theory of mind
Howl...@aol.com
The concept of "theory of mind" is being widely used in
evolutionary psychology these days. "Theory of mind" states that
an organism has or does not have an internal picture of itself and
of a conspecific which allows it to predict a conspecific's
intentions.
A suggestion: It's said that chimps have a theory of mind, but
monkeys don't, that newborns don't and three year olds do, etc.
However there are indications that the continuum between having the
power to predict another's intentions and not having it is smooth,
not discontinuous. In other words, theory of mind exists in some
way in most independent organisms. Now it's a matter of trying to
suss out the details of its evolution.
First, let's take human infants, who allegedly do not possess a
theory of mind. Nonetheless, babies DO show signs of predicting
and attempting to control the behavior of others. To quote Turner,
et. al.: "An evolutionary perspective suggests that secure (rather
than insecure) attachment is optimal for the infant's survival."
They then go on to hint at the power this sense of attachment
exercises over momentary emotion and long-term personality
development. The infant's emotional sense of attachment or non-
attachment even shows up in the nature of its cries.
A sense of attachment or the lack thereof is a prediction of
another's intentions. Hence some crude form of "theory of mind" is
at work long before the more complex variety generally referred to
in the literature on the subject unfolds from the growing child's
nascent perceptual repertoire.
Hunting creatures also need to predict the intentions of their prey
so they can feint and dart in the right direction to turn a fleeing
organism into dinner. Myxobacteria are pack hunters. Hence I
assume they must have the ability to predict the intention of a
prey organism--a primitive precursor of theory of mind. In all
probability this crude theory of the other's next move appeared
roughly 3.5 billion years ago, when there were at least eleven
bacterial species extant, some of which have left highly elaborate
stone memorials to the complexity of their behavior in the
constructions they "built" for housing purposes, stromatolites.
Many Cambrian invertebrates were also hunters 500 million years
ago. True, they had perceptual and "mental" tools bacteria don't
possess--complex eyes, encephalized neural centers ("brains"), etc.
This, combined with their well developed fins, feet, claws and
other attack and escape devices, would only have made the job of
predicting a prey's next move more complex, and have presumably
advanced the proto-theory of mind's sophistication. And so on,
through our insect-snatching progenitors 220 million years ago
(these were half reptiles on their way to becoming mammals),
rapacious dinosaurs, the large mammalian hunters of 60 million
years ago, and so on.
Anyone have further clues to the presumably 3.5 billion year long
story of theory of mind's paleopsychological development? Gordon
Burghardt and Neil Greenberg--any hints from reptilian behavior?
Howard
Rebecca Turner, Beverly Januszewski, Amy Flack, and Bruce Cooper.
"Attachment Representations and Sexual Behavior in Humans." In The
Integrative Neurobiology of Affiliation, edited by C. Sue
Carter, I. Izja Lederhendler, and Brian Kirkpatrick, New York: New
York Academy of Sciences, 1997: 583-586. (The quote I've cited
appears on page 583.)
"Human Neonatal Cry Quality," Evolution and Human Behavior, 5/97
Howard Bloom. _The Prehistory of the Global Brain: from the Big
Bang to 5,000 B.C._. Hamburg: Bollmann Verlag, 1998.
For aquatic myxobacteria attacking fish, see Vicki S. Blazer. MAJOR
INFECTIOUS DISEASES OF FISH, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology,
Department of Veterinary Pathology,
http://vetpath1.afip.mil/fish_diseases.txt (downloaded 2/1/97).
For the hunting moves of aquatic myxobacteria (myxococcus xanthus)
see James A. Shapiro, "Bacteria as Multicellular Organisms,"
Scientific American, June 1988: 82-89, esp. pps. 84, 89.
And for numerous "decision making" maneuvers on the part of
protozoans, see Alfred Binet. The Psychic Life of MicroOrganisms:
a study in experimental psychology. 1888. Philadelphia: Albert
Saifer, 1970.
----------
Howard Bloom
(founder: International Paleopsychology Project; member: New York Academy of
Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American
Psychological Society, Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and
Evolution Society, European Sociobiological Society; board member: Epic of
Evolution Society)
705 President Street
Brooklyn, NY 11215
phone 718 622 2278
fax 718 398 2551
e-mail how...@paleopsych.org
for two chapters from
The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of
History,
see www.bookworld.com/lucifer
Leighton Pritchard
Howl...@aol.com wrote:
>
> The concept of "theory of mind" is being widely used in
> evolutionary psychology these days. "Theory of mind" states that
> an organism has or does not have an internal picture of itself and
> of a conspecific which allows it to predict a conspecific's
> intentions.
>
> A suggestion: It's said that chimps have a theory of mind, but
> monkeys don't, that newborns don't and three year olds do, etc.
> However there are indications that the continuum between having the
> power to predict another's intentions and not having it is smooth,
> not discontinuous.
[snip]
> First, let's take human infants, who allegedly do not possess a
> theory of mind. Nonetheless, babies DO show signs of predicting
> and attempting to control the behavior of others.
