve the challenge. In this regard animals not only think but perfect problem solvers to the extent of precision. Circus animals displayed their talent of problem solving skills in orchestrated shows, dogs capture a thrown Frisbee or ball by running and thinking ahead what the path of the ball looks like and intercept the parabolic path perfectly and catch the ball before it touches the ground. Pelicans pick their prey from the upper position by moving in a sophisticated and mathematically proven shortest time path called brachistochrone, which all show sophisticated thinking capability to solve problems.  

for instance what?  you're right = we are awful with animals.   but I wanted to hear your examples!!

Certainly and amount of thinking proportional to size of brain.

To plan a strategy to find/get food requires some thinking, also to avoid being eaten by others,

Is the size of the brain only related to thinking? Perhaps the animal brain is storing perceived conscious/unconscious information and perhaps using it once in a lifetime, or not at all after it has been stored, e.g. when the information is not needed during daily life? How much of the received information will be truly used for thinking given that each individual received billions of information units just depending on the details?

Perhaps a tiny brain can think a lot, but always about the same, sometimes limited, topics, e.g. like a goldfish in a tiny transparent aqu arium?

Perhaps the amount of thinking is related to the degree of mobility possibilities in captives, e.g. do captives in zoos repeat the same mobility patterns (e.g. walking in small circles) to reduce/prevent thinking (e.g. as in trance states)?

Brain structures of individuals (e.g. birds) are plastic and express seasonal variation. Certain brain parts become bigger during the automn when they start to store food for the winter to think better or to recall better? 

Dear Marcel,

Birds benefit from their previous experiences (nesting failure Under adverse weather and predation pressure) which may help individuals to decide when and where build their nests. This behaviour was adopted to increase the rate of breeding success 

Regards,

I try to follow and will try to generalize (from my point of view).

One position says that animals do think. This position is related to our human judgment of animals’ behavior as intelligent. Marcel added that there are neurological evidences of augmented brain tissues in birds in autumn, confirming the common inexplicit position that thinking is a process which has its biological bases rooted somewhere. It seems we don't always imagine where and how, as the model of social cognition and thinking was proposed too.

Another position says that animals learn to behave in a certain way. That implies that they are not exactly "thinking" but follow some "instinctual instructions" that lead them to some behavior, adapted to the concrete environment and circumstances. From this perspective the judgment about the animal’s capacity to think is obviously reset to its zero point.

Animal consciousness was also mentioned. Here the state of art, as proposed in wiki:

“In July, 2012 during the "Consciousness in Human and Nonhuman Animals" conference in Cambridge a group of scientists announced and signed a declaration with the following conclusions:

Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.”

So, how do we proceed further?

.

Based on the biological evidence and the behavioral responses towards novel environments, animals as humans think without scientistis/citizens being able to empirically have the personal experience of animal thinking? Obviously, evolutionary biologists will claim that humans are animals and therefore will conclude that at least one animal is able to think based on personal experiences? 

Thus, in other words, scientists/citizens use personal experiences to understand how other organisms function? They have difficulties to accept phenomena they never experienced themselves? 

Dear Martha,

I learned my outdoor goldfishes to indicate me when the oxygen level of the water is too low. They point to the device that produces the water flow to oxygenize the water I sometimes switch off. I turn the device on again when the fish indicate me when to do it. This is interactive communication between different organisms that think, also to balance between noise produced by the running water (no flow no noise) and electricity required to produce the water flow (obviously more electricity required to create the water flow)?  Do the goldfish become symbolic green fish?

Cheers

Yes... Marcel you have it correct according to me. "They have difficulties to accept phenomena they never experienced themselves? "

The first person point of view crates images like "consciousness is language" for example.

Physicists would perform better here. Do we have one?

It is so interesting - to read this discussion! Thank you very much! When I read a definition "thinking=...opinion, judgment", I found in my memory a lot of cases when our old poodle made his choice. Often, when we (4 people) were going for a walk with him to the forest, he didn't know what to do, how to choose a right person for following. I think he formed his opinion on everyone and expressed his final "judgment" in his behavior. He stopped, looked at us, "compared" everyone's and his own "possibilities' and came to the conclusions. 

Dear Marcel,

Animals do think, why and how. This is my personal experience ...

I have this tabby cat of 10 years, he has been brought in from day 2 by my godmother. I was never home for 20 hours a day and most of the time overseas due global trade missions. They made great pair - two lonely souls.

