Animals understand universal

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friardchips said:
Animals have memory, instinct, and emotions, to aid them in solving problems. Not Reason (Intellect) and Will.

Reason is the ability to understand the meaning behind why, and not just perceive the active-cause of how, something is effectively and consequentially good or bad; to grow in conscience of the moral good.

The Will, is the ability to choose and act from one’s reasoned choices, toward a moral end.

vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a4.htm

‘1751 The object chosen is a good toward which the will deliberately directs itself. It is the matter of a human act. The object chosen morally specifies the act of the will, insofar as reason recognizes and judges it to be or not to be in conformity with the true good. Objective norms of morality express the rational order of good and evil, attested to by conscience.’
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Instinct is a set pre-programmed actions in animal or human, like when a bird builds a nest or a baby suckle on his mother’s nipple. There are task which require solving problem and they cannot be done using instinct. Please watch this video.

Moreover according to scientific study (please read this article) animal decide which means they need to reason.
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
It is instinct. God gave animals instinct, humans have developed minds. Does a lion understand government, religion, capitalism, etc.? No he does not. He knows how to get food, reproduce, defend against enemies and protect it’s pride. That is NOT abstract thinking. As for the crow, he has learned that a tool will work to get food. That is practical thinking, not abstract thinking. You are way off base on your definition of understanding universals.
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You need imagination and creativity for practical thinking, very similar to us.
 
STT said:
You need imagination and creativity for practical thinking, very similar to us.
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Yes but you do not need to understand universals to have practical thinking. That requires abstract thinking.

Does a dog muse about the definition of love or hate? No. It responds to danger or affection, but it does not analyze its responses, as humans do. A dog does not worry about where it came from and what will happen to it after death. It is very much in the present moment, and therefore generations of dogs in the future will be much like the dogs of today, as they were in the past. They will not have created cities, institutions, computers and medical advances. They will still be wagging their tails and begging for food just as they do today.
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
Yes but you do not need to understand universals to have practical thinking. That requires abstract thinking.

Does a dog muse about the definition of love or hate? No. It responds to danger or affection, but it does not analyze its responses, as humans do. A dog does not worry about where it came from and what will happen to it after death. It is very much in the present moment, and therefore generations of dogs in the future will be much like the dogs of today, as they were in the past. They will not have created cities, institutions, computers and medical advances. They will still be wagging their tails and begging for food just as they do today.
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I am no sure if they don’t have the ability for abstract thinking but they need to understand universal for what regards practical thinking. For example when a chimpanzee use a tool for garbing food. That tools could be a stick. All sticks are similar to him and he choose one of them instead a of a rock.
 
STT said:
I am no sure if they don’t have the ability for abstract thinking but they need to understand universal for what regards practical thinking. For example when a chimpanzee use a tool for garbing food. That tools could be a stick. All sticks are similar to him and he choose one of them instead a of a rock.
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O please. You obviously don’t want to acknowledge what abstract thinking involves. I have already explained it to you, but you continue with this dumb idea about animals using primitive tools. Why doesn’t a chimp make a saw or a hammer? It just grabs a thin stick to get ants out of something because it works. It doesn’t improve on it. Animals never advance, except by mutation. People advance by adding to their body of knowledge. This requires abstract thinking. Enough with the tools.
 
STT said:
Instinct is a set pre-programmed actions in animal or human, like when a bird builds a nest or a baby suckle on his mother’s nipple. There are task which require solving problem and they cannot be done using instinct. Please watch this video.

Moreover according to scientific study (please read this article) animal decide which means they need to reason.
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While I agree from the article that animals are not robotic ‘automatons’ you could do with providing sources that are not excessively secular (BEEEEBEEEEC). This is not a website I would use, even for science-related topics. Secular science on its own - void of Moral Natural Law - negates the largest portion of understanding, in the subject of freewill; such scientists do not say anything we don’t know or haven’t already dismissed, for the very reason that secular science is relationally dismissive.
 
STT said:
Instinct is a set pre-programmed actions in animal or human, like when a bird builds a nest or a baby suckle on his mother’s nipple. There are task which require solving problem and they cannot be done using instinct. Please watch this video.
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Remember, what some like Aristotle and St. Thomas called instinct is much broader then what we Cartesians call instinct 🙂
Moreover according to scientific study (please read this article) animal decide which means they need to reason.
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I recommend looking at these arguments to begin to see what we mean by the qualitative difference between brute animal cognition and human cognition:

tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/10/in-psearch-of-psyche-man-animal.html

aquinasonline.com/Topics/intsense.html

Brute animals simply show no conclusive signs of understanding abstract relationships, as I pointed out in my earlier posts, which is different from the particular/concrete relationships you are discussing. No one said that animals couldn’t understand any kind of relationship, after all 😃

Christi pax.
 
friardchips said:
While I agree from the article that animals are not robotic ‘automatons’ you could do with providing sources that are not excessively secular (BEEEEBEEEEC). This is not a website I would use, even for science-related topics. Secular science on its own - void of Moral Natural Law - negates the largest portion of understanding, in the subject of freewill; such scientists do not say anything we don’t know or haven’t already dismissed, for the very reason that secular science is relationally dismissive.
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There is a difference between the facts themselves and facts coupled with theories and hypothesis informed by certain philosophical views.

