The mechanics of other minds | Philip Ball
Philosophy For Our Times
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The Cognitive Skills of Birds
The cognitive skills of birds are astonishingly diverse. We know amongst them we find maybe the best claimsfor non mammal consciousness, and examples of artistry that raise questions about animal ascetics. And even sometimes rather closely related bird species show very different cognitive abilities. This illustrates that minds don't come as a package that is simply passed down the evolutionary chain. They're strongly adapted and shaped by the specific evolutionary niches and strategies that each creature adopts.
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