Fundamentally, there are three types of minds: rational, animal, and plant.

 

The key trait of rational minds is the ability to think -- to make inferences.

But that ability really hinges on the ability to derive universals from particulars. This ability to form universals also explains our ability to go from general to specific, as in the argument:

 

1. All dogs are mammals.

2. Butch is a dog.

----

3. Therefore, Butch is a mammal.

 

The conclusion from the first two premises is possible mainly because of our ability to see that Butch is a member of something bigger than himself and therefore must share the same properties as that concept. So, just because our reasoning is going from general to specific, it's not as if there's anything fundamentally different occurring than when we go from specific to general.

 

Our ability to form universals is also involved in more subtle types of reasoning, such as noticing patterns, even when those patterns don't always or even often occur.

 

AI would be included in the category of rational minds.

 

Animal minds, by definition, lack the ability to form universals. Their distinguishing feature is the ability to obtain particular objects in the perceptual realm. These objects are known as percepts.

 

but can still

 

mammals are warm-blooded and that

 

Rational minds are capable of making inferences -- that is, judgements from a given piece of information. This includes induction (deriving universals from particulars) and deduction (deriving particulars fromv