Athena

I like the word "profound". That is the perfect word for my experience. A few months ago someone at the pool told me a Hawaiian greeting goes like thi...

No rationality does not suddenly emerge and that is the reason for this thread. It should be clear I am saying rationality must be learned. Unless we ...

Believing in AI could be even worse than Orthodox religions and well-meaning efforts to control people.

That is not my definition but I agree with the definition. I am passionate about it because I believe the US is in big trouble because it changed how ...

The problem is not answering the question. Is believing and defending a myth or false belief, rational thinking? The book Emotional Intelligence gives...

Is it rational to literally interpret the Bible and believe it is the word of God? How about if we interpret the Bible abstractly, is that rational? W...

That order of things is not apt to bring us close to the good life because women were not equals and leaving men in charge is problematic. Appreciatin...

You are still a kid. It is wonderful to have a place where thinking people can gather and share their thoughts and what they have learned. I was intel...

I am beginning to understand that of which you speak. There was a time in my life when I could not imagine happiness and love. I had done my best to h...

I don't know about you but when I was 18 I thought I was an adult and knew everything that I needed to know. Several years later it is amazing how muc...

Hours later your words mixed with another thought I am holding and together those thoughts could potentially be life changing. I take pride in being p...

It has been pretty easy for me to be egoless and giving rather than taking. I associate what you said with the Hippie movement. As I saw communes stru...

I strongly favor studying animals to know ourselves. I also strongly favor cross-cultural studies. I think our creation stories are very important and...

I was wondering where Buddhist compassion played into love. I do not always see conservative Christians as loving people and I have gained some famili...

I very much like what you said here because you covered many types of love. Hopefully, a mother and father feel love for a child, especially if the mo...

I love that first question because it stretches our thinking! That second one is hard to answer. Is it rational to believe something that is not true?

I agree rational thinking requires language and then questioning out one thinks and that animals do not do this and can not do so without language. Ho...

Thank you everyone. I read all the posts and will contemplate them and my experiences with love as I drift off to sleep.

That is a very interesting comment. It deserves its own thread- What Makes Us Human. My first love was sociology. Compared to primitive cultures relig...

If you doubt that different thought processes consume different levels of energy you might google for information. There are problems with accessing s...

There is no final decision about how information is transmitted from one generation to the next. . I think this is about the process of evolution and ...

But all that is not rational thinking. Rational thinking requires critical thinking and we would have an extremely short lifespan if all our awake tim...

Experiences can be hard to explain to someone who has not had that particular experience. Remember Spock in a Star Trek episode, where he died and Doc...

Surviving does not require the ability to think. You would not want to say alligators think, would you? They do not have a cortex and it is the cortex...

I had to look up tacit knowledge and found this.. I knew a man who was mechanical and took a class in physics and failed, yet he could resolve a mecha...

That would not cover rational thinking would it?

And very interesting to me. Do you have more to share about animals and laughing? That surely involves a degree of thinking. But what is thinking with...

That was a great video and so were the others that came with it. I will have to check them out again when I have nothing to do and look for more becau...

Hum, this is the definition that Wikipedia gives- Being a Athenian means a little more than just living in the city.

Pain requires an organic body that can be aware of pain. This is true for any pain or feelings of joy. Without the body, feelings can not exist and wi...

It is crazy making when something triggers emotions that bring past feelings into the present and the person experiencing this is not aware of the pro...

:rofl: Thank you for the humorous gift. Wow that is insightful. In a documentary on TV they made a big deal out of the fact that a dog will investigat...

Some researchers believe other animals have a sense of humor. I would love to see research with pigs because of what @wonderer said about piglets.

How totally fascinating. That would make a great research project. We know animals change once they pass puberty, and we know the young are more open ...

That chimps are more aggressive than bonobo needs to be taken into consideration because individual temperament is involved in learning. Also, I don't...

I wish I had remembers the words '"emotions and behaviour are not caused by experiences but by our interpretation of them." when I was in the heat of ...

Thank you. Hum, do other animals laugh? :chin: I understood play is important to social bonding and establishing social order but intentional humor? F...

I think we are in agreement. You made a very good point. I like that the Greeks thought we are political creatures and it is fitting for this thread t...

Yes, we do have information that can support how dogs became domestic. By studying the DNA we know when wild dogs became fully domestic. Dogs are not ...

You triggered some thoughts in my head. Number one thought is how important is the first 5 years. I think that information is stored in our subconscio...

I am trying to figure out how to reply to you in a way that is congruent with the subject. Can we say learning how to get what we want is important to...

Chimps are more aggressive than Bonobo. They look the same but they are totally different creatures, as are wolves and domesticated dogs different. Al...

Really, you think the ants will outdo the roaches? Ants don't even make the list of nuclear blast survivors. I had to look up the possible survivors a...

:lol: That may not be a fair statement but it sure is funny. Now I don't know about loving a thermostat, but loving a car may be reasonable. The car w...

I think we agree humans, chimps and bonobos evolve from the same ape-like creature. I am not sure we agree that humans are the only ones who argue abo...

I have been turning to research. And because of the book "The Math Instinct" by Keith Devlin, I see mathematical feats in animals as equal to 's expla...

:grin: I knew that but I thought you might think about what you said if I responded as though you were addressing me. I think to have the meaningful d...

Oh man I love this line..."I could say that my air conditioner uses its thermostat to sense the temperature and then desires to cool the house so it r...

Thank you, I do try to be civil and avoid coming off as condescending. I think we all need a sense of being special and having something of value to o...

That acquaintance may have underrated the value of emotion and its part in thinking. Do you remember the original Star Trek show? In one episode Capta...