BirdBrains & Animal Minds
Immortalist
The traditional view of animal intelligence, with finches and gorillas
merely heading the lists of nonhuman animals learning clever tricks, is
being replaced with how birds, apes, and others solve problems without the
advantages of the human brain. The story of our own species' long, slow
coming to terms with our non-unique status illustrate how perhaps
intelligence is not distributed equally, even among humans, but it seems
fair to say that we've lost our monopoly. What about our responsibilities to
those whose capacity for suffering has been quietly ignored for centuries
but now has been shown to be on par with our own?
In the past, scientists have refused to acknowledge that animals have
anything like human intelligence. But a growing body of research reveals
otherwise. We've discovered ants that use leaves as tools to cross bodies of
water, woodpecker finches that hold twigs in their beaks to dig for grubs,
and bonobo chimps that can use sticks to knock down fruit or pole-vault over
water. Not only do animals use tools--some display an ability to learn and
problem-solve, as well. But most startling of all are the birdbrains: Alex
the parrot, who can identify objects, colors, shapes, relationships like
bigger and smaller, and can carry on real conversations; those art critic
pigeons who do as well as college students on mental imagery tests; and
Chinese cormorants who function as ''fisherbirds'' for fishermen, counting
fish as they work.
Animal intelligence, cognitive ability, problem solving, and emotion in
various animals is becoming quite apparent. We need a more intense
investigation of the minds of predators and scavengers, birds and primates,
rodents, and other species. Have you ever looked at a tiger in the zoo or at
your own dog in the yard and wondered what they were thinking--if anything?
Do cats get depressed? "Does the beaver have the dam in mind?" Can we say
animals think and feel as we do? If so, which animals? Does your dog see
itself in the mirror? Chimpanzees sometimes make threatening gestures
against thunderstorms. Some animals (not just chimps, either) deserve to be
considered conscious beings.
From Altamira to Anthropomorphism
In the beginning, our lives were totally immersed in the world of animals.
In the beginning, in fact, we were animals, in the colloquial as well as the
technical sense of that word. Our Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon ancestors
relied on birds and beasts for food and clothing; they went to the mat
one-on-one with tigers and bison and bears, and they took heavy casualties.
We were an integral part of a world that was "red in tooth and claw." Surely
it is no coincidence that our oldest surviving visual art--the cave
paintings at Altamira, Lascaux, and other sites in southern Europe--depict
cattle, horses, bison, and deer as objects of hunting and veneration.
Animals predominate; there are very few human figures in any of this work.
Then there is the idea that our earliest music might have been created in
response to the myriad sounds of the natural world. After all, those were
the only sounds we heard: There weren't any jets, jackhammers, or jukeboxes
around, but there were songbirds in profusion. No wonder Orpheus the
beguiling musician of Greek mythology, could mesmerize a rapt menagerie of
wild beasts, who responded to every note of his lyre.
While the very earliest Paleolithic art is dated about thirty thousand years
ago, the famous work in southern Europe is dated about 10,000 b.c.
Anthropologists believe that those highly artful ancestors were still
exclusively hunters and gatherers, but this economic and cultural
restriction would soon be overcome. At just about the time the
Solutreo-Magdalenian artists were producing their greatest "canvases" at
Altamira, the peoples of Mesopotamia and the Middle East were beginning
todomesticate mammals. In the long story of our relationship with animals
and our still-evolving understanding of the animal mind, domestication
marked the beginning of the estrangement that is still with us today. It was
a watershed of incalculable importance, as proved by the fact that it was
incorporated into all the creation stories of the time.
To continue ---
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/animalmind/intelligence.html
Beginning in the seventeenth century, modern science constructed a
mechanistic paradigm which views animals as automata or machines. From
Descartes to sociobiology and behaviorism in the present, the modern
tradition cast animals in the role of brutes or machines who can neither
feel nor think. Students trained in this paradigm quickly learn to avoid
reference to the subjective life of animals unless they desire ridicule.
