How do animals have thoughts?

[subaqua]

Does your sheltered accommodation place look after the pills?

They might need to amend the dose ...

 

[PeteXXX]

Instinct...

 

[vickster]

No, but we know where you're going.

Broadmoor?

 

[Accy cyclist]

No, but we know where you're going.

If you hadn't been taught a language,you wouldn't have been able to have that thought.

 

[Accy cyclist]

Anyway,i'm off down the pub. I expect some serious answers when i get back!

 

[Tiger10]

Of course they can think!!!!! They just do it. I dont think in english.... i just think.

 

[Piemaster]

My dog sometimes thinks it wants some of my pie. Well, more knows it wants some of my pie.
A paw on the leg and a short bark is part of a language it has developed to communicate its thoughts on my pie to me.

It's not a lack of language, it's getting the monkeys to understand it.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

Here you go, food for thought (sorry, couldn't help myself ):

http://mentalfloss.com/article/50684/it-possible-think-without-language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_thought_without_language
http://www.debate.org/opinions/can-we-think-without-a-language
... etc, etc.

 

[Yellow Fang]

Not all thought is in words. If you're doing maths you're not using words. If you're trying to work out which bit goes where in a Sturmey Archer hub you've foolishly taken apart, you're not using words.

 

[Kestevan]

Not all thought is in words. If you're doing maths you're not using words. If you're trying to work out which bit goes where in a Sturmey Archer hub you've foolishly taken apart, you're not using words.

Oh but you are using words, most if not all of them variations on F@&* or s*&£ and where did that bastard spring go....

 

[raleighnut]

Of course dogs can talk to other dogs just like cats have poetry battles with each other.

 

[nickyboy]

I am not convinced that we really think our thoughts in words. Certainly not exclusively and maybe not at all. I reckon we add the words at a higher level on some of our thoughts but for a lot of stuff there isn't time.

I think that's right. It is thought that we use our "inner voice" to help with our short-term memory but beneath that are thoughts which we just feel

Interestingly, a number of deaf people report that they visualise sign language, pictures or words, in the absence of an "inner voice" for the same reason

Taking Accy's point, your pet only has basic feelings that don't require an "inner voice", which it (presumably) supplements with visual images

 

[raleighnut]

And for many animals, smell is much more important than it is for humans. Perhaps dogs have an aromaabet with which they articulate thought.

My GSD did, his favourite cologne was Fox 'scat'

 

[Drago]

Dogs have only four thoughts - eat, poop, sniff other dogs nethers, sleep.

 

[Sharky]

Goggle reptilian brain.