If we do not agree on the definitions of words, we are doing no better the competing groups of chimps screeching at each other. — Athena

Their vocalizations may sound harsh to you, but are meaningful to another chimp. We might as well be communicating, you in ASL and I in Japanese. Or just yelling at each other, as people often do.

We need to agree on what "rational" means and what "language" means. What is the definition of these words? — Athena

Rational thinking is a process. It refers to the ability to think with reason. It encompasses the ability to draw sensible conclusions from facts, logic and data.
In simple words, if your thoughts are based on facts and not emotions, it is called rational thinking.
Rational thinking focuses on resolving problems and achieving goals.

[Language is] “a communication system composed of arbitrary elements which possess an agreed-upon significance within a community. These elements are connected in rule-governed ways” (Edwards, 2009: 53) https://www.languageeducatorsassemble.com/5-definitions-of-language/

One of 12 quotes. If they can't agree, how could we?

If it is not language it is not rational. — Athena

And if it is not human, it's not language.
Therefore, only humans are capable of reason.
There: all wrapped up with a triumphal bow on top.

Wow, what a depressing view of reality. — Athena

Sorry; didn't mean to depress you. I thought you already knew.

When a dog gets hungry and sometimes just when the smells get tempting, it is will known that they will position themselves where they will be noticed and sit very quietly, but very attentive. — Ludwig V

And when it's time to eat and she can't smell anything edible, she goes out to the kitchen, picks up her food dish and brings it back to place in my lap, then sits directly opposite me and stares into my face. (Granted, this was an exceptionally bright German Shepherd.)

It seems perfectly clear that the dog thinks that if s/he does that, food will happen. — Ludwig V

Especially if the guilt-inducing soulful gaze alternates with running to the pantry where the dog-food is kept and nudging the bag.

A not-so-clever Pyrennese who liked to roam would ask her border collie confederate to help her escape. The collie would stand on her hind legs and push on the far frame (not where it opens) with both paws of the big sliding patio door. She didn't have the weight to push it all the way open, but she'd slide it over just enough for the big dog to wedge her nose in and force it open. Then they would pad softly across the patio, around the corner of the house, duck behind the car and make their way down the drive. (I stopped them there, having watched the whole procedure. I was on guard, because they'd already gone AWOL twice.)

When a dog really wants something, whether it's your pizza or your flip-flops, he makes a plan and carries it out step by step. That's nothing like salivating on cue. And they're very good (wolf lrgacy) at co-ordinating team work. Watch some You Tube videos.
When a crow wants a piece of cheese, he goes looking for a tool to get the tool that will poke the cheese out of the cage. Or figures out which flaps to lift in what order to tilt the plastic chute and make the cheese roll out.

Human observers can obviously perceive the causal relationship between stimulus and response, but I don't think that implies conscious rational calculation ('If I do this, then that will happen') on the part of the animal (or plant). — Wayfarer

Have you followed any of the tests that scientists have devised to differentiate between stimulus-response and rational problem-solving? Here is an example. We've come quite a long way since Aristotle.
(Plant?? you know they don't have brains, right?)

So, for you, the only valid criterion for reason is the use of human language? Pretty narrow definition.

If you want to back track over the past couple of exchanges and remedy it I will continue. — I like sushi

I don't think that will be necessary. I have nothing to add or subtract.

Has anyone determined what the average number of retrievals a caregiver is willing to perform before the object is thrown out the window? — BC

My informal observation: up to six times without showing exasperation, after which they don't give it back. All babies seem to do it; I think they consider this a game.

One shouldn't waste scarce helium on experiments that have already been done — BC

...or on celebrations or political hoopla... especially knowing how much harm they o the environment.

