We owe a lot to our good teachers. I was lucky to have several outstanding ones.

Something a bit like that happened to me on the Gr. 13 English final. They gave us a dozen titles to choose from, one of which perfectly fit a story I was already writing in my head. By the time I finished, there were only a few minutes left for the other questions. I answered less than half of them, and was sure I'd get a lousy mark.
I got 96%. My teacher liked the story so much, she wasn't bothered about the grammar and structure questions. She even invited me to a summer course in creative writing. (Couldn't go; had to get a job. I'm still sorry I missed it.)

I can't imagine writing in anything but solitude. (Except cats; there's always cats around.) I hate being interrupted. But then, my stories are not personal or profound; they're just stories.

I rather liked the poem idea, too, but there may not be enough participants who can both master the form and remain faithful to the spirit. It sounds like quite a challenge.

But a lighthearted story form, or epic poem with no very strict rules of verse structure - I guess I mean an epic doggerel - might be fun, and plain old storytelling is even more accessible. That, I know people around here can do well!

That sounds wonderful. And I wonder....

I didn't appreciate it at the time. I remember feeling disturbed but don't ask me why. — Amity

I think I know why. She's held up some mirrors we'd rather not look into. And she could be devastatingly funny. In my literary firmament, she's up there with Atwood, Lessing and Kingsolver.

Same thing with the poem Sempre. It doesn't read like much but it made me question my own female/male aspects or qualities. Or should that be feminine/masculine? — Amity

That's a topic I have never been inclined - or felt qualified - to approach. That's probably why I didn't understand that poem. I write a lot of male characters, and sometimes express their feelings and attitudes toward women, but I get the information from outside, as it were, from observing how people behave and listening to how they talk about one another. I don't deeply identify with gender.

Now that is something I'd like to hear more about! Witches are fascinating. — Amity

Oh, she was a nasty piece of work! Not my creation, but I had a chance to tweak her, and all the other characters, a little bit. A Dark and Stormy Knight, written on a philosophy forum, now long defunct, by six different posters on three continents, who didn't even know one another's real names.
It started as a challenge: Here is an opening paragraph; write the next paragraph. The story emerged over several weeks and took some amusing turns.
The OG and I were major contributors, and when the forum shut down (Sad, that! Its founder, a clever and good young man, died of cancer.) OG kept up a real-world correspondence with woman who started this story. All three of us really liked it and wanted to keep it alive. So we got in touch with the other contributors and asked for permission to edit (me) and publish it. I tried to be faithful to all of the characters the others invented - except the king, but I had already sabotaged him on the open forum and Shadowfox, who had intended him as a villain, forgave me - eventually. Anyway, she was happy with the final product.
Agrona the witch was the OG's contribution, so we had a free hand with her character and her fate. She had a broomstick, could do some heavy magic, was guilty of murder ... but she loved her daughter... sort of.
You can see why this was so much fun to do.

Here is a little quote from a Fay Weldon novel, Rhode Island Blues that I'd like to share for no particular reason.

At night, lying next to me, he would sometimes sigh heavily in his sleep, and I would feel my heart almost break for him, but there is no healing the world's grief, of which he had no more than his share. I really cannot understand why we are born with such a capacity for it. But there is always cinema, to take us out of ourselves.

The character is a film editor. It could as easily have been said of literature by a book editor. I do appreciate Fay Weldon!

What has it do with rationality? Everything. If they have a concept of time in the same way that we do, that's at least a basis for rationality. — Ludwig V

I'm not so sure. If snails and spiders have it, it's more likely biological; no thought required. Where thinking comes in : level 1. association of a time of day or year with some event or activity (like: crocodiles are sluggish before sunrise, winter's coming soon) 2. taking certain specific time-dependent action (drink at the river while it's safe; start migration exercises) and 3. anticipation of time-related events (getting to the river before the elephants churn it up; making sure one's own fledglings are flight-capable) 4. arranging other necessary tasks not to conflict with time-related ones. (this is a little more complicated, depending on each species, but it still doesn't need a lot of intelligence.
In fact, timekeeping is one of the least remarkable things intelligent entities do.

Crucification, or a wife and children? Surely there must be something less punishing than both those extremes. — Tom Storm

Not for the son of a deity got on a mortal. Look how the Greek gods treated their illegitimate children!

