Do Animals Believe In Supernatural Beings?

Which implies that the evidence rather than the "homo" tab is what is really important here. Why is this different with regard to animals? Oh so you would extend evidence based speculation beyond the "homo" grouping after all. Despite your previous assertion to the contrary.So why not extend to other species if the evidence is there? The pointlessness or otherwise of both the questions and the answers is best judged by those other than the questioner or the answeree.I suggest you bear that in m ind in your responses.

Good questions. And ones I have sought to raise in more specific terms in Message 7 and Message 70Can we look at these examples and justifiably speculate that there is evidence of animals beliefs of the sort humans have repeatedly demonstrated?

If direct ability to communicate is your criteria then that eliminates much of our evidence based thinking about the most ancient human cultures.If speceism is your criteria then you fall foul of the problems of graduated evolution I have highlighted in our last few posts.Either way you don't really have a well grounded reason to conclude that evidence based research into animal beliefs is invalid.

Do you consider direct communication to be a key prerequisite of being able to ascertain religious behaviour?Do you consider it impossible to evidentially summise that any beings with which direct communication is impossible have supernatural beliefs?

This thread poses the question regarding animal supernatural belief in the following terms (to quote AdminMod) "What evidence might look like and try to resolve one way or another what we can say we know about this topic".You started your participation in this topic by saying that in the absence of direct communication with animals no such evidence is even possible. Message 84It was then pointed out to you that we conclude supernatural belief in ancient humans without the benefit of direct communication with them. It was also pointed out to you that we draw conclusions regarding other aspects of animal psychology by observing and comparing behaviour rather than through direct communication.Whether there is any evidence of animal belief in the supernatural (and how we would recognise it if it existed) remains the topic of this thread. That much is clear.What is not clear is why you think this question is fundamentally different to any other regarding what we can know or examine about animal thought processes. Then you must be very easily amused. Because your equivocations are mildly amusing in a tedious sort of way at very best.

If you are going to insist on some definitive line where "other animal" stops and humanity starts then it is up to you to define it.Not me.

Firstly - Where specifically is that in the evolutionary scheme of things?Secondly - Are you restricting this to homo-sapiens who we can directly communicate with? Or have you abandoned that particular criteria? Have we ever spoken to paleolithic or neolithic humans? Can genuinely evidence based speculation of a scientific nature be applied to the question of their beliefs?

Do you apply this position to all psychological/sociological conclusions made regarding species other than modern-humans? Or just those pertaining to possible supernatural beliefs?

You have thus far insisted that it is impossible to make evidence based judgements regarding the motivations of non-homo-sapiens in the absence of linguistic communication. I was simply asking if you apply this position consistently to ALL aspects of ALL non-homo-sapien behaviour.It now seems that you don't. But on what basis do you make the distinction between those that require linguistic communication and those that don’t?This remains very unclear. You are now unjustifiably conflating instinctive behaviours pertaining to things such as hunger or pain and social behaviours that are potentially highly complex and requiring of relatively high levels of sentience and intellect.Can you give a clear indication of that which you consider to be included in the basics and that which you don’t and can you specify where the dividing line lays as far as you are concerned?In short - What specifically do you mean by this ambiguous term of "basics" in this context?

Do you now accept that it is possible to make evidence based judgements regarding the motivations of non-homo-sapiens in the absence of linguistic communication?Or does linguistic communication remain your be-all-and-end-all requirement for evidentially establishing motivation for all "critters" at all times as you have thus far asserted? A specific example of what?You want a specific example of non-homo-sapien behaviour that can legitimately be considered to imply motivation that is considered evidenced on the basis of being comparable to human behaviour and motivations?Is that what you are asking for?

Then what exactly is your position regarding ascertaining the motivations for behaviours of species that are non-homo-sapien?

I think we can all comprehensively agree that there are no examples of non-homo-sapiens (or even very early homo-sapiens) verbally communicating their motivations or leaving written records of the sort you are insisting upon.However we can, and indeed do, legitimately infer all sorts of motivations for various non-homo-sapien behaviours based on other forms of evidence such as archaeological findings or direct and detailed observation of interactions.Imperfect? Yes. But that is no reason to just dismiss such evidence as completely unworthy of consideration. Your answer is both overly simplistic and requiring that we treat this question differently to other psychological and sociological questions pertaining to beings with whom linguistic communication is not possible.

LOLExcept that you yourself have already agreed that we can and (legitimately) do this with regard to basics. Is self awareness a basic?
Are all societal relationships basic or are you making a rather broad and meaningless statement by conflating purely instinctive behaviours such as displaying hunger with potentially much more complex behaviours indicating greater levels of sentience and intellect?What specifically do you mean by this pointlessly ambiguous term of "basics" in this context?

Self awareness.Can we legitimately infer that in some species based on observational evidence or do you (as jar does) insist that we cannot make such inferences in the absence of linguistic communication?

Can we infer motivations in other homo-sapiens based on evidenced behaviour rather than direct communication?Of course we can.So once again we face the same questions I asked of jar - Where exactly is the speciestic cutoff point, on what basis is the cutoff point made and why treat religiosity differently to any other psychological or sociological phenomenon that can be studied?