[snip here]
> A sense of attachment or the lack thereof is a prediction of
> another's intentions. Hence some crude form of "theory of mind" is
> at work long before the more complex variety generally referred to
> in the literature on the subject unfolds from the growing child's
> nascent perceptual repertoire.
>
> Hunting creatures also need to predict the intentions of their prey
> so they can feint and dart in the right direction to turn a fleeing
> organism into dinner. Myxobacteria are pack hunters. Hence I
> assume they must have the ability to predict the intention of a
> prey organism--a primitive precursor of theory of mind.
[snipped a large, increasingly detailed section]
Perhaps I should read more about this on my own time, but I'm struck
with a question even at this early stage:
Why is interaction with another mind (in the form of an organism -
'mind' itself is an abstract concept) treated as different to
interaction with any other object?
Assuming the process of a child learning by experience - he/she learns
that, on the whole, if you let go of a glass object it might fall and
shatter. Likewise, he/she learns that if you anger another human, that
human might hit you. If this is just a more complex example of perceived
'cause and effect', then what is the need to postulate a theory of mind?
Similarly, a predating animal - a wolf, say - can 'predict' the movement
of a hunk of raw meat lobbed through the air as well as it can predict
the movement of an elk if it were in the wild. Catching dead meat is
unlikely to require a theory of mind. If its actions, both in predation
and catching the meat - are based on predictions made from past
experience of similar circumstances, then what need is there to assume
it understands the mind of an elk any more than it understands the
'mind' of a hunk of raw meat?
I see no reason to assume that pack hunting requires a theory of mind.
It might well require the ability to predict probable future behaviour
in the prey, but I don't see why it requires an appreciation of the
prey's mind _per se_.
I understand that in, for example, political machinations there is often
a sufficient degree of abstraction from the physical world such that it
appears that one person must 'get into the mind' of another. Could this
not just be a particularly abstract application of "when I pushed this
(mental) lever last time, thing A happened"?
And if so does this mean that the 'mind' is considered to be simply a
system of sufficient cognitive complexity? Qualitatively, this seems to
concur with the statement made that there is a continuum to organisms
developing the 'theory of mind'. As there are, in Nature, more and less
complex eyes, should it not be reasonable that there are more and less
complex brains - each more or less capable of interpreting complex
input?
If this is so, then it seems that once again the human failing of
implicitly placing ourselves at the top of the non-existent evolutionary
pyramid ("we have a 'mind', but not a lot else seems to") has raised its
head.
--
Leighton
bap9...@strath.ac.uk
David B. Klein
At 08:19 AM 2/27/98 -0400, Bill Benzon wrote:
>At 12:57 AM 2/25/98 -0500, Howl...@aol.com wrote:
>>The concept of "theory of mind" is being widely used in
>>evolutionary psychology these days. "Theory of mind" states that
>>an organism has or does not have an internal picture of itself and
>>of a conspecific which allows it to predict a conspecific's
>>intentions.
>
>have, and I'm reasonably sure they have it, it isn't a "theory." There is
>no abstract reasoning involved. It seems more like perception. Calling it
>"theory" strikes me as evidence of an impoverished theoretical imagination.
>
>William L. Benzon 201.217.1010
>708 Jersey Ave. Apt. 2A bbe...@mindspring.com
>Jersey City, NJ 07302 USA http://www.newsavanna.com/wlb/
>
>
>
Bill,
I, too, am not totally comfortable with this phrase, but we seem to be stuck
with it. It's all the rage in autism research these days.
David K.
Bill Benzon
Philip Deitiker
On 26 Feb 1998 19:32:32 GMT, Howl...@aol.com wrote:
>
>Hunting creatures also need to predict the intentions of their prey
>so they can feint and dart in the right direction to turn a fleeing
>organism into dinner. Myxobacteria are pack hunters. Hence I
>assume they must have the ability to predict the intention of a
>probability this crude theory of the other's next move appeared
>roughly 3.5 billion years ago, when there were at least eleven
>bacterial species extant, some of which have left highly elaborate
>stone memorials to the complexity of their behavior in the
>constructions they "built" for housing purposes, stromatolites.
The issue that you are hitting on I believe is 2 fold. For example, a
pack of lions both relies on the intentions of collaborators and of
prey. However, it is the most experienced which usually heads an
attack as with many other animals. Thus knowing the intentions of
collaborators and presumptively of prey is something that requires
experience and learning. The question is innate ability (predispostion
toward a behavior at an early age) or learned or memorized. In the
case of a lion they associate a filled belly with a successful hunt, a
succesful hunt is the result of trial and error process in which the
order of attack, angle of attack and selection of prey has been
reworked through previous attacks. Thus the qeustion is if the mind
provides a sufficient amount of grey matter and the right types of
plastic neuronal pathways can they be 'adapted' to be able to
integrate 'trial and error' patterns. In the instance of the lion it
does not even need to be living, consider how a cat plays with a ball
and string, isn't it basically learning that if it hits the ball a
certain way the ball will run a given direction, and then the cat
succesively increases its ability to recognize that motion. As with
this, the motion of collaborators may also be part of the equation
defined in integrating a successful play of events (presumably a
capture).
