Do Animals Believe In Supernatural Beings?

I think you'd be surprised. There are a lot more studies on the comparative behaviours of humans and their closest living relatives than there are on telepathic dogs."Subjective" or otherwise we humans seem to think that we can learn something about ourselves, our origins and the origins of those things that we think distiniguish us from other animals by studying apes.How many books, papers etc. are there comparing human and ape behaviours? How many are there investigating telepathic dogs? Whilst I am not seriously suggesting we start lobotomising people (well maybe some specific people......) this is potentially very testable in cases where damage to these areas has occurred. I wonder if anyone has ever lost their spiritual beliefs after such injuries? We could try the God Helmet (or some suitable variation) on chimps?Your post contains some good ideas for proper scientific investigation and goes beyond the "but they are not human and they they can't talk" recitals that I am starting to get exasperated with.

To create a shared (i.e, communicated) concept (god or otherwise) it will need to be linguistically communicated somehow (not necessarily verbally) - Yes.But the person who originated the concept had to think of it before they expressed it surely?E.g. There is an ethereal flagglebob who created the universe. I know what I mean by "flagglebob". I can describe it to you if you want (at which point it will necessarily need to be converted into common language).But I can imagine a "falgglebob" without going through some sort of descriptive prose in my head can't I?Am I unique in this respect?

Language is undoubtedly extremely important as a means of higher-level thinking. That Language is utilized for certain aspects of cognition does not mean it is utilized for all aspects; and that it may not be utilized for all aspects does not prevent it from being utilized for some. LOL. I thought the discussion was on abstract notions; 'water in the cup' is most certainly very concrete. That link supports CS's claim:

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Wikipedia on Mentalese:

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The Language of thought hypothesis applies to thoughts which have propositional content, and as such is not meant to describe everything that goes on in the mind. However, the aim of the theory is to accurately describe the way in which our thoughts relate by providing a semantic structure for our thoughts. In the most basic form, the theory states that thought follows the same rules as language; thought has syntax. In order for the theory to accomplish this, it must claim that the linguistic tokens used in mental language must be simple concepts; of course, these simple concepts taken together with logical rules can be manipulated to form significantly more complex concepts.

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Mentalese, as it is hypothesized, relies on the same cognitive functions involved in Language. When repeated attempts to teach non-humans the use of Language fail, the reasonable conclusion to draw is that these critters lack those cognitive functions necessary, and are thereby incapable of Mentalese. Isn't providing that evidence up to you? Who cares if it is possible or impossible? Until such a time that we can reliably test whether or not those beliefs actually exist, all we have is endless conjecture. The issue is not thought in general, but a specific type of thought. Does the case study challenge that Language is required for the higher-level thought being discussed in this thread?JonEdited by Jon, : rhetoric

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

And how would we know you were thinking of that?Jon

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

Oni writes, "apes can mimic human behavior."This is no different from humans that mimic other human's behavior as this is how all developing children learn is by copying other humans in their environment. Children are not born spiritual and their beliefs are taught by their parents of their faith. Children believe in Santa Claus because their parents taught them this belief.Most of early development is by mimic and not really understanding why they act or believe the way that they do because it is expected of them to react to circumstances in the same way that others do, otherwise the feedback leaves them feeling alienated.To understand where the religious concept originates you have to study history of when written language developed and if you are not bias you have to learn of every culture's belief's prior to the modern version of today.The Neanderthal's burial rituals that is perceived as religious in nature might just be as simple as burying their dead so other species cannot pick up their scent and to avoid the stench that is produced from decaying bodies. Artifacts left with the body maybe our inability to accept that they are gone forever and wishful thinking that comforts us by telling ourselves that they are going to a special place.All religions would not have any power to influence the masses without the promise of eternal life after you die. This is the only reason why people are fearful of abandoning their religious beliefs in case this is truly an option.As far as other animals go with whether they believe in supernatural beings is never going to be solved. If you have ever seen an animal being killed by another animal you observe in their eyes a trance like state that gives you the impression they are not thinking of anything or even aware that they are dying.If there is any truth in supernatural beings that determine whether we are good enough for eternal life then all other species beside humans are automatically given eternal life. Other species that we determine that they behave only by instincts do not possess free will so therefore eternal life is automatically granted if this does exist in reality.The scientific version is that all life is decomposed and returned back to the soil as materials to be recycled back to the living so therefore all life is giving eternal life in that respect.

