Wess: Up and at it then, little man. Understood. I break many things but the last thing I would is a promise. I owe you another entry "Neat Meat"...but finals week so...eat it. When time allows, but you'll get it. Bigblue is really who I wanted to hear from but.........meh. He's gone for good it seems. Ba-ha-stard.
You sure know how to make a guy feel appreciated ('little man' and 'really wanted to hear from someone who isn't YOU'). :bugeye: LOL. You bastard.
/Man is tamed by his simple alphabets. I think it's important to clarify that most of the species is tamed by their alphabet. Some men make new alphabets. /The mind rearranged itself to receive him brand new. Mentality now became imperial. See? But you're talking about social phenomenon. People associate a concept of godliness due to the fact that the other people were doing the same thing. The communicated what they were doing via language. Of course language is the medium and allows transferance of absracts from mind to mind, but it in and of itself is not responsible as it is: - not a being (so it cannot assume reponsibility) - descriptive of the propensity of minds to contrast and define So I'm saying that language is an implicit facet of mind, or language wouldn't exist. So I see no reason to credit language itself as it is an interesting by-product of mind. I just credit mind and what happens when they get together. Bah. Maybe I'm responding to threads long since past instead of what you're saying here. I can't tell at the moment. /You could say they’re all variants of displacement, but whether it is or not is not what eats me or care about. They’re all the same miscaculations in this invention of ours (language) but for clearance (this is where you put the put the fries down and concentrate): I disagree that they are miscalculations and defer to Blue's argument that in order to decribe things that have yet to happen, you pay an opportunity cost of describing things that couldn't happen, or didn't, or won't, etc. The intent of this thread was to ponder if we could devise a language that minimized the propensity for this kind of error. I was thinking earlier that we need to blend mathematics and actual language more smoothly, but I dunno. I can say anything mathematical in english, it just might take a long time to say. *ponders thousands of pages in books of calculus*. Hmmm. Meh. Just thinking 'out loud'. I always think back to survival. In those terms, I'd think it more important to be able to discuss potential future events than it is to maintain logical consistency. I mean, if you see a rock teetering on a cliff face along the pass you're walking along, it's nice to be able to determine it might fall and warn your offspring that they should avoid the aread beneath it. From that perspective, I suppose logical consistency is a luxury excepting the cases where it negatively impacts ones ability to continue living or reproduce. /Displacement- it allows you to talk about things that are not there, or never been or going to be there. Either way it allows for things that both are and aren't. Ever seen a fairy? Well yes I have, but not IRL. I understand what you mean by this but as I argue above, I don't think it's necessarily a misconception or wrong or whatever until abused to gain false advantage in human interactions. /Its also interesting to see that this feature is common among the superstitious- they displace where control *is*. And so these backwoods know-nothings place their control no longer in them but in lucky rabbit feet, clovers, and crosses. Can you blame them? Fundy question (or quesitons that people make fundy) cannot be ignored by a psyche. They need resolution. People answer them however they can such that they can focus on more direct problems (survival). They are as such abstractly supported by whatever ridiculous assumptions they make regarding the fundys, as those fundys are the foundations of their conceptual stuctures - meaning that yeah, if you believe in x such that you can focus on y, you probably credit (or blame, or whatever) x for allowing you to do y ya know? /Vicariousness- it allows you to be somehwere, do something or live via something outside of yourself. Which is in essence the same thing as displacement. I would summarize all three as 'projection' which is basically the same as displacement. /Recursion- which allows for introspection, insight, reason and ego. Same, and really this borders on talking about consciousness itself. /All this being allowed to go around playing with things that are not is the surest means to see patterns where none are and lose track of reality somewhere in the middle of playing so hard. I don't think you're maintaining objectivity. To me you have just projected a negative perspective of humanity onto itself. You have every right to do so, but I think it taints your ability to analyze the problem. So I think you have a lot of insight/talent, but your personal distaste for whatever throws you off track a bit. Of course you probably feel similarly about me. (except for the insight/talent part Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ) /Which brings me to none other than Bigblue. He said: "When you look at a featureless surface for a long time, you will begin to see patterns. These patterns are not actually there; you can even influence them to some