So let's go back to the chimps, beyond the simply functional
alliance, chimps have a complicated political system where acts of
sharing, grooming, etc, play a significant role in the status of the
individual and meaning that a member is cognizant of his/her status. A
male lion (or a group of fraternal males) is the head of a pack
because he (or plural) was able to defeat another male for that
position. In greator apes the relationships between dominance in the
group can get very complicated. I think it's safe to say there are no
absolute rules when it comes to discussing humans or chimps. Knowing
ones self is important to define whether one kisses up or demands to
be kissed up to. The learning is human and chimps societies is to find
the best way to get the respect one needs to achieve dominant status,
in achieving dominance. Consider, for example, warrior tribes, in
which males are sent out to prove themselves in battle, this
eliminates some males by chance and by ability and those that remain
can signifiy though booty or lore their actions, this then creates
respect for that individual within the group, and females will be
attacted to the individuals with success; however, if the individuals
behavior toward females is abnormal, he still may not achieve the
respect amoung the females of the tribe. OTOH, a less successful male
who is can package his gamesmanship as well as make himself attractive
to females and also toward the power stucture could be very
successful. Amoung certain apes the idea of Id and predicting
intentions may play together to allow individuals to estimate the best
strategies for success given particular talents and abilities.
As far as the issue of continuity is concerned. I think that the
issue is that almost all animals are reliant on certain aspects of
nature. For example, can we say that algae are predicting sunlight
when they synthesis chlorophyll? Algae's don't think 'ahhh, sunlight'.
If it was that simple all creatures would synthesis chlorophyll when
sun peeped over the horizen. When one speaks about Id and recognition
of wants, desires, weaknesses, and tendencies of others we are talking
about well developed neuronal pathways. A plant can react to a
particular species of insects either evolutionarily via mutation and
selection for resistance (or attraction) or it can evolve pathways
which can react in real time (such as damage stimualed reaction), but
beyond these two things plants cannot react. For example, a feild of
wheat cannot conspire in real time to clog up a harvester.
Let me be specific, the human brain is made up a great many types
of neuronal cells generally designed for a set of functions which can
be adapted as need be during development for unknown functions. For
example, nowhere in evolution prior to 1700 did animals need to
memorize the keys on a key board and learn to convert spoken thoughts
into nervous inputs relayed through the complex movements of the
muscles in the hands and fingers for keying in UseNet messages, none
the less we adapt pathways for this type of expression. This
'plasticity' allows humans and other great apes to realize changes in
the enviroment or recognize changes in culture or observe what
excites, annoys, endears those that surround them. And if you'll
observe children they are frequently testing adults and other children
in order to learn those responses so that they have a set of
behavioral tools for attempting the manipulation of other humans or
other animals as they grow older. Some of these behaviors also apply
to other animals and primates, it is clear that most mammals are
behaviorally very complex, and also if one looks at fish one can see
that attracting mates is more complex than how one struts his finnage.
Thus, when one compares less cognitive animals with higher animals the
big distinction that can be made is that lower animals tend to have
fixed behavioral developmental pathways where behavior follows
instinct, and in humans, as development occurs, instinctive behaviors
give way to learned behaviors and behaviors derived from cognition and
synthesis.
One of the basic problems in getting an animal to learn appreciably
more is that the animal needs a sense of selfworth, meaning the idea
of self is important, thus I think at some point during primate
evolultion, the problem of demand for individual 'sociopolitical'
ability selected for the evolution of self cognition as you have
defined above, and once this had occur, it opened the door for the
evolution of much more complicated behaviors.
A more important question is why is the human mind so
technologically plastic and yet so rigid when it comes to emotive
behaviors. The answer is that, probably, as humans moved around the
world, technologies available or useful always changed, yet the
balance of behaviors within the group remains fairly constant. In
addition, there are certain things in which logic will screw you up,
such as the logic of an infant suckling his mother, or a mothers
undaunting defense of a childs behavior. Or the logic of a male trying
to make awkward advance toward females, of females accepting an awkard
advance.
The whole idea of socialization is to optimize the circumstances for
reproduction, in which people need to reproduce and the products of
their reproduction need to be protected, nurtured, and defended.
Although cerebral evolution allows a wide adaptability toward many
different phenomena, certain phenomena and behaviors are as innate to
humans as any other animal. Such behaviors are default, such that if
societies breakdown or circumstances scatters individuals emotive
behaviors can allow an individual to function at basal levels.
However, once societies forms, cognitive behavior, technological
specialization, etc, can allow members of a group to produce even
higher densities of offspring for a given region. Thus any
self-identifying behavior which facilitates this process serves the
individual, the group.
