Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2005

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Broadfield, Douglas C.

Abstract

There are certain properties of the human mind which allow abstract thought. These properties are responsible for the ability to create myth (or explanations of the unknown), cosmology, and culture. They are the seeds of all human phenomena not attributable to instinct. These properties can be isolated as the capacity for numeric logic and the mind functioning in terms of binary oppositions. The long held paradigm sees the human species as unique in possessing these qualities and well as the phenomena they yield. In order to challenge this paradigm, a two experiments are conducted on a chimpanzee to see if she possessed these properties. She successfully completed the cognitive tests on both experiments, thus implicating the human species as not unique in its abstractions.

Extent

59 p.

Comments

Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2005.|Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Identifier

FADT13309

Format

pdf

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