Quote Originally Posted by Sharla View Post
Well I think the way animals are often territorial is a sign of having a concept of the you and I thing surely?

Also pets that get jealous of other pets and new family members. Bring a new dog or a baby into a house which already has a dog or cat and see how much they HATE their owners apying attention to the new party. Parrots have been known to get so stressed out about it they start pulling their own feathers out!

I don't understand why people think animals are so limited mentally and emotionally. Where's the evidence that they're NOT emotional creatures?
Having emotions or engaging in instinctive territorial behaviour isn't what anybody finds hard to accept. All of these things can be explained at a biological level, i.e release of chemicals, hormones etc.

But showing evidence of conceptualised thought processes is something that only humans are supposed to do.

For example pat a dog and tell him he's good, he will wag his tail and feel happy. His emotional circuitry is wired to associate your friendly tonality and positive kino (touch) as meaning you are pleased and receptive towards him and his brain releases chemicals which make him feel happiness. There is nothing that hints at conceptual thought and it can all be explained using a simple biochemical model.

Demonstrating an ability to understand and manipulate language however, especially in being able to invent new words and link words together is remarkable, as this is something that a simple biochemical model cannot explain.

It's a bridge over which only humans are supposed to have crossed. I'm incredibly interested to find out more about this.

I don't think territorial behaviour is evidence of a you and I understanding as even bees and ants are incredibly territorial and clearly have no understanding whatsoever, it's just simple chemical circuits, totall mechanical.

But a gorilla able to look at a ring on a persons finger and without ever having been shown one before be able to combine from her own knowledge base two words that when combined could explain the object is just completely incredible.

I'm still a little skeptical of it to be honest, wondering if her handlers are unitentionally exaggerating or distorting the true facts. Maybe someone taught her it was a 'finger bracelet' or at least aided her 'understanding' in some way or maybe it was fortuitious combination of words that Koko arrived at via unitential suggestion from her handlers.

Either way it is fascninating and certainly makes me wonder how unique 'human' concsiousness really is.

Oh and before you get excited and think I'm about to abandon my creation model and hop on the evolutionary bandwagon with you, I don't see as this has any impact on either theory.

It could be seen as evidence of common ancestry or it could be interpretated as evidence for a common designer.

So my own faith in intelligent design is not impacted in any way by these admittedly extraordinary claims.