GodsOneMistake said:
there is a species of monkey that instead of fighting, have sex, and have been known to have homosexual sex and orgys, i just dont remember the spieces
Is there anything that makes humans unique?
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there is a species of monkey that instead of fighting, have sex, and have been known to have homosexual sex and orgys, i just dont remember the spieces
I'm not so sure that easier hunting is considered rational thought. Survival of the fittest applies to all, and if a creature can find hunting grounds that yield great reward for little risk, that's just learning. Most all animals learn. But no animal can rationalize.Khedive Rex said:Yes. Raccoons. As I've said above they've adjusted their instinctual hunting/gathering pack to suit a more modern kind of prey, the suburban garbage bin. In the old days a pack consisted of a mom and a dad racoon who found food for their kids. Nowadays its three raccoons (A mom a dad and a complete stranger which again takes adjusting) who hold the can and pop the lid, splitting the food between themselves and giving it to their kids.Firia said:I'm pleased I'm not the first to say it.xxhazyshadowsxx said:Rationalized thought processes is what sets the human race apart from others. I mean, do you know any animals that can prioritize something over natural instinct?
This is an entirely unnatural situation and one which is now common place amoung raccoons. The act was a completely logical response that defied their animal instincts. Therefore, animals have rational cognitive thoughts and furthermore they have been known to act upon them.
If a raccoon chose to hunt in a bears cave to prove its worth and bravery over the easier garbage buffet, that would be rational thinking. If I raccoon hunted in a bears cave over the easier garbage buffet, then that would be a failure of natural instinct.
Most animals can put 2 and 2 together. Pavlov proved that. But how many raccoons ask themselves WHY they can always find food in trash cans? How many ever care to find out? Though we'll probably never know the answer, I'd wager not too many.Khedive Rex said:Yes. Raccoons. As I've said above they've adjusted their instinctual hunting/gathering pack to suit a more modern kind of prey, the suburban garbage bin. In the old days a pack consisted of a mom and a dad racoon who found food for their kids. Nowadays its three raccoons (A mom a dad and a complete stranger which again takes adjusting) who hold the can and pop the lid, splitting the food between themselves and giving it to their kids.Firia said:I'm pleased I'm not the first to say it.xxhazyshadowsxx said:
This is an entirely unnatural situation and one which is now common place amoung raccoons. The act was a completely logical response that defied their animal instincts. Therefore, animals have rational cognitive thoughts and furthermore they have been known to act upon them.
I think that George Carlin said it best, in a dark and humorous way that makes me jump up and down with glee like things rarely ever do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzNgMplUNwc
Begin at 5:15.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzNgMplUNwc
Begin at 5:15.
You're putting the emphasis of the story on the wrong portion. Whats interesting about this isn't that raccoons have found new hunting grounds. Every animal does that. Whats interesting, and what defies instincts, is that they've added a third raccoon to their hunting packs.Firia said:I'm not so sure that easier hunting is considered rational thought. Survival of the fittest applies to all, and if a creature can find hunting grounds that yield great reward for little risk, that's just learning. Most all animals learn. But no animal can rationalize.Khedive Rex said:Yes. Raccoons. As I've said above they've adjusted their instinctual hunting/gathering pack to suit a more modern kind of prey, the suburban garbage bin. In the old days a pack consisted of a mom and a dad racoon who found food for their kids. Nowadays its three raccoons (A mom a dad and a complete stranger which again takes adjusting) who hold the can and pop the lid, splitting the food between themselves and giving it to their kids.Firia said:I'm pleased I'm not the first to say it.xxhazyshadowsxx said:
This is an entirely unnatural situation and one which is now common place amoung raccoons. The act was a completely logical response that defied their animal instincts. Therefore, animals have rational cognitive thoughts and furthermore they have been known to act upon them.
If a raccoon chose to hunt in a bears cave to prove its worth and bravery over the easier garbage buffet, that would be rational thinking. If I raccoon hunted in a bears cave over the easier garbage buffet, then that would be a failure of natural instinct.
A family of raccoons will decide to allow a complete stranger to hunt with them. They don't know this raccoon and they have no precident for cooperation and no gaurantee that things are going to work out (raccoons are not by nature freindly toward other raccoon packs.) Instinct would dictate that such an arrangement is dangerous and undesirable. The third raccoon could betray you and even if he doesn't you'll have to split whatever you find with this third stranger. If instinct were solely in charge, this set-up would be impossible.
Far from impossible though it's now the norm of raccoon packs. It's more common than the instincual hunting processes that raccoons have utilized since they first stepped foot on this earth. The only reason this could be the case is that individual raccoons recognize the necessity of having a third member and are willing and able to overcome thier instinctual impulses and conform to a logical and rational plan. I'd call that cognative thought. Wouldn't you?
Further more, I wouldn't call a raccoon hunting in an obviously dangerous bear cave to prove his bravery and resilience rationale thought. Logic would dictate that he should hunt in a low risk area with a high supply of food. Bear caves do not meet either of these criteria.
If you're looking for a raccoon to do something irrational to prove that it has rational thoughts, you're going to be waiting a long time. In the meanwhile, if you are looking for an example of an animal throwing off more than a millenia of instinctual tradition and instead crafting and implementing a logical plan to increase it's own food supplies, the raccoon is a prime example of rational thought in animals.
And your wager would have no scientific backing or intellectual support. You would be interpreting evidence to support a conclusion you have already established. You'll forgive me but that's not a wager I would take.SilentHunter7 post=18.123255.2505927 said:
I personally do not go as far as to say that raccoons understand the complexities of a capitalist system and how it inevitable produces a surplus of goods that must eventually be thrown away. There is no evidence to support that. What there is evidence to support is that raccoons have adjusted a millenia of instinctual tradition and created a logical game-plan that is niether comfortable nor natural in nature. Think of the pair of raccoons that have to hunt seperately from each other in neighboring raccoon packs. They're leaving the children unattended and wandering, isolated, into potential dangerous and definetly unfamiliar territory with nothing but the promise that the family they're hunting with will split the food evenly with them, even though they're outnumbered and in foreign territory. And yet the system works.
It's not because of instincts. Instincts would have rooted this system out a long, long time ago.
Humans invent.
What animal could have ever, in any number of generations, created the computer on which you read this? Generated the electricity that illuminates your screen? What animal could create something even a thousand times simpler? None could. That is what separates humans from animals.
What animal could have ever, in any number of generations, created the computer on which you read this? Generated the electricity that illuminates your screen? What animal could create something even a thousand times simpler? None could. That is what separates humans from animals.
