Animal Intelligence and Evolution/Creation

given that the concept came from india where atma means both soul and breath (mahatma = great souled one aka gandhi and gautama) ...

Have you seen the dolphin rings?
http://www.earthtrust.org/delrings.html

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

or soul just means breath and nothing more? there is a hill in england that has a long name to it, each word means hill in the previous language ... so it is hill hill hill hill when translated.

what I see is a vast number of very "dumb" creatures and fewer and fewer more intelligent ones.if we could honestly rate the intelligence of each animal I would not be surprised to see a typical decay type distribution, with human (for now) intelligence at the y intercept and then more numbers of species with lower intelligence levels. (from http://www.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/...rt/lectures/lecture2/sld023.htm)this would have to do with the relative benefit of intelligence from an evolutionary point of view: are very intelligent creatures necessarily better adapted than ones just more intelligent than their {predator\prey} relationship requires?I would also expect this distribution to hold within subcategories, ie primates would have their distribution, and cetacians would have theirs.certainly it is easy for us to see intelligence in other primates, but that may just be more a matter of our understanding it than the actual levels.another one for your list is the snow macaque in japan, where inventive behavior has been observed a number of times (and in one female in particular):
Blue Planet Biomes - Japanese Macaque (I love that picture)also see
http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/...v/dautenhahn/node4.html
for a discussion on intelligence in other animals.{edit spelling}This message has been edited by RAZD, 02-13-2005 18:27 AM

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

I think you make all my points about the question you asked, and my answer is no, it is not obvious: this could be just a temporary blip of some 3-4 million years out of 4.5 billion.It is obvious to someone (like Mike here) that has an extreme homo-centric bias, but give the world another extreme event like the meteor\asteroid\comet that ended the age of the dinosaurs and see if we are really better able to survive: us or the bacteria?Then consider that we are capable of making our own event, or even (apparently) unable to keep from making our own event ....enjoy

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Yes, that bit about the leaf use gives a whole new meaning to the religious experience of the porcelain altar. I also gather that he was referring to wrapping unchewable parts in leaves rather than just spitting them out, but the wording is very unclear there. It also looks like a one horse show, with all the papers by the same guy (and only one co-authored with another individual)?I find some of the examples interesting, while others seem forced into the perceived pattern being promoted. As a result this detracts from the more compelling elements, imho. Brevity is also not one of his attributes.I see nothing wrong with observing close parallels to 4 out of 6 human forms, and don't need to force the other 2 in order to make a case for chimpanzee spirituality. Heck, just birth and death ceremonies should be sufficient.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

and grooming it. is that where petting of pets comes from?

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

tryhttp://EvC Forum: Neurotheology/Biotheologyon this forumand
Holy visions
and
http://www.bidstrup.com/mystic.htmfor some articles on related issues of what the brain is doing

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}