Christi pax.
 
Lucretius said:
There is a difference between the facts themselves and facts coupled with theories and hypothesis informed by certain philosophical views.

Christi pax.
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Secular factualising without remedy would have us believe by now that human life does not start at Conception (topic for another thread); remedy being that there is more than one scientist in the world at any one time.
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
O please. You obviously don’t want to acknowledge what abstract thinking involves.
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I am not sure whether animal have the potential or ability for abstract thinking. Could you define what do you mean with abstract thinking so I can become sure that we a re in the same page?
CHRISTINE77 said:
I have already explained it to you, but you continue with this dumb idea about animals using primitive tools. Why doesn’t a chimp make a saw or a hammer? It just grabs a thin stick to get ants out of something because it works.
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That simple task require imagination and creativity.
CHRISTINE77 said:
It doesn’t improve on it. Animals never advance, except by mutation. People advance by adding to their body of knowledge. This requires abstract thinking. Enough with the tools.
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You need to have a civilization in order to advance what you learn.
 
Lucretius said:
Remember, what some like Aristotle and St. Thomas called instinct is much broader then what we Cartesians call instinct 🙂

I recommend looking at these arguments to begin to see what we mean by the qualitative difference between brute animal cognition and human cognition:

tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/10/in-psearch-of-psyche-man-animal.html

aquinasonline.com/Topics/intsense.html

Brute animals simply show no conclusive signs of understanding abstract relationships, as I pointed out in my earlier posts, which is different from the particular/concrete relationships you are discussing. No one said that animals couldn’t understand any kind of relationship, after all 😃

Christi pax.
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Thanks for the links. I will read them as soon as I can.
 
STT said:
I am not sure whether animal have the potential or ability for abstract thinking. Could you define what do you mean with abstract thinking so I can become sure that we a re in the same page?

That simple task require imagination and creativity.

You need to have a civilization in order to advance what you learn.
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Ha ha. How did the first civilization start? Why did man advance beyond sticks for tools?
You don’t need civilization to advance. Your argument is going nowhere. An I am not going to explain abstract thinking to you again. You need to pay attention. An animal would have to say hey this stick is a tool, what other tools can I find or make? It doesn’t do that. It just grabs something that works. That does not involve abstract thinking.
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
Ha ha. How did the first civilization start? Why did man advance beyond sticks for tools?
You don’t need civilization to advance. Your argument is going nowhere. An I am not going to explain abstract thinking to you again. You need to pay attention. An animal would have to say hey this stick is a tool, what other tools can I find or make? It doesn’t do that. It just grabs something that works. That does not involve abstract thinking.
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You didn’t define abstract thinking.
 
 
STT said:
You didn’t define abstract thinking.
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I did it in POST 65:

Abstract ideas are nonmaterial concepts that are detached from our human senses; they cannot be felt, heard, seen, touched, tasted, smelled, and yet they are significant aspects of human cognition and human culture. Examples include the ideas of love, democracy, freedom, history, government, and even the idea of an idea or of the mind itself. Because these concepts are disembodied from the empirical world, we can only test them indirectly.
 
Maybe another way of expressing the Thomist position is that brute animals see universals, but only in terms of particulars, while humans see universals as universals.

So, a cat only understands “mouse” in relation to this mouse or that mouse or this memory of a mouse or a general image of a mouse, a result of synthesizing all the particular mice I remember.

Humans, on the other hand, can also understand “mouse” without any reference to any particular mice or even a synthesized mental image, even though our minds still couple the universal with a mental image, and that we still need to encounter the universals in the senses like other animals.

This is easier to see with mathematics: you know what a enneacontakaienneagon is even though I doubt you have any mental image of it, seen one, or care enough to even construct an accurate mental image of it.

In other words, what makes human thought different is that we can see and understand universals as universals and in terms of universals, while other animals can only understand and see universals in particulars and in terms of particulars. The mere animals cannot transcend the particular, while the human can.

Christi pax.
 
Lucretius said:
Maybe another way of expressing the Thomist position is that brute animals see universals, but only in terms of particulars, while humans see universals as universals.

So, a cat only understands “mouse” in relation to this mouse or that mouse or this memory of a mouse or a general image of a mouse, a result of synthesizing all the particular mice I remember.

Humans, on the other hand, can also understand “mouse” without any reference to any particular mice or even a synthesized mental image, even though our minds still couple the universal with a mental image, and that we still need to encounter the universals in the senses like other animals.

This is easier to see with mathematics: you know what a enneacontakaienneagon is even though I doubt you have any mental image of it, seen one, or care enough to even construct an accurate mental image of it.

In other words, what makes human thought different is that we can see and understand universals as universals and in terms of universals, while other animals can only understand and see universals in particulars and in terms of particulars. The mere animals cannot transcend the particular, while the human can.

Christi pax.
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Thanks for explanation. I think that is very close to my understanding.
 
STT said:
Thanks for explanation. I think that is very close to my understanding.
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So what was your point by putting this post up? Seems like you were trying to equate human and animal thought.
 
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