According to one apocryphal account, Jesus did run away - to France, I think, with Mary Magdalene - to live out his life under an assumed name and have kids. If I were Jesus, that's what I would do.... and hope the Old Man Upstairs wrote me off as a loss.
Anyway, he didn't create anything, nor did the Holy Ghost. Jesus cured a few sick people and killed some innocent pigs, but other wise, his entire assignment was to preach and get killed.

I have copious notebook scribblings to refer to - so many it gets confusing, so I organize it and five minutes later I lose track again, frantically paging back and forth, "Why can't I remember what those little shrubs are called?" I got so exasperated with that one, I had a character say it.

It was perhaps quixotic, but I was thinking about the argument about whether the dog knew it was 5 pm when the train arrived. I thought of Pavlov's dogs who knew it was feeding time when the bell rang, — Ludwig V

All dogs know their feeding time, without any bells. Every living thing has time sense and arranges its feeding, resting and moving routines according to the time of day, and to time elapsed and to correspondence with some other event - like this is the time their preferred prey is most vulnerable; this is the time salmon come to spawn; this is the time to bury nuts for winter; this is the time lions don't come to the water.

Humans have it too, a biorhythm or something similar. When not freed from the economic day/week/year constraints, we each follow our own internal clock: wake up at roughly the same time every day; get hungry at regular intervals, have a period of three or four hours when we are most alert and capable, followed by a period when we drag a bit. There is some variation among individuals, but all humans are diurnal and seasonal. (Some humans may claim to be nocturnal, but it just means they stay awake longer past sunset and sleep later into the morning. Some humans are active at night for economic reasons - and it's not good for their health. It's difficult to sleep in the day and arrange leisure activities around a night shift. A few humans are active at night because it' the only time they have free of other people's demands.) That's the framework on which they constructed the artificial daily, weekly, monthly and annual schedules of regimented societies, because that's what works for the majority of human activities.

Several Star Trek shows are about human judgment that is not based on rational thinking — Athena

Usually decisions that turn out to be wrong. "An alien machine you don't know what it does? Beam it aboard!"

and I don't think Star Trek fans are in favor of AI ruling over us.

Don't be so sure. Anyhow, it wouldn't rule - that's an ape thing. It would simply administer our resources and enforce our laws - both of which tasks humans have botched repeatedly and abominably.

Rational thinking requires critical thinking and we would have an extremely short lifespan if all our awake time was also our critical thinking time. — Athena

Yet another criterion. The more requirements you add, the fewer entities may exercise a faculty that was once available to everything in possession of a cerebellum.
All thinking animals can act rationally, emotionally, instinctively or chaotically (when they're ill). I very much doubt that thought processes take different amounts of energy to perform.

Are there any particular aspects of creating a planet that stand out? — wonderer1

The hardest part for me is language. I needed a large dry and a smaller wet planet that humans could colonize and where they would develop differently. What would they live on? What seeds would they have brought from Earth and what local fauna and flora would they have adapted? Every one of those items needs a name that relates back to an earth language but has changed over time. And the characters have to use these words in natural conversation.
Since I knew the origins and history of my colonists, I had a cultural base from which to extrapolate social organization, beliefs and mores.
The most fun parts were mapping Wisconsin and Oceania.

The most fun part of any book is when it's finished, the OG and I design a cover together. They may not be world's best designs, but they entertain us for hours.

The most fun project I ever had was a collaborative medieval 'fairy tale', with kings and knights, a dragon and a witch. Had to learn about armour and castles.

I don't know how you keep sane! Of course, you could get AI or that chatty person to help out - perhaps even write the story for you?! — Amity

Writing stories is one of the ways I keep sane. World-building takes a lot of time and thought, but there is something quite magical in immersing oneself in an imaginary place, climate, scenery, culture, inventing people, dwellings, food crops... You get to be a deity of sorts. My OG chivvied me into writing a sequel, because he wanted to live in Ozimord again.
Google Earth is a wonderful tool; last year, I vicariously travelled a large part of the far east by land and water and became intimate with the topography of Wisconsin.
Have not even poked my nose into a chatty site; I'm not ready for a relationship with AI; holding out for HAL 9001.


Re dogs vs cats. We used to have both in our household and they got along just fine. One pugnacious young tom would get into fights. If he couldn't win, he'd lure the opponent to our yard and our Newfoundland dog. A gentle soul, she would never hurt a cat - just gently put her enormous paw on him, while her own cat scuttle away. Another time, we had a part Siamese cat and two small black dogs. The dogs' favourite entertainment was to tear up Kleenex and spread it all over the room. We would hide the tissue way up high on a bookshelf or cupboard -- and still, somehow they got hold of it. So one day my mother and I left the house and crept around to look through the window. It didn't take long for the cat to climb up and throw the box down to the waiting dogs. Then she yawned, folded her arms and watched them tear it apart - a joyous scene.
Yeah, pet stories.... Sigh! I miss Sammy! She used to sleep or just lounge in a flat box on top of my computer while I was writing. Kraken is no fun anymore - he's off living his own outdoor life - and the orphan kitten is just a baby.