This argument kind of falls in line with a previous thread about
what controls (limits) sexual deviancy in society. I think the favored
answer is that nothing innately controls such behavior except the
constraints put forth by societies. It is intesting how mind and body
are intricately related to each other, as some would argue the biology
of the brain is both evolution and adaptation, and at some point
society is part of that of the equation which determines the direction
of mental adaptation. I think the critical ingrediant is plasticity (a
collection of algorythms and memory location which can be programed in
many ways). With the plasticity and the heavy influence of society I
think the definition of self becomes a required first step in defining
the wants of the individual versus the that of society. If society ask
the individual to jump off the cliff, what is to stop him except his
own definition of self worth (i.e. is my societies want as important
as the self's desire to remain). Likewise a warrior needs to weigh his
societies desire for the group to do well in battle versus is
immediate desire to remain healthy, a fearless individual is
frequenlty the first one to die. The point is that circumstances and
pressures of humans (this creature that lives from the tip of south
africa to the arctic and back down to the tip of south america) will
change, the demands are plastic and the adaptations are plastic, but
the idea of self-recognition can allow survival, acceptance within a
group, and success while the plasticity of the brain adapts to the
variety of circumstances. Or to pose the question in another way, what
is the benefit of knowing self worth when all an organisms responses
are unlearned, innate and instinctive in nature?
Philip
<pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu>
Supertimer
Leighton Pritchard <bap9...@strath.ac.uk> wrote:
>Howl...@aol.com wrote:
>>
>> The concept of "theory of mind" is being widely used in
>> evolutionary psychology these days. "Theory of mind" states that
>> an organism has or does not have an internal picture of itself and
>> of a conspecific which allows it to predict a conspecific's
>> intentions.
>>
>
[snip]
>
>If this is so, then it seems that once again the human failing of
>implicitly placing ourselves at the top of the non-existent evolutionary
>pyramid ("we have a 'mind', but not a lot else seems to") has raised its
>head.
This is a real, testable phenomenon. If you take a mirror and place it
in front of an animal, most animals treat it as another and never get
realize that it is an image of itself. The only species tested that come
to the conclusion that the mirror image is "self" are the humans and
the great apes.
The test starts with letting the animal get used to its image in the
mirror. A monkey will attack the image, etc., and never realize that
it is not another monkey. A chimp reacts the same way at first, but
then suddenly it starts examining itself. It puts its finger in its
mouth, checks out its teeth, and takes a look at its own face. The
test that proves the chimp knows that the mirror image is itself
is when the researcher paints a spot on the chmip's head. The chimp,
upon seeing the paint in the image in the mirror, would touch its own
head and try to remove the paint. So far, only humans above a
certain age and the great apes have exibited this capacity. They
tried painting spots on the heads of cats, dogs, monkeys, and other
animals and they never realized the spot was on themselves.
Lee Davidson
Bill Benzon (bbe...@mindspring.com) wrote:
: At 12:57 AM 2/25/98 -0500, Howl...@aol.com wrote:
: >The concept of "theory of mind" is being widely used in
: >evolutionary psychology these days. "Theory of mind" states that
: >an organism has or does not have an internal picture of itself and
: >of a conspecific which allows it to predict a conspecific's
: >intentions.
: A brief and rather pedantic comment. Whatever it is that these creatures
: have, and I'm reasonably sure they have it, it isn't a "theory." There is
: no abstract reasoning involved. It seems more like perception. Calling it
: "theory" strikes me as evidence of an impoverished theoretical imagination.
It might be considered a theory in the sense in which what Dennett
calls "folk psychology" is a theory. Or, in another way of putting it,
non-human creatures may be capable, to one degree or another, of adopting
the "intentional stance" towards fellow creatures. In such a stance, they
have beliefs about other creatures' beliefs, intentions. And, yes, these
are abstract, but if there is an evolutionary continuum in the development
of mind, then abstraction, like self-awareness and everything else, comes
in stages. Or, more to the point, just like reasoning.
The impoverishment of imagination that you mention might well lie in
narrowly taking "theory" to mean "scientific theory," in the sense
discussed by philosophers of science. I am quite in agreement with you
that philosophers of chimpanzee science, for example, would have little
to do with their time (except, of course, discuss methodology ad nauseum),
but that still leaves philosophers of folk chimpanzee displines with an
abundant and interesting field for speculation.
--
|---------------+--------------------------------------------------------------|
Lee Davidson |
l...@netcom.com | [ under construction ]
std disclaimer |
|---------------+--------------------------------------------------------------|
Lee Davidson
Supertimer (super...@aol.com) wrote:
: Leighton Pritchard <bap9...@strath.ac.uk> wrote:
: This is a real, testable phenomenon. If you take a mirror and place it
: in front of an animal, most animals treat it as another and never get
: realize that it is an image of itself. The only species tested that come
: to the conclusion that the mirror image is "self" are the humans and
: the great apes.
