The most surprising thing I learned in Dan Gilbert’s interview on PredictionX and Psychology is that there is s psychological lens by which humans believe that animals think about the future. The example of storing food and thinking it might not be there in the future is quite interesting as I had originally thought of this behavior under the biological scope where the animal behavior is thought to be a learned response due to years of evolution. In this case it is not a behavior that proves an animal is thinking of the future but rather a response to food not being there in the past and correcting for that circumstance through evolution and adaptation’s trial and error. Those who did not learn to store food died off. It is interesting that this model of animals thinking about the future exists and proves a consciousness about a time that is not having to do with what is presently happening to their body – which seems to be a very complex prefrontal thought process that I never considered. Though Gilbert does not believe that any other animal besides humans sit around and ponder the future, this is still a very interesting thought.
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