Social scientists and psychoanalysts have not been able to determine what, exactly, is the source of this inter-squirrel hostility. — BC

I hope that's tongue-in-cheek.
I once had a grey squirrel as a pet - not on purpose; the children down the street rescued her their cat. So I raised her and eventually set her free. That li'l rodent was smart as a whip. Sassy, too. And quite clean: one of her favourite things was bath time. Afterward, I'd hang a towel on the bar and pull it taut, so that Georgie could slide down it, then clamber up on my shoulder, leap over and do it again. And again, until she was dry. She also hid nuts in my shoes and under the cat's tail. A very entertaining companion.

The baby exhibited an expression of SHOCK! Objects are supposed to fall when released. — BC

I don't suppose the test can be administered to newborns. The subject must have the skill to distinguish objects and generalize how 'things' are expected to behave.
By about six months, they usually start experimenting with gravity: dropping something from their highchair or buggy (Very often to see how many times their adult caregiver will retrieve it for them). They acquire the knowledge "things are supposed to fall" from practical experience. So when a new thing does the opposite, the first reaction is surprise, quickly followed by delight.

I think the calculus question is simply a case of habitual cart-reversal. We know about the mathematical or scientific conventions that have been worked out by humans over a couple of thousand years, shaped and polished into something akin to icons. We forget that people were aware of quantity, dispersal, proportion, direction, force, mass, etc since they were human. They were applying that awareness to their practical needs.
That awareness long preceded the formal systems by which those phenomena are described today. We see a dog applying the same awareness to a problem and wonder: "How does he know?" instead of realizing: "That's what my ancestors were doing. That's where my knowledge originates."

A dog cannot know calculus. Can he?! — cherryorchard

He doesn't need to. Evolving as a species that hunts running prey, he has an instinctive grasp of vectors.
All that's happened between when our own ancestors ran after prey and learned to predict where to intercept a weaving deer and calculus is that we translated practical observation into abstract formulas - from particular practical application to universal concept.

There is another fun book: How to Teach Physics to Your Dog which is supposed to be fun.

The worms that early birds get are something of an ecological problem. — BC

Robins seem to be okay with big fat earthworms, and the garden soil isn't complaining. But birds that are adapted to feeding in the air - swallow, martins, swifts, nightjars - are seriously up shit creek. I live in an agricultural area and I haven't even seen many of the imported ladybugs. There was a swarm about ten years ago (they sting, too) but they've pretty much died off over the winters, and maybe some were eaten by birds. I've seen two bumblebees all summer, one lone preying mantis, no fireflies or wasps. That's never happened before. No bluejays have been instructing their noisy young in the cedar trees. No mourning doves coo in the afternoon. It was a very quiet spring. Next year may be altogether silent.

Indeed, we rational humans seem not to have communicated very well about daily survival.

Mosquitoes we've had aplenty this wet summer, but I haven't seen more than half a dozen butterflies and had to hand-pollinate my tomatoes and peppers for lack of bees. Ants are taking up the slack on cucumbers for some reason, but even the cluster flies we used to have to vacuum up by the hundreds have dwindled down the odd annoyance. So, what are the swallows and robins supposed to eat? This is the time of staging for migration and I see no flocks of anything, except our little neighbourhood clan of Canada geese. They're training the young ones to fly in formation (yes, geese are social and smart) - they haven't got the hang of a proper V yet.
We humans are so awfully clever and rational that we'll soon end up with nobody but one another to kill.

Octopuses, now. — Ludwig V

....not to mention predict football games... Has anyone asked an octopus for 13 keys to winning an American election? I wouldn't want one for a pet. Really, I wouldn't want any pet that has to be confined. There are few things I dislike as much as cages, but an aquarium is unavoidable for marine species. I'd set Nemo free every time.

Everywhere you look, when you look closely, there's more to non-humans than humans think. — Ludwig V

And daily fewer non-human species as there are daily more humans.
This afternoon, a sunny September say, I set a freshly-painted board out on the porch to dry, confident that no insects would stick to it and no bird would crap on it. I haven't had to wash the windshield all summer.

Fish are wonderfully relaxing to watch - in the dentist's waiting room; we've never had any at home. Lousy frisbee players, I understand.

