[Abstract]

Since I referenced making choices as well in my expose on the idea of a soul I feel obliged to answer your question about the nature of the choices of which I speak. Yes the choice to hunt the healthy gazelle or the sickly one is a choice even animals can make... however there is no precedent to say that animals can act upon a complex series of external and internal stimuli to create the basis of a complex choice, weighing in morals (an element, often times, of the non corporeal soul of which we now speak) and personal opinions upon a subject far grander then the next meal.

To put it more accurately, though most likely far more bluntly, I would like to draw a comparison. In a wolf pack the leader is chosen by fights for dominance... the victor taking upon control of the pack until such a time that a stronger individual comes along and beats them in a similar fashion. Now while I wish I could reference the democratic system upon which my country is run as the second piece of this analogy the sad truth is in its current state such an institution is rarely better. That being said I will reference the basic nature of a singular, and informed voters experience through such a system owing to the fact that in these isolated cases the nature of the choice I speak of becomes clear. As the voting season nears we listen to adds, read editorials, and are force fed endless streams of political mudslinging... not much unlike a fight for dominance. However, in the minds of a large number (and yes I will admit this is not the most general example but it is the most direct) look beyond the mudslinging, they read platform information, watch the debates, learn all they can about the validity of the promises made by the candidates. And then they take the gathered information, weigh it against their own values, for nothing fits perfectly, and decide on a founded set of principles which candidate most nearly agrees with their own opinions upon how the country should be run.

In this case the choice of which we speak is not some basic fight or flight mechanism designed to flow along a set route of interlocking neural pathways to a predefined decision as the choice you brought to light in your example. It is infact a choice that takes the ideas of higher level thinking, creativity (though in chimps this has been seen and so does not apply in quite the manner you suggest), and logical reasoning to create a singular path of action from which we can move upon for a more distant goal then the next meal.