In the Animal Kingdom, the Astonishing Power of the Number Instinct

I think language is key to some of this. Since all thought is directed at something, what is abstract thought directed to? It is directed, of course, to the abstraction, expressed in language.

Language is essential to abstract thought. We can't think about an abstract concept if we have no word to name it. Example: we can only think about “mercy” if we have a word for it. Try it - doing this requires thinking either about some concrete thing (not the quality of mercy), or the word "mercy". Language is what makes abstract thought possible. Only humans have language, and only humans think in abstractions. Language makes human thought — abstract thought and reasoning — possible.

Do animals really have the ability to reason and to think abstractly, without thinking about particular things? When an animal is “reasoning” about something in its life, just what is in the animal’s mind, if not a thought of a physical object? Certainly not a word - what do these animals who can “reason” reason about?

This is not easily brushed off merely by pointing to clever crows manipulating ‘tools’ or by pointing to whatever other ‘clever’ animal behavior.

Only man thinks abstractly - that is, the ability to reason. No animal, no matter how clever, can think abstractly or reason. Animals can be very clever but their cleverness is always about concrete things — about the bone they are playing with, or about the food they want to get by using a stick, or the stick they want to use, or the stranger they are barking at. They don’t think about “play” or “threat” or "want" or "food" or "tool" as abstract concepts.

Only man thinks abstractly - that is, the ability to reason. No animal, no matter how clever, can think abstractly or reason. Animals can be very clever but their cleverness is always about concrete things — about the bone they are playing with, or about the food they want to get by using a stick, or the stick they want to use, or the stranger they are barking at. They don’t think about “play” or “threat” or "want" or "food" or "tool" as abstract concepts.

But this [stance makes it] seem like there is no place for gradual stages for conceptual thought. Consider a child's ability to grasp some basic logic, an adolescent's capacity to understand the basic proofs regarding triangles (SAS, etc), all the way up to an college student's ability to grasp the basic proofs of calculus...and of course beyond that PhDs of mathematics going deeper/higher.

Isn't a toddler's ability to reason likely commensurate with that of a pigeon or some other animal?

While I agree that trying to get conceptual thought from mere instinctual reaction is impossible, it would seem odd that human beings all of sudden have this capacity. Rather I think all subjective PoVs [might] have this capacity, but the degree it can manifest itself can be limited.

There are also the paranormal cases to consider where an animal at least seems to communicate with a person. Though the subject of animal souls is admittedly a complicated one, with some even suggesting there is a single soul incarnate through all animals of a particular type or that animals contain partial souls that seek to use such separation to pay off some karmic debt...

My view is that abstract thought in man is probably one of the transcendental elements of the human spirit or soul.

This seems like an assertion of a belief, rather than anything which is demonstrably true. It seems related to the idea that animals don't feel pain or are incapable of suffering. These things are very convenient in justifying human behaviour towards our environment, from the mineral through plants and animals. Suddenly a line is drawn - humans have a soul, but the orang utan does not. Perhaps the line might be shifted far in the other direction, maybe plants have a soul and are capable of abstract thought?

I think we need to distinguish between what we like to believe, and what we actually know. Some of these things cannot be known via conventional science, but might for example, be discovered during a shamanic journey.

But this [stance makes it] seem like there is no place for gradual stages for conceptual thought. Consider a child's ability to grasp some basic logic, an adolescent's capacity to understand the basic proofs regarding triangles (SAS, etc), all the way up to an college student's ability to grasp the basic proofs of calculus...and of course beyond that PhDs of mathematics going deeper/higher.

Isn't a toddler's ability to reason likely commensurate with that of a pigeon or some other animal?

While I agree that trying to get conceptual thought from mere instinctual reaction is impossible, it would seem odd that human beings all of sudden have this capacity. Rather I think all subjective PoVs [might] have this capacity, but the degree it can manifest itself can be limited.

There are also the paranormal cases to consider where an animal at least seems to communicate with a person. Though the subject of animal souls is admittedly a complicated one, with some even suggesting there is a single soul incarnate through all animals of a particular type or that animals contain partial souls that seek to use such separation to pay off some karmic debt...

The very young toddler's abstract mental abilities are of course very limited. One major reason is language which is not yet manifested in the developing child. Do you disagree that language (which is inherently abstract) is absent in animals and is a unique capacity of human beings?

From https://www.scholastic.com/parents/famil...arten.html:

Strong language skills are essential to abstract thinking — and kindergartners are often very verbal. They're able to explain their thinking and can expound on their ideas in great detail.