Doing it for fun. They're almost human, aren't they? — Ludwig V

Why do you think we make pets of them? All intelligent species have a great deal in common, which is why they are able to communicate with and feel affection for one another.
The human specialness doctrine has not served us as well as it was it was intended to. Yes, it allows us to abuse, exploit and exterminate other species with impunity, but we also lose an entire dimension of our own emotional and intellectual life.

I don't know as much about nonacademic human research subjects review, but I doubt there is as little oversight as you suggest in most scientific research. — wonderer1

These days, probably not. Up until the late 1970's, research wasn't at all well supervised or regulated in most countries. It was probably - just speculating now - government agencies' unconscionable behaviour that prompted legal and professional constraints on the use of human subjects. Other species have not fared as well - ever.

Quite why I don't know, but it seems most reasonable to suppose that the parrot has some purpose in doing that, because it clearly finds the behaviour rewarding in some way. — Ludwig V

Usually, quite literally and directly rewarding. The handler gives him a treat. (And performing some act that is not of one's innate nature for a reward is definitely rational.) Some birds and many dogs also do it to please a human they hold dear, which is at least socially intelligent behaviour. And some birds just mimic for the same reason they dance to music: it's fun.

You probably know about the Tuskegee Syphilis Research Study, 1932 - 1972. — Ludwig V

I do now! And I know many examples of very bad scientific experimentation. I had no intention of including any of them in partly excusing ineptly designed intelligence tests.

What has that got to do with: — I like sushi

That should be obvious from the definition of profit.

And how is this not a fatalistic attitude? — I like sushi

I can only report what I see. I do not a see a 'slippery slope', which would suggest a soft landing.

I work fairly hard at my job and study hard too. This idea of 'surplus' sounds like a Marxist ideology rearing its head? — I like sushi

Where does Goldman Sachs' annual profit come from?

Surely you can see the problem with these kinds of views and a slippery slope — I like sushi

No, I can't; I see a bloody great pit to fall into, and a long slow painful climb out again.

I think it can be quite surprising how minor changes can have a huge impact. — I like sushi

For the few years or decades they stay in effect, before the next reactionary administration or regime overturns them. See US Supreme Court decisions on voting rights and reproductive rights.

The biggest problem with revolutionary schemes is that they are large in scope. — I like sushi

I have no revolutionary schemes.

It's more accurate to say that we thought we needed a standard, quantifiable set of responses and decided to develop whatever we had to hand. "We need something, this is something." — Ludwig V

I'll go along with that, but want to be generous and widen the scope of "need" to include benevolent aims and simple curiosity, as well as practical applications, and maybe, tentatively, forgive the social ignorance and complacency of the academics who made the early tests. (No, not the voting rights literacy tests of 1879 Kentucky!)

What about if there are people who do not want to work or do anything. — I like sushi

We would have to wonder what's wrong with them. I've met some people who had given up on "the job market" or become fed up with being exploited and disrespected; I've met many, many people who did not like the jobs they had to take to support themselves and dependents, or that they had wanted once and found disappointing over time (as well as many who chose, prepared for and love what they're working at), but nobody who didn't have any aspirations or proclivities at all. Some may want to make music or tinker with inventions rather than build houses or harvest wheat, and they would have the same resources and opportunities as those who like teaching or healing, because society benefits from creative individuals, as it does from productive and nurturing ones.
I've never met a child who didn't want to "be" some occupation they admired. It's society that either encourages and promotes an individual's capabilities or frustrates and hobbles them; society that sets examples for the young and rewards or punishes unfairly. Besides interests and talents and ambitions, humans also have a strong desire for respect and social worth.

