Read this in Yahoo news yesterday. its basically about a dog that saved the boy's life by biting his foot to wake him up when their house caught fire. Really nice of the dog to save his master right? but then again, if the dog loved his master, isnt it just natural for it to save him? but some would probably say, "its a dog! its amazing that it thought of saving his master or that they are in danger" Well, the dog has always been credited with loyalty, so would it still be surprising that it saved his master? A dog can think, so im not surprised that it did that. And its possible that a dog can decide whether it should save its master or not (depending on how it feels abouts its master).
Anyway, what im trying to say is, are animals really as stupid as we think (or as i think people think)? They could probably be much smarter and secretly laughing at how stupid humans are. Douglas Adams in his book said, humans are third in rank when in comes to being the smartest in the planet. the second placer in terms of intelligence are the dolphins. the mice are the most intelligent beings in the planet. why? well, read the book :). its fiction so its not really offensive to humans who consider themselves as the pinnacle of evolution.
point is, when i watch national geographic channel, scientists and researchers say they are surprised and amazed whenever animals beat humans in some tests regarding intelligence and brain use. it depends on how we define intelligence in the first place. of course, with the way we craft the definition, its based on how we understand intelligence and the standards we set. i mean, fine, a dog is illiterate. its not capable of being literate but what use is literacy for a dog? and our form of literacy is for humans. so why would a dog aspire to adopt that? its possible for dogs having their own set of rules for literacy. they can communicate with each other dont they? literacy is for reading and writing, and reading and writing is for communicating with others and expressing oneself. dogs are fully capable of the latter. we developed this literacy thing because its convenient and complicated at the same time. i noticed that humans like to complicate things to make thing convenient. example is technology, the more complicated it gets, the more convenient things are. point is, maybe animals dont have a thing for that. they like to keep things simple. being attuned with their environment and the planet is enough. having the bare necessities is sufficient to make their lives worthwhile. that doesnt make them "stupid" as we think. it just so happens we have a different way of measuring intelligence.
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