Under the spell of behaviorism, scientists redescribe the love a chimpanzee
might experience as "attachment formation," the anger of an elephant as
"aggression exhibition," and the aptitude of a bird as a "conditioned
reflex." Journals typically refuse to publish papers that allude to animal
thoughts or emotions. Jane Goodall reports how extreme the mechanistic
outlook can be: "The first paper I wrote for `Nature,' the scientific
periodical, they actually crossed out where I put `he and she and who,' and
put `it.'"
Today, this situation is changing decisively as science undertakes an
exciting paradigm shift that embraces the study of animal emotions and
minds. Until the last few decades, human beings have languished in the
Paleolithic Era of their knowledge about animals. As evident in a spate of
recent books and the new discipline of "cognitive ethology" that studies
animal intelligence, science finally is beginning to fathom the depth of
animal complexity. Only in the 1960, for instance, when Jane Goodall went to
Gombe National Park in Tanzania, Africa, did human beings learn that
chimpanzees make and use tools. Not until 1983 did researchers discover that
elephants communicate with ultrasound. New studies suggest that rats dream
when they sleep and that the great apes have "self-awareness neurons"
responsible for self-consciousness.
Having misled us for so long about animals, science is initiating a
revolution in our understanding. Through evolutionary theory, genetics,
neurophysiology, and experimental procedures, many scientists are providing
strong evidence that animals feel and think in ways akin to us. The changes
began with Charles Darwin. His theory of natural selection informed us that
human beings are in fact animals and, as such, they evolve according to the
same evolutionary dynamics as nonhuman animals. Darwin argued that the
difference between nonhuman and human animals was one of degree, not form.
Although evolution became the dominant paradigm in biology, scientists
failed to appreciate the implications of his argument for evolutionary
continuity. While Darwin sketched our similarities with animals in The
Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, scientists found his argument
repugnant. In a profession that knows no limits to the cruelty it inflicts
on animals, mechanism has proved to be a most convenient worldview, allowing
animal experimenters to sleep at night.
Miller
Scott
"Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ukjsr4t...@corp.supernews.com...
Immortalist
"Miller" <chuml...@chartermi.net> wrote in message
news:uklpnkm...@corp.supernews.com...
> "self-awareness neurons"?!
>
> Scott
when self awareness occurs i suppose there would be some neurons in bed with
it.
Miller
>
> "Miller" <chuml...@chartermi.net> wrote in message
> news:uklpnkm...@corp.supernews.com...
> > "self-awareness neurons"?!
> >
> > Scott
>
> when self awareness occurs i suppose there would be some neurons in bed
with
> it.
Yes, but I mean, how were they identified? Have you ever heard of an
experiment being done on a person where certian individual brian cells were
surgically removed and when the patient woke up they found that they were
unaware of themselves? I'd like to see the abstract on this study..
Scott
Immortalist
>
> "Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:uklqprf...@corp.supernews.com...
> >
> > "Miller" <chuml...@chartermi.net> wrote in message
> > news:uklpnkm...@corp.supernews.com...
> > > "self-awareness neurons"?!
> > >
> > > Scott
> >
> > when self awareness occurs i suppose there would be some neurons in bed
> with
> > it.
>
> Yes, but I mean, how were they identified? Have you ever heard of an
> experiment being done on a person where certian individual brian cells
were
> surgically removed and when the patient woke up they found that they were
> unaware of themselves? I'd like to see the abstract on this study..
>
> Scott
if you took one nut fragment out of a penut butter cookee that was below
your visual sensitivity has the property of cookee changed. Or I mean if you
have an peice of iron made of 100 billion atoms and you took one out would
that effect the emergent property of solidness.
If I am reading you right are you suggesting that consciousness is not an
ongoing emergent property of billions of components? Are you suggesting that
awareness doesn't depend upon billions of changing components?
Miller
I am suggesting that a valid argument cannot be made based only on a
throw-away terms like "cognitive ethicity" and "self-awareness neurons", no
matter how large a number are delivered. Supporting evidence is not valid
simply because it can be stated. You want to state that animals are
"self-aware"? Try defining self-awareness first.
Scott
John Jones
how we see the animal world? Gawd help us if it's how we see ourselves.
