What Are Animals Thinking? (Hint: More Than You Suspect)

Let’s be honest, you’d probably rather die than wake up tomorrow morning and find out you’d turned into an animal. Dying, after all, is inevitable, and there’s even a certain dignity to it: Shakespeare did it, Einstein did it, Galileo and Washington and Twain all did it. And you, someone who was born a human and will live your life as a human, will end your life that way too. MoreHey, Did I See You Petting Another Dog?Nowhere to Hide: U.S. Weighing Airstrikes Against ISIS in Syria NBC NewsEbola Anxiety: Americans Fear 'Large Outbreak' Coming to U.S. NBC News'Breaking Bad' and 'Modern Family' Win Top Emmys NBC NewsMiley Cyrus Opts Out Of VMA Acceptance Speech To Advocate For Homeless Youth [UPDATE] Huffington PostBut living that life as an animal — an insensate brute, incapable of reason, abstraction, perhaps even feeling? Unthinkable. Yes, yes, the animals don’t recognize the difference, and neither would you. If you’re a goat, you possess the knowledge of a goat, and that can’t be much. But there’s more to it than that. Human beings have always had something of a bipolar relationship with the millions of other species with which we share the planet. We are fascinated by them, often dazzled by them. They can be magnificently beautiful, for one thing: the explosive color and frippery of a bird of paradise, the hallucinatory variety of the fish in a coral reef, the otherworldly markings and architecture of a giraffe. Even the plain or ugly anim...
Source: TIME.com: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized animal behavior animals Brain communication intelligence social groups tool use Source Type: news