I have been thinking lately.. if there is any significant distinction between humans and other animals I wonder if it is not "consciousness" or even "intelligence" but rather simply that we have a separation of conscious and subconscious minds. It seems to me that most animals are just a direct expression of their subconscious with no conscious component acting as a filter. Or at the very least their conscious component is greatly minimalizaed

@freemo I think that another thing that is different is that we're so language driven (not necessarily verbal, deaf people sign) to the point that I think that the conscious part is simply the part that happened to be caught by the language part of the brain.

@mian I dont use language in my conscious brain all the time... so im not sure I agree, my conscious brain is quite rich in non-verbal expression and the only time i use words is if i am trying to construct a conversation.

@freemo I think that even non-verbal expression that has a sort of if-this-then-that or a story is still language.

@mian Much of my internal land scape isnt limited to conditional logic either. For example much of it is a visual landscape which i manipulate (graphs are common)

@freemo Manipulating something and imagining a result fits pretty neatly into conditional logic really.