If I were an Atheist

[The Reality Salesman01]

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I know my dog has free-will (In some capacity that allows options beyond instinctive reaction). When I have food on the table, he sits close by and starts staring at me. I tell him to "go look in your dish", and he goes. He walks up, looks in his dish, and then comes back to the table without eating a bite. If he was entirely behold unto his desire to eat and satisfy hunger, he would have eaten what was in his dish. Instead, he, dare I say "chooses" to wait for the off chance of something different. It's only when the last dish has been cleaned and put away that he'll go back and eat his own food but, not always. Some times he'll just go lay down somewhere. Now I don't have a clue what that means, but he's defeinitely deciding something when he turns away from that dish, and I certainly didn't force him.

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A table-scrap or two never hurt, man -- c'mon, have a heart.

Yes, I am your dog's lawyer.

He wouldn't be sitting there if he didn't know there was a chance to score. Plus, my son practically splits his food with him. Lol

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I know my dog has free-will (In some capacity that allows options beyond instinctive reaction). When I have food on the table, he sits close by and starts staring at me. I tell him to "go look in your dish", and he goes. He walks up, looks in his dish, and then comes back to the table without eating a bite. If he was entirely behold unto his desire to eat and satisfy hunger, he would have eaten what was in his dish. Instead, he, dare I say "chooses" to wait for the off chance of something different.

Brian Hare currently is one of the leads into the dog mind. There are a bunch of videos up on youtube showing his work and some presentations. Theres also a center that studies dog cognition in Vienna. It's funny that dogs are with us for tens of thousands of years, but science only started to study their mind within the last decade or so.

Very cool! I'm very fascinated by the dog mind. Thanks!