Do you really think there would be no resentment by those working hard everyday and getting basically the same as those not working hard or is it that you think those in change of businesses will simply pay people more in order to gain employees? — I like sushi

Part 1. The only reason people need to work as hard as they do is produce surplus. Surplus for profit, for waste, for war, for the care and feeding and protection of top level users. Scrape off the excess consumption of the top 1%; get rid of all the money-handling, -hiding, -laundering, -lending, -litigating and -shuffling occupations; reduce coercive capability to policing (considerably less of that, if they're not having to deal with monetary crime) and peace-keeping (voluntary civilian militia is quite adequate) and you're down to less than half the work, or a 4-hour workday with time off for special family occasions.
Part 2. What businesses? Business is a bad idea that doesn't belong in a utopian society.

Will this all just magically balance out in your mind without any hiccups? — I like sushi

There are effective cures for hiccups.

Other than to say some people are greedy and so they should be forced to give up their wealth I am not really seeing much follow through with how you expect this would go smoothly or otherwise if governments implemented this scheme. — I like sushi

Yet once more again: No government that exists or can exist today, or has existed at any time since the rise of city-states, can possibly implement this scheme. The best they can do - and that by a hard slog against determined opposition, even from the people it would most benefit - is introduce minor local improvements. Under the current global system with its entrenched rules, procedures and assumptions, no major change can be made to the structural or economic organization of any society.
You still can't get there from here, except by climbing over a mountain of rubble.

Back then, he was semi-coherent. In the 20 days since, the press has had to work harder and harder to sanewash his ravings.

How do you think that would actually go down? Do you believe everyone would see this as fair and just? — I like sushi

Of course they would. The antisocial greedbags know perfectly well that they are unfair to the the other people. When the society is organized badly, one class of antisocial greedbag is labelled 'criminal' and punished for that behaviour, while another class of antisocial greedbag is labelled 'the privileged' and allowed to get away with it. A well organized society doesn't accept antisocial behaviour from any of its members and trains its young to avoid and resist such behaviour.

The very idea of intelligence makes not sense to me. It seems to comprise a wide variety of skills, some of which are highly transferable. — Ludwig V

I think it's because we've become accustomed, through the 20th century, to evaluate human mental capability according to a standard, easily quantifiable set of responses. The earliest IQ test, if I recall correctly, was intended to identify learning difficulties in school children, but the army soon adapted one to make recruitment more efficient, eliminating those applicants who were deemed unfit for service and identifying candidates for officer training. Nothing sinister about those limited applications... but, like all handy tools, people came to depend too heavily on the concept of IQ and on tests (more recently, personality tests) to measure intelligence, it's been widely misapplied and abused.

Yes, but complaint is that behaviour in a mimicry is not necessarily the same as behaviour in their real life. Being caged in the lab at all is what disrupts everything - even if they are enjoying the holiday from real life. — Ludwig V

We need to go back one more step and question the validity of testing rodent cognition on laboratory specimens - mice and rats that have been bred in captivity - often for a specific purpose - for many generations. Rodents used for cancer research, for example are often strains highly susceptible to malignancies, much more so than sewer rats or barn mice. So the very subject of the experiment is skewed at conception, and not a true reflection of its species.

These highly controlled laboratory environments, as well as close observation of domestic species in what has become their adopted habitat, yields indicators of what to look for; they don't provide definitive answers. We have a beginning, not yet a conclusion.

A lot of people do not understand that if animals are truly rational animals, they would have the same level of communication as we do. They could consult us in matters of daily survival, and vice versa. — L'éléphant

:lol:
A lot of people do not understand that if humans were truly rational animals, they would have the same level of communication as we do. They could consult one another, and ants, in matters of long-term survival.

It takes a lot of unobtrusive observation to discover these things, something bee scientists have been doing for decades. — BC

And more, better technology becomes available every year. People are making astonishing nature documentaries. Any interested layman can learn a great deal about animal behaviour without having to slog through scientific papers.

There's evidence around that being smart and linguistic may turn out not to be entirely beneficial. — Ludwig V

Probably the reverse. I didn't say better, just more. (Yes, I realize that many humans consider more/bigger/faster the ultimate in good.) But that doesn't come under a comparison with the rational thought of other species.