I'm about done with the rational animal thread; seven times around the same stunted mulberry bush is enough.

Suppose the dog has learnt to read the station clock or at least to get up and start some preparatory tail-wagging when the clock says 5 - are you sure that they are incapable of that? — Ludwig V

What have clocks to do with rational thought? For 100,000 years of intelligent human development no clocks of any kind existed. Up until four hundred years ago, the entire population of North America was clock-free, and very possibly the healthier for it.

All the world is not accessible to you, even while the observed and recorded behavior of (some) animals, is. What is not included in the observed and recorded behavior of animals, is that which is the cause of it, which we as humans consider rational thought. — Mww

Well, there's me in my place. That which is accessible to you regarding other humans is not accessible to me regarding other animals. Even if you have never seen that human in the flesh and even if I had close personal acquaintance with animals.

Dogs do not have that. — creativesoul

I wonder how you know this. Or what difference it makes to rational thinking.

Read the next bits. — creativesoul

yes:

The dog knows when the human is about to arrive, and it is perfectly rational in doing so... but it does not know what time the human is expected to arrive. — creativesoul

When but not what time. Because he doesn't know the names humans have artificially given the hours and minutes of the day. Okay.

and therefore of course he’s accessible to me; I got a tv. — Mww

So have I. All the world is accessible to me, including the observed and recorded behaviour of animals in the wild. And that's all you can know of Putin, too.

To know of a thing, is not the same as to know the thing. Do you see that if you’d asked if I knew Putin, I’d have given a different answer? — Mww

Indeed. I was answering:

If something is inaccessible to us, we cannot know of it. — Mww

We can know of, and quite a lot about, many things that we can't access directly.

If another’s capabilities or subjective experiences were sufficiently accessible to me, they wouldn’t be merely implied. They would be, or could possibly be, demonstrably given. — Mww

But you don't accept experimental demonstrations as true. And so cannot be certain of anything.

The dog does not recognize the sound of it's human's car. — creativesoul

Sure he does. Even the dumbest dog knows the sounds and smells of its people and their stuff.

The dog, after being reminded of past events - by virtue of being amidst much the same spatiotemporal events - begins to form, have, and/or hold expectation that the human will be there. In doing so the dog begins getting anticipatory excitement in a happy sort of way due to the lifelong loving connection the dog and human have. — creativesoul

You're using more words to describe: dog expects human's arrival. 'Spatiotemporal' - yes, he knows where and when. I can't characterize that as even one of the multitude of alternate explanations.

I'm not saying that the dog's behavior is not rational. I would say that it most certainly is. — creativesoul

Yes. So, then...?

It is only after becoming aware of the fact that we can be wrong about stuff, that we can become hopeful - in the face of that uncertainty. — creativesoul

That's a pretty big bold statement about a wide-ranging emotion! What has our own fallibility to do with hope? It's not as if we had, before discovering our own fallibility, been convinced of being in control of the universe.

Compared/contrast that with autonomous anticipation and/or expectation without such metacognitive reservation. — creativesoul

You mean humans never rationally expect something that usually happens to go on happening on schedule? When a human goes to work on Monday morning, he doesn't merely hope, but quite reasonably and confidently expects his workplace to stand where it has always stood and function as it has always functioned. If it's lifted up by an alien police force and transported to the moon, he discovers his own fallibilty. If he and the workplace survive the incident, thereafter, he only hopes to find it in the usual place.
If the dog's human is taken to hospital during the day and doesn't return home for a week, the dog's reasonable expectation is reduced to hope.

This mistakenly presupposes that you are somehow privy to my fear(s)? — creativesoul

Nah, just citing a vague general human-centric fear. It was huge in the sciences for a century. the word 'looms' triggered it.

It is rational. The irony, once again. You're quoting my argument for how and/or why it is rational. — creativesoul

I'm still trying to figure out what it is you're arguing. Sometimes I seem to misunderstand it.

