Do Animals Believe In Supernatural Beings?

Has anyone said "must be religious" about anything here? Yes in a thread that asks what evidence for a certain phenomenon might look like we should obviously at all costs avoid speculating on what evidence for that phenomenon might look like. What belief is it I am supposed to be trying to support? I simply asked the question. It seems you are just dismally unable to have any discussion that doesn't take the format of "What is your evidence?" followed by "Oh yes it is" Vs "Oh no it isn't".I despair.

I don't know for sure. How much cognitive function does one need?But consider the following: It seems chimps in particular are capable of greater cognitive functions than most people allow for. At what point down the evolutionary tree does such behaviour stop being legitimately comparable to human behaviour in terms of inferring the same motivations?We infer self-awareness in apes based on the same tests we give humans. Why is that justified if we cannot make reasonable assumptions about beliefs? Is not self-awareness the belief that "I exist" as opposed to simply reacting to ones environment?

Enough for communcation in the form of some kind of "language" of sorts. Holding abstract concepts in the mind for consideration would be fairly important.Humans' religious beliefs take the form of complex statements in their language that they might ponder over for years even. Especially the ones raised in a 'learning lab'...Don't you think wild chimps would have less going on in their minds? Don't you think Koko has a lot more going on in her mind than your average gorilla?If Koko showed signs of religious belief, would you extend that to a general statement of 'Gorillas having religious beliefs'? I don't think it'd be very far down at all. Hell, it might not even make the first step if we want to call it legitimate. I don't think that the self-awareness test legitimately suggests a belief that "I exist". Plus, with this being the sole point of comparison, I don't know how much we can say about the other yet-to-be-revealed comparisons with human behavior and how they'd effect the legitimacy of the inferrences you'd have us be making from them.Do you have any more examples?

"Do Animals Believe In Supernatural Beings?"I thought that was the topic.Edited by jar, : fix subtitle

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Yo yo yo.(***Straggler attempts an ambitious street-cred-worthy high five, misses, and looks slightly sheepish before continuing***)Ready for some more monkey business I see.. You are suggesting that a chimp observes that humans visit a special place after thunderstorms, observes that the humans are very quiet in this special place and notices that they leave food there which must not to be touched. The chimp then goes off, builds his own special place and convinces the rest of his colony to very quietly leave precious food supplies as offerings after every thunderstorm.This, you think, is the parsimonious explanation for the (admittedly rather speculative) chimp behaviour I detailed? If we did conclude that chimp behaviour such as the above was copied from humans rather than self-invented we would have to describe this level of abstraction as closer to role play than mere mimicry. It would be like chimps playing at ‘being human’ in much the same way that little kids play at ‘mummys and daddys’ or ‘doctors and nurses’. They are not simply reciting human actions they are actually recreating an interpreted version of that behaviour. This in itself would arguably be just as remarkable as chimps displaying signs of religiosity. Rather than go through the usual Where’s your evidence routine (I don’t claim there is any in this thread) let’s do something different. Let me ask you - What do you think the minimum of evidence legitimately suggesting religiosity in chimps might be? Then we can discuss how fantastical or otherwise the possibility of such evidence ever existing might be.

Is it reasonable to conclude that the cognitive functions of a chimp are comparable to that of 2/3 year old humans?How many 2/3 year old humans believe in Santa Claus? Can 2/3 year old humans invent their own imaginary beings?If "cognitive function" is our criteria I guess we need to think more about what that means and if we need to be more specific about what aspects of cognition are most important to this question.This is a fascinating link regarding experiments done to compare the proclivity of chimps and human children to blindly imitate. LinkOK. Not at all. But it would show that non-human self-aware animals displaying complex emotions are capable of displaying such beliefs would it not?That in itself would be a significant discovery. It depends what degree of fantasticality in my speculations you are willing to entertain.Lets say we developed a colony of australopithecus in some sort of "Jurassic Park" DNA extraction type scenario. If they started exhibiting the sorts of behaviour that we associate with religiosity in humans would that point to evidence of such beliefs in non-humans?

Hey Oni, "Where" might be an important point to consider. In northern Congo there are still pockets of areas where chimpanzees have no previous human contact. (Errr, that status will probably change soon.)National Geographic - 404

There is a difference, though, in that 2-3 year old humans have, and are aquiring, complex language abilities that chimps lack*. Even further, when a 3 y/o says "I believe in Santa", how much thought and belief are they actually holding as opposed to simply parroting a phrase that they haven't really put much stock into? Or, they could simply be acknowledging that they understand that the big fat guy in a red suit is tied to the concept of Santa and everything they've seen so far suggests that he does actually exist; I wouldn't put this on the same level as an educated adult forming a complicated opinion taking the for of a "religious belief" - which is what I tend to imagine with that phrase.A very simple - funny noise in closet = a boogieman - being an "imaginary being" isn't really what I would call religious beliefs, unless you want to include 'superstition' as religious belief?* added during review: I think the development of the brain along with the acquisition of language together is extremely important to the higher cognitive functions that would be required to form religious beliefs so I doubt you'd see religious beliefs in feral children and I expect more fantastical behavior in those "Learning Lab Apes" than wild ones. Though I still think non-human primates lack enough brain development and language acquisition to be capable of religious beliefs. Yeah, okay... go on I don't think you can legitamately infer thoughts and beliefs from imitation behaviors. Somethings not right there; I don't see no text Yeah, assuming the signs of religious belief were shown. Regardless of the example, somehow we're going to have to get across the boarder between behavior and belief.If the Austrys had a decent language ability, and looked like they were discussing and thinking about things, and they were behaving like humans do when they have religious beliefs, then I think you could legitamately infer that they too had religious beliefs.