extent and make yourself see things that aren't there, in a limited way." This is the nature of mind that led to language. Can you see it? At least that's the way it seems to me. It's this propensity for contrast, this NEED to find patterns that DO EXIST that led to language in the first place. /Patterns not there..... Ah, the patterns are there if you put them there. It's more pertinent to me to ask "are the patterns i perceive representative of something which helps me understand my situation/environment?". /Those puzzle books with the cubes, dots and parallel lines I fried my brains with in grade school. Which was which? Convex or concave, red or blue, up or down and were those lines truly parallel or were the scratch lines throwing me off? Hehe. They weren't parallel! Okay maybe they were. Hey I wasn't even there get off me. /Is there really a spiritual side to man? I ~debated~ with Wes a long time ago about my ideas of homo duplex (ego) being a myth but he would not bite because he was so real to himself. The answer to "am I real" is wholly inconsequential to me if I cannot tell that I am not. /I asked myself then why it is that he's so real to him and I could come up with nothing else but that his mental voice, his "elan vital", sense for reality, feel for life- of things happening- were convincing him of something transcendental- something more. It's the awareness. Time rolled up onto itself as seen from a consciousness. I still hold that the spirituality of man is a reverence for the unknown. Often the unknown is indoctrinated as "known", in an attempt to integrate it such that we don't have to spend time on it. I mean, in terms of survival, spending our lives sitting and talking shit like this does not directly put food on the table. I suppose it can though if you can get together a pile of prolific shit and present it in a marketable fashion. Well, that and uhm.. people perform their function. It is our function to do this, theirs to do that. We will clash amongst ourselves and amongst functions, as some are mutually exclusive to others. /Organisms I've said have a sense of time and things happening of course- proof you'll find in reprodution, movement, synthesis and I'm not as cruel to rob them of choice. As if you could! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! /But Wes here being the human that he is has an extra sense of things that have happened, are happening and wil happen and they all travel with him wherever he goes. He projects into the future and creates possibilities with imagination. /Now why is that? What's made this possible? The human brain, it's ability to remember itself, and the propensity for it to contrast and find patterns in things (which allows it to survive). /My answer was language. Which IMO, is sort of correct. /Conscience alone won't do it. But give it a brain to store stuff.. and the propensity to find patterns and such.. voila... language. Now you have a repository for all local (able to access the info) concepts. I have let out emotions and the urge to reproduce, and I think they play into the propensities as mentioned above. I'll save it for later though, just wanted to mention it. /Something making the insight possible for him to define himself apart from reality in terms of two things is needed and that's what is doing it. Yes of course, I think I described it above. /Wes not just knowing, but another self knowing that he knows for him. Exactly. Can you see it in terms of the description I've given? Are we just in concept clash here? Hmmm. /What can do that other than than the voice he thinks with? And what does it think with when he's thinking of himself? Language. Like I said... /This gives him identity. I only sort of agree, partially disagree. I think his "memory" or ability to know more of himself than the moment (which I don't think requires language) is what provides the fundamental sense of identity. /And identity, to me, is the pattern language has made for its speaker, chopping up lines and groups of squares........... patterns where, and I quote you directly BigBlue, "there is no actual division depicted in the picture of repeated squares" I think my "more pertinent question" from way above fits perfectly here. "are the patterns representative of something which helps me understand my situation/environment?". If you think there are lines and the result doesn't play into your ability to survive or reproduce, then the reality of those lines being there is technically inconsequential except regarding a particular understanding about perception and trickery. It might be wise to know that if it could affect your ability to survive or reproduce, but otherwise, well... it's a piece in puzzle. /Machines fake "consciousness" by making choices between parameters, but no neural network will ever show the insight to grasp its life with sudden understanding. That's because they can't conceptualize and have no 'persistence in time' so to speak. The lack of self awareness is a show stopper there. /Bigblue, you little, little, godsend.... Bigblue? Little? Man you do what you know most men do to smart women as a pre-emptive strike eh? Some of us don't think you are stupid because you're a girl goddamnit! Bastard. Blue is big, calling him little is contradictory and derogatory! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Hehe.