: The test starts with letting the animal get used to its image in the
: mirror. A monkey will attack the image, etc., and never realize that
: it is not another monkey. A chimp reacts the same way at first, but
: then suddenly it starts examining itself. It puts its finger in its
: mouth, checks out its teeth, and takes a look at its own face. The
: test that proves the chimp knows that the mirror image is itself
: is when the researcher paints a spot on the chmip's head. The chimp,
: upon seeing the paint in the image in the mirror, would touch its own
: head and try to remove the paint. So far, only humans above a
: certain age and the great apes have exibited this capacity. They
: tried painting spots on the heads of cats, dogs, monkeys, and other
: animals and they never realized the spot was on themselves.
I have always been impressed with the results of these mirror experiments.
But is realizing that it is oneself one sees in a mirror commonly taken
to be a necessary condition of self-awareness or merely a sufficient
condition? After all, it is not really oneself one sees in the mirror,
arguably. Why denigrate the self-consciousness of non-great-ape primates
on this basis? Maybe it's the humans and great apes who are being gullible.
But I'm not trying to argue any point here. Just wondering whether other
research has been done in an attempt to draw some finer distinctions.
Nevertheless, let me argue (weakly) one possible point. When even a
paramecium withdraws from a noxious stimulus, it is observing (in some
sense) a self versus rest of the world distinction. Is there any research
to back up this purely philosophical point?
Leighton Pritchard
Lee Davidson wrote:
> Supertimer (super...@aol.com) wrote:
> : Leighton Pritchard <bap9...@strath.ac.uk> wrote:
[Just to be pedantic, nothing quoted was written by me. Please take more
care over your attributions - you may embarrass someone or obtain a
false reputation for them :)]
> : This is a real, testable phenomenon. If you take a mirror and place it
> : in front of an animal, most animals treat it as another and never get
> : realize that it is an image of itself. The only species tested that come
> : to the conclusion that the mirror image is "self" are the humans and
> : the great apes.
Rephrased: The only species tested which correctly interpreted the
reflection as an image of their own body were the humans and the great
apes.
This is an important point...
> : The test starts with letting the animal get used to its image in the
> : mirror. A monkey will attack the image, etc., and never realize that
> : it is not another monkey. A chimp reacts the same way at first, but
> : then suddenly it starts examining itself. It puts its finger in its
> : mouth, checks out its teeth, and takes a look at its own face. The
> : test that proves the chimp knows that the mirror image is itself
> : is when the researcher paints a spot on the chmip's head. The chimp,
> : upon seeing the paint in the image in the mirror, would touch its own
> : head and try to remove the paint. So far, only humans above a
> : certain age and the great apes have exibited this capacity. They
> : tried painting spots on the heads of cats, dogs, monkeys, and other
> : animals and they never realized the spot was on themselves.
My original question still holds: why does this require a 'theory of
mind'? Great apes and humans _are_ intelligent - arguably more so than
monkeys (at least they may share a greater level of abstract reasoning).
The experimental result as expressed here is consistent with both apes
and monkeys (and dogs, cats etc.) having an idea of 'self', but monkeys
not necessarily being able to cope with the idea of a reflection.
It would be a greater victory for the idea that monkeys and the like
have a reduced sense of 'self' if they wandered around perpetually
bemused that their legs did what they wanted. Monkeys can see their own
legs; their legs do as they are told in response to stimuli of which the
monkey is aware. The monkey is thus aware in some way that the legs it
can see are somehow under its control - it is aware of itself (and its
'self') in the world. It might well have a 'blind spot' when introduced
to mirrors for the first time (as, you pointed out, do human babies -
which subsequently learn to associate the reflection with themselves by
experience) but why should this prevent it having a sense of 'self'.
And why would a dog want to remove a spot that was not troubling it? In
my experience of keeping dogs as pets they rarely show any endeavours to
remove some evil-smelling substances, never mind an experimental spot :)
> I have always been impressed with the results of these mirror experiments.
> But is realizing that it is oneself one sees in a mirror commonly taken
> to be a necessary condition of self-awareness or merely a sufficient
> condition? After all, it is not really oneself one sees in the mirror,
> arguably. Why denigrate the self-consciousness of non-great-ape primates
> on this basis? Maybe it's the humans and great apes who are being gullible.
I wouldn't have said gullible, myself. All right, so I might :)
I would have thought that the ability to recognise a reflection as
oneself would be a measure only of being able to interpret a reflection
correctly. I would also have thought that recognition of one's own limbs
in the context of the rest of the world would count as self-awareness.
> Nevertheless, let me argue (weakly) one possible point. When even a
> paramecium withdraws from a noxious stimulus, it is observing (in some
> sense) a self versus rest of the world distinction. Is there any research
> to back up this purely philosophical point?
I would not say that this was a purely philosophical point... I think it
is a valid and fundamental question.
Anyway, to avoid the 'crime' of being continually negative:
Non-autistic children are able to 'second-guess' the behaviour of
others. For example, if they are told:
Nancy has a ball.