Ere' what your game?
John Jones
Someone coined this daft phrase, thats all. We are not aware 'of' anything,
least of all aware of 'awareness'. Take away 'self' and take away 'awareness
of', and that will leave us, just possibly, 'aware'. But not 'of' anything -
for thats no more than a report of awareness.
JJ
Immortalist
I am not claiming that animals are self aware, but i do _believe_ that some
sort of self awareness runs in the mammilion family and that there is no
real difference in *kind* but just a difference in *degree* of
"self-awareness"
As for numbers of components and emergent properties, solidness which
appears when atoms are combined and disappears when taken apart does seem
like some evidence for the possibility that we live in a world where
emergent properties can display very complex qualities.
I would personally define self awareness as a result of self-awareness
producing neurons. These would be the required neural activity for the
ongoing condition of self awareness. Though this form of property
interactionism is far from provable, it does seem to have more evidence
going for it than classical dualism. This kind of dualism is alomost
extinct, it has failed in part because no one has been able to concieve of a
way by which a non-corporeal force can interact with meatware, set muscles
into action or guide behavior at least without repealing the laws of
physics. Though masses of emergent properties happening simualtaniously in
time and space could appear to be non-corporeal, this only would seem to be
the case.
So this request for a definition of self awarenes, is it motivated to bring
all theories on par with your own preferred theory of self awareness, to the
betterment or detriment of biological organisms, or are you just intreiged
by epistemology like me?
> Scott
>
>
Immortalist
"John Jones" <burgerb...@supanet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:aiferp$rjj$2...@chilli.nntp.netline.net.uk...
> Tricks, tools, cognitive ability and problem solving capabilities? Is that
> how we see the animal world? Gawd help us if it's how we see ourselves.
>
> Ere' what your game?
>
discovery! the journey! the wonder of life and it's consideration, the
preponderance of such dwellings upon.
>
Opie Taylor
----------
On Sat, 3 Aug 2002 03:30:27 -0700, "John Jones" <burgerb...@supanet.co.uk>
wrote:
_____________________________________
Regards, Opie
He who knows one religion knows none.
Immortalist
since awareness is time bound and must flow it would be an ongoing reportage
or unfolding memory of being aware.
> JJ
>
>
>
>
John Jones
Yes, thats right. To report something takes time, but awareness can be
independent of time, if only because it changes, but is always the frist
presentation nevertheless. If it changes in its first presentation, it is
still a first presentation and that can be made in an instant, or in a
measure for which a yardstick cannot be found.
Sir Frederick
Yes, "self awareness" is false folk theory.
"Awareness" is false folk theory as is "self".
They are pragmatic, magical mental models.
I accept there use, but not in ignorance.
--
Best,
Frederick Martin McNeill
Poway, California, United States of America
mmcn...@fuzzysys.com
http://www.fuzzysys.com
*************************
Phrase of the week :
"If a man speaks in the forest and there is
no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?"
--Carlin
:-))))Snort!)
*************************
John Jones
other folks affairs now is it? because we don't cotton on to strangers come
down upon us like as to see us as being stared at, and for us to look up and
see a stupid look of 'wonder' on some face.
Sounds a larf though. Give it a go. In a for a penny, in for a pound.
John Jones
word 'awareness'. I wouldn't blame the 'folks' if a metaphysical meaning is
put to 'awareness' - blame the philosopher for that. The philosopher can be
a bit decadent like that.
Immortalist
I like that. So each instant is like a seperate clone which believes it is
you. But I get problemetical thought when I think you might clain no
corelation with structures within the brain and their activities.
This.self.with.memories();
>
>
>
>
>
Immortalist
What word(s) do you suggest we use for self-awareness, awareness,
consciousness etc... being or stream of consciousness or stream of
experience. Did philosopher start the use of the terminology awareness?
>
Immortalist
i own this, see if you can take it if you will.
>
Jeremy Martin
<burgerb...@supanet.co.uk> wrote:
I'm aware that your post makes absolutely no sense.
