Reaoning power of animals

My pup leaves the paper by the door every morning. Nothing else only the paper. Then one morning there layed the paper and a lb. Bag of coffee. At first I thought strange why did she do that. Later it dawned on me she new I drank coffee w/ the paper and she found this coffee that must have flew out of the back of a.pickup.she thought I would need it as well. My thought is that is reasoning. Whay about you all.

Ours brings in packages from the UPS guy. He probably heard us talking and ordering something on line and thought when that gets here I’ll bring that in or

He’s watched that brown truck pull up and leave stuff my daughter let him bring in since he was a pup.

My cat leaves me headless mice outside my door.

He must know I don't like to eat brains

reasoning; noun: the action of thinking about something in a logical, sensible way.

Logical: adjective: (relates to the object of a sentence); of or according to the rules of logic or formal argument.

Formal: adjective: done in accordance with rules of convention or etiquette; suitable for or constituting an official or important situation or occasion.

Constituting: verb: be (a part) of a whole.

Well, I researched reasoning to get a clear picture of whether animals are or are not able to do it.
Near as I can tell...
I guess if your animal can: place the verb (constituting) with the two adjectives (formal & logical) assigned to the noun (reasoning).
They can reason.
If not.
Nope.
They're something else.

Oh, and I just ran all this past Grace, my really, really really smart Brittany, and she kind of did that tilt her head to one side deal when I got finished, so I'm not sure what she's saying to me right now. I don't know Brittanese like some people seem to. I learned a bunch of Greek last year, but Grace's bloodline is from France and I can't understand that either.


Blessings,
Mark

It’s reasonable to think a reasoning animal could reason enough to avoid a reasonable set within reason of a reasoning trapper trying to catch said reasoning critter.

Especially if the trapper uses the wrong lure

Uncle’s dog was always wandering off. He put in underground dog fence. In no time at all, dog was once again off to the neighbors. Frustrated beyond belief, he stayed up one night to see what was up. The dog would go close enough to the the fence to make the collar beep...and lay down. Once the batteries ran down the beeping stopped and up went Fido on his merry way. Same dog would eat cigarette butts. Only ones that were still lit. He would paw the cherry out and then eat it and ignore any that were stubbed out.

Did your uncle ask him if that’s what he was doing Or did he just assume that’s what he was doing.

Lol! Maybe he ordered something, and wants you to open the package for him.

lol

Mark did you say that animals can reason but we can't understand there reasoning? It's been a looooong time since I studied what ever it is you just said. My pup made more since to me than what you wrote. Not questioning your intelligence only mine. If you said that to me I would have probably cocked my head as well. Especially early in the mornin. My pup ancestry is AMERICA think that'sthe diffrence?

My opinion is that they can be very efficient on picking up habits, but they don't understand WHY this habit exists...that would be my definition of reasoning.

One of our dogs is so "smart" she thinks I'm a different person everytime I smell different. Likes me one minute and hates me when I come back in the door the next. I really would like to know what goes on in her brain. Maybe she's just scizophrentic?

Or maybe some days you just stink. lol

Question #1 Who on gods green earth rides around with a pound coffee in the back of their pick-up? Question #2 how fast does this one in a million person have to drive to have that pound of coffee "fly" out of the back of the truck?

Tp
Lots of campers come trough here maybe left it on there bumper fender ect.? When I said pound bag it was partial bag. If that helps.

Hahaha.... Yes!!!

There are Those!

I dunno, someone taught finster to type.

Haha!!!

Sounds like an ex-girlfriend!

I think animals can reason, much like humans. Some better than others. Surroundings can also play a huge factor. My grandfathers collie would go out every evening w/o being told to get the cattle for milking. She knew when there was a problem and would come and get someone right off. She was also a great babysitter with us kids and always got between us and any equipment that my be operating in the yard. My grandfather was too busy on the farm to do much training with her but yet she knew what her job was and what had to be done. I see too many examples of animals reasoning not to believe they can't. Maybe not to our degree but they can still reason.

Going to guess lab or golden retriever or similar breed, once in awhile those breeds will just show up with something of yours and hand it to you, socks, underwear, hat, they are bred to retrieve stuff that is their owners and bring it back. If I had to guess it was a trait that they gained from wolves submitting to the Alpha and bringing him food etc to keep from getting mauled.

With threads like this next thing you know someones going to allude to the fact that animals and people are the same.