Setting problems is probably the only way. But I worry that all we are testing is whether they are as smart as we are by our standards. Which are not necessarily the best standards. Lab work has to be a bit suspect. — Ludwig V

Many of the intelligence tests are really about "How much like us are they?" That business with the yellow dot, for example. Dogs don't identify individuals by sight but by smell and don't seem at all interested in their own appearance. I'm not surprised if they show no interest in their reflection in a mirror, which smells of nothing but glass, metal and the handler who put it there.

OTOH, tests of spatial orientation (mazes) do mimic the actual life experience of mice and challenging rats to obtain food in a human-made environment is certainly realistic. The experiments with plastic boxes, sticks and stones don't seem to give crows any trouble, though the props might be too foreign for most birds. It's hard for humans to devise tests that objectively measure the performance of species with very different interests and attitudes and perception from ourselves.

The least obtrusive and most reliable way to discover how other animals think is to observe them in their natural habitat, solving the problems nature throws at them. We have an increasing ability to do that now. Without special equipment, though, we can observe domestic animals as they go about the business of living, overcoming obstacles and devising means to obtain what they desire. It's not The Scientific Method; it's common sense.

But, along with all the similarities, there must be differences. — Ludwig V

Certainly. Evolution is a huge, complex, interconnected web of living things developing the faculties that best served their survival. Many of those faculties are held in common by large numbers of species, in varying degrees, styles and intensities. Rational thinking is one survival tool that many animals use to varying degree, depth, breadth and efficiency. I don't say humans are not the smartest and most linguistic; only that they are not unique in the ability to solve problems, and that setting problems to solve is the only way that I know of to test this ability.

So there is legitimate enquiry to be had here, surely? — Ludwig V

It's been going on for a considerable time - I think we're coming up on a century of scientific inquiry into the subject.
What I object to is starting from a conclusion that should have been put to rest decades ago.

If the reasoning isn't correct, things can go very wrong. — Athena

Indeed. But 'correct' isn't in the definition of reasoning, nor is the soundness of the result. It's a process that can be carried out more or less effectively.

It is your opinion that I hold rational thinking as a human thing based on language that animals do not have because I want to exploit animals, is an opinion, not a fact. — Athena

I like that the definition begins with "correct reasoning". — Athena

'Incorrect', 'ill-informed', 'faulty', 'based on invalid premises and/or unfounded assumptions', 'inappropriate' and even 'fatally flawed' are descriptions that can be applied to:

Webster: 1. The use of reason; especially : the drawing of inferences or conclusions through the use of reason. 2. An instance of the use of reason : argument.

It is your opinion that I hold rational thinking as a human thing based on language that animals do not have because I want to exploit animals, is an opinion, not a fact. — Athena

I never claimed otherwise. And, in fact, the remark was not directed specifically at you - except inasmuch as you have been defending the human exclusivity position - but was an observation regarding a whole system of faulty/disingenuous human reasoning for the purpose of arriving at a desired conclusion.
Propaganda and advertising work in this same way: argument directed at a desired outcome. The purveyors of mis- and disinformation use a rational process to determine what kinds of falsehood their audience is most likely to believe and construct the most persuasive arguments to make their conclusions sound reasonable. Often, this involves altering the meaning of words and twisting familiar concepts, and may include denial of the audience's practical experience.

I like that the definition begins with "correct reasoning". — Athena

Why does 'reasoning' require a modifier? You can arrive at the wrong conclusion through a rational process, if you begin with false or incomplete information, if you start from an assumption that is later proven to be unfounded, if your initial purpose is to justify an act deemed wrong by others.

I get that humans want to be oh-so-special - not enough to be the most; we must be the only. Well, we have a number of claims to that exceptionality already. The reason - rational, but rarely acknowledged - we so desperately want to deny other species the faculty of reason is to justify our exploitation of them.