Jes' a little busy at work, no big deal... sorry I didn't reply for a while. Let's get to it! Cuz they were to it and at it and at it and doin' it you gotta tune your attitude in... if you don't get at it when you're goin' to it then you won't get to it to get at it again. - Thomas Connors (Do all these "it"s index the same reference? I was never sure.) Gendy! To briefly address what I picked up from your previous big statement, I will say the following. Displacement As you defined it - basically the description of untrue things - is and important aspect of our fictional abilities that permit generalized descriptions. This is an all or nothing proposition, disregarding internal controls of course; if we eliminate displacement we lose everything from "I am going to X" to the entire works of Shel Silverstein. Vicariousness This is an OLD ability of ours in my opinion. Ever since the first primate (or whatever) poked another creature with a stick to see if it was dead, we have had vicariousness. The ability to "feel" yourself in a different situation, or in a different body, is not so different from the ability to "feel" a tool to be part of your body. I have a small personal theory that this ability comes from being able to see your own body - see that your toes wiggle in response to your will. Digression - think for a second. Whenever you use a tool you extend yourself into it in a certain sense. How do you tell if your fish is still frozen in the middle? Stick a fork in it and see if it's hard or soft. You're getting your "hard" or "soft" through the fork, just as if it were a fingernail or the hair on your arm. Recursion Damn have you got something there. The reason I mentioned Russell's self-referential set paradox before is this: For a Turing computer (which, until a short time ago, was supposed to be all of them) Russell's paradox is like a gun to the head. Poor little Turing machine will NEVER finish evaluating that sucker. So what's so different between the machine and us? We're not just massively parallel, or else a large enough series of paradoxes would shut us down as well. We're not super hot at evaluating logical expressions, which you'll probably know if you ever had to evaluate a long formula... it takes half an hour with a notepad and many many truth tables. The human brain has the ability to discard something after a certain length of time... this may only be mechanistic, a sort of limit to our attention span that was imposed by selective pressure (Tiger eats starey monkey crunch crunch). So... what can we say? I've been wondering about this for a while, and I can only contribute a few things that aid in the concept of reference of the outside world... the reason why I mentioned the patterns is because I believe that is an area where it is difficult to extract the way we operate from the way we are trained, and it merits further study. Some experiments have shown that not being exposed to patterns can limit the visual perception of animals like cats... there have been several experiments with kittens that have grown up only seeing patterns of horizontal lines, and subsequently cannot see vertical ones. On the other hand it's difficult to class our visual perception of things like the "cubes" picture as pathological, since it would not be better to only see things one way or the other... the visual system leaves those things open to moment-by-moment interpretation. Similarly our analysis of language is (it seems to me) composed of a series of brief glosses (by some preprocessing system) that gives our thinking part a symbol set to work with. However, this sounds cryptic... let me try an example, the old "Line forms to the the left side" gag. Please form a line to the the left side side of the rail. Often a sentence arranged like this will be read as only having one "the" instead of two, since people usually gloss for meaning and don't spend a lot of time trying to analyze a sentence that is already pretty simple. This on the other hand is a pretty simple illusion and doesn't provide great insight into the function of the preprocessor... there's a lot of perceptual illusions, like the blind spot, which are easily verified and yet don't really provide a lot of information. Wes and Gendy: Have either of you ever had pet rats? Look at how a rat thinks... you can sort of see it in their expression (although these days pet store rats are pretty stupid sometimes...). The rat HAS NO WORDS. This is obvious. IT STILL HAS THOUGHTS. So... what are they? I sometimes wonder if they think in pictures, just as I sometimes do.
No pet rats but you're preaching to the choir. I agree wholly with your position and have argued it with Gendy at great length. Maybe since you're big she'll believe you. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I doubt it! Stubborn bastard that she is. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I suppose I'm just as stubborn so meh. I'm right you're wrong Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!!!!!!!!!! I think they think in [at least selected facets of] their experience just as all creatures do. It's a matter of what their brain can retain of that experience and how it can conceptualize and manipulate it (quite minimal for most creatures) that gives them depth.
Wes! But you do agree that other animals have SYMBOLS even if they don't have a symbolic LANGUAGE comparable to ours? Most people do not even give other animals credit for symbols...
/But you do agree that other animals have SYMBOLS even if they don't have a symbolic LANGUAGE comparable to ours? Definately, and I'd even say that in a sense they have a symbolic language - at least some of them. Any animal that hunts in groups, or has some sort of mating ritual or whatever.. in a sense that's symbolic language. It communicates simple ideas. (edit: side note; this ties into that bit where i mentioned emotions and such in my post to gendy above) /Most people do not even give other animals credit for symbols... Further, they have to symbolize (or conceptualize) their thoughts in some manner, but it is probably so simplistic or foreign that I can't really fathom it (i mean mostly in lower animals). It seems you think of "symbols" as I think of "concepts" but there's a slight difference I can't put my finger on.
