Do Animals Believe In Supernatural Beings?

Its hard to say one way or the other...I don't know how alike our psychologies are well enough to say that a chimp thinking his dance can affect the weather is a supernatural belief.I think I'm leaning on the side of humans being the only animals (alive today) with enough higher cognitive function to develop beliefs in supernatural stuffs. Although, other pre-human homos probably did have it.Some of the behaviors you brought up do look similiar to behaviors of humans with supernatural beliefs, but then we do have a tendency to anthropomorphize when looking at behaviors that are already somewhat human-like, so I don't think we can say either way if they're having supernatural beliefs or not.And the title sucks... Even if we do determine that these animals are showing supernatural beliefs (i.e. that a certain dance affects the weather), that isn't really telling us anything about whether or not they believe in supernatural beings.

An example of this would be most helpful.

Okay, I'm with you so far. Self awareness is a motivation we've infered from direct and detailed observation of interactions with various non-homo-sapien behaviors. I'm aware of the "Self Awareness Test".How do we test for religious beliefs?How do we determine motivations from archaelogical findings?I'm aware of Neandertal burial sites and the religious motivations inferred from those. But what about non-homos? We got anything there?

Then should you be calling it a legitimate inferrance? I think the burial rituals of the Neandertals are good evidence for religious beliefs.As I said, I think religious beleifs require higher cognitive functions. Evidence of things like culture and art would show higher cognitive functions. Irrational and/or totally pointless stuff would suggest it too. Like your monkey rain dance, or dolphins making those bubble rings.But to infer religious beliefs we need to know what they are thinking. For other homos, its safe to assume they'd think something along the lines of how we think. The further we get from us, the less we can guess as to what they might be thinking.Obviously, direct linguistic communication would be the best way for that. Without it, we can't really get a clue as to what they'd be thinking so were not really gonna be able to have much evidence for the religious beliefs. Looks like its all semantic misunderstandings to me...

But do they have high enough cognitive function to have religious beliefs?I'm not convinced that any of those do.From Message 167: I don't really think it is.We don't know enough about the way they think to warrant that comparison with humans. I suppose we could "categorize" that behavior as religious. But what, really, would that tell us about what they are believing? Anything reasonable?

I can see those as being strictly instinctual and a product of sexual selection.More complex behaviors that were harder to explain with simply instinct, and that seemed to require some higher cognitive function I would more easily categorize as religious behavior. Especially if they seemed "pointless" in an evolutionary aspect.

Yeah, I wouldn't say they must be, but if someone wanted to categorize them as such, I wouldn't have a problem with the behaviors as being descried as religious. Including your elephant bone fondling (lulz).I was reminded of this:

Enough for communcation in the form of some kind of "language" of sorts. Holding abstract concepts in the mind for consideration would be fairly important.Humans' religious beliefs take the form of complex statements in their language that they might ponder over for years even. Especially the ones raised in a 'learning lab'...Don't you think wild chimps would have less going on in their minds? Don't you think Koko has a lot more going on in her mind than your average gorilla?If Koko showed signs of religious belief, would you extend that to a general statement of 'Gorillas having religious beliefs'? I don't think it'd be very far down at all. Hell, it might not even make the first step if we want to call it legitimate. I don't think that the self-awareness test legitimately suggests a belief that "I exist". Plus, with this being the sole point of comparison, I don't know how much we can say about the other yet-to-be-revealed comparisons with human behavior and how they'd effect the legitimacy of the inferrences you'd have us be making from them.Do you have any more examples?

There is a difference, though, in that 2-3 year old humans have, and are aquiring, complex language abilities that chimps lack*. Even further, when a 3 y/o says "I believe in Santa", how much thought and belief are they actually holding as opposed to simply parroting a phrase that they haven't really put much stock into? Or, they could simply be acknowledging that they understand that the big fat guy in a red suit is tied to the concept of Santa and everything they've seen so far suggests that he does actually exist; I wouldn't put this on the same level as an educated adult forming a complicated opinion taking the for of a "religious belief" - which is what I tend to imagine with that phrase.A very simple - funny noise in closet = a boogieman - being an "imaginary being" isn't really what I would call religious beliefs, unless you want to include 'superstition' as religious belief?* added during review: I think the development of the brain along with the acquisition of language together is extremely important to the higher cognitive functions that would be required to form religious beliefs so I doubt you'd see religious beliefs in feral children and I expect more fantastical behavior in those "Learning Lab Apes" than wild ones. Though I still think non-human primates lack enough brain development and language acquisition to be capable of religious beliefs. Yeah, okay... go on I don't think you can legitamately infer thoughts and beliefs from imitation behaviors. Somethings not right there; I don't see no text Yeah, assuming the signs of religious belief were shown. Regardless of the example, somehow we're going to have to get across the boarder between behavior and belief.If the Austrys had a decent language ability, and looked like they were discussing and thinking about things, and they were behaving like humans do when they have religious beliefs, then I think you could legitamately infer that they too had religious beliefs.

