Rational Thinking Is Not Natural

[xSilverPhinx]

This may be a stretch but bear with me...  Imagine a dolphin taught to press a button of a certain shape to get a treat.  If you use the definition I found for rational shown here;

"using reason or logic in thinking out a problem"

...then wouldn't a trained dolphin be using some degree of rational thought to determine which object to push with his snout in order to get the reward?  

One could argue that humans trained the dolphin so it cannot be natural but we don't magically transmit this information into the dolphins brain, we expose it to trial after trial and eventually the dolphin learns.  Wouldn't that process of learning also be an application of rational thought?  The dolphin is using logic, based on previous experience and recollection, to conclude that the square button gives him the fish and the circle one does not.

If you watch footage on a group of dolphins hunting, you'd quickly come to the conclusion that they don't need to be trained by us to be rational. There's some real strategic thinking, planning and organised execution there. Not to mention they're creative.

In fact marine mammals are quite something. I came across a documentary on a seal which could outperform humans on a type of intelligence measuring test.

[The Magic Pudding]

* New Caledonian crows have been recently studied and have shown that they can solve a multi-step problem. The challenge they faced was a three-step process.  The goal was to retrieve a piece of food from a cage.  The piece of food was kept at a safe distance from the walls of the cage.  This piece of food could be drawn out by a long stick, but this long stick was held inside a barred toolbox.  To get the long stick, the crows would need a short stick.  And so the first step of the test involved a short stick which was tied to a string, hanging from a branch.The study took two groups of crows and separated them.  The first group was allowed to look at each step of the problem individually before taking on the whole test.  The second group was presented with a piece of food on a string and some sticks which could be used to get the food, but they never experienced a situation where one tool was used to get another.  Both groups of crows were able to successfully complete the test, though some took either a second attempt or a bit longer to do so.

    * New Caledonian crows also solved a few other problems.  One problem they were faced with was reaching larvae inside of hollowed out trees.  Since their beaks are not long enough, the crows must find other methods to reach the larvae.  The study found that crows will find an almost ideally sized stick for the job, also showing that more experienced crows were faster and better at retrieving the larvae.  Another problem these crows faced was with a floating worm inside a glass.  The water-level was kept low enough so the crows could not reach the worm.  The crows would take rocks and put them in the cup in order to raise the water-level enough so that the worm could be reached.

http://nation.towergaming.com/2010/04/the-clever-crow/

That's pretty smart but I bet they're not smart enough to worship a sky guy who isn't there.

[Extropian]

Jac3510 writes;
                       Does anyone really think that they are so much smarter than all the great minds in human history, past and present, that they've thought of something no one else has ever thought of before? Please.

                       More to the point.........are the answers to the great imponderables of the ages simply memes floating around somewhere awaiting their discovery, or did some mind really present with an answer derived from purely intellectual activity [the application of creative inference, reason and logic]?

                      It is essential to our intellectual well-being that there was a plethora of original thoughts in human history. To suggest that there are no more available to us, that there is nothing new, is to my way of thinking a surrender of intellectual independence and the adoption of a kind of stultifying fatalism.

                     What could be the nature of this "something" you refer to if you can even conceptualise its existence? We can never "know" that that "something" does not exist and we must conduct ourselves on the conviction and presumption that it does exist. Otherwise we may just as well resign ourselves to a thoughtless existence and death. Thankfully, the properties of consciousness precludes us from doing this.