"No reason, really. It's just a Monday, ya know?" — creativesoul

What people say is not always candid, insightful or comprehensive. I know of no effects without a cause. It sounds as if they 1. are not aware of or 2. do not wish to investigate or 3. assume you already know the sequence of experiences that have contributed to this particular response to an anticipated and repeated situation.

Knowing what time a particular person is expected to arrive is to pick that time out from the rest. The dog does not do that. The dog knows when the human is about to arrive, and it is perfectly rational in doing so... but it does not know what time the human is expected to arrive. — creativesoul

I just don't follow the distinction here. Are there discreet points in the continuity of time that we have to identify and choose among? What increments, and how aware do we do have to be of choosing one? Or do we experience the passage of time as fluid, and of which we are sometimes keenly aware and sometimes lose track? I don't see how a dog should have to 'pick out' an item of time from among a group of similar items, as if it were a toy in a pile of toys. To me, minutes all look and pretty much alike; I could not tell them apart except by the events that take place during their passage.

But then, as you say, I don't understand your arguments. Logically, then, I should stop responding to them. I don't know how to disengage without seeming rude.

It depends on how big a god I was. Creator of life on Earth? Master of this galaxy? In charge of the whole Big Shebang?
I'll settle for the galaxy for now. My next project would probably be to terraform a whole bunch of planets and seed them with fast-evolving life forms that all have a decent chance of becoming human-like, so they can develop interstellar travel, trade and war with one another. Quite a lot of potential for entertainment there.

If something is inaccessible to us, we cannot know of it. — Mww

Do you know of a man named Vladimir Putin? Is he accessible to you?

But I’m not interested in possibilities logical inference affords, when I want the certainty implied by an answer to an empirical question, especially when I already have the certainty afforded me from my own rational thought. — Mww

Your implied certainty of another's capabilities is based on not being able to access intimate knowledge of that other's subjective experience?
Hnh...

I just came in here for a brief respite from fighting over animal intelligence.

I've read that setting is important when writing a novel. Indeed, it can be seen as a character. — Amity

I used to love the TV series Ballykissangel, in which the village was possibly the best character.
In my own work, I pay attention to the details of setting; consider it important not to have lily of the valley blooming in September or long shadows at 1pm or a piano in a poor man's cottage, and of course, I had to put quite a lot of details in the manor where a quasi historical romance took place. But I had not considered the location very important until I attempted SF. Do you know how much research and meticulous planning goes into inventing a planet? Damn real, it becomes a character: it haunts your dreams for months on end.

You would not want to say alligators think, would you? — Athena

Their thinking is on a fairly rudimentary level. They do have a cerebellum, as do lizards and turtles, so the 'reptilian brain' is not quite as you depict it. The alligator's lifestyle doesn't pose many intellectual challenges. They're also stronger and more in their element than a human child alone in a forest.

I have been with severely brain-damaged people and they may be able to make some survival choices but their inability to think means very poor decision making. — Athena

And so, other people take care of them, even in adulthood. That feral kid doesn't survive with the use of its mighty jaws or its social support system; it only has its little hands and big brain to provide itself with food and shelter while avoiding predators.

Now if we agree rational thinking requires words, — Athena

Which we still do not,

I think we need to understand the importance of language and learned logic skills for rational thinking. Not all thinking is rational thinking. — Athena

Oh, we can be quite irrational in language, too. Just listen to a speech by.... never mind.
Humans have an enormous brain, only a small part of which is required to run the vital physical systems and another small part for reflex actions and survival instincts. The rest is available for learning, memory, language, culture, skill acquisition, storytelling, convictions, wealth accumulation, altruism, invention, emotional complexity, deceit, social bonding, philosophy, ambition, superstition, delusion and madness. As well as reasoning and assessment.

That would not cover rational thinking would it? — Athena

Well, they did survive, so they must have made some rational decisions along the way. We can't see the process, only the result.

As noted, I think this distinction is resisted in contemporary culture because it's politically incorrect. There's an aversion to the Christian doctrine of mankind's sovereignty over nature as it is associated with religion and old-fashioned cultural attitudes. It's today's 'popular wisdom'. — Wayfarer

The only political component I can see is the enacting of laws against cruelty to animals. The same factions are working to reduce cruelty to other humans. If that goes against Christian dogma - oh, well, it's had its 2000-year reign (sometimes of paternalism, sometimes of terror.)

Through it, we become different kinds of beings, namely, human beings, and we're not just another class of primate. — Wayfarer

Nobody's tried to take that away from you. So why insist on taking away from those "lesser" beings a faculty they possess in common with us? Does crossing a threshold require you to sever all ties?
Many people have declined to do that; have retained their links to the natural world and other species and are the healthier for it.