Not until they drive a taxi in nyc for 6 months.

My exwife had a little mare I planned on never liking but she turned out to be super cowey and too smart for her own good so she eventually won me over. I had built a slam latch for the little place we kept her behind the house out of a horse shoe and I was proud of it- the only problem was that if you didn't slam it, it might fail to latch.

One morning I went out to feed at dawn and the gate was wide open- thankfully the little saddle mare was still in waiting for me by the bunk. I remember thinking- well the little numb skull never went anywhere but sign said otherwise. For laughs I drove around a little bit and noticed fresh grazing and piles spread out over several miles. She had visited every set of horses she could find during the night but decided no matter how much green grass she had taken in she wasn't gonna be late for a little flake of alfalfa or some rolled oats!

In my mind, it was a contentious decision she made and shows more reasoning than most.

I was just "reasoning".

Had a border collie that figured out that if he rushed the cat at the right moment when a car was coming, the cat would bolt and get hit by the car... daughter went through a pile of cats...
I never would have believed the dog was the culprit, until I spotted him planning the deed, car missed the cat by inches but the dogs plan was sound.
If thats not reasoning, I don't know what is, but that dog was smarter then a lot of people., lol

LMBO
Border collies are smarter than most of my friends- don't ever put anything past them LOL

Some of the most intelligent animals I know of are starlings. They seem to have the ability to reason and to communicate thoughts.

It happened and he remembered, that isn’t the same as “That car is coming, if I chase that cat he might run and get killed by that car.”

Did you miss the part about how his daughter went through a "pile" of cats? We might hang the jury you and I b/c I say that eventually at some point, it was premeditated!

Bingo Rat. The teaching that given enough time, all amoebas would turn into humans, has sunk its tentacles to our culture's core.

We're just a bunch of helter-skelter atoms that landed in unison in a wonderful arrangement, some luckier than others perhaps,
because the probability that the odds this occurred...
1 and then another number with 40 zeros after it (or so scientists tell us)
seems pretty believable to most Westerns.

That's too big a number for me, so I plan to ask the next coyote that "out-smarts" me.
Maybe he or she will leave me a note how it all works.
Animal spirits are powerful in Texas.
Ask Leftlane

I don't know if it would be classified as reasoning or not but any of you guys who have hunted bear have probably seen how a bear will discover how you access a bait site and will often check that trail before committing to a bait. I've had them climb the tree my stand was in and tear the seat off. They're very intelligent animals.

Bears also eat plywood,gas cans and skidoo seats.
They must be thinking - if he cant get gas and has no comfortable seat he wont be able to run that snowmachine.

Or just bored.

For more on this topic, read The Decent of Man by Charles Darwin. He compares man development to animal development. Written in the mid 1800s but still interesting.

Had a walker coon hound that the first time I put him on a chain after we moved to the new place immediately did the run around the stake but and ended up snubbed right up to the post, well he stopped barking, sat down and stared at that post for several minutes then got up and walked the other way around to unwind himself and he never did it again, if that’s not reasoning tell me what is it, and that’s just one thing

Can animals reason I would say yes, not on the order of humans but it’s there more so in some then in others, and in my opinion stronger in predators then herbivores

Done deal there's groups all over that think that. But I'm guessing everyone on here has there mind made up.

Nightlife
That's way cool. Exactly my thoughts as well. He was surly a coon teeing son of a gun.

Nice try. If he was wound up tight there wasn’t anywhere else to go.

I think some are confusing reasoning, with intelligence...or maybe I am. Lol

While sitting in a waiting room one time I read an article in National Geography Magazine article about bird intelligence. Examples cited included birds dropping things on rocks and a bird (crow I think) that learned which things to bring to a woman to please her. The article said think twice before you say "bird brain."

Ravens are the border collies of the bird world, lol

You have obviously never had a dog on a chain attached to a pole or tree if you think that because every other one I have ever seen will just sit there and bark till someone comes and releases them or just give up and lay there

That’s why I would never buy a dog from MN. lol

Based on this experience and a few others I believe some animals have reasoning ability.

