The article below really got me thinking about what really seperates us from animals. If this chimp can plan for future events, implying some conceptual understanding of time, what is left that seperates us beyond just the ability to modulate our voices to form language?



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http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/09/chimp-zoo-stones-science

Chimp who threw stones at zoo visitors showed human trait, says scientist

Assembling ammunition in advance reveals ape's unsuspected ability to plan for future

The loutish behaviour of a stone-throwing chimpanzee at a zoo near the Arctic circle has challenged scientists' beliefs about human beings.

Santino, a 31-year-old male at Furuvik zoo in Sweden, may be the first animal to exhibit an unambiguous ability to plan for the future, a behaviour many scientists argue is unique to humans. Forward planning takes considerable cognitive skills, because it requires an animal to envisage future events it will have to deal with.

Santino would get agitated when the first groups of visitors arrived at his enclosure in the morning, and would start hurling stones at the spectators. When the zookeepers investigated, they found that, while the zoo was closed, Santino had been busy making piles of ammunition, and returned to them to resupply.

To catch the chimp in action, one zookeeper hid in a room overlooking the enclosure and observed the ape's behaviour before the zoo gates opened each morning. She saw Santino dragging stones from a protective moat that surrounded his island home, before placing them in piles. Further covert surveillance of the ape revealed he spent some time tapping areas of concrete floor with his fist. Occasionally, the animal would thump harder, releasing chunks of concrete that he broke into rough discs.

A survey of the enclosure showed that Santino made piles of ammunition only on the quarter of the island's shore that faced the visiting crowds.

Since becoming aware of the issue, zookeepers have removed hundreds of caches of stones from the island and have observed Santino gathering stones and putting them in piles at least 50 times. Santino's attempts to fashion concrete discs has been recorded 18 times, according to a report in Current Biology.

Staff at the zoo coped with Santino's antics by warning visitors when he was getting agitated, and erected a fence to try to contain the projectiles. Cognitive scientist Mathias Osvath, the author of the study, believes that such complex forward planning suggests Santino can anticipate future events and is able to devise ways of dealing with them. In this situation, he is trying to get the crowds to move on.

"Forward planning like this is supposed to be uniquely human; it implies a consciousness that is very special, that you can close your eyes you can see this inner world," he said. "Many apes throw objects, but the novelty with Santino is that he makes caches of these missiles while he is fully calm and only throws them much later on.

"We are not alone in the world within. There are other creatures who have this special consciousness that is said to be uniquely human."

Osvath interviewed zookeepers at Furuvik and examined records of the chimp's behaviour. He found that Santino only gathered rocks and made concrete missiles when the zoo was closed. He gave up the behaviour completely when the zoo was shut over the winter.

The zookeepers recently decided that an operation was the best way of controlling Santino's behaviour.

"They have castrated the poor guy. They hope that his hormone levels will decrease and that will make him less prone to throw stones. He's already getting fatter and he likes to play much more now than before. Being agitated isn't good for him," said Osvath.

But...ummm...we are animals. We just think we're special. We're really only a few mutated genes away from trees. So essentially we're just fancy trees who can think

Do a research on orangotangos, they show some amazing cognitive skills.

what about the ability to reason? to veto our urges?

That exists because we understand that there is a "future" and not just a "present".

how is this different from animals hoarding food for hibernation?

Isn't squirrels sacking food away for the winter planning?

jinx!

From howstuffworks.com:

"So what about squirrels and other animals that hoard food for the impending winter months? That behavior seems to imply the animals anticipate future needs. Actually, maybe not. Studies have found that animals don't stop hoarding even when their supplies inexplicably disappear. This could mean the animals don't understand why they hoard, what it means for their future or even what future is. They simply do it out of instinct [source: Roberts] Humans, on the other hand, understand their preparations and quickly change strategies when plans go awry."

I think you can apply Dawkins' theory in The Selfish Gene here. Perhaps animals store for the winter because that is a trait that has survived and been passed down for millions of years. Animals that did not possess this trait died off.
The chimp, on the other hand, seems to be unique to this concept.

maybe the word i should have used would be contemplation. there is a difference between, say, making out a plan for action, and contemplating the meaning of life.

Sorry.

Personally I don't think we give animals enough credit for how they think. Why does my dog bury her bones, only to dig them up a couple days later?

What seperates us from other animals isn't our perception of time, it's our ability to completely dismiss our perception of time.

Hoarding instinct, the same as squirrels. At some point in thier genetic history animals who buried food, or took it back to their shelter, for later use had more fit offspring than those who didn't. The trait carries on to today's hoarders.



Whoa, that's deep. But I don't think human beings can do that very well. We connect cause and effect with time even though it's effect (the position of the sun for example) that causes time to be percieved.

when you're having a good time, it passes much more quickly. I don't know that an animal would feel the same way- but you get the idea I think.

To put forth a more extreme example - humans can take LSD, trip for 12 hours, think God is talking to them, go to sleep, wake up the next morning and have the ability to understand that as an internal perception of time rather than gaining queues from the sun...

it's a conscious act on the part of the LSD taker to alter not only their perception of time, but their perception of reality- which I assume is true of taking any kind of drug. It's a desire on the part of the human to CHANGE what we normally perceive (which is directly tied to our perception of time) for the amount of time the drug has an effect.

Chimps can't make movies or write a symphony. But I realize we're totally animals.

i can't write a symphony either
well at least one anyone would enjoy.

imo, the problem is we give humans too much credit

Right but would they have ever developed the "instinct" without the realization of, "Fuck, I better plan ahead or i'm gonna end up dead."