4 ms·

Can Animals Reason?

1 points by yters 7y ago

nabla9 7y ago
The author, Michael Egnor is a neurosurgeon and intelligent design supporter. 'Thinking the Way Animals Do: Unique insights from a person with a singular understanding.' https://www.grandin.com/references/thinking.animals.html https://www.grandin.com/references/thinking.animals.html >A horse trainer once said to me, "Animals don't think, they just make associations." I responded to that by saying, "If making associations is not thinking, then I would have to conclude that I do not think." People with autism and animals both think by making visual associations. These associations are like snapshots of events and tend to be very specific. For example, a horse might fear bearded me n when it sees one in the barn, but bearded men might be tolerated in the riding arena. In this situation the horse may only fear bearded men in the barn because he may have had a bad past experience in the barn with a bearded man.
- yters 7y ago
  >Several years ago I devised a little test to find out what style of thinking people use: Access your memory on church steeples. Most people will see a picture in their mind of a generic "generalized" steeple. I only see specific steeples; there is no generalized one. Yet, she identifies all these pictures of steeples as the same thing, which is an abstraction of the particulars. That is different than only associations between particulars in animal thinking. Also, take care you are not making the genetic fallacy by referencing Dr. Egnor's background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy
  - nabla9 7y ago
    > Identifies all these pictures of steeples as the same thing Associatively with no verbal toughs. Artificial neural networks can do the same. Understanding that two things belong to the the same category does not require language.
    - yters 7y ago
      It's essentially the same thing. A word is a label on a category. I'd also argue that what neural networks do is not the same thing as humans inferring categories from instances. 1. We prefeed the NNs with categories and examples. The main work is already done by the human. 2. What the NN learns from cat pictures is not 'cat', but a bunch of trivial visual features that happen to correlate with a bunch of cat pictures in a very brittle manner. Not at all like what happens when humans learn 'cat' from a few instances, and then can recognize cats everywhere in a huge variety of settings and transformations (as I'm learning with my toddler).
gus_massa 7y ago
> Shallit is denying the obvious. That animals can think only about concrete things, and not about abstract ones, is obvious. All of our experience with animals tells us this. It’s even more obvious when we consider just what it means to think abstractly. The article uses "obvious" too many times. I think that it is obvious that animals can think, and I think that the level of thinking in other animals is not as good as the level of thinking in humans. Now that we have two obvious different opinions, we should make an experiment to determine who is right. > Oddly, Shallit assumes that the existence of the soul is a matter for empirical science to investigate, akin to the existence of chloroplasts or asteroids. We have experimental evidence of the existence of chloroplasts and we have experimental evidence of the existence of asteroids. To be sure that souls are real we obviously need experimental evidence of them instead of handwaving.
- yters 7y ago
  1. You both agree that animals can think. The question is in what manner? Dr. Egnor recommends experiments in his other writing on that site. 2. I agree with you here. I don't think Dr. Egnor should handwave away the need to test for a soul.
  - gus_massa 7y ago
    If you redefine "Reason" with a narrow enough definition, you can make that only humans satisfy the definition. Can a submarine swim? https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/edsger_dijkstra_201166 https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/edsger_dijkstra_201166
    - yters 7y ago
      And likewise, if we define "Reason" broadly enough, then anything can satisfy the definition, even nothing :D The real question is what is the correct definition of "Reason"?
      - gus_massa 7y ago
        I agree. There was a recent article that said that electrons were conscious, but it used a definition of conscious so wide that I think it included rocks and probably empty space. Anyway, a good definition of "Reason" should probably include chimpanzees, elephants, dolphins, and probably octopus and parrots.

1 points by yters 7y ago

The author, Michael Egnor is a neurosurgeon and intelligent design supporter. 'Thinking the Way Animals Do: Unique insights from a person with a singular understanding.' https://www.grandin.com/references/thinking.animals.html https://www.grandin.com/references/thinking.animals.html >A horse trainer once said to me, "Animals don't think, they just make associations." I responded to that by saying, "If making associations is not thinking, then I would have to conclude that I do not think." People with autism and animals both think by making visual associations. These associations are like snapshots of events and tend to be very specific. For example, a horse might fear bearded me n when it sees one in the barn, but bearded men might be tolerated in the riding arena. In this situation the horse may only fear bearded men in the barn because he may have had a bad past experience in the barn with a bearded man.

yters 7y ago
>Several years ago I devised a little test to find out what style of thinking people use: Access your memory on church steeples. Most people will see a picture in their mind of a generic "generalized" steeple. I only see specific steeples; there is no generalized one. Yet, she identifies all these pictures of steeples as the same thing, which is an abstraction of the particulars. That is different than only associations between particulars in animal thinking. Also, take care you are not making the genetic fallacy by referencing Dr. Egnor's background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_fallacy
- nabla9 7y ago
  > Identifies all these pictures of steeples as the same thing Associatively with no verbal toughs. Artificial neural networks can do the same. Understanding that two things belong to the the same category does not require language.
  - yters 7y ago
    It's essentially the same thing. A word is a label on a category. I'd also argue that what neural networks do is not the same thing as humans inferring categories from instances. 1. We prefeed the NNs with categories and examples. The main work is already done by the human. 2. What the NN learns from cat pictures is not 'cat', but a bunch of trivial visual features that happen to correlate with a bunch of cat pictures in a very brittle manner. Not at all like what happens when humans learn 'cat' from a few instances, and then can recognize cats everywhere in a huge variety of settings and transformations (as I'm learning with my toddler).

gus_massa 7y ago

> Shallit is denying the obvious. That animals can think only about concrete things, and not about abstract ones, is obvious. All of our experience with animals tells us this. It’s even more obvious when we consider just what it means to think abstractly. The article uses "obvious" too many times. I think that it is obvious that animals can think, and I think that the level of thinking in other animals is not as good as the level of thinking in humans. Now that we have two obvious different opinions, we should make an experiment to determine who is right. > Oddly, Shallit assumes that the existence of the soul is a matter for empirical science to investigate, akin to the existence of chloroplasts or asteroids. We have experimental evidence of the existence of chloroplasts and we have experimental evidence of the existence of asteroids. To be sure that souls are real we obviously need experimental evidence of them instead of handwaving.

yters 7y ago
1. You both agree that animals can think. The question is in what manner? Dr. Egnor recommends experiments in his other writing on that site. 2. I agree with you here. I don't think Dr. Egnor should handwave away the need to test for a soul.
- gus_massa 7y ago
  If you redefine "Reason" with a narrow enough definition, you can make that only humans satisfy the definition. Can a submarine swim? https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/edsger_dijkstra_201166 https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/edsger_dijkstra_201166
  - yters 7y ago
    And likewise, if we define "Reason" broadly enough, then anything can satisfy the definition, even nothing :D The real question is what is the correct definition of "Reason"?
    - gus_massa 7y ago
      I agree. There was a recent article that said that electrons were conscious, but it used a definition of conscious so wide that I think it included rocks and probably empty space. Anyway, a good definition of "Reason" should probably include chimpanzees, elephants, dolphins, and probably octopus and parrots.