just about any animal that has a brain and demonstrates adaptive behavior, thinks. That does not require that animlas think logically or rationally, only that they think. And it excludes things liek the Pepsis wasp (a fairly well-known experiment in animal behavior: the Pepsis wasp lays its eggs on a still-living tarantula that it has stung into immobility, and then buries the tarantula in a hole in the ground that the wasp has already prepared. Prior to burying the tarantula, the wasp drags the immobilized spider to the hole, goes down the hole and checks that it is still sound and unoccupied, then drags the spider in and buries it. All of which seems fairly sophisticated behavior. However, if, while the wasp is down the whole, somebody moves the spider, then the wasp will drag the spider back to its former position and re-check the hole; this can be repeated indefinitely: researcher moves spider while wasp is down the hole, wasp drags spider back, wasp checks hole, researcher moves the spider,... The Pepsis wasp does not think--it does not demonstrate adaptive behavior--but is driven by some very sophisticated behaviors that are ingrained into its being.)
Can we know when we are not thinking? I doubt it. We can know when we have not been thinking, but, we must be thinking to be aware of that lapse. Are we ever not thinking? Sure. There are periods of uncosciousness, and there is death--both which conditions pretty much preclude thought. There is also meditative trance, in which the goal is to still ones thoughts without losing consciousness. |
