Do you believe animals think? What is it to think? What does Communication and linguistic skills have to do with all of this? Answer: (read below) it may have to do with your English and Language Classes?!
I think an interesting connection I have made, going over what some find to be controversial, is how we can classify intelligence, I do feel that our brains are furthest developed compared to other species, but not as far as many will think. LOL Thinking is just really the ability to learn from others, rather than follow a planned path by instinct alone, in other words, it means that if no one taught you a particular skill, you wouldn’t have been able to do it, and it can also mean to ponder over decisions. Many people disregard the abilities of the natural world and believe that we are the only creatures that think. Let’s make our first connection to evolution, and see how that affects my standpoint. Think about it like this, humans took under two million years to go from being no smarter, probably less smart than a chimpanzee, to being the humans that we are now. Think about that! Two million years is nothing in the eyes of evolution, the first time that sexual reproduction happened was 1.2 billion years ago, from the first life form, estimated to exist almost a couple (no pun intended LOL) billion years before that. Interestingly enough, that was one small step for those two organisms, who had counterpart DNA as a mutation, but one large leap for all of life, as this would be the spark of vast evolution and genetic variance across all organisms. It would take another 600 million years for organisms to become multicellular,and it wasn’t until only 380 million years ago till the first creature breathed in with its lungs. It wasn’t until 200 million years ago that the first organism had a cerebrum, and the first birds and mammals came into existence a little over 120 million years ago. This is clearly highlighting a connection to an exponential growth in the rate of change in evolution, the perfect example of positive feedback. The point of this is that we all come from a similar base, but small things make us appear so vastly different. If you looked at a bunch of embryos in phase 1 of incubation in the womb, you couldn’t really tell a pig from a human, and we are roughly 98 percent the same genetically as a chimpanzee. Although we are the only creatures to build rocket ships and send them into space, or do advanced math, many of the others aren’t all that far behind.elephants actually keep graveyards for their lost loved ones, and whales actually communicate indifferent dialects in different areas of the world, and can learn other dialects by interacting with other pods over time just like we can learn a new language over time. Of course this is going to get you thinking about what I say, if you believe that only humans think, you are saying that you don’t think when you are in your english class, or any language art at all.
Let's be “Punny” LOL and think about what it is to think! Thinking is generating your own ideas as an individual, not from instinct, but from your surroundings (as previously stated).This is what develops personality, something that the greater apes, as well as other mammals possess (as personality has the word person in it, only validating our narcissism), or even many birds, like many song birds and finches learn different songs underneath their father, and find the right mate with the right song, that has to be learned. Each of my cats has a different personality,even a favorite color! On a more serious note, just like how humans communicate, which is mostly sound and body language, (as previously stated), other animals aren’t that different.Looking at the exponential increase in the rate of evolution, it seems that we really only might be one to two million years ahead of some of these other creatures. Obviously, they think, they learn from each other just as we do, for example, orcas teach there young unique hunting strategies that other orcas wouldn’t know, signifying learning, rather than instinct where they all share the same knowledge from birth.
This actually hints at a connection to a different topic, why do writers write, why do they appeal to the emotions of others? The answer is really simple, and has a connection to nature.Writers are just communicating their thoughts to others, but just in a higher form of communication, a standard language of communication, to express how they feel, and what they want. When we all have something in common, we relate better, and there is much less disagreement. For example, the Mob mentality in TKAM is represented in many communities,human, and natural world, a creature is treated differently if they act differently, and creatures that get hyper with many relatable others around can get dangerous, signifying our hunting instincts in relation to mob mentality, as we used to hunt in groups for food, like some of the violent groups of gangs today, regardless though, we still had to be taught to actually hunt. The peer pressure shapes society for the good and for the bad, and so does the media. When people in ancient times wrote books, that was the media, the equivalent of today’s Instagram, as now, on social media, we make ourselves appear taller, or more intimidating, as they say, it is the winner who got to write the history, signifying that we may not be able to trust the written history all thet ime as we don't always trust what others say on social media. We were no different then as we wanted to put ourselves in the best light possible to seem “fit” both quite literally and figuratively for survival. Many other creatures learn what is seen to be attractive to other creatures, peacocks learn how to spread their feathers, and “flex” in communication that can be only taught by society, just like us in Instagram, or any other Social Media, put your best part out there, and sometimes find those attracted to you, perhaps even “mates” as they call it. When we write, we communicate our feelings, just as we talk. Whenever you learn another language, you are obviously learning. For example in the natural world, a lion that is transferred to a different pride learns how to communicate with that pride, and can still communicate with its previous pride. When we are alone, like Boo Radley, we don’t know how to communicate. This is just like the songbird that couldn’t find a mate because that it didn't have the presence of its parents to teach it its mating call, or just like the cat that couldn’t play with other cats, or communicate to them without learning from other cats, we are always influenced by one another, and this comes from the natural world long before the first human. We have just learned to communicate on a higher form, about two million years ahead to be precise, through literature, and all media, we still communicate, want to be respected, and loved by others, and I can guarantee that won’t change for at least the next ten million years to come! KNOWING HOW TO COMMUNICATE IS AN ART, A LANGUAGE ART, AND WHEN WE COMMUNICATE, WE OBVIOUSLY THINK, SO SAYING ANIMALS DON’T THINK IS LIKE SAYING YOU DON’T THINK WHEN YOU ARE IN ENGLISH CLASS!!!
