Things happen in our world but how is a mystery. How do baby seagulls learn to forage for clams as the tide ebbs…..then extract the clam from the mud….then carry the clam over a hard surface and drop the clam so the shell cracks and dinner is served?
pretty sure its all learned. instinct is just to watch and see how others do things that you need to learn how to do to survive. just as when we're infants and haven't learned how to talk yet, we see adults communicating or hear them doing so in the other room and we see how things happen after they do and realize the power of being able to communicate and want to be able to do things being able to communicate makes it possible to do. curiosity i think is instinct. and that motivates wanting to learn. so of course does hunger and fatigue.
I think Mom and Dad bird showed by example, which leads us back to the chicken and the egg... which came first?
"If you have men who would exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with his fellow men." Francis of Assisi
The other complicating factor is that many creatures have sensory abilities far beyond what we can imagine. The scent ability of dogs is legendary; hearing and vision of other animals is truly amazing. We have a pet parrot that we take in a travel cage to watch ducks (she quacks when she wants to go) and she hears the beeping of the walk signal at a traffic light when we are a block away. She starts mimicking the sound even tho we are in a closed vehicle and traffic. Not a hint of sound from the signal to the humans in the car.
Very true! Had many kitties and several dogs all my life. Too many stories to tell in one post. But yes, they can sense things. And no NOT just our poor five senses, other things we have NO flippin' clue about! The time my 10 yr old cat came and curled up against my chest in bed one night. The next night disappeared forever, probably caught by an owl. And while this is a bit graphic (sorry) my old terrier will sleep at my feet when I'm on the toilet at night. Just before I finish, he'll wake up and head for the door. As Shakespeare wrote, "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy."
"...Nobody has ever answered this question, and nobody ever will..." Simply because it's not an 'either-or' thing. For our (mostly) Western, analytical, left-hemisphere of the brain to answer. It's a process. Back and forth, never-ending, neither one or the other. A process, a continum. Our right-hemisphere is non-verbal, but can sense connections and the whole of things. So it's not Western or Eastern philosophies. Or even Male or Female. It's simply paying attention to both sides of our naturally-supplied-by-nature brain. Which requires work. And (unfortunately) most of us are too damn lazy.
