I'd say the most significant thing is that it enables collective learning. History and art and literature and music and science and so on. — Janus

Human history does not indicate - at least to this observer - that all that science and culture have contributed significantly to our collective ability to make rational decisions.

Oh, you mean because some species can't be assumed to have thoughts? The ones that have no brains, I admit to not having allowed for them. The ones who do, whatever passes through those brains is very probably different from what passes through the brains of any other species. If you don't choose to call it thinking, that's your prerogative... with maybe just a smidgen of anthropocentrism.

Is there anything we think that no other species thinks? Or do we think nothing that is uniquely human, but we're the only ones who have the language to express it all? — Patterner

I assume every species has thoughts that no other species share, since the equipment with which we perceive, experience and interact with the world, and the capabilities we bring to life are so varied. I assume every individual also thinks thoughts that are unique to itself alone.

We can get some notion - sometimes a pretty clear one - of what another species is thinking by its actions, to the degree those actions are similar to what we would do in their place. But as long as we are individual, the precise content of each mind must remain a mystery to all others.

But I find it hard to imagine how they could be reflectively or narratively self-aware given that they don't possess symbolic language. — Janus

Does it matter whether you can tell stories about your thinking? I mean, it obviously matters to the storyteller. I happen to be a teller of fictional stories and it matters greatly to me. I suppose it matters even more to the tellers of stories that liberate or subjugate or eradicate entire peoples. In that sense, it raises humans above species that can't or don't need to tell stories.
(I imagine the dog's record of his internal life as a reel of virtual reality - like a 6D movie. Is it story-telling? Without grammar and syntax, it's hard to tell - in fact, at the time, it's impossible to communicate - but that's the way children with limited verbal skills view their own life.)
But how does it alter rational thought, problem-solving or navigating the physical world?

Biology is still beyond our ken. Neuroscience is well behind. Physics and cosmology are ranging off into neverlands of speculation. But we know all about metaphysics.
I have not heard of this experiment. Thanks! Don't quite know what to do with it, or where to file it, but it's fascinating.

Yep. It's hard to imagine an organism that does not interact with the world - if only to anchor on something and feed itself. With blythe disregard to potential philosophical pitfalls, I kind of presupposed being alive means being in the world. As I noted earlier, in the absence of outside sources of information - i.e. memory, experience, input from other organisms - one has only one's imperfect, unaided senses upon which to base understanding of anything. One would form concept s (a functioning mind cannot help forming concepts, even if it has no name for them) and thus make decisions that were only as accurate as the available data.

The animals will not be ruled by our modern cultural understanding of time. — Athena

Our pets and service animals are ruled by whatever schedule society set for their owners/handlers. Farm animals are,too, to a lesser degree, as their needs influence - though do not determine - the farmer's routine.

Our rational notions of life are pretty disconnected from nature. :lol: That is to say we do not experience the tree, but what we think about the tree. Does that make sense? — Athena

It does to me. When sequestered from the elements, the environment and denizens of nature, we let ourselves make up fanciful theories about those things, for a variety of reasons. One of these, as I said before, is exploitation. A major one has been to bolster theologies and thereby, the lifting of Man half-way to Heaven. There are strong vestiges of that mindset in the secular realm. Another reason is nostalgia: an ache for the loss of a dimension of our selves. A pervasive one has been art; the appreciation of natural beauty. Yet another is entertainment and profit through entertaining humans.

As long as we have theories and centuries-old Eurocentric philosophical maxims regarding the nature of nature, we can deny the less adamantine evidence of direct observation, direct interaction.

It doesn't. The preponderance of evidence does.
The teeny-tiny, microscopic point I attempted to make in this context was in support of the previous argument by Ludwig V was that conceptual thought depends on concepts, which are formed from sensory input.

If my data is wrong, despite my assessing it rationally, then my rationality is not in question. It would be if I became better informed and failed to change my assessment. — Ludwig V

Rational thinking and reasoning takes place in conceptual level, not physical or biological level. — Corvus

Just that, nothing more. Any entity, of any species that thinks rationally can, nevertheless, draw false conclusions if they are working with inaccurate data.
If there ever was such a point worth making, its moment has long passed.

identifiable — Hallucinogen

by what means?

