Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id WAA01313 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 22 May 2000 22:19:34 +0100 Message-Id: <200005222113.RAA01126@mail4.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 16:17:53 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Why are human brains bigger? In-reply-to: <39291A61.5AC555AC@mediaone.net> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Date sent: Mon, 22 May 2000 12:30:41 +0100
From: chuck <cpalson@mediaone.net>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Why are human brains bigger?
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
>
> Robin Faichney wrote:
>
> > However, that misses the point I was trying to make linking belief with
> > action. It seems to me that a member of a simpler species might well
> > exhibit behaviour quite similar to that of a human who had the
> > hunting area belief. So what's the difference (if any)? The human
> > thinks "I believe this, and I want to influence my comrades, because
> > not only will we have success in our hunting, but I'll get the credit".
> > And the animal doesn't! So what I'm saying is that belief and the
> > self-concept go together, and action goes right along with them. The
> > animal can be said to have a sort of working hypothesis, but it does
> > not have a concept with which it identifies: "I, me, my belief!". Nor
> > does it act on the basis of such a belief -- it just does what it's
> > inclined to do. Susan Blackmore would have us be just like that, and
> > I'm inclined to agree with her.
>
> As usual, I think that the distinction between animal and human may be overdrawn
> here. I find Robin's particular example quite germane, because I think that the
> kind of consciousness that we ordinarily call self consciousness that is
> implicit in the example MUST be a characteristic of any sexually reproducing
> social species. These characteristics have two problems they must deal with to
> survive: each individual 1) contains a bundle of self interests which is unique
> and therefore conflicts with every other individual 2) each individual must
> participate in cooperative efforts to survive and these efforts necessarily
> involve supressing the expression of conflicting interests. Therefore, there
> must be a mechanism, a monitor in Pinker's words, that monitors and compares the
> difference between the two. We constantly scheme ***in our language*** to
> monitor the difference -- an example being Robin's example above. I think that
> the difference between animals and ourselves is probably that we do it in our
> native language and the animals do it in their "mentalese." We probably have our
> mentalese also, but we can't talk about it.
>
> In sum, I am arguing that there has to be a monitoring mechanism that compares
> and calculates our own individual interests and how that must wedged somehow
> into cooperative activities.
>
But except for the higher apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans
and gorillas), only humans can pass the mirror test of self-
recognition (Social Cognition and the Acquisition of Self, Lewis and
Brooks-Gunn, 1972), where the subjects are placed around mirrors
until they are familiar with them, then a dab of red paint is placed
upon their noses, and they are shown their mirror reflections.
Lesser apes and other animals, attend to the paint on the reflected
nose, treating the reflaction as an conspecific (an other of their own
species), while adult apes, some human children past the age of
15 months, and all (except mentally challenged) human children
past the age of 2 years reach for their own noses, demonstrating
their understanding that the reflection is a reflection of themselves;
a concept of self is necessary to such self-recognition. This test is
a perceptual one, and takes place under the radar screen of and
free from any interference from the semiotic constraints of human
or animal communication forms.
> > --
> > 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
>
>
> ===============================================================
> 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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