Yet you agree that the "burial rituals of the Neandertals are good evidence for religious beliefs". Message 163How did you jump from evidenced behaviour to inferring belief in that case? The link (which you couldn't get to) said the following regarding propensity for imitation:

By assuming they think like we do...two paragraphs down from what you quoted:

quote:

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But to infer religious beliefs we need to know what they are thinking. For other homos, its safe to assume they'd think something along the lines of how we think. The further we get from us, the less we can guess as to what they might be thinking.

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I'm not seeing the relevance.

Hey at least you tried a high-five and not give me the double pistol with your hands hello. If a chimp did that... HOLY SHIT! Chimps have seriously evolved a great deal of intelligence since last we checked. At which point, I would say, yes, those are religious behaviors.Then I would tell them to watch out for christian evangelist and a dude named Jesus. Which would be the first conclusion if we saw them doing that. But in your scenario, we knew they did it as an "offering" after a thunderstorm. That would be where the religious behavior part comes in. but for that we would need to be able to communicate with them at a higher level than what we've been able to do now.But if we don't know it was an offering, then I would first investigate chimps ability to role play. Shit...good question.I may have to think about that a bit. Every time I come up with something I can also see it being mimicry or role playing (which I would think shows a higher level of cognition, but not so much to suggest religious behavior.)I would first think they had to have a much more complex language and a much more structured society, so that something like abstract thought could be suggested.I frankly don't know what would be the minimal evidence.- Oni

Not a double, but oh well

From my experience I would say that many 2 year olds can and do believe in Santa Claus and his ability to do magical things (like fly) that they have never observed a person doing.From what (little admittedly) I have read on this the vocab of an average 2 year old is 150-300 words with some grammatical understanding. This (if true) is very comparable to the 200 word or so vocab (with some grammatical understanding) that has been achieved by chimps who have been taught sign language.So if linguistic ability is our criteria we again face a less than blatant distinction between chimps and young children. Yes - That the thought processes are comparable in some way. This is necessary to infer anything from behaviourial comparisons and seems to be the cause of conflict in this thread. Where is the "border" between that which we can legitimately ascribe known motivations to human-like behaviours and that which we cannot?For example you are happy to accord Neanderthals and Australopithecus with such abilities but consider there a "border" between us and chimps. But if the graduated nature of evolution teaches us anything is it not that these "borders" are extensively blurred and significantly overlapping? I think we can all agree that chimps are not comparable to "educated adult" in terms of sentience, intellect, sapience or any other cognitive ability. So that is a pointless comparison in this context. I would suggest that we try and think about this in the following terms:What is the lowest cognitive ability class of human we would ascribe religious beliefs to?Does this overlap at all with the highest cognitive ability class of non-human (e.g. chimp) we know of? In this context I think that is appropriate. If you want to point out that this isn't religious belief per se and denounce the thread title on that basis I won't disagree with you.

Waddup.....(***Straggler [cool guy that he is] does the double pistol hello***) (***Straggler looks a little sheepish before gathering himself and continuing***) Did you know chimps were made in God's image? Yep. Fair enough. Go with the known (or at least linked to known) before diving of on wild tangents. Fair enough.But on the basis of the behaviour described a degree of religiosity, I think, would be a perfectly valid and evidentially supported scientific hypothesis worthy of further investigation. Well frankly nor do I. Although I doubt it has ever been met. Which to some (like jar) I suspect makes the whole question pointless and moot. But I think it is interesting.Let's try and think of it in the following terms: What is required cognitively to possess beliefs about imaginary beings doing things like creating stuff (e.g the world or the forest or whatever), what is required to acquire such beliefs and are any animals capable of these things?Considering the earliest evidenced origins of human/homo belief in such things might be the way to start?

I disagree.A chimp learning that certain hand configurations correspond to certain items or actions is not the same as a human developing verbal language during brain development.We think in language and our beliefs are conceptualized as stings of words. I don't think that a chimp's sign language abilities would allow them to form those unspoken words into an abstract concept that can be called a religious belief. I would put a fairly hard line just past the genus Homo, with the further back you go and closer to that line you get, the less we can assume that they think like us... and I'd probably put it on a logarithmic scale. Actually, I wouldn't grant the Austrys what was needed for my conditional statement, so I'm not happy to accord them such abilities. Yeah.Still though, I think language is key to religious belief, or any abstract thinking really. Im still leaning towards my hard line at the genus Homo. I don't think there'd be enough overlap to infer religious beliefs in chimps. I'd rather just stay on the same page... I tend to think of "religious belief" as being more than a simple superstition, but if we'd rather think of this in terms of simple superstitions, then I can do that.Still, for chimps, I just don't think they have the ability to form the complex abstract thoughts that would be require to hold a superstition.If we broadened the definition of superstition to the point where it contains the kinds of thoughts that I think chimps are capable of, then I think it loses any value as being something to be compared to modern humans' superstitions and/or religious beliefs.