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> dhw: [i]I’m glad you’ve now omitted the inverted commas round ‘knew’. So an organism knows it has a problem, communicates with its mates to try and solve the problem, but knowing you have a problem and communicating with others in order to find a solution does not require thought. And elsewhere you have dismissed as “hyperbole” the very idea that communication and problem-solving require thought. “No way,” you said. He who thinks he sees all, sees not his own blinkers (new Taunton proverb).[/i]
> 
> DAVID: [i]You are right: no thought involved, just receiving a stimulus and automatically responding.[/i]
> 
> So when humans have a problem and discuss it and come up with a solution, they think, and even animals and birds do the same, and maybe insects like ants do the same – though they’re a bit small, so I’m never sure whether you believe they think or not – but you know that bacteria don’t. They don’t have brains like ours and they’re much too small. A fine example of what Shapiro calls “[i]Large organisms chauvinism[/i]”.