Pythagoras' theorem — Hallucinogen

would rather presuppose the existence of Pythagoras, who also wasn't the first

because it blowing itself up, as you put it, depends on a pre-existing law of physics that entails that it behaves that way. — Hallucinogen

or else blowing itself up that way and turning into the universe was the beginning of physics, after which everything thus created had to behave according its rules
So there's your first/last/all entities.

How is the dog informed about the time? — Athena

The same way you are. The biological clock that came with our brain, plus changes in the environment, plus experience, plus memory. People and other animals kept daily and seasonal routines long before anybody built a stone circle and very long before we let ourselves be ruled by mechanical horologes. I have no idea why other people think this is remarkable, when we all not only have a sense of time, but can witness every living thing around us respond to the passage of time.

Normally, we do indeed believe what we see, etc and that is unproblematic. But sometimes we find ourselves with incompatible beliefs, or simply confused. Then we start asking questions, making diagnoses; very often, but not always we can resolve the situation and then we turn on the perceiver and conclude that there is something wrong or at least different going on - colour-blindness, astigmatism, etc. — Ludwig V

Only if you have some external source of information that contradicts your defective senses. without that contradiction, you would ask no questions.

What is new or interesting? — Corvus

Nothing at all. One old, uninteresting point is that concepts are formed from sensory input, not independently.

Rational thinking and reasoning takes place in conceptual level, not physical or biological level. — Corvus

But the subject matter one thinks about has to be collected through sensory data processing before one can formulate any concepts. (Hence the poverty of cognitive function in children who have been deprived of stimulation in their formative years.) If one's own data-collecting equipment is compromised, no amount of conceptual thinking can correct it. In the absence of an external source of sound data, one is forced to draw conclusions and make decisions on incorrect premises.
If you are missing the L cones in your retina and nobody tells you that red exists, it's quite reasonable for you to conceive of everything in the world as shades of green and yellow. You could respond correctly to a green STOP sign because of the word, but a green flag would mean nothing special.

I could maybe go that way... I've been toying with the notion of luck. Charms and hexes, touchstones and talismans? Hmmm

Only, I really do. It started forming last month, on Friday the 13th. Haven't written it down yet, because there isn't a plot in which to ground the idea.

I have concepts of a story....

Think whatever you like, but if you think animals are rational, then we are not talking in the same category of reason. — Corvus

That works. You want to hog a faculty all to yourself, just categorize it as the thing only you have.

Me, I like saffron. Better yet, the bead-work and fringes of North American native shamans. Their work may have a dark side, but they don't have a Cristian disdain for life.

. A few moments of google research suggests that the choice of color is based on the inclination to express austerity and the rejection of material life, favoring of spiritual. — praxis

Then why are witches dressed in black? Why are ravens and crows associated with foretelling death, or doom, rather than something spiritual about souls and eternal life and all that? I suspect it's no contradiction at all. Religious turn away from life, love, joy and procreation; they entomb themselves in a celebration of human sacrifice. The rituals of medieval monastic orders attest to this: renunciation of worldly pleasure, mortification of the flesh, a life-long penance for having been born into original sin.

Yes, I get the light/dark thing (including its spurious association with skin colour). It's the religious garb I find anomalous. Does any other belief system dress its shamans in the colour they most fear?

What can you be yourself without?
Lose your possessions, relationships, status, occupation - you're still yourself, though a less effective self.
Lose a leg or an arm, your hearing, sight, health - you're still yourself, though in need of support.
Lose the power of locomotion, continence, memories - you're still yourself, only much reduced.
Lose your consciousness; suffer a traumatic enough injury to your brain - you're nobody.
Self as you identify it at the height of your powers is all those things: body, physical and mental faculties, accomplishments and acclaim.
Self as identified at the beginning and end of life is something very much smaller and more primitive, but still wholly dependent on a functional brain.
Put that brain in a vat of saline solution, hooked up to pumps for blood and oxygen, you'd still be a self, though probably insane in short order.

There is a great danger in infantilizing our young, and in idealizing ignorance as a state of bliss.
Children are capable of understanding, learning and doing far more than we allow them to.

They, as well as crows, also teach their young life skills and how to get by in the human world.
The 'murder' is a gathering of crows. They're just families nesting in trees of a proximity to provide mutual protection.
But then, Europeans have a long-standing problem with the colour black: they associate it with death and evil - except, somehow, priests and nuns in their flowing black garb.

