I believe, generally, that many non-human organisms have a greater capacity for thought and feeling, temporal conceptions, and so on than we generally believe to be true. Research on comparative neurophysiology and behavior is always interesting. This article relates research conducted with bees showing that they may exhibit behaviors generally attributed to the pre-frontal cortex (which bees do not have) in higher organisms. Interesting stuff. http://phys.org/news/2013-10-bee-brains-view-larger-superior.html#ajTabs
I remember discussing the concept of Encephalization Quotient (EQ) in my early anthro classes and I always felt it sounded like anthrocentric propaganda. When you get to creatures like elephants and cetaceans that show such a tremendous cerebral cortex, I'm like, come on, you can't tell me that creature isn't self aware in there. You can't tell me that a humpback whale isn't looking at me and thinking, "Damn, you are one ugly little thing. Sucks to be you."
We have so much to learn about alien brains. Between spiders that hunt, requiring higher level thinking, corvids (crows) that can solve multi step problems and manufacture tools, to cephalopods whose brains exist not just in a central head, but also partially in the creature's arms, non-human intelligence is absolutely fascinating. Watch this spider escape the terrarium. (Warning it's worthy of Halloween creepy ) The quiet background conversation is not part of the show, no need to try to hear it. The only related speaking is at the very end. For those with less time, the action starts @ 1:15 and the most clear idea of what is going on starts @ 1:59 into the video.
That was pretty amazing. Strangely, it doesn't surprise, knowing how Portia learns the dances and movements of other spiders to fool them into thinking they're about to hook up, but instead become dinner. And Portia is TINY compared to a tarantula, so imagine the difference in brain size.
I've watched spiders exhibit some pretty advanced behaviors. It is fascinating. Some orb spiders show memory when constructing webs, and that's pretty cool too.