What is needed is engagement of a particular kind, so that one can grasp that animals in many ways will engage with us in many (but not all) of the same ways that we engage with other people. — Ludwig V

There is the undeniable and ever present imbalance of power to take into consideration.

Now, given the irrefutable truth that all of which is not a possible experience for us, is impossible knowledge for us….by what right can we say we know of rational thought/belief in those animals the cognitive machinations of which are inaccessible? — Mww

By the same right that allows us to discuss distant suns and galaxies to which we have no direct access, and the way we learn the relationships of atoms in molecules or the events of geological time: though observation, theory, prediction and experimentation. What makes animals easier to understand than chemicals and mountains is that we are more closely related to animals and thus better able to recognize behaviours that are similar to ours and extrapolate that the motivation and thought process that prompts the same behaviour may also be similar.

My first dog, whom I greatly loved (just like the other two) and who did have an Alpha personality (a Bouvier des Flandres weighing 120 pounds healthily) knew how to (try to) deceive us. I'd say "come" at a distance after he'd misbehaved and he'd sit his ass on the ground and calmly stare in all directions except toward me, as though he was not hearing what I was saying. — javra

The "I'm deaf" tactic. And then there is the "Who, me? I was just standing there, minding my own business. It was the cat." And the "Toilet paper? What toilet paper?" gambit. And "I don't know anything about a magnifying glass. Huh? How'd that get in my bed?"
As to innocence - They lie, they cheat, they steal, they hold grudges and they're spiteful. IOW, a lot like us, which is why we love them.

But one feels that the version for other people is not the truth, because it doesn't represent the dog's point of view accurately. — Ludwig V

It doesn't reflect the human's accurately, either, but that doesn't matter, because a common language gives us a thumbnail picture of what is in the other's mind. We don't need every detail to understand the gist of their meaning.

I had heard of the language problem. Do you have a reference that would tell me more about the symbols and patterns that they use? — Ludwig V

Of course not. The feral children - and there have not been many - cannot communicate how they think, because they're inept in our language, even if they can learn it, and we have no access to theirs.

Those behaviors have a multitude of very different and equally accurate explanations for why the dog is behaving that way. — creativesoul

Of that specific cluster of behaviours at that same time every weekday, but not on weekends or holidays? Show me three of that multitude of accurate explanations.

Anthropomorphism looms large. — creativesoul

And terrifying! Why? Similarity and commonality are not diseases; they're a natural result of sharing a planet and a history.

A candidate not only has to have an intuitive sense of the passage of time, but it also must possess some means of differentiating between timeframes such that they also know that other periods are not that arrival time. They have to think along the lines of different timeframes. — creativesoul

You're overcomplicating something simple. A biological clock: so much time has elapsed; at this interval, something is supposed to happen.

The arrival of the train meant the arrival of the human, to the dog that is... due to the correlations the dog had drawn, time and time again between all the regularities surrounding the five o'clock train. — creativesoul

And that's not rational, because....?

Sometimes. Lots of folk dread Monday, simply because it's Monday. — creativesoul

No. Because it's the first day of a new work-week. Early rising (possibly with hangover) (possibly lover departing), rigid morning routine, uncomfortable clothing, commute, staff meeting, unpleasant colleague regaling you with their spectacular weekend adventures, bossy department head dumping unwanted task on your desk.... Some people who enjoy their work actually look forward to Mondays; most people don't enjoy their work. Pity!

To the dog, the train means the human. — creativesoul

No other train, just the five o'clock local.
But never mind, I have lots of other examples you can explain away.

It pleases us - me, anyway - to believe that we have some limited freedom to choose within the given restrictions of physics, biology, environment and social organization. We operate on that assumption, and it mostly works. Since we have no other option, we might as well be pleased.

Perhaps "rational" is being equated with "the way I think"? (If only subconsciously.) — wonderer1

Indeed. Can you point to species not only capable, but very often guilty of acting, speaking and thinking in ways that are anti-rational? I can.... So, "like me" is not a constant, perfect benchmark.

Perhaps another issue worth considering in this thread is, do animals think critically? Do humans think critically? What percent of humans? — wonderer1

That's a very difficult question. It appears that a very large percentage of humans do not think critically about some issues. But are they capable of critical thinking? Do they never think critically about anything, or are they selective in the subjects on which they choose to be uncritical? There is no way that I can know.
Nor am I confident in my understanding of the criteria for critical thought. I know how I do it, have theories on how it ought to be done; I actually taught a short night-school course. But I don't know when, how or even whether someone else does.