By assuming they think like we do...two paragraphs down from what you quoted:

quote:

---

But to infer religious beliefs we need to know what they are thinking. For other homos, its safe to assume they'd think something along the lines of how we think. The further we get from us, the less we can guess as to what they might be thinking.

---

I'm not seeing the relevance.

Not a double, but oh well

I disagree.A chimp learning that certain hand configurations correspond to certain items or actions is not the same as a human developing verbal language during brain development.We think in language and our beliefs are conceptualized as stings of words. I don't think that a chimp's sign language abilities would allow them to form those unspoken words into an abstract concept that can be called a religious belief. I would put a fairly hard line just past the genus Homo, with the further back you go and closer to that line you get, the less we can assume that they think like us... and I'd probably put it on a logarithmic scale. Actually, I wouldn't grant the Austrys what was needed for my conditional statement, so I'm not happy to accord them such abilities. Yeah.Still though, I think language is key to religious belief, or any abstract thinking really. Im still leaning towards my hard line at the genus Homo. I don't think there'd be enough overlap to infer religious beliefs in chimps. I'd rather just stay on the same page... I tend to think of "religious belief" as being more than a simple superstition, but if we'd rather think of this in terms of simple superstitions, then I can do that.Still, for chimps, I just don't think they have the ability to form the complex abstract thoughts that would be require to hold a superstition.If we broadened the definition of superstition to the point where it contains the kinds of thoughts that I think chimps are capable of, then I think it loses any value as being something to be compared to modern humans' superstitions and/or religious beliefs.

Deaf would probably be better as the mute could still have good language skills even thought they couldn't talk.I just did a bit of Googling on deaf child development and they do have consideral problems. I don't think they should be included in Homo, and if they should, then I guess I'd have to move my line. **shrugs** For children, there seems to be a critical period during brain development where language acquisition is best fit. I don't have a link off the tips of my fingers, but I think I've read that the acquisition of language also has a big impact on the brain development. I'd say that you'd have to be after that critical period before you had any reasonable ability to abstract reason.Since we do our thinking in our language, I don't think that apes' thinking is anything caparable to ours because they don't have a language to think in. Ergo, they don't have much of any ability for abstract reason. Whether they have enough language developed to string together thoughts into abstract reasoning.

Because they're developing language. It does make me wonder how their abstract thoughts are organized when not by audible words. On the basis of not everyone included in Homo being close enough to humans to assume they think like we do. I'd read 'em... I won't claim impossibility, but yeah, pretty much. Abstract thikning does use language.

quote:

---

Abstract concepts elicit greater activity in the inferior frontal gyrus and middle temporal gyrus compared to concrete concepts,...

​

...

​

These results suggest greater engagement of the verbal system for processing of abstract concepts...

---

Generally, for abstraction.

quote:

---

Abstraction uses a strategy of simplification, wherein formerly concrete details are left ambiguous, vague, or undefined; thus effective communication about things in the abstract requires an intuitive or common experience between the communicator and the communication recipient.

---

I.e. language.

I'm not saying they have to... I said I wonder how it works otherwise. I'd guess it'd be more visualizing words that they've read, rather than "saying" them in their head.Do you have any ideas on how abstract thinking could work without language? (anybody?) Enough to have language. My disingenuous alarm is going off.... Must I restate my entire position?I think religious belief requires abstract thought and abstract thought requires language. The line is drawn on the basis that other homos would be close enough to humans to have language. Chimps do not have language. If you move chimps into homos, then not all the homos would be close enough to have language so the line must be moved. Huh? I wasn't thinking of them. Yes. Depends on what you mean by "lost"... whether the brain has lost the function or if just the mouth has. Obviously, the latter would still be capable. No, not necessarily. But an isolated man with no language abilities wouldn't be able to come up with something that I'd readily call a "religious belief".How would the thoughts even be structured? I don't suppose it does, but that's the way it is. Any ideas on how it could be otherwise?