On the side of an old road wolverine were known to travel I build a four foot long log culvert cubby with a plywood top cover, placed a beaver carcass in the center and a 330 trap at either end. On a subsequent check I found that a couple of wolverine, travelling together, had approached the set and one got caught. As indicated by tracks in the snow the second animal backed off and went to the other end of the set where it approached the trap. It appeared that it had started to enter the trap but the trigger was frozen into the snow and did not fire. As the trigger wires were not bent inward even slightly this indicated to me the animal sensed danger. The wolverine then backed off and went to the side of the cubby and dug through one foot of frozen ground to get the bait. From this I tend to believe that, although they are very brash and bold, they and others, especially predators have some ability to detect danger.

We all have that, is it really reasoning?

The reasoning would be, “Is that a beaver in there? No way it should be in there, no sign of them anywhere else, somebody must have put it in here to trap me.”

You know, understanding that there is no free lunch.

Dictionary

No need to read it Charles, we believe what we watch all around us as truth. John Locke was way ahead of Charles.

You do realize there was another (some say friend - some say colleague - some say both) man deeply interested in Darwin's work. Karl Marx. The man who had 9 people at his funeral and today has a world wide movement in his honor. He and Darwin's religion.

From Marx's memoires;

"Marx agreed to take into great consideration Darwin’s thesis about the evolution of living beings. In a letter from December 19, 1860 addressed to his friend and colleague Friedrich Engels, Marx states that Darwin’s book contains “the basis in natural history for our view.” In a different letter to activist Ferdinand Lassalle (January 16, 1861), Marx concludes that “Darwin’s book is very important and serves me as a basis in natural science for the class struggle in history.” As such, Marx agreed with Darwin that society, like the living beings on Earth, is the result of historical processes of change."

(I've read Darwin a number of times, and wrote a thesis on a comparable subject back in the 1980's). I enjoy and appreciate the sciences, but I don't affirm what either of these men planted deep in our world. In fact, I strongly disagree.

Blessings,
Mark

I had an English Setter who had “his” spot on the couch. He didn’t like it if someone was sitting in his spot. My wife was there one evening and he was obviously mad about that so he ran through the living room, dining room and into the hall where the front door is and carried on like he wanted out. The wife gets up and goes through the opening directly to the hall to accommodate him. He doubles back and beats her to the “spot” on the couch. He could pick up a glass of milk and sneak off with it without spilling a drop too. I don’t know about reasoning, but he was smarter than a lot of people.

The logical thing to do would have been simply move the trap instead of digging into a foot of frozen ground, but keep trying.

Logic isn't simple. logic would be get rid of fake news. But all kidding aside when I was a youngster i had several traps set aside. Still do on occasion.

Or logic would say... I don't know what this is but it doesn't seem right so I will avoid it. The "logic" you are using requires the intelligence of knowing what a trap is and how it works.

Leftlane I agree on the horses, anyone who thinks animals don't have the ability to reason has never spent much time in the saddle.

In my opinion all animals have the ability to reason its just a matter of how developed that ability is. Heck not even all people have the same ability. Some here seem to think that just because they are not able to reason on the same level as people that they can't do it at all.

There are lots of examples of animals using tools to gather food ex. primates, birds, dolphins. While some may say that is a learned behavior it would have taken the original animal that discovered that method some degree of thought and reasoning in order to replicate it. I think many of you are giving animals to little a credit in what they are capable of doing and feeling. Many humans act no better then animals in my opinion. While I do believe animals some animals are capable of thought and reasoning I still believe that we were put here with domain over them. That responsibility is not something that I take lightly, the animals I raise, and or harvest I do so with respect and thanks.

They're innately inquisitive animals.

A wolverine walking out on a weak limb senses danger and decides to stop and go back, is that instinct or reason?


We used to board horses for a guy down the road from us. I’ve never been to a show or seen them work cattle but from what I can tell they have instincts and whatever that gentlemen taught them what to do. They never opened a gate or fed and watered themselves and they watched me do it twice a day.

You have not worked with many horses if you haven't come across one that figured out how to open a gate. I have seen a several that had to have latches that were PHYSICALLY impossible for them to operate as the horse would figure out a way to open it otherwise.

Your wolverine example is most likely instinct. Reason would come next time he comes through and decides to take a different route because he now knows that that one is dangerous. Without some small amount of reasoning ability they would keep making the same mistakes over and over. He depended on instinct to get himself out of the current situation, he learned it was dangerous and would use reasoning to avoid the situation in the future.

We’ll just have to agree to disagree. Remembering isn’t reasoning, it’s the reason animals can be trained but it isn’t the same as reasoning thought.