Dogs - the subject with which I'm most familiar - discriminate in their preference for situations, locations and associates. They vary widely in their preferences and standards. In general, I've found that dogs distrust dishonest people - that is, the dog didn't like the person from first encounter and the humans didn't find out until much later. (I've seen children under six exhibit the same discernment.) They generally dislike ambiguous situations, for instance when the humans in their life disagree, and environments with too much busyness, noise, competitive odours and motion.
i don't know whether any of that qualifies for the definition.

But it depend whether the dog is going to generalize in the same way that we do. — Ludwig V

Why would they need to think exactly the same way we do in order to be considered rational?

We choose our words to balance the understanding of the dog and the understanding of the people that we are speaking to. — Ludwig V

And only to communicate with other people. In fact, when we refer to the weekend, what we actually mean - exactly like the dog does - are two days of leisure. You would enjoy them even if your days off were Wednesday and Thursday and not at the end of the named week. It's not a vacation you're longing for - that's just a word. You're longing for two weeks on a hot beach, or on a ski slope, or in a hotel room with a desired other, or on the road with your Harley. The names are a convenient way to refer to a whole package of experience. All of that experience can be unbundled, laid out in sequence and lived in fantasy or memory without labeling the images and sensations.

But that only demonstrates that it is possible to think unconsciously and without language. — Ludwig V

Consciously, but without having any verbal labels either on the physical environment or on the processes of dealing with it. If they're over about 10 years of age when found, they've missed language acquisition during those three years years when the most intensive neural network formation takes place. And they've developed a non-verbal set of symbols and patterns that work for them. That style of thinking may not be able to encompass abstractions like "What is the purpose of life?" or "How do we look deeper into the macro and micro universe?", but it still contains a vast amount of information about his accustomed environment and how to operate it in it safely - things that don't clutter up the heads of people who can always look things up in a book.

What Do You Believe?
This debate raises fundamental questions about human nature, morality, and the meaning of life itself. — Cadet John Kervensley

We ask those questions all the time, regardless where stand on free will.

Are we truly free, or are we simply following a predetermined path?

Of course we're not 'truly' free. In order to live, we must be constrained by the environment that nurtures us and the demands of at least subsistence. We are limited by our physical and mental capabilities. We are further restrained by the society on which we depend for security and co-operation. Individually, we may also have freedoms curtailed by dependents, family ties, obligations and contracts. At most, we have freedom in a narrow range of available choices.

Is there room for personal responsibility in a deterministic world?

It doesn't matter. We experience life as a series of options and decisions. Whether by fate or intent, we judge, act and arrange our relationshipsas if all parties were free and responsible agents. And if it's predetermined that we so, we cannot change it. If we could stop judging and acting as if we are free, we would actually disprove determinism. There's your paradox.

How do you reconcile the tension between autonomy and external influences in your own life? — Cadet John Kervensley

By accepting my limitations with as much grace as I can muster, and becoming frustrated when I can't muster enough.

But what is thinking without words? — Athena

Graphic and physical. It's what feral human children do to survive in the wild.

Still, when the signs appear, there is no doubt and we well might say the dog is excited because it's the week-end, while acknowledging that that does not reflect how the dog thinks about it. It could be "the day breakfast is late" - but even then, we don't suppose that's what the dog is saying to itself. Perhaps it is more like the response to the fire. I don't think there is a clear answer to this. — Ludwig V

It was a clumsy example of how dogs sense time. I subsequently found an article about it that does a better job. Yes, they know how long it should be between when you leave for work and when you return, between when each child leaves for school and when they return, between breakfast and dinner, between walks or rides. My clever German shepherd would go fetch her leash (no mean feat in itself, since it hung on a coat-hook) at a 11:15 on days my mother was on evening shift, so we could go meet her at the subway station, so she didn't have to walk home alone. When my mother worked days, we took our walk right after supper, and she didn't ask again.

There's a complication here, that how the animal thinks about it may not be how we think about it. — Ludwig V

If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, why would we assume it's something - anything! anything! - other than a duck? Because recognizing similarity and commonality with other animals violates the exclusively-human commandment? I don't worship at that altar.

Still, when the signs appear, there is no doubt and we well might say the dog is excited because it's the week-end, — Ludwig V

Not because it's the weekend; he can't think in the same terms as working and school-attending humans; he doesn't have that experience.* What he's anticipating are the events that take place at five-day intervals: family all present and relaxed, more playtime, activity, maybe the excitement of visitors or outings something of interest going on.

