Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA08084 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 18 May 2000 14:07:25 +0100 From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk> Organization: Reborn Technology To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: RE: Why are human brains bigger? Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 13:30:50 +0100 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.21] Content-Type: text/plain References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D31CEB1AB@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Message-Id: <00051813384001.00537@faichney> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Thu, 18 May 2000, Vincent Campbell wrote:
>Reptiles have blind sight, in that they see movement but aren't 'aware' of
>seeing anything- some people after accidents have the same phenomena- they
>can see movement but can't tell you anything about what's causing the
>movement.
Sorry, Vincent, but that's not blind sight, which is where someone claims
not to have seen anything, but nevertheless they act as if they did.
Movement doesn't come into it. And it's a very difficult issue in other
species -- or anyone we can't communicate with -- because then we only
have their actions to go on. How do you know what a reptile's actually
aware of??
>Distinct groups of animals do exhibit distinct behaviours, such as birds
>that live or near railway stations, or near major roads, seem to have their
>'flight' responses tuned far lower than birds in the countryside when they
>encounter people, or loud noises, or big things rushing at them very fast.
>Does this constitute culture?
For me, and I can't see this as controversial, that depends entirely on
whether it's learned from conspecifics (ie imitated) or from individual
experience. Or, I suppose, it could be genetic too, if these are distinct
populations. Or maybe it's a combination of these! But I'd guess it's
probably down to individual experience, so not cultural.
-- Robin Faichney===============================This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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