Can animals think?

Paper plan due today (11:59 pm)

• Instructions 
• Honor Code, Chat GPT (see paper instructions)
• You will receive full credit as long as you cover the material asked for. You can also ask questions.
• Next Discussion board will be about paper--you will be grouped by paper topic. This is an opportunity to make points, ask questions, answer questions, etc. If necessary I'll contribute.

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Self-awareness, continued 

Robert Hampton research on self-monitoring

Slide show

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Can animals think?

Kristin Andrews, THE ANIMAL MIND p. 107

Kristin Andrews, THE ANIMAL MIND p. 108

• "Thinking is the mental process that permits understanding, decision making, problem solving, and the like." (Andrews p. 108)
• Reasoning, intelligence, deliberation, inference, insight, cognition, etc.
• Not the same as consciousness
• Some thinking is conscious, some not

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Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

Animals can't think at all

Discourse on Method, Book V

Two possible replies:

1. for some species or species member, show that they CAN solve new problems
2. wrong view of thinking--an animal may use thinking to solve their limited range of problems

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Some questions

1. Can animals understand new messages and solve new problems? 
2. How do animals think? If with representations, then what kinds of representations?
3. Is the thinking mind entirely inside the body/brain?
4. Do animals have beliefs? (next time)
5. Ethically, does it matter whether animals can think? (later)

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Animals solving new problems

• Peanut/maggot in tube – use stick/use water

• Chimps and crows – Inside the Animal Mind I 17:23 – 26

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How do animals think? What are the vehicles of representation?

• Not one answer for all species
• Natural languages or systems of communication
• Language of Thought-- Mentalese
• Pictures, maps, diagrams

Evidence of maps? Clark's nutcracker finding seeds after snow

• Inside the Animal Mind I, 15:11-17:48

Evidence of diagrams? 

• Andrews discusses how chimps understand dominance hierarchies

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Is the thinking mind entirely inside the boundaries of the body/brain?

• Extended Mind Thesis--the thinking mind is partly outside the brain and body
• David Chalmers and Andy Clark, "The Extended Mind"

David Chalmers and And Clark talking to Ray Tallis: What is extended mind?

1. notebook, phone, etc. are parts of your mind
2. brain is needed as another part
3. notebook, phone etc. are not conscious parts of your mind
4. Inga and Otto example--
• Inga believes that the MOMA is on 53 St. at noon, because she could use that info. She actually uses it at 1:00
• Otto has that info in his notebook at noon. He uses it at 1:00. If Inga believed it at noon, didn't Otto as well? 
5. An external thing is part of your mind when you and the thing are a "coupled system"

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Hilton Japyassu and Kevin Laland, "Extended Spider Cognition"

Quanta article

KQED article with videos

Mind-outside-the-head claims

1. Some of the mind is outside the brain, but in the central nervous system
2. Some of the mind is outside the central nervous system, but in the body (embodied cognition)
3. Some of the mind is outside the body, and in the world (extended mind)

J&L's view of spiders

1. "Cognition is the "acquisition, processing, storage and use of information" (p. 276
2. Smaller brains have evolved in tiny animals
3. The web is an off-loaded part of the mind