Animals Think? Thomas Nagel Poses Term Paper

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Yet, the studies on animal consciousness show that they are conscious, and they are capable of thought, and so, whatever they feel, they are feeling something and reacting to that feeling. Their brains are involved, and brains involve thought, in addition to mere stimulus. As author Saigel says about petting his cat, "Certainly, it seems that my rubbing my cat's head has no advantage to it other than the way it might make her feel. She may not recognize this, she may not be able to think about it, but surely, the purr is evidence that there is some phenomenal experience the cat is having, whether she is aware of it or not" (Saigel). Animals may not be capable of higher-order thought as humans are, and make intelligent decisions based on that thought, but evidence does indicate they are capable of thought, and use thought processes throughout their lives.

Author Eric Saigel notes, "I argue that an organism (a cat, say) might be conscious without being able to reflect upon or represent its conscious states. This would limit its ability to reason about its conscious states, but while such reasoning is emblematic of human consciousness, it need not be present for consciousness to be present" (Saigel). In addition, Saidel discusses phenomenal consciousness as opposed to simple consciousness. Phenomenal consciousness includes more than mere consciousness that something is happening around an animal, but that they have thoughts about what is happening.

Nagel notes that we must also create alternate ways of thinking and describing things in objective terms in order to understand the experiences of others. He writes, "We must consider whether any method will permit us to extrapolate to the inner life of the bat from our own case, and if not, what alternative methods there may be for understanding the notion" (Nagel). If we do not have that method, as we do not now, we must derive other methods of expression and thought that can help us describe experiences more objectively and yet with more detail.

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Near the end of his essay, he uses the example of explaining the color red to a blind person, and coming up with descriptions that match sounds the blind person can understand. The same metamorphosis must be developed to describe and perceive the experiences of other beings in order for us to effectively and yet objectively understand their thoughts and ideas.

Finally, Nagel states an important consideration into any discussion about another animal, organism, or being. He writes, "This brings us to the edge of a topic that requires much more discussion than I can give it here: namely, the relation between facts on the one hand and conceptual schemes or systems of representation on the other" (Nagel). Ultimately, we can never fully experience the flight or thought of a bat, the underwater flight path of a whale or dolphin, or the thoughts of a gazelle as it races across the African plains. We must simply recognize these beings exist, and they may or may not have thought processes we would or could recognize and understand.

If animals think, and evidence exists that seems to point at the conclusion they do, then we, as humans, can never understand their thought processes, ideas, and instincts that all add up to make them thinking creatures. We can only know that they exist, they have brains, they survive, and they have personalities that are apparent to us, which seems to say that whatever they are doing inside their brains, they are thinking thoughts, rather than simply relying on the instinct to survive. Thus, animals do think, but what they think is another matter entirely......

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