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Originally Posted by CaramonLS
Ah yes Classical conditioning theory, but Text, you also bring up the more philisophical point of are human beings just comprised to various operant and classical conditioning responses?
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This is a horribly complicated and deeply dissatisfying problem with conditioning theory as I have presented it, but human beings do distinguish themselves from the rest of the animal kingdom (please correct me if I am wrong on this count) in their capacity to present emotively in a variety of highly complex situations. Aesthetic and moral stimulae, spiritual awareness, and simple communication will all evoke emotional responses. Is this learned or conditioned behaviour? Who knows? At the very least, I believe that the intricacies and varieties of human emotional expressions are enough to distinguish these from established animal patterns of behaviour as unique.
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Originally Posted by CaramonLS
Obviously Text, we'll never be able to see inside an animal's head any time soon and know whether or not they think about the future (is their any particular way to know that even for a fact?). I mean a squirrel gathers reserves of nuts, a bear eats a lot of food in order to prepare for the long hibernation period, I guess in some ways that is future oriented.
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Obviously, but unless there are a number of case examples of deviant behaviour for well established patterns in the animal kingdom, I believe it is safe to assume that hybernation, and food gathering are best understood as instinctive behaviours. As previously mentioned, bears—and squirrels for that matter—do not "plan", they merely do.