She puts it in a box.
Nancy leaves the room.
I take the ball out of the box and put it in the cupboard.
Nancy comes back into the room.
and are then asked: Where will Nancy look for her ball first? they will
say 'the box'.
Autistic children are unable to appreciate this, and so reply to the
same question with 'the cupboard'. Generally, they are poor at
interacting with other people, and have few social skills.
Interestingly, they are almost exclusively male.
Damage to the amygdala has been shown to induce conditions similar to
autism, in which social behaviour and the ability to predict others'
behaviour is reduced. It is suggested that the amygdala is responsible
for one's abilities in terms of social interaction. Sometimes partial
recovery is possible, but it seems that there could be a definite
physical, biological root to social ability and the ability to interact
with other humans.
This, I feel, is where the physical and philosophical root of a 'theory
of mind' might lie. Social behaviour requires an extremely high level of
abstract thought. This abstract thought need not be logical (many
autistics and people who have suffered damage to the amygdala are
talented engineers and scientists). Perhaps a different form of
reasoning - one not based on the logical application of rules - is
required for successful social interaction. Perhaps our inability to
understand the rules behind this interaction (and the frustration of
many scientists and engineers who cannot appreciate the interaction :))
leads us to attempt to compartmentalise the topic in a rule-laden
'theory of mind'?
To my mind, the interest would lie in modelling the success of
populations where differing proportions of 'socially able' and 'socially
inept' entities existed. Of course, defining the parameters of a social
group is a mammoth task, so I'll leave that to someone else for now :) -
but it would be interesting to see what the stable values were.
--
Leighton: bap9...@strath.ac.uk
I don't speak for the university. It doesn't speak for me. Unless I'm
particularly incoherent.
Lee Davidson
Leighton Pritchard (bap9...@strath.ac.uk) wrote:
: Lee Davidson wrote:
:
: > Supertimer (super...@aol.com) wrote:
: > : Leighton Pritchard <bap9...@strath.ac.uk> wrote:
: [Just to be pedantic, nothing quoted was written by me. Please take more
: care over your attributions - you may embarrass someone or obtain a
: false reputation for them :)]
Ah, yes. I failed to delete the line citing you, but deleted the lines
quoting you. But, just to be pedantic back, since the citation and the
following lines occur at the same level of endentation, I'm not attributing
anything to you.
:
: > : This is a real, testable phenomenon. If you take a mirror and place it
: > : in front of an animal, most animals treat it as another and never get
: > : realize that it is an image of itself. The only species tested that come
: > : to the conclusion that the mirror image is "self" are the humans and
: > : the great apes.
: Rephrased: The only species tested which correctly interpreted the
: reflection as an image of their own body were the humans and the great
: apes.
: This is an important point...
: > : The test starts with letting the animal get used to its image in the
: > : [...]
: My original question still holds: why does this require a 'theory of
: mind'? Great apes and humans _are_ intelligent - arguably more so than
: monkeys (at least they may share a greater level of abstract reasoning).
: The experimental result as expressed here is consistent with both apes
: and monkeys (and dogs, cats etc.) having an idea of 'self', but monkeys
: not necessarily being able to cope with the idea of a reflection.
: It would be a greater victory for the idea that monkeys and the like
: have a reduced sense of 'self' if they wandered around perpetually
: bemused that their legs did what they wanted. Monkeys can see their own
: legs; their legs do as they are told in response to stimuli of which the
: monkey is aware. The monkey is thus aware in some way that the legs it
: can see are somehow under its control - it is aware of itself (and its
: 'self') in the world. It might well have a 'blind spot' when introduced
: to mirrors for the first time (as, you pointed out, do human babies -
: which subsequently learn to associate the reflection with themselves by
: experience) but why should this prevent it having a sense of 'self'.
Yes, exactly. When a dog scratches itself, for example, isn't it showing
a far more "direct" "awareness of self" than if it used a mirror to do
the same thing?
: > I have always been impressed with the results of these mirror experiments.
: > But is realizing that it is oneself one sees in a mirror commonly taken
: > to be a necessary condition of self-awareness or merely a sufficient
: > condition? After all, it is not really oneself one sees in the mirror,
: > arguably. Why denigrate the self-consciousness of non-great-ape primates
: > on this basis? Maybe it's the humans and great apes who are being gullible.
:
: I wouldn't have said gullible, myself. All right, so I might :)
Well, I wouldn't necessarily have said it either, except to be cute.
: I would have thought that the ability to recognise a reflection as
: oneself would be a measure only of being able to interpret a reflection
: correctly. I would also have thought that recognition of one's own limbs
: in the context of the rest of the world would count as self-awareness.
: > Nevertheless, let me argue (weakly) one possible point. When even a
: > paramecium withdraws from a noxious stimulus, it is observing (in some
: > sense) a self versus rest of the world distinction. Is there any research
: > to back up this purely philosophical point?
: I would not say that this was a purely philosophical point... I think it
: is a valid and fundamental question.