My dad text me last week telling me "your white goat is out" I was headed up in ten minutes to milk anyway and told him I will be up shortly dont worry about it she won't go far. I went to the barn and got concerned when I didn't find her just outside the barn when I walked around. Just before I was getting ready to expand my search I looked in the stall. Sure enough there she was in the stall with the gate closed standing on it looking at me. It seemed like she was trying to pull a fast one saying yep I have been here the whole time. The stall latch was un lached and there were goat droppings all in the driveway that along with dads text gave her away. I never let on I knew she had been out and to this day she dosen't know that I know.

LMBO- yeah she figures to have the wool pulled over your eyes.

Hobbie, I really don't think we are that far apart. No remembering is not reasoning, that is correct. But I think that using what you remember to avoid the situation in the future is. That is apparently where we disagree.

Primates, scientists tell us, are the only animals with a frontal lobe to our brains. I simply did a Google to remind me what scientists figure that region does;

The frontal lobes are important for voluntary movement, expressive language and for managing higher level executive functions. Executive functions refer to a collection of cognitive skills including the capacity to plan, organise, initiate, self-monitor and control one's responses in order to achieve a goal.

I wonder how we got from a fish walking outta the soup onto legs to where we have what no other animals have?
The philosophers of centuries ago coined the atheistic phrase, "Having a watch, does not indicate there is a watch maker."
Well, dang son. Somebody had to make the watch correct?

I feel better already, but interestingly, my dog gave me all this information.

Blessings,
Mark

That's not reasoning that's cognition.

Used to call that "Growing Up"

If my dog can't reason, he has me fooled. As a matter of fact he fools me often.

You certain you aren’t fooling yourself?

A guy was curious where everyone got the time to set there watch. So he called the radio station and asked where they got there time from. They told him the watch maker . So he called the watch maker and asked where he got his time. He said the radio station.

Big fancy talk is learned behavior.

Conclusion to a problem is reasoning.

Definition of cognition- the mental action or process of aquiring knowledge and understanding through thaught, experience or senses.

Definition of reasoning- action of thinking about something in a logical sensible way. Or to find an answer to a problem by considering various possible solutions.

Therefore I believe aquiring the knowledge is the cognitive part. Deciding what to do with the knowledge is reasoning.

There appears to be as many types of reasoning as there are stray cats in an Asian restaurant dumpster.

Giving animals any human abilities is thinking like PETA. All animals are nothing more than a natural resource and should be treated as such.

Everybody wants their pets to be special. I think most will agree, the special is a projection.

Peta agenda is to take our rights they care less about animals.
My pup is not a natural resource she is used to catch out natural resources we use for food and clothing.
It's us trappers that love and protect our wildlife.

The Defense rest your Honor.

And when they train themselves? Our definition of reasoning could vary a little bit I guess?

Grandad had a mut that had a vocabulary of two or three hundred words. Understood not spoken, just for those with ancestors in Rio Linda.
He brought Grandad all kinds of things when asked to. Pipe, several different ones and styles, shoes, tobacco pouch, car keys, kids! Yep Grandad could name a child and Nick would find the kid and return with him or her, we had about forty acres to play in. It took Nick about twice being told to “Get the paper “ before he started watching for the paperboy. Grandmother would go out after dawn and unlatch the henhouse and after the chickens were out Nick would get his basket out of the pantry and go collect the eggs and bring them to the kitchen and put the basket on the table. This started after Grandmother let him carry the basket back to the house a couple of times.
Was Nick unique in the dog world? Not in my opinion, rare, yes. If you search famous dogs, there are a bunch of them that have done many amazing things that scientists are unable to explain. Somethings a child of eight or ten
probably couldn’t do. Things like traveling overland over two thousand miles to reunite with their families. Or picking the Kentucky Derby winner seven years in a row.
The “Faithful “ would protest “that is learned behavior “ or “that is cognitive behavior “. Me thinks they doth protest to much.
Mr. June I think your labeling Mr. Darwin’s studies a “ religion “ is beneath your intelligence and dignity. As always
JMO

And don’t even get me started on the two way conversations recorded between the gorilla and humans, or the bonobo chimp and humans. Conversation that is easily understood by Anyone fluent in American Sign Language.

