Thinking capacity in animals

[Biologist]

Hello,

 

From which phylum onwards do the animals really evolved the thinking capacity?

Any answer?

 

Regards,

Biologisthegde

[Nevermore]

Hold on. Let me go find my time machine...

[Hellbender]

Well since humans are vertebrates, i would say that phylum chrodata, but I am not 100% sure what you are asking. Octopi are very smart and they are molluscs.

[NavajoEverclear]

i dont think that's possible to answer. Who's to say our form of thinking the superior version? Other animals may fail in capacities we consider valuable, but outcompete us in others. trying to think of a good example . . . . . . dogs have greater capacity for scents, fish have greater vision, and generally all 'simpler' animals have that thing where they can sense if a natural disaster is coming.

 

Yes they may not have the capacities to build cities, but it is these capacities that may doom us to extinction, you've heard the reasons why so i wont repeat. Though they may be simpler, that simplicity might be considered superior to our capacities.

 

Plus, its like i read in a Richard Dawkins books, scientist incorrectly propagate the idea that the origins of different kingdoms (or other catagories of species) are were amazing breakthroughs. Which the end results most certainly are, but at the source, the species (though now completely diverse) were the same species, mutated by insignificant scales.

 

So its completely impossible to pinpoint a specific time that a particular thing (such as 'thinking capacity') arose.

[Hellbender]

i dont think that's possible to answer. Who's to say our form of thinking the superior version? Other animals may fail in capacities we consider valuable, but outcompete us in others. trying to think of a good example . . . . . . dogs have greater capacity for scents, fish have greater vision, and generally all 'simpler' animals have that thing where they can sense if a natural disaster is coming.

 

pretty much what I was thinking. I think it was coquina who said before something that intelligence is a relative term, and I certainly agree. So called "dumb" animals like salamanders may not have cognitive skills of a gorilla, but i'm certain that they are intelligent enough to flourish in their respective environmental niche. Perhaps they are intelligent in ways humans cannot measure. I think the question is cognitive thinking capacity in animals.

[Hellbender]

So to answer biologist's question, it is certain that the phylum chordata, subphylum vertebrata has extant species equipped with cognitive thinking abilities (at least in ways humans can measure).