Definition of "tool"
The key to identifying tool use is defining what constitutes a tool. Researchers of animal behavior have arrived at different formulations.
"an object carried or maintained for future use" —Finn, Tregenza, and Norman, 2009. "the use of physical objects other than the animal's own body or appendages as a means to extend the physical influence realized by the animal" —Jones and Kamil, 1973 "An object that has been modified to fit a purpose" or "An inanimate object that one uses or modifies in some way to cause a change in the environment, thereby facilitating one's achievement of a target goal". —Hauser, 2000Read more about this topic: Tool Use By Animals
Famous quotes containing the words definition of, definition and/or tool:
“The very definition of the real becomes: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction.... The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced. The hyperreal.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“The physicians say, they are not materialists; but they are:MSpirit is matter reduced to an extreme thinness: O so thin!—But the definition of spiritual should be, that which is its own evidence. What notions do they attach to love! what to religion! One would not willingly pronounce these words in their hearing, and give them the occasion to profane them.”
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“Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made? or declared by any number of men to be good, if they are not good? Is there any necessity for a man’s being a tool to perform a deed of which his better nature disapproves?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)