He was a very smart cat. Our house could lead to our neighbour's, but never once he entered into the neighbour's house - without anybody teaching him.

On her free time, they would play this game that require two persons taking turn to move the marbles from a hole-like container - still, my godmother never taught him at all but he took two days to join her by observing only - till the day she passed on.

The day she left us, I saw his lost. He kept watching at the marbles' container and kept throwing the marbles onto the air. He found no one to play with. Then he started to throw tantrums and scratched every little things he got.

His anger did not stop there. A week later after not finding my godmother, he started to bite and scratch me. It was not the friendly kind. I was full of blood and went to the A & E Department because my hand and thigh were bitten badly with his teeth marks everywhere. I was given an antiseptic lotion and shot and made to stay overnight at the hospital for unforeseen observation.

In the meantime, I called the SPCA to take my cat away, not to be put off but for rehabilitation and for fostering, if possible. I knew he needed company and I could not provide him that luxury - in fact, my late godmother missed that luxury too, much to my job frustrations - but I need the job badly then.

So Marcel, animals do think - like my cat. He even knew that he should not cross over to others house without having to tell him. Why he thinks because he was accompanied by a thinking human. How he think is how my godmother instilled in him the value of companionship by playing with him human game in her silent way. Even his anger was humanly - out of utmost solitary.

Hope this experience helps you see that animals living with human tend to think and act like the human he was brought upon. This is entirely different from those wild, strayed or caged animals unless they are classically conditioned using Pavlov theory.

Regards - Mariam

I don't know about the future, but their perception for some things is amazing.  when we have an earthquake, some cats will meow and jump around before we feel or hear it.  Some dogs (maybe cats too) can smell on their human''s breath, skin, somehow they know when the person is about to seize.  Some cats can predict when a patient is within a few hours of dying, and will sit with the person.  I had a cat who contracted feline leukemia from her mother before I adopted the kitten at 4 weeks.  She loved to sit on my shoulder as I read, practised music, etc.  She would even go into the vet's office on my shoulder, never needed a cage.  One time, a short time before she died,  I tripped and landed on my crummy knee that eventually needed replacement.  I was in agony and managed to get up off the floor and threw myself onto the bed.  Allball, who couldn't jump onto the bed because she was so weak, jumped onto the bed and looked me in the eyes as if asking was I all right.  What a cat.  A year or so after she had to "go to sleep", I was looking at her picture book and suddenly it came to me, Oh!  Allball was a cat!  I had got so used to attributing to her human qualities!  Best cat-person bonding I ever got to have with a cat. 

http://animals.howstuffworks.com/animal-facts/pet-sixth-sense.htm

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/04/0416_030416_seizuredogs.html

If animals would be guided by spiritual forces/humans, will the animals think or behave like automatized living beings guided by the forces/humans? 

Thinking is an empathic experience. In other words, we know that animals think because we can feel it. Not that we cognitively process that they think. Any empathic (Einfühlung) experience confronts us with living beings - not with automatised structures. I believe. 

Dear Marcel,

I know of animals having this sixth sense about impending future like when Tsunami came.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01/0104_050104_tsunami_animals.html

They need no oracle to guide the future as they are capable to sense them on their own

https://student.societyforscience.org/article/sense-danger

Still, they could be guided by shamanism as found in this article

http://www.animalspirits.com/index1.html

Depending on the animals' fitness with the human and or spiritual forces. Not all animals could simply be guided by these two forces.

Even though the shamans have more power to automatized the animals, it is the human whom - with their genuine love, would guide the behaviour of the animals towards significant good.

The mirror is us - if we wish to have an animal as a friend, we will get one. Yet, the reverse is true too - if you love to abuse the animals, be prepared to be abused by them. By then, you need no shaman to help you shun away from these "automatized" animals.

Best regards - Mariam 

Mariam, how can they be guided by a shaman?  are you talking about the spirit guide that people who practise shamanic journeying make contact with in their trance?

Yes Martha,

I have seen some shamans in remote Indonesia who practised spirit guiding using animals by chance.

It was supposed to be a casual tourist visit but the villagers brought me to join in their tradition of using animals to strengthen their presence.

These animals are sort of mind-controlled by the shamans through some ritual journey. As my visit was purely as a tourist and the guide is my friend, I managed to see how the animals are automatized by the shamans.

A truly eye-opening visit indeed.

