Natures wonders: clever cockatoos (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, July 06, 2013, 08:54 (4156 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Solving a series of puzzle locks:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130704095123.htm-Using beak, eyes, feet-Another revealing post. Some people (including scientists) often seem surprised that our fellow animals should display such intelligence, such awareness, such powers of reason. How do humans think other creatures survive? Do they believe that Nature simply runs like clockwork, and animals, birds, insects never have problems to solve? For those of us who believe in evolution, it is absurd to suppose that our own intelligence has nothing in common with theirs. Just as our limbs, our skeletons, our organs are variations on theirs, so too are our mental capacities. Vastly more complex, no doubt, as is proven by our technology, our abstract thinking, our art. But brilliant though we are, we cannot read the minds of our fellow animals, let alone those of other organisms that seem totally dissimilar to ourselves. I would carry that still further, and while not wishing to use the word "mind", I would suggest that "intelligence" of many different sorts is to be found throughout the organic world, right down to the single cell. Panpsychists go further still, and suggest that even inorganic matter may have an inner 'mental' aspect.


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