Animal minds

 Michael – every other Thursday

The Thinker

I’ve often wondered about how animals think, how they process the data from their senses, and what consciousness they have (and what that even means). Animal senses are similar to ours but may have different meanings to the animal. For example, dogs have a much better sense of smell than we do and we all know what interest and attention they focus on it. Clearly they obtain much more information from it than we do. So could they take the scents and build an image of the past from them? Do they see what is there now and visualize how it was in the recent past? Alternatively, scent could be kept completely separate from sight. Your eyes tell you what is here right now, your nose what was here in the recent or older past. Is there a conscious decision to follow a scent based on “I will find such and such if I follow this trail”, or is it an instinctive reaction?

The Dow Jones did WHAT?

African hunting dogs - standoff with hyena

I once watched a pack of African hunting dogs going after impala. They rushed the herd and then chased individuals. One impala managed to outrun a dog, but was apparently too exhausted to run further. It dropped into some longish grass and lay absolutely still. We could easily see it from the vehicle, but evidently it was hidden at dog height. A dog arrived, also panting, and the endgame seemed inevitable. It stopped and sniffed, looking around for the prey. Then it moved in circles, apparently trying to spot the impala or to get a clear scent. Perhaps the problem was that the herd had been all over the area, the impala scents were everywhere. Eventually, the dog gave up, moved off to rejoin the pack, and the impala lived to flee another day.

I’m certainly not the first person to think about these things. Maybe everyone has considered the difference between human and animal minds in some context.

Of course, anthropomorphism is dangerous and almost impossible to avoid. How do we interpret the world if not by comparison to our own behaviors? It’s natural to interpret a dog’s cocked head as curiosity or puzzlement, but perhaps it’s just trying to get a better fix on the sound. (Try Googling it to find out what people think. No hits on what dogs think.)

No one really believes that Paul Gallico’s charming Jennie was “translated from the original feline”, nor that cats solve murder mysteries (or even that they care about them), but in many other ways we assume animal reactions match the corresponding human ones. No doubt sometimes we are right, and other times we are wrong in surprising ways.

Nothing to say all animal minds are the same...

A lot of philosophy has been written on the subject of animal minds (Descartes had an early go at it). Interestingly, the argument often reduces to one of language. Many writers see a high-level language as an indispensable requirement for meaningful thought and consciousness. Others attack that point of view, but it is hard to conceive of any type of abstract reasoning without a language in which to express it. Nevertheless, some experimental protocols have been tried with monkeys, apes, and dolphins that suggest that at least some conscious decision making takes place. Other researchers have queried those protocols. We don’t have the capability to “read” animal thoughts (or human ones for that matter although Elon Musk is working on that), and if it comes to it, we’re not 100% sure what human consciousness actually is or how to define it.

No wonder that so-called artificial intelligence is such an issue…