Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id CAA02225 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 23 May 2000 02:21:58 +0100 Message-Id: <200005230119.VAA08808@mail2.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 20:23:19 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Why are human brains bigger? In-reply-to: <3929706C.98955E59@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 18:37:48 +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
>
>
> "Joe E. Dees" wrote:
>
> > 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
> >
> >
> > > 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.
>
> Joe -
> I'm glad you brought this experiment up, because I have been thinking about it for the
> last few months. I must say that I so far take the side of Pinker on this; I don't
> think it necessarily shows anything about self consciousness.
>
I think that it conclusively demonstrates that the size/complexity
quotient of lesser mammalian brains does not breach the godelian
barrier beyond which recursivity permits the emergence of self-
referentiality, hence self-consciousness, and that the brains of the
great apes and of humans do indeed surpass that threshhold.
>
>Are we to draw from this
> experiment that because of an added visual marker the lesson that lesser apes and
> other animals don't have a sense that their inner states of, say, readiness to do
> something, are different? First, we don't know just how different that little spot
> makes the image.
>
In either case. enough to detect it, for the spot is pointed to in any
case, either in the reflection or on the self. To claim that it is not
noticed is to ignore the different but in each case existent
behaviors exhibited towards it, by both the animals who consider it
to be placed on a conspecific, and those animals and humans who
realize that it has been placed upon themselves.
>
> What seems like a tiny distinction to us might appear huge to
them. I
> seem to remember vaguely how this kind of thing is a common feature of ethology
> studies of recognition of others in the species.
>
That's exactly the thing. These lesser apes are recognizing those
reflections as conspecifics and behaving towards them in
instinctually circumscribed ways (for instance, baboons attacked
their reflections). They are not recognizing them as reflections of
themselves.
>
>Second, the lack of this ability
> doesn't seem likely to me.
>
Those who, can recognize themselves in a mirror can still
regognize others. It's not a matter of "instead of", but of "in
addition to."
>
>Third, I would say that the best way to find the smoking
> gun on this one would be to actually research the action of the brain itself with MRIs
> and other tools.
>
I agree that further corroboration is always a useful thing.
>
>I would be quite surprised to find that animals don't have some
sense
> of self.
>
But an explicit and distinct self-identity? If you think that all
animals possess this, you WILL eventually be quite surprised.
>
> In the mean time, perhaps you could give an alternate explanation of how social
> animals calculate social behavior. I wonder if the ability to have empathy - so strong
> in humans - could play a role. It seems to me that that is an important way in which
> we interpret the motivations of others. And I wonder if empathy emerged because it is
> more effcient than a program that relies on hard coded stimulus/response. Or perhaps
> empathy is a better way to detect cheaters. I'd like your feedback with anything you
> have to say on the subject.
>
I believe that a lot of such behavior is instinctual and innate; after
all, different species manifest differing social behaviors. It can only
emerge, however, when the ground conditions are met, which of
course includes the presence of conspecifics. Much of it is
learned (or at least the latent instinctual capacities are actualized)
through play behavior and parental nurturing. Remember that
empathy can perhaps develop prior to self-conscious awareness,
since other-permanence towards the caregiver develops before both
self-permanence and object permanence, which develop together in
the human child.
>
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
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