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To: bobhoskins

Perhaps a better word would be "reason". Humans can reason, deduct, induct, and have emotion. If it comes from a brain alone, then all brains should be able to do all those things.


588 posted on 08/02/2005 12:22:59 PM PDT by WVNan
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To: WVNan
Perhaps a better word would be "reason". Humans can reason, deduct, induct, and have emotion. If it comes from a brain alone, then all brains should be able to do all those things.

Why should they? If a bird can survive perfectly well without ever having developed human reasoning abilities, what's the problem?

And who says animals can't reason? It's not at the level of humans (although the moles in my yard have been outsmarting me recently), but there's something there (well, emotion is definitely debatable).

We just have better brains. Other animals do other things better than us ... gorillas are stronger than people, cheetahs run faster, bears can hibernate without toxins building up in the body and killing them, fish can breathe water ...

There doesn't HAVE to be something else there ... I'd like to think there is, but there doesn't HAVE to be.

600 posted on 08/02/2005 12:29:13 PM PDT by bobhoskins
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To: WVNan; bobhoskins
Perhaps a better word would be "reason". Humans can reason, deduct, induct, and have emotion.

So can most animals. Or least the mammals and birds, anyway. Insects most likely operate in a manner best described as "mechanical". The fact that they can't do so as well as us is beside the point. It's a matter of degree, not "can / can't".

If it comes from a brain alone, then all brains should be able to do all those things.

Most can -- or at least those neural systems which are complex enough to accurately be described as "brains", as opposed to ganglia, etc.

703 posted on 08/02/2005 1:29:17 PM PDT by Ichneumon
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