As they share books, for example, children can imagine scenes that are not even in the books and can suggest possible new endings or sequels to the story. It takes a high degree of abstract thought to be able to envision things that are not there and then verbalize those thoughts. During this stage of development, children enjoy creative-thinking activities such as brainstorming all the ways to use a familiar object, or using simple objects for telling a story.

Learning to think abstractly is an important component of developing problem-solving skills. By kindergarten, children become more adept at thinking about a solution to a problem without actually trying it out. They're now able to imagine and think through a problem and its solution with less hands-on experience. The ability to imagine a problematic situation and possible solutions allows children to problem solve without having to engage in cause-and-effect experiments.

During what Jean Piaget defined as the preoperational stage (usually from 2 to 6 years), children are on a "search for representation." They are learning how to move from the concrete to the abstract.

On the subject of animal thinking, according to Michael Tymn, in the book “Life Eternal,” which contains accounts of mediumistic communications from William T. Stead through the mediumship of Hester Dowden, Stead says that the famous Elberfeld Horses were controlled by spirit intelligences with mathematical education (page 84). It certainly is very hard to believe it was the horses themselves that were manifesting sophisticated mental mathematical abilities. 
 

 

I suppose it depends whether or not they need it.  Is their any reason why a whale would have any use for 5 or 8 that has nothing to do with something that they need to interact with?

But of course we can have abstract thoughts without using numbers, can't we ? Hasn't it been accepted if not proven that dolphins 
feel sympathy for humans being attacked by sharks, for instance. We're all familiar with the scenario, I don't need to link to an example. Is that really just a coincidental happy accident, as some would say.

[Laird]

Language is essential to abstract thought. We can't think about an abstract concept if we have no word to name it.

I think that this can be disproven with one simple phrase: "There's a word for that."  Probably each human on this planet has uttered this phrase or something like it at least once in their life, indicating that they have an abstract concept in mind but have not yet connected it with a word.

[Laird]

So, maybe the response goes: "But it is only because there is a word for the concept that the concept is conceivable, regardless of whether the word can be brought to mind." The question then is, how was the word formed in the first place if it was necessary for the conceivability of the concept which it names? Surely the concept precedes the creation of the word - there has to be an idea of "what this means" before there is a name for that meaning.

I think that this can be disproven with one simple phrase: "There's a word for that."  Probably each human on this planet has uttered this phrase or something like it at least once in their life, indicating that they have an abstract concept in mind but have not yet connected it with a word.

That reminds me of something related which I've written about on these forums in the past. That is, sometimes I'm in a conversation with someone, and suddenly grasp an idea, complete, whole in an instant, then perhaps another, with similar rapidity. When it is my turn to talk (or write) I find the process of translating my thoughts and ideas into words to be so laborious and clumsy that it would take a huge number of them to clearly express the thing. Often in the process the words can cloud the issue, blocking the process of expression so that what emerges is either a pale shadow or even a distorted misrepresentation of the original idea. I don't mean that someone else distorts or misrepresent me, I'm often incapable of even describing something to myself.

Of course words are useful, as are symbols for example in the language of mathematics. But these formalisations are tools - for example I might have a mathematical idea, and the symbols help to prove or disprove the validity of the idea, but they don't comprise the original idea, which exists in its own right.

[Laird]

Nicely put, Typoz.

I'm curious. Believers in a spiritual realm, souls, spirits and an afterlife, generally also believe in reincarnation. A reality featuring these aspects to the nature of being human presupposes that the soul existed long before the physical human being, which latter evolved (albeit with involvement of outside forces directing and fueling this evolution) from lower animal forms. Surely the soul embodies great mental abilities one of which must be abstract thought - it's hard to believe that our higher spiritual selves, with a very long history prior to our birth in this world, lacked this very essential human ability. Therefore, since our souls must have had abstract thought as a large and important part of their inherent being, abstract thought didn't need to slowly evolve in humans from more primitive levels of cognition - it must have already been present when souls manifested into human bodies. 

It seems that this reasoning probably also applies to language. It is a fact that leading linguists like Chomsky have asserted that the field of language evolution has been barren of useful or even promising theories. Investigators in the field despite many years of work have not been able to come up with any viable theory of language evolution. It is as if it emerged fully formed with early man. This would be expected if early man became fully human via becoming the vehicles for immaterial spirit. 

If this train of thought is faulty, please point out where.