Well, perhaps "purely" is wrong. But some philosophical work is obviously
necessary somewhere. But, in the case of the paramecium, suppose we have
perfectly mechanical, simple descriptions of its behavior, without resort
to mentalistic concepts. Then whether we could call it self-conscious
might seem to be a more purely philosophical question than whether we
could call some more advanced creature -- a frog say -- self-conscious.
In the latter case, we might have to resort to mentalistic concepts because
the frog is too complex to treat mechanically.
: [interesting stuff about autism]
: Damage to the amygdala has been shown to induce conditions similar to
: autism, in which social behaviour and the ability to predict others'
: behaviour is reduced. It is suggested that the amygdala is responsible
: for one's abilities in terms of social interaction. Sometimes partial
: recovery is possible, but it seems that there could be a definite
: physical, biological root to social ability and the ability to interact
: with other humans.
Isn't schizophrenia induced by simple chemical imbalances in the brain?
Or, at least, to a great degree? So simple mechanisms can lead to
breakdown in this or that, but this does not imply "responsibility" of
any simple part, like the amygdala, for normal functioning.
: This, I feel, is where the physical and philosophical root of a 'theory
: of mind' might lie. Social behaviour requires an extremely high level of
: abstract thought. This abstract thought need not be logical (many
: autistics and people who have suffered damage to the amygdala are
: talented engineers and scientists). Perhaps a different form of
: reasoning - one not based on the logical application of rules - is
: required for successful social interaction. Perhaps our inability to
: understand the rules behind this interaction (and the frustration of
: many scientists and engineers who cannot appreciate the interaction :))
: leads us to attempt to compartmentalise the topic in a rule-laden
: 'theory of mind'?
Well, a rule-laden theory is probably not right anyway, except at a very
high level of abstraction where these rules are seen to be tacit, or
emergent. But, whether social interaction depends on "rules" or not, it
clearly depends upon some very high-level constructs. And I would wonder
whether such constructs (or the set of them) could be localized to one
small part of the brain. But, then again, what do I know? Do I even know
whether the amygdala is "small"?
Peter Nyikos
l...@netcom.com (Lee Davidson) writes:
>Supertimer (super...@aol.com) wrote:
>: Leighton Pritchard <bap9...@strath.ac.uk> wrote:
>: This is a real, testable phenomenon. If you take a mirror and place it
>: in front of an animal, most animals treat it as another and never get
>: realize that it is an image of itself. The only species tested that come
>: to the conclusion that the mirror image is "self" are the humans and
>: the great apes.
>: The test starts with letting the animal get used to its image in the
>: mirror. A monkey will attack the image, etc., and never realize that
>: it is not another monkey. A chimp reacts the same way at first, but
>: then suddenly it starts examining itself. It puts its finger in its
>: mouth, checks out its teeth, and takes a look at its own face. The
>: test that proves the chimp knows that the mirror image is itself
>: is when the researcher paints a spot on the chmip's head. The chimp,
>: upon seeing the paint in the image in the mirror, would touch its own
>: head and try to remove the paint. So far, only humans above a
>: certain age and the great apes have exibited this capacity. They
>: tried painting spots on the heads of cats, dogs, monkeys, and other
>: animals and they never realized the spot was on themselves.
>I have always been impressed with the results of these mirror experiments.
>But is realizing that it is oneself one sees in a mirror commonly taken
>to be a necessary condition of self-awareness or merely a sufficient
>condition? After all, it is not really oneself one sees in the mirror,
>arguably. Why denigrate the self-consciousness of non-great-ape primates
>on this basis? Maybe it's the humans and great apes who are being gullible.
Gullible? Why would one conclude that the chimps or children
are fooled into thinking that the person in the mirror IS them
rather than just into realizing that it represents them--that
things in the mirror correspond to things in the world; not
just them but other objects like that glob of paint, also
objects detached from them.
But I see your larger point: such things need not be indicative
of self-awareness in any deep sense of the word. One of my
pet peeves, by the way, is the very term "self-awareness":
just what aspect of ourselves are we aware of, and in what way?
Hardly anyone who uses the term bothers to explain it.
>But I'm not trying to argue any point here. Just wondering whether other
>research has been done in an attempt to draw some finer distinctions.
>Nevertheless, let me argue (weakly) one possible point. When even a
>paramecium withdraws from a noxious stimulus, it is observing (in some
>sense) a self versus rest of the world distinction. Is there any research
>to back up this purely philosophical point?
How could there be? You might as well ask, IMO, whether a magnet,
when it withdraws from another magnet because like poles
are near each other, is "withdrawing from a noxious stimulus"
and thereby observing (in some sense) a self versus rest of
the world distinction.
Peter Nyikos -- standard disclaimer --
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208
Lee Davidson
Peter Nyikos (nyi...@math.sc.edu) wrote:
: l...@netcom.com (Lee Davidson) writes:
: >I have always been impressed with the results of these mirror experiments.
