Can animals think like humans do? Given that not all humans seem to think in quite the same way, perhaps it’s a bit much to imagine that animals have the same kind of thought processes as we do. But there might be more conceptual thinking going on in that squirrel brain than we realize.

Questions

Julian Jaynes, in his book, “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind,” suggests that animals reason and form concepts. A deer sees movement and reflection, and drinks there. Repeated exposure to moving surfaces, and a tasty drink, results in learning that a moving surface is a place to drink from. This is reasoning from particulars, he says, and is not limited to humans or to human consciousness. This reasoning is a part of the structure of the nervous system, not necessarily part of consciousness.

Furthermore, consciousness of the human sort is not necessary for concepts. We see only individual trees, but we have an idea of a “tree”–as does a bird, says Jaynes. A bird has never seen a particular berry bush, for example, yet knows it is a place to collect food, because it fits the idea or concept which has formed in the bird’s brain. Otherwise, why wouldn’t it try to eat from a dead tree or a rock, or only from bushes where it had previously fed?

Words stand for concepts, and allow the manipulation of concepts into new ones that did not previously exist. Language, then, is a powerful tool that we have, yet even this is not entirely unique to humans. Many animals have rudimentary “words” and some even have been shown to create new sentences, indicating they can use words as more than just a signal for something.

Can animals think? The simple answer is yes, but there are other questions this brings up, like…

- What makes humans truly different from other animals?

- What is our unique form of consciousness made of?

- If someday some animals develop a consciousness similar to our own–even with moral concepts and other higher ideas–what should our relationship with them be?

That last one comes from having just watched the most recent remake of Planet of the Apes (also the best, by the way). If you have you own thoughts on whether animals can think conceptually or what it means if they can, feel free to comment below.