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by increment_i 4153 days ago
Is verbally relating the reason why one does something a prerequisite to conscious thought? Dams don't get built by beavers all over the world by sheer random chance - there's obviously some deliberate intention there. Its also possible they observe and learn this process from their family members:

"When young are born, they spend their first month in the lodge and their mother is the primary caretaker while their father maintains the territory. In the time after they leave the lodge for the first time, yearlings will help their parents build food caches in the fall and repair dams and lodges." (Source: Wikipedia)
1 comments
JoeAltmaier 4152 days ago
Beaver compulsively place sticks in piles near water until they don't hear the water falling any more. Nothing to do with intent.
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increment_i 4152 days ago
Can we say compulsion is completely different from intent though? Or are we just arguing over semantics? Can we place an arbitrary intelligence threshold on when compulsion can be inferred as intent?

For instance, most spiders build webs, and it would seem they do it by no other mechanism than pure genetic instinct. However, there don't seem to be any external 'cues' as to when the web is finished (in contrast to the water falling cue we assume beavers use). The spider builds the web until it's done building the web. Did the spider intend to build a web, or was it compelled to?

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