: >But is realizing that it is oneself one sees in a mirror commonly taken
: >to be a necessary condition of self-awareness or merely a sufficient
: >condition? After all, it is not really oneself one sees in the mirror,
: >arguably. Why denigrate the self-consciousness of non-great-ape primates
: >on this basis? Maybe it's the humans and great apes who are being gullible.
: Gullible? Why would one conclude that the chimps or children
: are fooled into thinking that the person in the mirror IS them
: rather than just into realizing that it represents them--that
: things in the mirror correspond to things in the world; not
: just them but other objects like that glob of paint, also
: objects detached from them.
I was using "gullible" facetiously, of course. And illogically, as
you quite rightly point out.
: But I see your larger point: such things need not be indicative
: of self-awareness in any deep sense of the word. One of my
: pet peeves, by the way, is the very term "self-awareness":
: just what aspect of ourselves are we aware of, and in what way?
: Hardly anyone who uses the term bothers to explain it.
This is a problem. It is, in fact, easier to establish a "theory of
other minds" by empirical research than to establish a "theory of
one's own mind." Example: vervet monkeys have been observed to
make their distinctive leopard call in a seeming attempt to deceive
other vervet monkeys into taking to the trees. (The intent, apparently,
was to defuse a confrontational situation between two rival groups.)
One interpretation of this is in terms of two-level intentionality:
the deceiving one has beliefs about the beliefs of others.
But, if these monkeys actually communicate with these calls, then
some deeper nesting is needed -- to three or four levels, say. At
level three we have beliefs about others' beliefs about one's own
beliefs -- and, therefore, self-awareness. But establishing deeper
nesting levels is more difficult.
(There is also the problem that we could explain the deception in
terms of a single level -- the deceiving one realized that the others
would take to the trees without imputing belief to those others --
just as a behavioral pattern. But I think my point about the relative
difficulty is clear.)
The trouble with trying to do level two "solo" is, of course, that
one rarely sees any advantage in trying to deceive oneself.
But, as far as my point about the mirrors: it wasn't that the mirrors
failed to demonstrate self-awareness. It was that some creature's failure
to recognize mirrors for what they are does not imply a lack of self-
awareness.
As to whether recognizing mirrors for what they are does imply self-
awareness, I think the argument is: clearly this chimpanzee realizes
something. What is it if not that the creature appearing in the mirror
is in fact itself? And this in turn suggests an analysis of self-awareness:
self-awareness just is this sort of realization, together with other
sorts that we can think of -- such as, for example, seeing a spider
crawling up on your paw and shaking the latter to get rid of the former.
Why? Because that was _your_ paw that spider was crawling up on!
But this self-awareness, of course, is not necessarily of the "deeper"
variety which we can call having a "theory of one's own mind."
: >But I'm not trying to argue any point here. Just wondering whether other
: >research has been done in an attempt to draw some finer distinctions.
: >Nevertheless, let me argue (weakly) one possible point. When even a
: >paramecium withdraws from a noxious stimulus, it is observing (in some
: >sense) a self versus rest of the world distinction. Is there any research
: >to back up this purely philosophical point?
: How could there be? You might as well ask, IMO, whether a magnet,
: when it withdraws from another magnet because like poles
: are near each other, is "withdrawing from a noxious stimulus"
: and thereby observing (in some sense) a self versus rest of
: the world distinction.
Yes, in the case of the paramecium, it is hard to understand what
"research" could help us. But I was wondering about cases in between that
simple organism and those rare ones that understand mirrors.
Though I think part of my point was: if we find interesting phenomena
suggesting (rudimentary) self-awareness in in-between cases, then we
can see more of a continuum between humans and paramecia.
The problem is, I don't know of any examples except the observations
regarding mirrors and such things as the social interactions of vervets
mentioned above.
--
|---------------+--------------------------------------------------------------|
Lee Davidson | "The trouble with the Turing test is that there are heuristic
l...@netcom.com | algorithms in use on both sides." -- (overheard in
std disclaimer | conversation with the other side)
|---------------+--------------------------------------------------------------|
Leighton Pritchard
I didn't write anything that appeared in this article. Please edit your
headers with more care - I have enough spurious views of my own without
having anyone else's associated with me :)
--
Leighton:
Andrew M Glasgow
Lee Davidson wrote:
> Yes, exactly. When a dog scratches itself, for example, isn't it showing
> a far more "direct" "awareness of self" than if it used a mirror to do
> the same thing?
"Stimulus, response! Stimulus, response! Don't you ever THINK?!!?"
-- Gary Larson
--
/-------------------------------------------------------------\
| A little learning is a dangerous thing; | Hemlock? |
| Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring;| Never touch |
| There, shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, | the stuff |
| And drinking largely sobers us again. | myself! |
| - Alexander Pope | - Mal-2 |
|-------------------------------------------------------------|
| Andrew Glasgow <gla...@acsu.buffalo.edu> |
| http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/3474/ |
\-------------------------------------------------------------/