Well the majority of animals learn from their parents and trial and error.
It's why when an animal is raised in captivity it becomes dangerous for it to be released unless properly trained how to hunt/gather food and build their houses.
We may not know completely how to survive in modern society but if dropped into the woods as children most of us would learn to fend for ourselves. Yes some might not but still if you drop a bunch of wild animals into a city to find food and shelter some would die while others would adapt.
And most of our materials are created by other members of our community.
For animals, they mostly have to get food themselves. Even when there is enough food, they're often looking out for danger or other things
It isn’t so much that we “do not know our purpose,” it’s that we want more. A common theme in life is a drive to survive and reproduce. The bare minimum any creature does is usually that. Finding food, shelter, water, hinting, gathering, blah blah. It all takes a lot of the day up- especially when you are also being mindful of defending yourself or doing everything “stealth mode.” As humans developed technology it became easier to survive and it took less time every day to see to our needs. We all COULD just sit in the grass and enjoy the sun, maybe play tag or sing, splash in some water or chase shiny things- many things animals do for what seems to be “fun-“ but... we want more. We want vehicles and complex entertainment, engineers food and homes that are safer and more comfortable than a cave or lean to.
We have complex language and if we sit and think all day we can link up like computers using our mouths and ears and share information, have others add to and improve whatever we thought up. Look at a rural society and you’ll see people largely behaving like an animal in nature in many ways. A day might involve tending their “territory”- a bird gathers things and adds to the nest- the rancher gathers wood and fixes a fence, gathers rocks to build a rock wall etc. The rural man goes hunting/fishing in the wild- tracking prey, bringing it down. Many Predators like cats do the same- spending some of their time hunting for “sport” to keep skills sharp and avoid boredom.
Like that cat, wolf, etc- when we humans have nothing to do and are “in nature” what do we do? We nap right? Save energy, not be bored. We might after like birds in a tee and sing songs or dance as well. But we want more. We don’t like boredom and we have big brains. We generally have access to constant high energy food and generally don’t need to conserve energy to hunt or avoid predators either. So we “improve” things.
“I like water. Wish I didn’t have to walk 2 hours to get more...” ok. We will find a way to have water here. Then a better way, better, so on. “I like stories but can’t always have a story teller...” ok. Here’s a book. Here’s a moving book. Heres a portable moving book. Here’s a portable moving book with every story ever. So on.
But we still get bored. The old joke “1,000 Channels and nothing to watch...” We pontificate and ruminate and ask questions. Try to understand the world, ourselves, each other. While most animals spend the majority of their time trying to sustain themselves or not be sustenance for someone else- we live long, mostly healthy lives mostly free of predation. We have routine. Food is constant work is constant. We don’t really wander and forage looking for new sources of our needs- we don’t have these dynamic days full of Hattie’s to survive. We don’t need to dedicate large amounts of attention and thought to Constance survival vigilance.
In fact- we’ve made survival so easy we see it as a dull thing. Go to work, eat, sleep, work. So on. Where as most animals only know the struggle to survive and would likely be more than happy to know theirs was all but assured- we say “surely there must be more than just surviving...” “surely life can’t just be about working and sleeping, eating and socializing. Surely these surface level and basic things can’t be it...” So we ask for, search for, more.
Tl:dr- think of life- survival- for all creatures like a video game. For animals it’s a hard game. For humans we’ve made it very easy. We have game shark- we took all the grinding out of the game. Like a game where you do this- 90% of the game is gone and you’re left bored. That’s where you stop playing missions or following the way they intended the game to play and start finding glitches and doing weird stuff. Animals are a 10yo playing Minecraft with hostiles the first time on the first night. Humans are the dude making working red stone gameboys and scale mount Rushmore’s. Life is the game we have to play and we took the challenge out of it so now we look for challenges or make our own.
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It's why when an animal is raised in captivity it becomes dangerous for it to be released unless properly trained how to hunt/gather food and build their houses.
We may not know completely how to survive in modern society but if dropped into the woods as children most of us would learn to fend for ourselves. Yes some might not but still if you drop a bunch of wild animals into a city to find food and shelter some would die while others would adapt.
For animals, they mostly have to get food themselves. Even when there is enough food, they're often looking out for danger or other things