I've always been a proponent of homeschooling, which is something popular in the US. — Shawn

Yeah. It's largely uncontrolled, so that no authorities know which parents are beating their kids, or making them kneel on cement floors as penance. I've seen a number of home-schooling textbooks. The basic arithmetic and spelling are fine, but when you get into science, it's often sadly deficient and the history/social studies courses reek of exceptional nationalism. I have seen no materials at all - none - on sex education or general health and hygiene. If innocence means ignorance, you're on the right track.

I'm sure there are parents who are qualified to teach a range of subjects properly, make sure their children have enough exercise and learn manual skills and arts and also co-ordinate peer group encounters so that their children don't grow up isolated and socially inept. I can't help but suppose they're a minority.

In the field of law there's a dictum or principle that one must be assumed innocent until proven guilty. — Shawn

In that instance, 'innocence' simply means that the accused has not committed the particular crime of which he stands accused. It does not mean a general innocence, as of a newborn babe.

In the instance where one refers to the innocence of a child, that is a relative term. It means that the child is ignorant enough of right and wrong not to be held fully responsible for his actions. In this usage, the term is flexible both as to the age of the child and as to what kinds of action is considered beyond his capacity to appreciate the gravity of performing them.

In the far narrower context of

violates the innocence of a young child, — Shawn

, it usually refers to activities of a sexual nature, to which the child is physically and/or emotionally too immature to consent.

I think that by having children one is not only implicitly; but, explicitly responsible for maintaining the innocence of the child. — Shawn

So long as the child is a minor, the parent is required to protect it both from premature sexual contacts and from criminal involvement. However, the degree of childhood innocence in all areas of human experience steadily diminishes from age 0 to adulthood. Some adults continue long after the age of majority to maintain a degree of childlike innocence; some people carry vestiges of it through life.

So, how do parents view this topic? — Shawn

As a challenge. By the time a child acquires language, her innocence has already begun to erode. Typically, a child begins to lie - verbally, deliberately - around the age of four. Before that, there are moments of guile, subterfuge, duplicity, but they are usually opportunistic crimes, not premeditated ones.
By age six, children are quite aware that adults also lie, and they've begun to understand which lies are motivated by kindness and which are self-serving; which are defensive and which aggressive; which have the best chance of being forgiven and which are most likely to be punished.

By age six, the child has been disillusioned of many fictions adults had invented to shelter and preserve her in innocence. She will have seen at least one adult naked, become aware that Santa Claus is a story, realized that parents are fallible, self-contradictory, sometimes unfair and not always reliable. She has learned that promises are provisional and rules are elastic.
When he enters the school system, the child is no longer wrapped in a cocoon of innocence - nor should he be. He must learn to navigate a society in which deceit and chicanery play prominent roles.
It is the parents' assigned task to prepare them as well as possible.

"Was" typically means you're acknowledging it existed. — Hallucinogen

I was humouring you. But, okay: a first entity existed.
If we take 'entity' to mean any solid identifiable object, that would theoretically have been a sub-microscopic infinitely hot, dense ball of matter that blew itself up. Sounds ridiculous enough on its own, and then you add consciousness and agency and it becomes totally absurd. I could never believe in such a thing.
If we take 'entity' to mean a self-aware organism, there must have been a first one of those, long ago, on some planet of some galaxy. In that case, all of its progeny depended on its having existed, but they don't preclude other organic life arising and becoming self-aware on any number of other planets, in any number of galaxies, and they didn't depend on that one first one, regardless of their chronological order, and none are 'contingent'.

The deities of monotheism and deism are all metaphysically necessary entities, so disbelief in all deities entails disbelief in those metaphysically necessary entities. — Hallucinogen

No imaginary spirits, gods or djinns are necessary. Belief is optional.

That, like so many formerly pleasant activities, has lately become perilous to one's mental health.
I look at the Gulf of Mexico in the lower right corner of news broadcasts and wonder where the hummingbirds are now. I look out at the feeders and wonder why there so few chickadees. I look at my windshield in summer and know why no swallows are gathering along the road where we used to watch them in early fall.

f you're acknowledging that there's a non-contingent first entity then you're not an atheist about a necessary entity. — Hallucinogen

I haven't acknowledged any 'entities', necessary or otherwise. I was going along with your criteria for the sake of argument.
And, afaic, atheism is unbelief in deities, not entities. I'm not an atheist about any specific proposition of your choosing; I'm an atheist by virtue of disbelieving in all deities.

