Development of Thought

P

PsychoticEpisode

It is very dry in here today
Valued Senior Member
There is an interesting bit of video that I think most of us have seen. It's the one where an obviously nervous and agitated antelope is standing on the bank of a crocodile infested river. Behind him stands the herd who have to cross to the other side in order to get to a food source.

Is that antelope, while standing on the bank, actually deciding to jump in and cross or not? Is it using primitive thought by weighing the odds of surviving the jaws of the crocs against the odds of staying put and taking one's chances by staying on the food depleted side of the river?If you watch the antelope's mannerisms you'd swear he is thinking about those odds before he takes the plunge.

What I was wondering is this.....could decisions such as this one have triggered the development of thought in humans. Is exposure to danger the catalyst for thought development? Were our primate ancestors living at a time when there was constant danger and the need to make critical survival decisions was a daily occurence?
 
Not too sure if you could use the word thought (depending on it's many definitions) but you could definitely say the antelope is assessing the situation.
 
I would think there are other reasons to think than besides danger, although that would motivate a lot of it. What about the thinking about the food on the other side. We are motivated by fear and needs (food, clothing, and shelter). An animal would probably be fear and food.

Just guessing there may be a bit more to it.
 
Avoiding danger is an obvious force for the development of thought. Primates are especially good at it, but many other animals do it, too.
 
An interesting question.

I feed walnuts to squirrels who live near my apartment. I am sure that walnuts are a real treat compared to the other food available to them.

Several squirrels recognize me and approach within 2-3 feet of me to get a Walnut.

Some time ago, there was an interesting situation involving a very old dog and one of my little friends.
  • A squirrel had been approaching me when the dog and his owner appeared from around the corner of my building.

    On similar occasions with younger dogs, the squirrel had always run away. This time he stopped and looked at the dog. Then approached me slowly and stopped again. He hesitated for a few seconds and rushed toward me. I tossed him a walnut which he grabbed and took to a nearby tree.
I have a friend who claimed that the squirrel was motivated by competing instincts: One the desire for food and the other, fear of the dog. He claimed that the stronger instinct won out, and denied that the behavior was motivated by the type of analysis whihc a human would apply to a similar situation.

It seemed to me that the squirrel recognized that the dog was slow and was estimating his chances of getting to me and escaping before the dog could get him. When his initial movement toward me did not result in any aggressive action by the dog, I think he decided to go for the walnut he was sure that I would give him.

My friend and I have been discussing our differing points of view for some time. Perhaps the competing instincts view and the thoughtful analysis view are variations on a spectrum of behavior. The competing instinct view is at one end of the spectrum, while the thoughtful analysis is at the other end.
 
It's hard to tell what's happening in his mind really but if u think about it, it is hard to disagree with your friends theory. An image of a slow moving dog vs a fast moving dog produces different instinctive reactions in the squirrel which were honed by many years of evolution. In fact, lower animals could have many insinctive end results depending on the situation. However, none of them may involve any thought at all
 
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