Once again, that's learned behavior. Cognition, not reasoning. You can teach a mina bird to ask for a cracker. You' can't teach a mina bird or any gorilla to solve a logic problem.

Dog paws at a lever, food falls out. One day, food doesn’t fall out. It stops pawing at the lever. Does it know it’s empty or does it see a plastic bag has blocked the hole and resolve the problem or does it just stop because there is nothing coming out when it paws the lever?

Learning to sign is as you say learned behavior. However participation in a conversation cannot be learned behavior as the thread of the conversation has an infinite number of pathways it can take.

Not true, conversations can be led. Lawyers practice it all the time when they can get away with it.

Man, this is fun! What else you got?

Lol

Animals ......other than humans....are not self-aware. They have no idea that they will someday die. We have that innate knowledge. I think animals can learn, and certainly are driven by instinct, but I do not believe they have the capacity to reason.

Birds may be in a different category...slightly.

Look at the video below. Theses animals don't even recognize themselves, and don't have the ability to reason out the situation they are in.

Maybe maybe not.

Wow! I’m flattered.

However, the thread title “when YOU get it wrong” says it all.

No matter what unique circumstances you want to look at animals doing it doesn't come anywhere close, not even in the same ballpark, as having the ability to reason at anywhere the same level as humans. If one approaches it from a scientific level and truly understand the capacities of humans and animal some would realize they arent using their full capacity in this conversation.

Yes sir I agree but the original question was can a animal reason. Know one has said anything about reasoning to a humans degree. I really do appreciate all the imput.thanks to all.

Conclusion:
[So maybe they can, maybe they can't.]

Good one!

Valid point. My opinion as a whole they can't. But its truly hard to determine what is a higher level of intelligence combined with learned behavior and what might be a small shred of ability to reason. To fine a line to determine which side they are on.

My cat leaves headless chipmunks on my steps.
She must know I don't like brains either.
I think you're on to something there. My cat's a lot smarter than I gave her credit for.

I have seen too many critters doing things that required, in my arm-chair biologist mind, actual reasoning ability. That being said, I believe any beast with a brain advanced enough to have a "memory" has the ability to reason. What is reason if it isn't a memory of things the animal has experienced and is acting on?

Example, rubbing two sticks together they get hot. If I rub them together fast enough and long enough, they should make fire. Why? Because fire is hotter than the stickswhen I rubbed them a little bit.

Somebody did that the first time.

What memory was used to build the gasoline engine? lol

The cold cold morning in 1893, when Rudolf Diesel couldn't get his car to start ?

No such thing as a dumb question.

lol

Reason and memory are two different things altogether. What is reason? In it's simplest for it is logic; basically the ability to figure out "If this, then that." No animal has ever been able to complete this basic logic, no matter how hard scientists try, they cannot find any behavior that cannot be explained by learned behavior. That includes communication, use of tools, etc. Humans can reason, animals cannot.

Here's another one to chew on. Only humans have emotion.

Bernie are these the same scientists that believe the world was never under water and carbon dates a 30 year old snail to be 6 thousand years old?

....

C'mon Bernie, aren't you one of those guys that says big boar bear kill cubs so they can breed with the sow? I've heard that said by all manner of people. I think we are defining "reason" two different ways. I believe animals can reason, but I don't believe they have the ability to take it up a notch or two and, for and example, think " if I eat that cub, I can expect it's mother to come into estrous a year earlier than if I don't eat it". Isn't it reasoning when a bear shifts it's late summer range to take advantage of a good acorn crop, or other food source? How about the folks in Montana/Wyoming that say Grizzly Bear are habituated to rifle shots meaning food. Are they not reasoning that there may be grub over there where that shot just rang out? Is it not reason, or just memory? I say they can be one and the same. As for your statement about emotion.......I believe they have that too. Watch a dog you've known for years, you can tell when they are happy or maybe pouting.

Keith

You can't be serious? You have never saw a happy animal? An animal that was scared?

How about the animals graveside greaving for the loss of their master for so many years that monuments are erected to honor the animal. Many instances.

Reason and memory are two different things altogether. What is reason? In it's simplest for it is logic; basically the ability to figure out "If this, then that." No animal has ever been able to complete this basic logic, no matter how hard scientists try, they cannot find any behavior that cannot be explained by learned behavior. That includes communication, use of tools, etc. Humans can reason, animals cannot.

