But whats makes him choose one or the otehr? Is an animal capable of random thoughts? Is anyone?

Something will make him choose one over the other. If they are both equal, then it could be anything. Maybe his neck itches, so he shakes his head and the first one he sees is to the left. He goes to it.

This is too open ended to provide any kind of satisfying answer. He will choose one, probably not at random (some factor in his brain will cause him to choose one over the other), but he will choose one.

perhaps their is a distinctive smell that one has that the other has... or there is something about the room that causes him to move to one direction or the other and then in turn causes him to eat the hay that he is then closest to..

you cannot from these judgements assume that he is going to eat one way or another..

there is countless possible factors that could lead him to go to one or the other if not eat both or starve himself..

one factor from the many factors could be that his first instinctive move would be to try and escape the room and then after he has tired himself he will then eat the hay that he is closest to

Nick

Assume there there is absolutely no particular stimulus to choose one or the other. The question is, all else being equal, how can an animal choose between one thing or another?

i guess its just the first thing that comes to its head.. apart from let me out of here

you would have to think to yourself...what if it was me in the room and it wasnt hay but another food that us humans eat

If everything is perfectly equal, then yes it will still choose either one of them, the main stimulus of 'being hungry' is still there, so ...

I'm not sure if you can call that random though, maybe he sees the two piles as 'one source of food', when it's equal? Making a choice is only relevant if making that choice would actually matter hehehe, but yes, perhaps that behavior would be the result of a random thought indeed.

Cheers

im hungry

Well i suppose its not really a philosophical paradox, more of a behavioral quandry..