No, but what I'm saying is that "reasons" are not necessarily the result of conscious rational deliberation either. — ChatteringMonkey

Of course not. The reason why something is necessary precedes any consciousness recognizing the necessity, which precedes any deliberate action taken. Entities striving to survive are not acting at random; they're acting in response to a need: they have specific reasons for doing what they do, long before the development of a brain. Animals with brains recognize their needs, explore their environments and decide on actions intended to attain a specific end: find water, get food, erect shelter, seek safety.

Instincts are the original 'reasons'.. — ChatteringMonkey

Biological impulse is the original response to the environment and survival. Instinct develops much later , in increasingly complex organisms. Instinct and memory form habitual behaviours, then the even more complex brain adds curiosity and imagination to extrapolate situations beyond the present and consider alternative actions to reach the same goal.

And then eventually, socrates put forwards the notion that we should have conscious rational deliberation prior to the act as the golden standard.... rational thinking instead of instinct. — ChatteringMonkey

By which time, thousands of species had been doing it for 50 million years, without pontificating about it.

No animals don't already have a language. Language is next to culture, it has to be learned. — Athena

Yes, all social animals learn their language from their elders.

Now here is where the rest of the animal realm fails. It took us centuries but we now of an amazing comprehension of pi. — Athena

Not to mention all the means of mass extinction. The other animals fail most spectacularly by dying at our hands.

I dunno, that is the question right? And that question in turn depends on what you would consider "a reason". — ChatteringMonkey

Survival might be considered high on the list.

Does a chicken have a reason the scratch the ground when looking for food? — ChatteringMonkey

Yes: seeds scattered on the ground sometimes get covered by dirt. Having eaten all the visible seeds, the chicken scratches for any that were overlooked. Floors are artificial, beyond a chicken's repertoire of experience; she doesn't have sufficient information to be sure it won't yield to scratching.

So a lot of that behaviour seems to be instinctual. — ChatteringMonkey

That's where it begins. Drive - habit - instinct - adaptation - thought.
Some big brown slug didn't just hump itself out of the primordial swamp and grow into H. sapiens without reference to any other species. The process was long and gradual; the product exists on a scale and a spectrum.
A dog may not recognize its image in a mirror, but neither can a man pick the smell of his own urine out of a hundred other humans'. We self-identify differently and perceive differently, use similar faculties in different proportions, but the strategies and tactics of survival have to be coherent, directed and purposeful in order to succeed. By the time you're up the brain size of a great ape, most of its behaviour is controlled and directed - purposeful - even though we don't constantly think about what we're thinking and how we're thinking it (which would paralyze action and probably get us killed).

I think a lot of what we humans do is more or less the same, we do seem to do a lot of things without conscious rational deliberation, out of instinct. — ChatteringMonkey

We also have habits and instincts, yes. And many perfectly reasonable decisions that we don't dwell on, simply because they're learned reactions; considered appropriate to a familiar situation. Reason can't have been invented in response to being challenged: that's the wrong way around. Who was there to challenge an action prior to the concept of rational thought?

So, an anthropo-exclusive definition, based on argument, rather than discernment of cause and effect, problem solving and practical decision-making.
OK

The argument about chimpanzees and their ability to communicate is more complex than whether they learn a language or they can not. — Athena

They already have a language. The argument is over whether and how well they learn some version of a human language.

Our cats and dogs may be very good at communicating with us but wolves do not have that kind of relationship with humans. — Athena

Why would they want to? Wolves have very effective communication skills among themselves. Besides familial and social exchange of vocalizations, postures and gestures, they have quite a sophisticated method of organized hunting.