We have arrived!!! (Highly questionable assertion follows.) I am going to subdivide "symbol" into two facets, one of which I am going to call "concept" (to follow your wording) and the other of which I will call "symbol" to follow mine. Now, read carefully and tell me if you agree with this fairly obtuse arrangement. When we have a concept that we want to express to another creature, we use a symbol. The concept can't be communicated directly because we can't project the operation of our mind onto another being directly (in any way that I know). So, we develop symbols. A symbol is not irrevocably linked to a concept but they usually become strongly linked because this is the basis for symbolic communication. Roughly speaking, a symbol is the outward expression (a physical expression, I guess) of a concept. The rat's communication of its thought processes to you is largely unintentional, but it still represents symbolic communication. When the rat looks at a piece of roast beef, you know that the rat is considering the roast beef. This is a symbol, even if the rat's intentions are not visible.
It's good to be here. I'm buying what you're selling brother blue. Well put. Lemme process that a bit and get back to you - unless of course you feel like expounding.... then please feel free.
Hmmm.. that's a good point. For it to be a symbol, must there be a sense of self to make it so? In other words, are symbols a projection of self? (did you say that before?) I think they are. But is intent necessary to project self? Does the rat have a sense of self? I say yes, but it is likely almost incomprehensibly simple. So if yes, he can project himself into a symbol (in a very very simple sense) without meaning to. Hmm. Yeah I dunno I gotta sort this out a little.
A need to find existing patterns led to language? This makes no sense to me; perhaps you can elaborate? I think langauage developed purely as a tool for communication. Blueheadguy They have 'thoughts"? How are you defining thoughts? There are certainly some animals, for instance, chimps, that do in fact use symbols. I certainly do not think a rat uses symbols; a symbol implies the designation of a meaning to the thing-- the symbol, and an attempt to communicate through that symbol. A rat looking at meat he wants to eat is not trying to communicate through the meat, as the meat is the aim.
You could argue that bees and ants use symbols, dances and pheremones respectively. These are symbols, I would say, since they are not things in themselves, yet they convey meaning to other bees and ants. "The human mind has first to construct forms, independently, before we can find them in things." (A. Einstein)
I suppose for ants you could be talking about Dufour's gland and how ants follow its scent... When I think symbols, I think of a designation of meaning that is chosen, a designation that can therefore, also be discarded. Instinctive responses to specific things such as chemical odours and the like, which are instinctive as in universal to all populations of a certain species cannot be considered symbols. The interpretation of these "symbols" is not conscious. I find such behavious akin to a man's ability to get aroused by certain female scents, regardless of cultural, etc upbringing.
That's a pretty bold assertion. Are you sure? “In higher animals the use of the term ‘instinct’ to describe complex behaviour became progressively more difficult because of the interference of increasingly large doses of judgement and reason: ‘ The orang in the Eastern islands, and the chimpanzee in Africa, build platforms on which they sleep; and as both species follow the same habit, it might be argued that this was due to instinct, but we cannot feel sure that it is not the result of both animals having similar wants and possessing similar powers of reasoning.’ ” Darwin - 'Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex' from Darwin – Jonathon Howard – OUP 1982 p82 I suppose that's a bit off topic, but it suggests that it's pretty impossible to know what's a symbol for an ant and what isn't, whether it responds instinctively or not. After all it responds to signals, so clearly there's a message.
