[_dps]

Unless you use an extremely narrow definition of "thinking" (yours is not commonly accepted among animal researchers, and is IMO too tautological to be useful), this is clearly disproven by decades of animal cognition research.

Animals can form future-oriented plans, engage in risk management activities, can remember inventories of items stored in safekeeping locations, develop "cultural" dialects to their vocalization patterns, and much more. You can find a good start on the current state of the research here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_cognition

[lngnmn]

Definition of thinking, like definition of sex, or any other biological trait cannot be broadened. That would yield nonsense.

Thinking implies language. Without language it is feeling. Period.

Learning from experience, map making and even planning, as one might see in case of machine learning and other branches of AI, does not require thinking. It is a lower level of activity, relative to abstract reasoning, like pattern recognition.

[csomar]

You are being downvoted because you are making strong claims without having anything to back it up. You are free to have your own definitions of things but people like to have the same. This helps in carrying on a useful conversation.

[roceasta]

Yes. To be fair I think most people here want animals to be able to think (and for other humans to think that animals can think) because they want animals to be protected from humans.

[_dps]

Google gives me the following two definitions for "think":

1. have a particular opinion, belief, or idea about someone or something.

2. direct one's mind toward someone or something; use one's mind actively to form connected ideas

Neither seems to mention language as a pre-requisite. In any case, you seem to have strong beliefs contrary to my understanding of animal research, so I will not bother you further.

Have a good day.

[lngnmn]

Google 'belief' and 'idea' too.

[dTal]

Why don't you just call what you are talking about "language", instead of contradicting what literally everyone else means by "thinking"?

[yulker]

Is this the clinical or technically precise definition of what thinking is? Or is it your own definition?

[EliRivers]

Thinking implies language.

Just plain incorrect. I will now present as much evidence for my statement as you presented for yours:

As you can see, it's a pretty ineffective technique and since you're starting from the overwhelming minority position, you're going to have to do a lot better.

Everything I'm saying here comes across as passive-aggressive childish bullshit, but in this case it's also true.

[Simon_says]

A lot of my thinking is pictorial. Are you saying I'm not thinking?

[lngnmn]

Yes, it is another kind of activity.

To ask "what animals are thinking" is exactly the same as to ask "what a self-driving car or a smartphone are thinking".

[Simon_says]

You're coming to this discussion with an unjustified assertion that thinking is very narrowly defined and then circularly showing that other kinds of things that neurons can do are not "thinking" because they don't fit the definition.

In the huge space of all possible kinds of cognition, humans have only ever occupied the tiniest sliver. There's modes of thought out there that we can't conceive of.

[psyc]

To ask "what is this mammal thinking" is self-evidently closer to asking "what is that mammal thinking" than it is to "what is that computer thinking".

[srtjstjsj]

Those are good questions with unknown answers. Another good question is "what people are thinking?"

[sgt101]

If a man is robbed of language by some misadventure, then is she robbed of thought?

[eighthnate]

> relative to abstract reasoning, like pattern recognition.

You mean like the patterns the puffer fish creates to attract mates?

https://youtu.be/yaPmYYWsixU

[srtjstjsj]

Can wind think?

https://www.google.com/search?q=sand+dune&source=lnms&tbm=is...

[eighthnate]

Does wind recognize the pattern? You are missing the part where the female fish see the pattern and decide whether to mate with the fish...