Here's another one to chew on. Only humans have emotion. [/quote]

C'mon Bernie, aren't you one of those guys that says big boar bear kill cubs so they can breed with the sow? I've heard that said by all manner of people. I think we are defining "reason" two different ways. I believe animals can reason, but I don't believe they have the ability to take it up a notch or two and, for and example, think " if I eat that cub, I can expect it's mother to come into estrous a year earlier than if I don't eat it". Isn't it reasoning when a bear shifts it's late summer range to take advantage of a good acorn crop, or other food source? How about the folks in Montana/Wyoming that say Grizzly Bear are habituated to rifle shots meaning food. Are they not reasoning that there may be grub over there where that shot just rang out? Is it not reason, or just memory? I say they can be one and the same. As for your statement about emotion.......I believe they have that too. Watch a dog you've known for years, you can tell when they are happy or maybe pouting.

[/quote]

Your describing pavlov's dog(pavlovian conditioning),not reasoning in the least.

Only humans have emotions? I have a hard time believing that. Everyone shows emotions differently so how can you say animals don't show emotions? Tell me your dog doesn't show happines when you give them a treat? Tell me they don't show remorse when they're done something wrong?

Is fear an emotion?

I set trap, catch critter, dispatch said critter, skin critter, dispose of remains, sleep well at night, REPEAT. Maybe it is I, the wrapper that shows no emotions. Critters may remember things like where food is o what others smell like but it is all instinct driven. My 2 pennies.

I heard a goodin a few months back by a German pyscologist when asked about the American educational knowledge;

He said, "They are a mile wide and an inch deep on all subjects."
What? He are not a mile wide!

Ouch.

Instinct or reasoning ??

A lot of good stories here, but I don't know if they are proof that animals can reason. I had a german shorthair when I was young, great dog can't remember a bird I knocked down that he didn't find. One time he went on point, I walked in and a quail got up I dropped it. Then another got up dropped it too. All in all 8 quail got up one by one and I had my limit. But they kept getting up one at a time. I went up to the dog, and I'll be darned. He had ran the whole covey down a ground hog hole and was leaving them up one at a time. But he couldn't reason that the limit was eight.

Science says dogs have emotions. Breeders will say the same. Fear, joy and anger are the ones I see in my dog.

Not exactly. Perhaps my understanding of Reasoning is flawed.

This morning my dog ran with the 4wheeler for quite awhile and was tiring some. He runs off the trail and down the hollow or whichever way his freedom takes him. A few times I noticed when he was downhill from me and saw my direction of travel was his way he sat and waited for me to get there. Is it reason that leads him to believe that he can wait there. He has never been on this trail before. Rudimentary reasoning? Not claiming he is Socrates but he suprises me all the time with his wit.

There are many shows that shows monkeys using rocks to break nuts open to eat what's inside and crows using sticks to reach inside places to get bugs.

I find it fascinating that we try to figure out the animal kingdom.
I wonder if animals do the same about humankind?

I would say pack hunting instinct.

Ok another example. A good friends dog is gun shy. We were preparing traps one day when the sound of the snaps were too much for him and he dissapeared. Our search found him waiting by the gate to my place quite a ways away. Did reason tell him he wouldn't miss the ride home there? The second time it could be claimed a learned behavior. But the first?

I would say the gate kept him from going on home or you have found him in the dog house.

So is ability to reason prerequisite to ability to remember and learn, or is there no such things as "learn" or "remember", that everything already existed in instinct?

Around and around the little wheel goes what we don't know we suppose.

No.

The gate was wide open. Just saying. Thank you for your reply.

Did he know that? Just asking. lol

I think he knew he would be found there.

Didn't know his way beyond that point. No gps app on his cell phone.

If yall ever wondered who was the bigger 'richard' on Trapperman, myself or Hobbie then here is your answer!

If using tools is a learned behavior, who or what taught them? Another bird? Another chimp? And if so you still have the original that “taught” themselves.

They say the average person today has as many or more facts stored in their brain as the Harvard graduate of 1900 did. Facts, figures, stats, that kind of stuff.
Are we developing better brains then?

Mimicry.

And “chew on this “ someone posted videos of cats freaking out at their reflection in a mirror. The exact same response was recorded in the wild children “humans” when they encountered their own reflection in a mirror.
So perhaps we should be asking is the ability to reason a learned behavior. I know for a fact that I have met quite a few adult humans that were totally without reason.