That's the point of the thread. The idea is that we could observe behaviors that were the same as those from critters we know hold the beliefs.

You're straying from abstraction and religious beliefs. I read that link and am now more convinced of my position... I don't think so. I'm not considering things to be impossibilities. And I don't know how "basic belief in imagined entities as causal agents" relates to anything that actually exists, e.g. believing in something I imagined. Not just for thought, for abstraction.

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And then he started-it was the most emotional moment with another human being, I think, in my life so that even now, after all these years, I’m choking up [pauses]-he started pointing to everything in the room, and this is amazing to me! I’ve thought about this for years. It’s not having language that separates us from other animals, it’s because we love it! All of a sudden, this twenty-seven-year-old man-who, of course, had seen a wall and a door and a window before-started pointing to everything. He pointed to the table. He wanted me to sign table. He wanted the symbol. He wanted the name for table. And he wanted the symbol, the sign, for window.

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He finally "gets it" and the first thing he want is the language.

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The amazing thing is that the look on his face was as if he had never seen a window before. The window became a different thing with a symbol attached to it. But it’s not just a symbol. It’s a shared symbol. He can say window to someone else tomorrow who he hasn’t even met yet! And they will know what a window is. There’s something magical that happens between humans and symbols and the sharing of symbols.
That was his first Aha! He just went crazy for a few seconds, pointing to everything in the room and signing whatever I signed. Then he collapsed and started crying, and I don’t mean just a few tears. He cradled his head in his arms on the table and the table was shaking loudly from his sobbing. Of course, I don’t know what was in his head, but I’m just guessing he saw what he had missed for twenty-seven years.

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Without a word for "window", how can he abstract it in his mind? It have to be with visual imagery, but how could it get abstracted?

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It’s another frustration that Ildefonso doesn’t want to talk about it. For him, that was the dark time. Whenever I ask him, and I’ve asked him many, many times over the years, he always starts out with the visual representation of an imbecile: his mouth drops, his lower lip drops, and he looks stupid. He does something nonsensical with his hands like, I don’t know what’s going on. He always goes back to I was stupid.

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It seems acquiring the language really helped him out a lot.Without language:

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I think differently. I can’t remember how I thought.

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He couldn't remember how he thought...Probably because he wasn't thinking much at all. This all is making me more confident in my position.Think about it. How do you think about things? Don't you do it in you language? Can you even imagine thinking about things without using language to do it? Would it in any way be like thinking about things?I do think religious beliefs rely on that kind of thinking.

I take that as only one part of the purpose of this thread; unless we are to say that the thread title no longer applies, we also have to investigate the belief aspects that may be associated with any given behavior.Jon

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

It may seem this way, but it is not. There would be a selection of neurons firing inside your head, from different areas, but there is no one area where anything such as "concept" exists. The only way for a concept to exist is in expressive form, whether verbal, musically, artistically, etc. I don't believe you can. Prove it.- Oni

Yes, be we are neurologically wired to mimic for survival purposes, and this pre-dates language by millions of years. Same neurons are found in apes as well, so they too are wired to mimic.Thus it would be pragmatic to first exhaust every effort in role playing and mimicry, before you jump to an answer that would require, as far as we know, abstract though and communication for religious belief. These things are ONLY taught through verbal (for the most part) communication, and not mimicry. Never say never, barbara.- Oni

The thread title stopped applying on page one. You have some catching up to do. Straggler has only repeated about 10 times what the moderator suggested the scope of the thread was. Sort the thread by his post alone and I'm sure you'll find it.

This explains quite a bit of the apparent confusion that has resonated through the last several pages of this thread. Perhaps Straggler should petition that one of the admins change the thread title.Jon

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

Can human infants think? Can chimpanzees? Can brain damaged humans who have lost the (mental) ability to use language properly?

Whether expressed or not how is a any concept ever anything other than "a selection of neurons firing inside your head".Surely that is what a concept (practically by definition) is?Why does it have to be lingual? Can you prove that I can't?But more to the point - Are you saying that any creature unimbued with the ability to go through purely linguistic descriptive prose in it's head is incapable of conceptualising anything?

CS - You have cited subjective experiences as the basis of your own religious beliefs on numerous occasions.Can you give us a full linguistic description of these experiences so that we too can understand them in the same abstract way that you do?