Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id RAA10002 (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 17:26:16 +0100 Message-ID: <000c01bfc0dc$788ce160$44286bd4@install> From: "Oliver Kullman" <okullman@ut.ee> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D31CEB1AB@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Why are human brains bigger? Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 18:19:31 +0300 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
What you're describing comes cluse to Uexkyll's Umwelt, ie. that every
species (or even organism) "sees" the world differently. He's examples are
of the tick's perspective of the world. Not many sensations to speak of...
Oliver Kullman
> 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. That's why a chameleon will stick out its tongue to grab
anything
> that moves in its line of vision in a certain way, whether it's a flying
> insect or not. It doesn't need to perceive something as a 'fly' or not to
> act, or survive for that matter.
>
> You believe the elephant graveyard thing then? They, of course, don't
bury
> the dead.
>
> 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?
>
> I think arguing that animals have cultures is dangerously like
> anthropomorphism.
>
> As to the group selection thing, well I'm going from the various different
> statements made to this effect by the likes of Dawkins, and Gould et al.
>
> Vincent
>
> > ----------
> > From: Chuck Palson
> > Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2000 2:11 pm
> > To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > Subject: Re: Why are human brains bigger?
> >
> >
> >
> > Vincent Campbell wrote:
> >
> > > Well yes, I can't really comment on brain size issues, but I think
that
> > this
> > > line of argument in memetics misses the point of what memetics is
about.
> > >
> > > Yes, there are other big brained animals, and yes they tend to be
social
> > > animals, but do other social animals have cultures?
> >
> > Of course they do. There is a blurry line between society and culture (I
> > was
> > originally trained as an anthropologist) but the standard different is
> > that
> > society is a set of stable behaviors between individuals, and a culture
is
> > the
> > perceptions that inform those behaviors.
> >
> > Do animals have cultures? From a generic point of view, yes; they, like
> > us, need
> > to have perceptions as part of behavior. But beyond that, we know that
> > certain
> > groups of primates have distinctive ways of doing the same thing. The
ways
> > vary
> > by geography. Hauser (Harvard) points out that when birds learn their
> > songs (not
> > all do), there are different "dialects" of songs.
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > How do we distinguish culture from society? Well we have to ask
> > questions
> > > about what humans do that other social animals do not. To give a few
> > > examples, we have rituals (I believe the oldest known is burying the
> > dead),
> >
> > some primates have distinctive behavior around death. I seem to remember
> > that
> > elephants do also.
> >
> > >
> > > we have art,
> >
> > Art is distinctive to us - I think.
> >
> > > Memetics asks questions, in one sense, about what happened next- what
> > was
> > > the impact of all these developments on human society? One impact, if
> > you
> > > like, was the emergence of culture, and whilst the fundamentals of
human
> > > culture may be products of natural selection, culture itself is not
> > > necessarily, or even at all, transmitted through the genes, but is
> > > transmitted predominantly through communication of various kinds.
What
> > we
> > > want to ask questions about are, therefore, the processes that have
led
> > to
> > > humans having culture, how cultures evolve, and what are the criteria
> > > through which cultural artefacts are preserved or disappear?
> > >
> > > I think this is a crucial distinction to make, because memetics is not
a
> > > theory of everything, but merely a theory of culture and cultural
> > change.
> >
> > As I have said several times here, I think that is a tremendous weakness
> > of
> > memes. It leaves room for all kinds of speculation. The point is,
context
> > is
> > very broad and is everything. This principle is particularly obvious
with
> > the
> > memes that most people talk about in memetics.
> >
> > >
> > > At least that's the view I take on it, and I have no problem with
seeing
> > > other aspects of human behaviour as products of natural selection. If
> > some
> > > of you have a problem with seperating culture from other human
> > behaviour,
> > > and therefore memetics from evolutionary psychology or whatever,
> > remember
> > > that the jury is still out on group selection within natural
selection,
> >
> > Which jury? I'd like to know about this viewpoint. I keep hearing about
> > it, but
> > I haven't seen it yet.
> >
> > > and
> > > what is culture if not something that is conducted at the level of the
> > > group?
> > >
> > > Vincent
> > >
> > > > ----------
> > > > From: Chuck Palson
> > > > Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > > > Sent: Sunday, May 14, 2000 9:11 pm
> > > > To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > > > Subject: Why are human brains bigger?
> > > >
> > > > Blackmore in Meme Machine claims that the only reason she can think
of
> > > > why human brains are so big is because they accomodate so many
memes.
> > > > That may very well be true and not at all in contradiction to what
> > other
> > > > sciences have been thinking about for quite a while. After all, it
is
> > > > known that we have a huge lexicon - 80,000 words by the time the
> > average
> > > > "illiterate" kid graduates from an American high school! And then
that
> > > > same kid has to keep learning all kinds of things constantly through
> > his
> > > > life that are, believe it or not, _useful_ for making a living. The
> > > > point is there is no reason to suppose that memes are like genes
that
> > > > have an independent life of their own as Blackmore claims.
> > > >
> > > > But the number of memes that have to be crammed into our heads goes
> > > > beyond just simple knowledge of those sorts of objective things we
> > need
> > > > to know to make a living. There is a lot of stuff we have to know
also
> > > > just to live with other peoplel. The problem is that people tend to
> > > > cheat - they want something for nothing. But in order to cheat and
> > lie,
> > > > they have to remember who they lied to, what lie works with each
> > person
> > > > they have to deal with, and what they have to cover up from other
> > people
> > > > to make sure they are credible to everyone. It's an enormous amount
of
> > > > social information and computational power just to keep it all
> > straight.
> > > >
> > > > There is some interesting cross species information that tends to
> > > > confirm this explanation for why the human brain is so large: In
many
> > > > kinds of animals, the largest brain and smartest behaving species
are
> > > > social -- like bees, parents, Dolphins, etc. social animals send and
> > > > receive signals to coordinate attacks, and defense, gathering, in
> > > > collective sexual access. They exchange favors, repay and enforce
> > > > debts, punish cheers, enjoying coalitions. In other words, the
social
> > > > animals have societies just like we do also have larger brains.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ===============================================================
> > > > 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
> > > >
> > >
> > > ===============================================================
> > > 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
> >
> >
> > ===============================================================
> > 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
> >
>
> ===============================================================
> 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
===============================================================
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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