Metaphysical necessity is mutually inclusive with being eternal and omnipotent, so the acknowledgement concedes a lot of important ground to theism. — Hallucinogen

Possibly in some realms of the imagination; not in my reality.

I don't know what the first entity was. I will never know. What's this to do with atheism?

But the thread is still about rational thinking in animals and people. — Patterner

I know. The telling of time - when something is expected to happen vs what time something is expected to happen - was a slight detour. However, I do consider a sense of time, understanding the sequence of events and anticipation of future events, to be an important component in reasoning.

If there was a way to prove it one way or another, I'd bet good money that was not why the dog was still showing up. If that was why it was still showing up, then it's not an example of a dog thinking rationally. — Patterner

This was not a problem solving exercise; it was an example of sentimental attachment and time-sense. Dodi was an inept hunting dog, not very bright. My grandfather bought him, rather than see him put down. Quite an irrational act: he was soft in the head, too. Wouldn't even beat his sons, way back in the 1920's when that was considered every father's duty.

1. It would seem that there is a kind of understanding that is not exactly a rational explanation, but does help to understand why people might remember those they have lost when it would not be irrational to forget. — Ludwig V

We are also creatures ruled to a large extent by feelings of attachment, loyalty, affection, of sentiment - just like dogs, horses and geese. We generally don't blame one another for failing to be 100% rational 100%of the time. Other animals, we hold to a different standard.

If she doesn't show up again, but you're still hoping she will be there five years from now - as opposed to just looking out at the tree with bittersweet memories of her, and wishing she had been with you longer - then your hope will no longer be rational. So you probably shouldn't go out there every day at that poibt, open a new can of cat food, and call for her. — Patterner

I won't be here by this time next year. Until then, it's the window of my office, where a I spend much of my day.
BTW, the incident of the dog who waits wasn't about rational thinking; it was about a sense of time, of awareness of past and future, and not simply living in the present, as some people insist that other animals do.

But the dog wasn't still going a decade after because it expected the man to get off the train. — Patterner

He was just faithful.
Some things we do are not rational in a strict sense of the word. My favourite cat went out one night three months ago and didn't show up in the cedar tree outside my office window next morning. Chances are, a coyote or a car killed her. I'm aware of these dangers, having access to information dogs and cats don't. My grandfather died in another town; his human family was notified. The dog never saw his body and was told nothing. I still look out at the cedar tree every morning: though I don't rationally expect to see Sammy there, some superstitious* part of me keeps hoping. The same way the families of soldiers missing in action keep hoping for years or decades that their loved one will come home some day.

*I suppose it's the same part in many humans that insists on believing in a soul and afterlife. Hope, even the most improbable hope, is hard to give up.

It's a bit of a taxonomic gap from the corvids but am sure the corvids have some interesting predator/prey dynamics on account of how intelligent people say they are. — Nils Loc

Konrad Lorenz wrote that crows swarmed and intimidated him on his way down to the river every morning, until he discovered the problem: he'd had a black swimsuit carelessly dangling from his hand. If crows see anything limp and black carried by a predator, they assume it's a dead crow and he's an enemy. After that, he wore his trunks and went empty-handed and was allowed to go in peace.

I'm quite familiar with the racket they make in the dead elms every June-July, when their fledglings are learning to fly. The whole flock stands on guard, taking turns at fly-overs, keeping watch and warning all predators to stay away.
I've also had a flock of 10-12 grackles every spring for some years (though the numbers have diminished alarmingly of late) and I never seen their fledglings. They go into the deeper woods to nest and rear their young. The bluejays are much in evidence, however: they bring their noisy kids to the feeder and do elementary flight-training in our cedar trees. A parents will perch in one tree with the chicks, then fly over to a nearby tree and call to them. And keep calling and encouraging, while the other parent flits back and forth to demonstrate and the kids complain how scared and hungry they are. They make an awful racket, but they're great fun to watch.

In fact, not the least bit evil and in no ways like a writing-desk.