--
Jeremy Martin (Dethstryk) aa #75C
BAAWA Knit
"My dad used to give out habanero peppers to kids on Halloween and tell them they were little pumpkins. Stupid kids."
- crotchrot, SA Forums
Mark Richardson
<burgerb...@supanet.co.uk> wrote:
>No. you don't want to bother with self awareness.
Who are you talking too?
>The idea is nonsense.
>Someone coined this daft phrase, thats all. We are not aware 'of' anything,
>least of all aware of 'awareness'. Take away 'self' and take away 'awareness
>of', and that will leave us, just possibly, 'aware'. But not 'of' anything -
>for thats no more than a report of awareness.
>
What?
Mark
Miller
All philosophy is epistemology. Discussing Plato and his forms, Hume and
his leviathan, are just exercises in academics. I do not offer dualism as a
sort of substitute for what you term emergent properties. But I do not
think that any definite theory, just because scientific or philosophical
terms are tossed about, is being explicitly supported here. Especially when
we are talking about inherently esoteric things such as self-awareness.
Scott
Miller
That's cool.
Scott
GeneIn
while walking through a woods one day, i became
aware of a figure to my left whom i later
recognized as an old friend.....as we trudge along
we both became aware of hunger and thirst and
stopped at a local pizza stand who owner was busy
flipping dough in the air but then became aware of
our presence after scraching his ass after he
became aware that it itched........i later that
day meditated for a spell and when all thoughts
were gently dispelled (if only for a brief
moment), i became aware of an awareness.....
g
Immortalist
If we are portrayed as all in the dark here about self awareness, then by
default, dont we consider data from sciences that have at least some
verifiability. If self-awareness is an group of properties emerging from the
brain's activities, isn't the contribution of the sciences that experiment
and theorize about the brain helpful and useful medically as concerns drugs
and operations? I can't see any way of going about thiis without first
clearly accounting for accumulated science evidence about these affairs.
It seems to me that any ideas or basic theorizing about the brain or
self-awareness should account for what the brain sciences can verify rather
than to simply disregard them by default because of religion or politics or
prefered classical philosophy. Even if at this point, we cannot verify a
complete theory of consciousness or self-awareness, seems not a sufficient
reason for disregarding these incomplete but at least verifiable partial
theories, out of hand, in favor of something people just make up that seems
logical and accumulates an history of logical sounding rhetoric and
language.
>
>
Miller
related to religion. But I do not favor junk science either, or more
importantly what may be junk interpretation of that science.
To say that an animal is self-aware, and then verifying it by "proving
scientifically" that they have emotions, problem-solving abilities, etc. is
bad science. One is simply begging the question--we have already accepted
the hypothesis that animals are more like humans than we care to admit, and
now we are interpreting behavior in such a way as to support that
hypothesis. Is this so much different from a believer who thinks there
ought to be a reason not to believe in moral relativity and so follows a
particular religious dogma to justify that belief?
This is not to say that any particular scientific interpretation is worse
than a spiritual one--I am simply suggesting that this process of
interpretation--of assigning value to an event and calling it knowledge, is
part of what makes us human. To have yourself (or your species, anyway) as
the measure of all else.
Thank you for your observations, they have been most stimulating.
Scott
"Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:uknvfia...@corp.supernews.com...
stephen burke
what is this self?
>
Immortalist
> I do not favor things that "people make" up--especially myths and dogma
> related to religion. But I do not favor junk science either, or more
> importantly what may be junk interpretation of that science.
>
> To say that an animal is self-aware, and then verifying it by "proving
> scientifically" that they have emotions, problem-solving abilities, etc.
is
> bad science. One is simply begging the question--we have already accepted
> the hypothesis that animals are more like humans than we care to admit,
and
> now we are interpreting behavior in such a way as to support that
> hypothesis. Is this so much different from a believer who thinks there
> ought to be a reason not to believe in moral relativity and so follows a
> particular religious dogma to justify that belief?
>
Some areas of science are like religion but do not depend upon as much
faith. Usually it is a "how much" question that is debatable tilee further
evidences narrow it down. It is cool to go out on a limb sometimes, that
there is a limb is more than I can say for some area of belief in the world.