You're right. It did. It developed as as need to communicate the patterns people see. Can you imagine startign with nothing? No words at all? Just grunts? A tree is a pattern in your environment. To classify it as a tree you have to see that it is one, rather, you have to see it as something worthy of a label. You see a pattern, want to label it.... so you make up a label (maybe not even consciously, but it happens just the same, maybe you start with a triple grunt or something, then you have too many things for the triple grunt so you so to triple grunt plus whistle, etc., blah blah, boom - language from finding patterns in your environment - takes a long time to develop, thousands of years prolly eh?). The beauty of it being that as it is formalized, it acts as a conceptual (or symbolic) repository, allowing the whole species to advance on the basis of thinking that preceded them. /They have 'thoughts"? How are you defining thoughts? I'll take a crack. I'd say thinking is the ability to process and access stored experiences. Something like that. Note experiences' is not the same as "data", IMO, the major difference being that experience is tied to a POV where as data is not necessarily. I think rats think per that definition. Maybe ants do too, but I'm not sure. You think ants have any memory at all? I think they're pure instinct with not capacity for storage, but I dunno. I'm guessing rats have the capacity for storage, but it's probably pretty damned simple. /There are certainly some animals, for instance, chimps, that do in fact use symbols. I certainly do not think a rat uses symbols; a symbol implies the designation of a meaning to the thing-- the symbol, and an attempt to communicate through that symbol. A rat looking at meat he wants to eat is not trying to communicate through the meat, as the meat is the aim. i get a little iffy regarding whether or not rats technically use symbols because as I said I think symbols are a projection of self. i'd guess rats have a sense of self, but that it's mega simple to the point that I'm not even sure I could recognize it. however i'd guess that they DO think (just barely). and if you DO think you are using symbols in a sense. yeah hard to say with rats. too simple i'd think. higher primates though I'd say no question they have a sense of self and use symbols.
Communication skills are a spectrum... Not an either/or thing. Whales come pretty close to having language. Each pod has its own song. Dogs, the first species of animal that domesticated themselves voluntarily, clearly are capable of understanding a tiny bit of human language. They can't talk but they know what a dozen or so verbal "symbols" or hand signals mean. We've got a parrot who says "oatmeal" when she's hungry and the famous Alex knows what quite a few words mean and can put them together in phrases. Every time I mention Koko and Washoe I get flamed by people who seem to have a nearly religious need to believe that other primates can't learn American Sign Language. I suppose we're in no position to judge. We'll just have to wait until a deaf human couple raises one from a baby and see what they think. I'm surprised it hasn't already happened. Or at least that by now some deaf people haven't chosen a career in primatology and gotten the training just to work on this project. Other animals don't have the highly evolved speech center in their brains that we do. It's unlikely that most of them could master what we consider language. But that doesn't mean that they can't develop other highly complex systems of intelligent communication.
Wesmorris, The first grunt in itself is language. To see the tree, the tree itself must not be the pattern. It must be the thing that stands out...Also I tend to believe that the first attempts at communication were to share emotions-- as they are our most primal. We see patterns in our environment because our brains can see detect patterns very quickly-- we evolved that way. Seeing a pattern however does not necessitate a need to communicate that pattern. I'm not sure how POV is being used here-- consciously or merely a distinct experience? Anyway, as I see your definition, a mutable virus can therefore be said to think, as it can access it's stored experience. This is pretty much what adaptation to one's environment amounts to, and I do not consider it as thinking. Thinking to me implies the ability to not only access these stored experiences, but also to manipulate it-- delete, alter, and create new experiences... I think all animals have memory. On what evidence therefore do you think that rats have a sense of self? Besides, I do not think that a usage of symbols must be linked to a self. One can use symbols that a different entity created-- all that matters is that it communicates a meaning that is recognized and used. But this depends entirely on the POV I suppose. I don't think they think. Thinking requires language or symbols, or whatever-- a tool to translate and manipulate concepts/ideas, etc. I however think a rat is capable of emotion. I'd say higher primates think. Canute, I am inclined to think that if this behaviour is not learnt, but is however shared amongst the entire species-- both, then it must be instinctive; the two species must therefore have a shared evolutionary path. That really is the difference, no? If you know something without having had to learn or develop it, then it is instinctive. No, it is not impossible. All ants in all locations cannot respond to the "symbol" in the same manner; if they do, it is not a symbol, but rather an instinctive response to a particular chemical, or whatever be it. This "symbol" will always have the same meaning. The primary chemicals used by ants and their like is produced by the so-called Dufuor's gland. But hey, what the hell, it would be cool if ants can think. They are by far my favorite animals.
The point is that that it is quite often impossible to distinguish whether their behaviour is instinctive/automatic or based on reasoning and needs. When you say that it is one or the other you are making an assumption. That's true. But it's only true because you said 'cannot'. If in some particualar case all observed ants respond in some manner does not mean they 'cannot' respond in any other way and therefore does not entail that the behaviour is instinctive. Do they have brains?