It's also because dogs are intelligent that they're easily bored. A chew-toy may keep a spaniel busy all morning, but a poodle needs more stimulation, lest he turn my friend's leather jacket into artwork. (She solved the problem by getting another dog to keep him company.)
That same shepherd would sometimes get bored when my mother slept late; a couple of times she woke up with her pillow and hair covered in autumn leaves that the dog had fetched from the back yard, one mouthful at a time. Why? A show of affection - both dogs and cats offer gifts to their people - or just something fun to do, like eating the roses - just the petals - from a vase way high on a dresser, or laying the items from the medicine cabinet in a neat row on the bathroom floor?

* Well, in fact, working dogs do have that experience. A security guard dog, for example knows when his shift begins and ends. A sheepdog knows when it's time to collect the flock. A cattle dog when his charges are supposed to be let out to pasture and when they should come home again. Guide dogs, tracking dogs and rescue dogs work unpredictable hours; they recognize duty (serious, pay attention, be disciplined and silent, don't fraternize with bystanders) and off duty (free to play, run, bark, make friends, accept treats) by what they're wearing.

So, they have some intuitive sense of time passing, as I mentioned earlier... perhaps accompanied by pattern recognition? I'm still not sure that that counts as knowing what time their humans are expected to arrive home. — creativesoul

Dogs surelook expectant! You get clues off the standing up, prancing and sitting down every two minutes, tail wagging every time a car goes by and slobber all over the glass.

The dog clearly connects the five o'clock train with the master's arrival... but hope? — creativesoul

Why else would he keep going there every day for three years? The train had nothing for him. He never accepted treats from the staff or made friends with anyone on the platform. He just waited. (The priest gave special dispensation to bury him beside his master. Unmarked, of course. I wish I'd had time to know that man; he must have been remarkable to be loved and respected by so many.)

What does "looking forward to going for a car ride on days the human doesn't drive away on" miss? — creativesoul

I don't know. I suppose the fact that he didn't leave after breakfast. But why would they start getting excited at breakfast - which would take place later than on weekdays? Time sense, probably.

I claimed, not Wayfarer, that looking forward to Thursday requires knowing how to use the word. — creativesoul

Sure, the name of the day is needed to convey your anticipation to another human. But what you're actually anticipating is not the day, or its name, but the event. You could as easily say, "I look forward to seeing my father every week." They don't really need to know that he comes to dinner on Thursdays, it's just quicker and less self-revealing to say the day and not the event.

We are the only one who invented knowledge and concepts and base our actions on these. — Fire Ologist

Well, sometimes....
That's the extreme end of the cognitive spectrum. Unfortunately, this also leads to the highest rate of cognitive dysfunction. The narwhal is at the extreme end of ecolocation. The mantis shrimp is at the extreme end of colour discernment. The leaf-tailed gecko is at the extreme end of camouflage use. The peregrine falcon is at the extreme end of speed. Every spectrum has ends and somebody has to occupy at each end.

We know that no other known creature is capable of knowingly looking forward to Thursday. — Wayfarer

Why does a human look forward to Thursday? Does he celebrate Thor? Or is it because something pleasant usually happens on Thursdays? Suppose that pleasant even were moved to Tuesday? Would the human still look forward to Thursday because of its name, or would he change his anticipation to Tuesdays? What if the pleasant thing once happened on a Monday? Would he reject it because it's on the wrong day, or would he say: "You're early!" and be happy?
What he's actually looking forward to is the particular event that usually takes place. Do we also know that no other animal can guage the interval at which a routine pleasant event usually occurs? To a small child, to whom Thursday means nothing, one would say: two more sleeps until Grandpa comes to dinner. And a dog who never gets to ride in the car when his human is going to work, and doesn't even ask, looks forward to weekends.

What would such a dog's thought, belief, and/or anticipation/expectation consist in/of? — creativesoul

Dodi kept hoping his beloved master would arrive on the train at the time he used to arrive. When the train stopped at the platform, he would watch the doors eagerly as long as the train was in the station. When it pulled out, he went home.

I see no ground whatsoever to conclude that dogs know what time their humans are expected home from work or school. — creativesoul

Other than getting there at 4:45, or positioning themselves by the front window 10 minutes before their human normally gets home, or waiting on the lawn for the schoolbus? These are standard behaviours, not anomalies.