I don't doubt it, and would appreciate learning what species do this and how.

Could ravens lure prey out with imitation, as a tactic? — Nils Loc

But that's not luring prey. You were way ahead with the singing raven.

But I guess it depends on what’s considered problem solving. — John McMannis

In the scientific observations, the problem was set by humans. It would be in the form of a maze, or human-designed containers from which the subject would have to extricate a treat, by more or less complicated methods. The experiments with crows usually involve a three-part procedure that requires the subject to analyze the nature of the container and figure out how to open it, using one or more tools, or a principle of physics (such as artificially raisin the water level in a tube, or tilting a device to the correct inline) .
Ravens, apparently do very well indeed. In the primate experiments, the subject might be confronted with images or symbols of which they had to decipher the meaning. None of these experiments were 'in the wild'; ie problems that an animal would encounter in their natural habitat, while living its ordinary life - not situations in which instinct would be expected to play a part.

Here is a simple one for dogs

To determine cooperative actions, the strings are set so far apart that one dog cannot reach them both. Two dogs are positioned in front of the table. The goal is for the dogs to cooperate by pulling the strings simultaneously, releasing two treats. In this study, dogs cooperated with each other or with human participants. It was also observed that if one dog was set in front of the table, he waited for the other dog to get in position before tugging on the string. So, dogs are good at working with others to get the job done.

The problem solving I myself observed in dogs involved something the dog(s) desired, that was normally denied to them, so that they would have to find ways to circumvent human-imposed rules and overcome human-created obstacles. I have personal experience with many animals, including numerous confrontations with one memorable rat we dubbed Albert Houdini. It took six months of devising ever more ingenious traps to catch that little bastard and relocate him to a wild environment. Since we had also released several other rats in that location, we can only speculate how much we've contributed to the evolution of a super-race of rodents.

It may only have been "ma-ma-ma-ma, mamme", but it was quite tuneful. He sang. Human-like, rather than songbird-like, but adorable, all the same. Nothing at all like a writing-desk!

So, I'll have to fall back on the classic:
Edgar Allen Poe wrote on both of them.

Ravens can mimic song like many other Corvids. — Nils Loc

Really? Can you point me to some footage? I know that bluejays and sometimes blackbirds imitate sounds, but I've never heard a crow sing.
We don't get ravens around here, so I don't know what they usually sound like.
Nor can I absolutely swear that no writing desk is wired for sound.
So, that guess may have been wrong. I wait to be further enlightened.

Could ravens lure prey out with imitation, as a tactic? — Nils Loc

What prey? By imitating what? Roadkill doesn't respond; eggs and berries can't be fooled by sound; mice probably wouldn't come out of hiding for a raven song.
Our pet crows loved the fried fish we humans were served every Friday. Neighbours would bring their leftovers and these two full-grown crows would dance around on the steps of our barrack, shaking their wings and cheeping like babies, waiting to be fed. The rest of the time, they'd be perched on the roof or searching the ground. I never heard either one utter a musical note.

But wouldn’t that mean that all animals have rational thought? They all problem solve in some ways. — John McMannis

Do they?
I have personally witnessed it in dogs, cats, crows, raccoons and rats and goats.
In scientific experimentation, the subjects have been predominantly apes, dolphins, canines, rodents, parrots and corvids.
I would be very interested to hear of other examples, and how the assessment was made.

Neither can sing.

The people who promote unhappiness as the superior state don't seem to understand how much effort and commitment goes into maintaining a positive state.

Once you've lost; you're in tragedy and despair, you can simply wallow for as long as it takes to muster your resources to meet whatever the challenge is. When you're where you have aspired to be, it takes eternal vigilance, punctuated by occasional heroic acts to keep and defend what you have.
That movie takes more subtle treatment than one about struggle and loss; no overt facile drama to depict.

Sorrow all looks pretty much the same; anger all looks pretty much the same; amusement all looks pretty much the same: emotions in humans are expressed in the same physiological responses.
But, though everyone may shed a tear and let their features droop when they are sad, an individual does not experience every instance of sorrow in the same way, or with the same intensity or for same length of time. And if our personal experience of emotions is unique to each instance, how much more varied are the experiences of different people?
No, emotions, either positive or negative, cannot be lumped in buckets.