Individually, we are different in our ability to learn. More dramatic is the fact that baboons like to eat termites as much as chimps. They watch the chimps make tools to fish the termites, but they do not imitate the behavior, although they want the termites just as much as the chimps. I think that is equal to me wanting to understand math, and I just don't get it. — Athena

We're not only different in our capacity to learn, the speed at which we do it and in our ability to retain and recall information.
The baboon/chimp divide may be cultural. Just as humans disregard the habits of tribes with different world-views, it my be that apes disregard the habits of another species of ape. I suspect that if they saw a baboon of high social standing fishing for termites, they would be imitating him quite soon. (Experiment: have a trusted human teach a baboon to do it, then let him in among a troop of youngsters.)

Intuition is not rational thinking because there is no language involved. — Athena

What makes language the criterion for rational thought? Are there not math questions and diagrams on an IQ test? Does the crow deciding to use the short stick to retrieve the long stick to push the cheese near enough the bars so that he can reach it with the short stick require him to explain as he goes?

Intuition is rational thinking. You consider the information available, arrange it some configuration that makes sense, recognize what additional pieces of information you need for a solid, logical conclusion. But you don't have those extra pieces, so you look in memory for any items of information that fits with the pattern you have created. The conclusion you draw is not provable, but it's a working theory you can test. You may not be aware of the process, as it usually happens faster in your brain than you can translate into speech, but in retrospect, you should be able to describe how you arrived at the result.

Language of some kind is important for communication and useful labelling for memory organization, but that doesn't mean deaf-mute people can't solve problems rationally.

Post-hoc rationalisation probably was the original form of 'rational thinking', as social group-animals it was pretty important to justify/rationalize our actions. — ChatteringMonkey

Didn't people have a reason for their actions until somebody forced them to explain? We sometimes need to rationalize actions (decisions) that prove counter-productive, or that others disapprove, but how often does anyone justify preparing food, building a shelter or using a hammer to drive a nail into wood? The rationality of those actions is self-evident.

If having axes make a model flawed, then all models are flawed. It sounds like you're describing 3 disconnected points rather than a triangle with an area. — Brendan Golledge

It's very possible that all models are flawed; I haven't seen a large enough sample to judge. I'm saying there are not enough axes. Thus, the areas of overlap will still represent only primary coulours, rather than a spectrum. Actual social systems are far more complex and nuanced than that, and they change over time.

But my dim-witted friend did not take time to think through the problem. He put his hand through the gate and opened it from the outside. — Athena

He was thinking rationally: looking at a problem and finding a solution. He did it quickly, because it was very simple problem. (One might question the rational thought-process of the genius who designed the gate.) Reason is nothing more complicated than finding the connection between cause and effect, then projecting the if-then dimension. A causes B; therefore, if I affect the function of A, then B alters accordingly.
Reason and one's relative facility in reasoning has very little to do with verbal proficiency or fluency. Individuals with too deep a regard for what is said by those who speak authoritatively are some times fooled into believing what they're told rather than what they themselves are able to discern.

The 3 axes of the model are communism/equality, individualism/freedom, and authoritarianism/stability. — Brendan Golledge

Then the model is fatally flawed. Consider any real-life human being. Does he or she really only need or want one singular function from their society? Or in their life?
Those pairs of desiderata are not exclusive to the designated ideologies; in social relations, there is a great deal of overlap and concurrently existing conditions, and only one of the ideologies has a strong economic component in its name, whereas all systems are influenced, if not ruled, by their economic arrangement.
The model is invalid, as are the assumptions that proceed from defining factions according to that model.

Here is a crow using a stick to get food. Do you think this is rational? — Philosophim

How can you assess rational thought, except through problem-solving? Problems arise in nature all the time and animals need to solve them in order to survive and reproduce successfully. Whoever's ancestors were able to solve most of their problems inherited the most sophisticated brains. These are the cognitive front runners, AFAWK. However, living things also have mental attributes other than rational intelligence that vary greatly in range and style and function, which are far more difficult to quantify and compare.

There is no big fat black line between one species and its nearest kin - evolution is an n-dimensional continuum. We inherited our intelligence, communication skills, mimicking ability, empathy, instincts and emotional repertoire from previous iterations of great ape.