| json_metadata | "{"app":"musing/1.1","appTags":["question","nature","animals"],"appCategory":"question","appTitle":"Do animals think rationally?","appBody":"<p>This question seems to assume that human beings think rationally, which is a very difficult question in philosophy. People know that they think rationally and hear others report that they do. But research shows that conscious thought is just an explanation of decisions we make subconsciously.</p>\n<p>Many of the differences in behavior between animals and modern humans make us look irrational:</p>\n<p>- Always being obsessed with sex, not just in the mating season.</p>\n<p>- Taboos against eating certain foods.</p>\n<p>- Caring for disabled children.</p>\n<p>- A higher level of drinking and substance abuse.</p>\n<p>- Being a savannah species but hiding in a cave all day.</p>\n<p>- Educating children by locking them up and hiding reality from them.</p>\n<p>Defining rationality more broadly so that it applies to us would make it difficult to exclude animals. What makes us unique is having languages with complex grammar and a generally random relation between sound and meaning, so that we can talk about anything.</p>","appDepth":2,"appParentPermlink":"f3nu3lmcp","appParentAuthor":"littymumma","musingAppId":"aU2p3C3a8N","musingAppVersion":"1.1","musingPostType":"answer"}" |
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