Ask Lemmy

They are like people who never learn language. This sometimes happens to deaf people who are not taught to use sign language. Any inference about such a person’s intellect and capacities should be abstracted towards mammals at least.

No, at least not most animals. There was a study a while back that showed that animals think by reducing the world to a series of binary choice that they react to in the moment. I imagine it's a lot like when you're playing a sport or video game and things get very intense and fast paced; your inner monologue isn't telling you what your next move will be every second, you're just reacting on instinct. That's probably how animals see the world all the time.

That being said, "animals," is a broad category, and some of them may be capable of creating an abstract narrative for themselves. It was recently discovered that whale songs have a phonetic alphabet, which means their language may be as complex as ours. If that's the case, they may be capable of using that language to build an internal monologue.

I'm not sure about all animals, but I'm pretty sure my sphinx cat does. I have to give her medicine every day and not only does she knows when it's time to get it, but there are times where she will hide under the bed. Just laying down and looking at her and asking her to come out is enough to get her to wander over slowly and get it. It's funny, you can almost see the thoughts going through her head as she realizes she has to just give in and go get her pill.

I don't think they have an internal monologue. I think they just react to their senses.

No, they operate on instinct. Our thoughts are in our own language, their only language is instinct and body language (barks included).

None of them have language beyond associating a small number of specific sounds or words to objects or events but I would bet my legs just above the knee down that Dolphins monologue "Squee-aww" when they spot a scuba diver. Dogs definitely daydream about you calling their name when you're away for a long time. If they couldn't in some way internalize the call then they would not remember it.

EDIT: To add onto my claim that they don't have language beyond a certain level, that's what we've been able to prove so far. We know that some of the smarter animals, such as dolphins, crows, and gorillas can understand quite a few words with daily training and even use and pass down taught language to limited capacity, but the longest experiments for complex languages with these animals have all resulted in "failure" to teach them or learn from them to the extent of being able to have conversations or form complex statements.

I think they do

How do you know other humans have thoughts? There is no way of measuring it, and there is no way to tell if someone is lying about it. You could measure brain activity. But There is no need for brain activity to be accompanied by experience. There is no law of nature that says that electrical signals are accompanied by experience or thoughts. There is also no way to tell the difference between a millimeter cube of brain from any animal. So if you believe that brain activity is represented by thoughts, then there is absolutely no way to draw an arbitrary line between humans and animals.

So i don't even think it's a question.