A 2018 study at Northwestern University found that an area located in the brain's temporal lobe associated with memory and navigation may be responsible for encoding time much like it does episodic memories. The experiment used mice, but results have been extrapolated to other animals and it seems that many animals do have a true sense of elapsing time, even if they can’t actually read a clock. Neurons in their brains are activated when they expect a certain time-dependent outcome. If the expected outcome doesn’t occur at the expected time—for instance, a pet is normally fed at 5PM. If the pet is not fed at 5PM—the pet may display agitated behavior.

If you would even say “only one” you should able to see my simple point. — Fire Ologist

Knowing that there are extreme ends on every spectrum does not require to accept everything other poeple impute to some aspect of that spectrum.
I see your simple point and reject on the basis of my experience and observation.

So sometimes animals are irrational? — Fire Ologist

Yes.

And there is mental illness? — Fire Ologist

Sure. In domestic animals. I think that it's generally caused by human activity, deliberately as in laboratory experiments, or inadvertently as in stressing the animals through violence or environmental degradation.

So more rational is better than less rational or irrational?

Better? According to whose values? Based on what standard? Measured by what metric?

You didn’t address any distinction between instinct as a cause of behavior and thinking as a cause of behavior. — Fire Ologist

Yes, I have. Often.

And you missed the distinction between seeing rationality in something, like seeing it in the pile of characters “2+2=4”, and using thought and logic and reason to form a choice and then acting on that thought and choice. — Fire Ologist

No, I didn't miss that conceptualization. Nor do I miss the actual difference when observing behaviour in humans and other animals. I just didn't think further comment was needed.

Saying they do is just a quick and easy explanation, making them like us, like reason is so special and instinct is less special. — Fire Ologist

It's not the explanation that makes all living things similar; it's evolution on the same planet. All animals are aware of the self/environment distinction, and respond to stimuli. Most exhibit hard-wired responses to certain situations. A large percentage have instincts and emotions; a smaller percentage use reason; some have imagination and foresight; a few are complex enough to develop psychological problems; only one - so far - is capable of inventing technology, medicine, politics, religion and torture.

By “see” you mean more precisely “conceive of” because we are talking about thinking, not just vision. — Fire Ologist

Used your same word is all.

So the creature who uses reason, the human, sees rational thought all over the universe - — Fire Ologist

I'm fine with more precision.

If you think animals think, then you are saying animals must conceive of a lot of things that aren’t there as well. — Fire Ologist

Did I say that rational thought must include the entire range of human thought and imagination and mental illness? No. However, sometimes domestic animals do chase imaginary prey or cringe from non-existent threats.

It is certainly rational to pull one's hand out of fire if one wants to keep one's hand from being destroyed. — Fire Ologist

Instinctive behaviour can usually be explained rationally. However, when pulling one's hand out of a fire, one has no time to think, rationally or otherwise, one - whether the subject be human or other - simply reacts.
Behaviour that purposeful and reasoning can also be explained rationally. (A firefighter heads toward the fire, rather than running away from it, because his purpose is to douse the fire and end the danger it poses.)
So can emotional and irrational behaviour be explained rationally. (A man whose child is inside the building may rush into the flames, even though reason clearly indicates that he cannot reach the child and survive; he does it because love and distress impel him to act.)

We can't explain their behavior without saying it is like our behavior, — Fire Ologist

So... we have a reasonable explanation, which is declared false, even though no alternative explanation is offered. The example, incidentally, is within the range of an intellectually challenged Afghan. It would be harder to 'splain away what a search and rescue dog is expected to do.

Couldn't their instincts be so highly developed that they never need any thoughts to move from the present into the future? — Fire Ologist

In unnatural situations, in unfamiliar environments, to tackle human-constructed challenges - no.

So the creature who uses reason, the human, sees rational thought all over the universe — Fire Ologist

Most of us only we see it in living entities that evolved alongside of us, in the same environments, under the same conditions, and share a large percent of our DNA, when they behave in the same way we do in similar situations.
Some of us see it in inanimate matter, and some choose to see it only in fictional characters and their authors, while denying it in other flesh-and-brain entities. Humans see a lot of things that are not there; some of these things are more plausible than others.

Saying my dog is communicating with me when he begs for food is placing a mind of his own in the dog. — Fire Ologist

No, it's not your saying that causes him to have a mind; it's his brain.

This places all of the epistemological problems of knowledge, the mind-body problem, questions of free-agency and choice, all in the dog.

Why the hell would you do that?? Indeed, why would you even do it to yourself?