Oh! When my friend who practises shamanic journeying, she knows she is at the right place in the trance when a spirit animal (not a real one, but appears only in this state) appears. It always seems to be the same animal. I think hers was a squirrel. It would then lead her to find the answer she was looking for. She sometimes did this to find out how to help a sick friend. It must be that different traditions do the journeying differently.

I had the impression that the answers she would get might be the kind of thing you would pick up in a good lucid dream. That is, what she already knew but not on a level that she could see it easily. Maybe it frees you up in your mind. Just wondering.

There is a story in Bible, Luke 8.26 - 8.39. In this Jesus casts out a group of evil spirits from a man and sends them into a heard of swine feeding there and the herd runs violently down a steep place into a lake and gets choked.

Animals that are raised by humans trust humans, I presume. Do animals that trust also think, e.g. following with versus without thinking? Of course...

Dear Martha,

The power of faith is beyond imagination. Your friend chose to believe that her shamanic journey led her to find whatever answer she is looking for with the help of a squirrel. She might be correct after all.

As I see it, it is more of a REM sleep when dreams become as vivid as the journey itself. Then again I could be wrong.

If I am right, your friend is subconsciously finding a reason to free her mind of any doubts she might have. The journey is her "safe" outlet.

The fact remains that animals are just like children. Unlike children, animals eyes can see using ultraviolet trails and they are blessed with sixth sense. Like children, they tend to follow their guardians, full of sensation or senseless oftime.

Both ways, they are mostly adorable.

Best regards - Mariam

I think you're right that this is a way for my friend to free her imagination.  I do it in dreams but she is hooked on this particular way to do it.  If I had a spirit animal it would probably be a praying mantis.  :-)  I particularly like the small jewels that fly into and out of our sight.

Dear Marcel,

It is not so much of trust. It is more of a term of endearment.

Cognitively, animals have their own mind - it is a matter of whether they wish to use it or not. For example, they use it when they see their lives are threatened. Being animals, oftimes their animal insticts supercede their thoughts.

Dear Marcel,

It is not so much of a trust. It is more of a term of endearment.

Cognitively, animals have their own mind - it is a matter of whether they wish to use it or not.

For example, they use it when they see their lives are threatened. Being animals, oftimes their animal instincts form part of their thoughts. Only then you will see how they behave in their own colors.

On other normal days, they take the persona of those who cares for them, without the extra effort to think at all because they feel loved and safe, just like us.

Yes, Animals Think And Feel. Here's How We Know

wrote By Simon Worrall

Do animals feel empathy? Does an elephant have consciousness? Can a dog plan ahead? These are some of the questions that award-winning environmental writer Carl Safina teases out in his new book, Beyond Words: How Animals Think and Feel.

Ranging far and wide across the world, from the Ambroseli National Park in Kenya to the Pacific Northwest, he shows us why it is important to acknowledge consciousness in animals and how exciting new discoveries about the brain are breaking down barriers between us and other non-human animals.

Speaking from Stony Brook University on Long Island, New York, where he is a visiting professor in the school of journalism, he explains how elephants routinely display empathy; why U.S. Navy underwater tests in the Pacific Northwest should be stopped; and how his own pet dogs prove his theories.

For more plz read at following link.

Regards

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/07/150714-animal-dog-thinking-feelings-brain-science/

Can humans appreciate animal art? For instance, the beautification of the courting bower by bower birds, in which they carefullly arrange berries , foliage, and other treasures hopefully attractve to females?

Though animals "thinking" is a vague term and open to several interpretations, my research and direct experience lead me to believe that vertebrates "think". It is scientifically proven that mammals, according to the species, could be compared to average 2 -3 years old humans. Cognitive skill development in children involves the progressive building of learning skills, such as attention, memory and thinking. These crucial skills enable children to process sensory information and eventually learn to evaluate, analyze, remember, make comparisons and understand cause and effect. Although some cognitive skill development is related to a child's genetic makeup, most cognitive skills are learned. That means thinking and learning skills can be improved with practice and the right training. There is clearly a variable point when mammals species don’t progress further but Homo sapiens.

Perhaps thinking = mentally visualising images or mentally hearing sounds and then eventually responding to it more or less? This happens in the absence of the images or sounds previously perceived by the eyes/ears/..., e.g. when the eyes are closed and the ears blocked? How to demonstrate this in animals?

Francesco Nardelli - yes, that is very much what I meant about the 'little feathered friend' with whom our children have grown up. They grew up; he remained at the level of an 18-month-old child in many ways, although certainly 'thinking' - and treating us as his family. The divergence, however, was that in the avian world he would probably have been the leader of the flock.

