--- Well, any animal more neurologically complicated than a snake is able to analyze situations. The big difference is language, which allows nuanced communication and transmission of information past an individual's own lifespan.
It's interesting to think about how many coincidences of evolution allowed human beings to do what they do. If there was no language, if there were no opposable things (or tentacles or whatever), if we lived underwater like dolphins (no fire), if we were solitary animals like cats (no social cooperation), if we had very short lifespans (not much time to accumulate experience)... technological civilization as we know it would have been impossible.
Of course some animals do have fairly nuanced communication systems: Dolphin sonar-pictures and octopus skin-color variation come to mind. They're not language as we think of it, but you can imagine how they might develop into something similar given time.
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