I dont believe any of those people would actually claim that they have
proved anything. I thing they are just monkees swinging on one side of the
tree. How Much questions! ahhhhhhhhhhh nature nurture! how much one or the
other or both. dead question Both nature and nurture but how much nature and
how much nurture.
These criters got eyes and ears, noses and all, and i guess when we swing
arounf the how much tree, it seems that we would have to show how they dont
have the other things that go along with that when we look at ourselves and
our eyes ears, noses and all.
> This is not to say that any particular scientific interpretation is worse
> than a spiritual one--I am simply suggesting that this process of
> interpretation--of assigning value to an event and calling it knowledge,
is
> part of what makes us human. To have yourself (or your species, anyway)
as
> the measure of all else.
>
> Thank you for your observations, they have been most stimulating.
>
> Scott
>
I think my wwriting style is more confusing than my intentions. The
origional post was little cuts and pastes from customer comments, common
joes, telling there opinions about a book called, Inside The Animal Mind
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0767905598/
i liked this book because of all the references to philosophy on every other
page compared to other books on the subject. i figure its an animal
philosophy book
Immortalist
"stephen burke" <sburk...@optusnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:3d4c7466$0$32487$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...
Are you some kinda joker?
what the brain does?
It is you. It is associated with the activities and/or various emergent
properties of the brain.
Dig out brain - no self.
materialism on steroids with hemroids
> >
>
>
stephen burke
John Jones
Yes, go on then, I would say he did start this terminology, or someone like
him did.
I am making a poor attempt now, to think where the word 'awareness', conveys
something useful in everyday parlance, as opposed to philosophy parlance
where 'awareness' swims unbound.
JJ
John Jones
thirsty. Then when someone asked you if you was hungry or thirsty, you said
'I am aware of hunger and thirst.' Which is awkward, but works, barely.
But you never said, 'I am aware that I am hungry and thirsty'. No-one would
know what you meant if you said 'I am aware that I am hungry and thirsty'.
They might think you were someone else speaking through you and making an
irrelevant observation.
As for you being aware of an awareness... which one?
No. I was right. You was wrong.
JJ
xyzzy
Are you aware that you are talking to yourself?
At least that's what it looks like if you don't quote the message you
are responding to and at the same time extext the list of newsgroups
the thread is being posted to.
Besides, if anybody is right, that's I.
xyzzy
[...]
>At least that's what it looks like if you don't quote the message you
>are responding to and at the same time extext
Hey, I just made up a new word. But in this context, I think "extend"
works better.
Immortalist
No, the self is what the brain is doing, it doesnt just stop or it falls to
the ground like water in a fountain when shut off.
>
Immortalist
oh!
>
>
>
Miss V
Excellent question, what indeed is the self? And how could we know, if
we truely know this self, unless we compare it to other selves? We can
only begin to know ourselves in relationship to other selves. Then we
have to ask what are those other selves? We are each different, we are
each the same, and we are always changing, always growing. For me to
know my self, I would have to understand that exact moment, and how at
that moment I'm relating to everything in my world. After that, my
reflection on that moment would, in itself, cause a change in what I
thought was my awareness of my self.
God I love menopause.
Miss V
o
Miss V <mulg...@visuallink.com> wrote in message
news:45e0d789.02080...@posting.google.com...
Hi Miss V
To know this self, we need to achieve what we call self-realisation
To get in tune with our own being.
This being is all in the now moment - past and future are mental constructs
they do not form part of the now moment
so being is a process, a continuum
To know ourself is to be in tune with the process of our being
For this, we use awareness - openness to what is.
Conventional "normal" psychology is completely unaware of the true state of
being
So mostly all of us (except very young infants) are fallen from being
Hence our lives have little meaning - we feel empty
We have hidden our true awareness of being
behind the facade of ideas some call the ego and some the self.
Menopause or therabouts is an appropriate time to work on our
self-realisation
The effort contains within it the very greatest of personal rewards
all the best
Brian