Marcel, I couldn't resist to post this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlpQX_jWg4M

I observed that mammals, young children included, respond similarly to the same stimuli, until a certain age and according to species. When a mammal learns to pay attention, it enables it to concentrate on one task for an extended period of time. Learning to focus attention is an important cognitive skill that the individual will use in virtually all future learning. Young mammals tend to have short attention spans that typically last minutes or less. By the time an individual reaches maturity age, it should have an increased ability to focus on one thing for longer periods and complete tasks. He also should be more adept at ignoring distractions. Children below a certain age and other mammal species don't think the way we consider it : an idea is followed in several directions to lead to one or more new ideas, which in turn lead to still more ideas.

Marcel, do you think that when dogs are making running motions in their sleep - legs going like crazy - that they are dreaming?  It seems so likely!  If they are dreaming, they seem to be thinking of running after prey (including animals that they will shake or bite) or running from a predator (or enemy).  I don't know the current research on this, could someone that does talk about it?

Mammals most likely dream and one of several subconscious reaction is 'making running motions', though this is not thinking. 

Is it proven that dreaming about a dangerous situation is not reacting to a similar situation that the animal remembers?  Or do you, dear Francesco, think that the sleep-running is not a question of memory, but something that the animal practises by instinct?  Is memory not a form of thinking about something that was extant but is not at the time of the memory?  You know more about animal (including human) behaviour than I do, so I'll respectfully listen to what you know!

Dear Martha you are teasing me, I like that :-). If animals dream in the same manner as we do, physical reactions are varying from individual to individual, so they should likely be various emotional responses to visual stimuli rather than thinking. Memory is one part of thinking not a form of. Having said this I concur with your example of the dog...but maybe he was running after a bitch, not a prey? :-)

Yes, I do like to tease you but I think it was valuable that you separated memory as "a part of but not a form of" thinking.  I'd never thought of it that way.  But if the dog were chasing a bitch would he also be grinding his teeth and contorting his face in his sleep?

I'm afraid I've not observed a dog in pursuit of a bitch making such a face. But I don't often go around watching like a voyeuse either.  :-)

Martha

Do you think there is always a (close) relationship between the state of thinking and behavior, including movements during sleep states? E.g. Humans might think without moving? 

That's an interesting question in itself.  Often humans dream while in REM state, but for some reason they can't move their limbs during it. Once when I was avidly experimenting with lucid dreaming, I remember trying to move but being aware that I was in REM so it wasn't so scary as it might have been. 

Dogs must dream in non-REM state.  Well, actually I don't know that.  Maybe their motion isn't inhibited in REM. 

I know I only answered a little bit of your question, but need to think about it more....

Human psychologists try to study 'thinking' in humans using standardized conditions (the same room and the same body position) asking humans to talk about what they think about. In these standardized conditions, verbal responses to human psychologists differ considerably across individuals. It strongly indicates that human behavior can be disconnected from thinking and contents of thinking?

Then , how to understand 'animal thinking' accepting that animals can not explain to humans what they are thinking?

A dog that is in a resting position can think about quite different things? Who knows?  

Great questions Marcel. 

Then, we can't understand 'animal thinking' but what if they can ours and just discharge it as too dangerous for species survival, to be taken into consideration?

Telepathy between so-called humans and animals is a way to proceed?

In my opinion it is. 

Harking back to our 'little feathered friend' with whom our children have grown up, his devotion has known no bounds. He would screech 'hello' every day when their school opposite our house ended and they came home. When our son reached 6th form [aged 16], he was allowed home at differing times each day. The bird would screech before our son was at an angle to be seen and was over 200 metres away. Were his footsteps audible amongst other school/road-noise? Or did he just sense his presence? Once the bird did this when our son was in his first year at university 240 km [150 miles] away. Later we found that our son had just left his accommodation to head for a train home. Coincidence??

Dear Francesco, I wanted to add this last night but my computer was ganged up against my getting anything done.