/The first grunt in itself is language. Agreed. /To see the tree, the tree itself must not be the pattern. Well, it can't be. The pattern is put there by the mind. /It must be the thing that stands out... Agreed, but you have to see the pattern for it do stand out. In this case the environment is that thing you're finding patterns in. /Also I tend to believe that the first attempts at communication were to share emotions-- as they are our most primal. Good point and I agree. It's tricky though, as emotions are integrated with experience. As I mentioned earlier, I was leaving that out for now. It's so integrated it's difficult to be accurate, but I'm seeing something like: input->(emotional state<->conceptualization(abstraction)<->thought) ->behavior. So when I think patterns, emotions are part of it. I think that in this context emotions can be thought of as patterns that you observe. /We see patterns in our environment because our brains can see detect patterns very quickly-- we evolved that way. Certainly. One of the patterns we see is our own behavior ya konw. /Seeing a pattern however does not necessitate a need to communicate that pattern. Depends on how you define it I'd think. I agree with you in your context but disagree in the context I'm trying to establish in that I think even grunts are indicative of pattern recognition. I realize it gets complicated. If you don't mind let's try to hash this out (and please let's try to construct a little before we tear it down) as I easily get all backwards and go in circles a little if I'm not careful. It's arguable that the grunts are merely instinct? It's the cry of a baby for food a grunt? Technically humans come out, hell all animals come out with the ability for language in this context. They can communicate their hunger or discomfort to their mother with zero training. A grunt as discussed above is similiar to this or no? Is communication language? /I'm not sure how POV is being used here-- consciously or merely a distinct experience? As used: Point of awareness. Doesn't necessarily mean self-aware. /Anyway, as I see your definition, a mutable virus can therefore be said to think, as it can access it's stored experience. This is pretty much what adaptation to one's environment amounts to, and I do not consider it as thinking. Thinking to me implies the ability to not only access these stored experiences, but also to manipulate it-- delete, alter, and create new experiences... I don't think a mutable virus is aware (certainly not self-aware), but that's debatable I suppose. /I think all animals have memory. You're probably right. /On what evidence therefore do you think that rats have a sense of self? You're not gonna like this, but having looked into their eyes. You can see a lot in eyes. (side note. I was walking through wal-mart the other day noticing my own behavior and I noticed that as I'm walking along, scanning for life-forms I see eyes first, and can see them in weird zoom almost - from farther away than I can see other details of the person. maybe it's just me) /Besides, I do not think that a usage of symbols must be linked to a self. But the self is the only thing that gives life to symbols. /One can use symbols that a different entity created-- all that matters is that it communicates a meaning that is recognized and used. Sure, that is language right? I mean, a formalized language is exactly that. When I say a "symbol" is a projection of self I mean in the mind that is using it at the time. I can draw the letter P on this table and it is utterly non-symbolic until an observer "breathes" life into it ya know? That is why symbols are a projection of self. Unless they are thought, they (effectively)don't exist. Remind you of that nihilism thread? Hehe. /But this depends entirely on the POV I suppose. Do you see my point or do you see a problem with it? /I don't think they think. Thinking requires language or symbols, or whatever-- a tool to translate and manipulate concepts/ideas, etc. And here we depart, as we apparently think of thinking differently. I think thinking doesn't require communicable symbols at all or translation. To me, it merely requires emotion combined with experience combined with on-the-fly reconfiguration of immediate goals or something. Bah. Maybe that doesn't work. Unfortunately it seems to me that we are gonna get into areas where there aren't words that specify what we mean enough, so we use it and try to restrict it contextually, an exception is pointed out outside of that context, deflating the the meaning, generating logical problems and deconstructing before construction can happen. Hmmm.. Problematic. Regardless, I think rats think (in a very simplistic manner), but it's not that important of a point to me. They are processing stuff per their instinctual mandate which is modified by their experience - you can TRAIN rats right?, I don't think I would consider them "self-aware" though actually in the most simplistic way I think they are. /I however think a rat is capable of emotion. Agreed. AH! Maybe that's a better way.. take my original definition of thought and slap emotion onto it. That properly excludes your virus right? Maybe? /I'd say higher primates think. You probably have better evidence than I, but I mostly think they can think by having looked into their eyes. Hehe. Do you get the same thing? I'd swear I can 'feel' that they are thinking by looking into the eyes. I don't think it's a trick. It's possible that it is but it's awefully convincing.
