Agreed with the last person. Humans are mostly instinct we just delude ourselves into believing we are special. Reptile cognition is different but it is not absent. Things like this are what kept us from recognizing avian intelligence for so long. We assumed since their brains lacked certain structures ours had, then they couldn't think. Them we found they were thinking with a different part of their brain and some like parrots could do some cognitive tasks as well as human children do. Baby chickens can do simple arithmetic better than baby humans. Believing that other animals have certain characteristics we do isn't necessarily anthropomorphizing given that many animals have at least some things in common despite our differences. Considering animals to be no better than automatons is more destructive than anthropomorphizing and has no actual basis in unbiased science. It's merely human arrogance that says that both most animals, as well as nonspeaking or cognitively impaired humans, are merely automatons until proven otherwise. It's bias masquerading as reason. And it's the same bias that leads people who look at me to declare I must have no internal life. I am not saying all animals think the same but for cripes sake even bees have their own form of intelligence, even invertebrates like octupi, so surely reptiles do too. Humans are just stupid enough to define intelligence as similarity to ourselves. No animal can survive in the wild without thinking and making decisions.
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"In my world it's a place of patterns and feel. In my world it's a haven for what is real. It's my world, nobody can steal it, but people like me, we live in the shadows." -Donna Williams