Suppose the animals truly sense what we are thinking about and decide our species isn't worth keeping around.  My putative poodle Jeb drags me by the leash to the park where he engages in a secret conversation.  He and his friend Donald sniff each others' butts, soon joined by their mutual friend Ted.  After a while, they seem to know what they're doing and part for a while (till their next walks).  When Jeb gets home, he engages in a little cat-fighting, which he and the big cat Mike enjoy no end.  When Jeb has Mike sufficiently riled up, they do a little butt-talking and then pass the info to Marco, another family cat, and then when Mario grooms Karli the bunny, they seem to impart their ideas to each other.  It seems clear that this scene is repeated in every home that has an animal who is allowed to play with others.  Since I am now the enemy of the house, the bunny kicks some "pellets" out of the cage and all over the floor.  She knows that I am boiling mad to have to clean up this mess.  Mike and Marco move to the front door and mark their territory, which marks are repeated from outside the door by a number of other male cats.  They remind me of Madame LaFarge, who passes on her revolutionary plans in her knitting.  I believe their desire of extinguishing all the humans is getting underway.  I almost hope that they can accomplish it quickly and as painlessly as possible so that my fears will also be extinguished.  Maybe Bernie, the wise parrot. will be able to calm them down a bit and we will all be safe for the time being.

We can learn animals to do things which would mean that animals can understand humans to some level therefore involving a component of thinking, but can animals learn us to do things too?

In Ethology, the problem is not only to know/demonstrate whether animals think, but also to identify what they think at the time of observation? If thinking involves mentally recalling one of the many past experiences,how can the external observers (e.g. the researcher) know what past experiences were mentally visualized again by the animal at the time of observation?

The simplest scientific approach might be to induce an environmental change and to look at the behavioral response, accepting that there is an (unverified) association between thinking and behavioral change, also involving hormone changes (adrenaline, CORT, T,....)?   

Dear Martha, I think animals are not concerned with extinguishing humans as we are doing a very good job ourselves... jokes apart, thinking seems to be an human exclusivity for we communicate each other in the same way but our cultural traditions (sic) are often differring our thoughts to the point that we ask ourselves: what that person is thinking about and we don't comprehend him/her despite the use of the same comunication mean. Animals have different languages: 'infinite' vocalizations, body's signs and likely telepathy. How many are we capable to interpret but a few? Not casually Apes are better understood than crows though Lorenz observed as a large number of signals in crows as in gorillas someone else. And more,  there exists cases of humans grown up isolated by other humans and, as far as I can remember,  they were not comunicating in human manner so was their thinking not understandable. 

https://www.ted.com/talks/carl_safina_what_are_animals_thinking_and_feeling

http://animalstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1028&context=animsent

The only reference for concluding that animals think are the human/personal experiences of thinking.... 

I read somewhere that animals/birds live only in the present moment. If that is so, then how does one explain a bird pining [and screeching] for his best friend when away at university for weeks/months?

Birds/Elephants/... have long-term memory just for nothing? An interesting question might be why past events can be mentally recalled in the absence of an external stimulus.... E.g. to prevent mental boredom perhaps also having physiological consequences and therefore life-history consequences or perhaps to maintain neuron pathways that require training to be maintained in a brain that expresses temporal dynamics in organisation or what else? But how to demonstrate this scientifically in species that cannot explain to humans what they think? How is 'mental electricity' transformed into consciously perceived images?

Who knows? 

Hi Francesco. I'm glad you spotted my submission as a joke.  I really do think that they learn something when they test out a new or old dog.  There was another part to the joke.  Did you recognize the names of the various animals? 

The following reference is not a joke!

http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0050139

Behavior and responses of behavior to changes in the social environment is used to conclude that animals think, I think

Cheers

Do you think in words, e.g. via mental auto-discussions, or do you know other empirical mechanisms of thinking independent from dreaming/recalling memories that could be applied to animals?

I think telepathy (aka mental auto-discussions?)

Should we take into consideration emotional and cognitive intelligences? 

Your comment "Do you think in words, e.g. via mental auto-discussions, or do you know other empirical mechanisms of thinking independent from dreaming/recalling memories that could be applied to animals?" is the core of this matter. Given that animals communicate not just with body signals and vocally, we have to find out their other mean(s). They posses brain similar to ours but I would dare to say that telepathy has evolved much more in theirs than in ours. It can't also be excluded other 'empirical mechanism' as you rightly say. Maybe we are far to know how animals "think" or very close to understand it. The fact that so few papers exist on the subject means that much more research ought to be carried to find an answer to a matter that could change the world. But we prefer to invest billions to find a bacteria on Mars...

With so many scientific achievements, I think sooner or later researchers can. It is not just a financial question but political will and stronger motivation. So far animal knowledge in general is much left behind for too many other 'priorities', this is in my opinion the major hurdle we are facing. "Man above all".