Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id DAA19980 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 24 May 2000 03:18:00 +0100 Message-Id: <200005240215.WAA19363@mail2.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 21:19:53 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Why are human brains bigger? In-reply-to: <39299D3D.33291DE1@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 21:49:01 +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 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
> > > >
>
> Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I have some comments on it below.
>
> >
> > > >
> > > > > 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.
>
> All I can say is, "Sure, if you say so." The problem is, I don't know what godelian barrier
> or recursivity means, much less how they are relevant. Would you like to elaborate or at
> least give me a reference?
>
> Also, it does seem relevant here that the brains of social species are indeed larger - which
> would seem to go along with what both of us are saying.
>
Godel's Incompleteness Theorem is perhaps the most significant
mathematical proof of the 20th century. He proves that any
system of sufficient complexity to permit recursion or self-reference
is necessarily either incomplete or in some place incorrect. It is
breathtakingly simple, and here is a linguistic synopsis.
First, let us postualte axiomatic system A. All true statements
reside within A, and only true statements are found there. Now, let
us construct statement B. Statement B is a recursive or self-
referential statement; it talks about itself, and what it says is "B is
not an axiom of A." What has happened here? If we place B
within A, then A contains the false statement that "B is not an
axiom of A", but if we exclude A from B, then the statement that "B
is not an axiom of A" is rendered true, and A does not comtain all
true statements. B belongs either (neither inside nor outside A) or
(both inside and outside A), and the paradox is unresolveable
within axiomatic system A. In other words, B is undecideable, and
the bottom falls out; mathematics is revealed as a Zen Koan.
What does this heve to do with us? Conscious self-awareness is recursive
and self-referential; it is consciousness of being conscious. Since
we possess it, our brains, as physical instantiations of interrelated
and systemic logical structures, have breached the Godelian
complexity barrier. In this sense, we are both not and not not the
world we perceive and in which we act, kinda like the Zen answer
neti, neti (not this, not that). We are neither seamlessly blended
with it nor nonrelationally bifurcated from it; our relationship with our
environs constitutes a system, beneath or beyond the categories of
unity and multiplicity.
> > >
> > >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
>
> I am not arguing that it is not noticed - to the contrary. I am arguing that it could have
> much more salience than our intuition would indicate.
>
But what kind of salience besides self-reference would explain the
differential reactions experimentally registered?
>
> > 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.
>
> Exactly - because "themselves" is defined according to the salience of certain
> characteristics. For example, lets do a thought experiment. We invent a kind of digital
> mirror that can represent us as a mirror does or dressed in all kinds of fantastic costumes.
> Even some of our species might try to attack these latter images that seem to only want to
> perfectly imitate us. That little spot on the nose might have much more salience than it
> would appear to us.
>
I would like to see an experiment done where the movements on a
screen were the same as those of the subject, but the form was
different. This experiment was not possible in 1972, when the
study was conducted, since we lacked the enabling technology
which we now possess. However, they did have screens playing
tapes of conspecifics, and even of the subjects themselves,
performing different motions as a control. The addition which you
suggest (and of which I had previously thought) would indeed
logically complete the ensemble.
> > >
> > >Second, the lack of this ability
> > > doesn't seem likely to me.
> > >
> > Those who, can recognize themselves in a mirror can still
> > recognize 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.
>
> You actually want to say they can't distinguish themselves from others and don't have self
> monitors? I could say the same - YOU will be surprised. :) I think that you might have
> trouble with this idea because you immediately think of the concept of self-identity in
> human terms - language and all.
>
How far down the animal chain are you willing to go? Rats and
shrews, for instance? Fish? Clams?
> > >
> > > 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.
>
> Of course - but what is the nature of the instinct. Pinker says that the reason we are so
> flexible is not that we have less instincts, but that we have more. So what are the
> instinctual components of social behavior.
>
This is indeed a hot cognitive debate (canalization vs. flexibility),
but I see self-consciousness as the final programming, for with it
we are basically programmed to be able to transcend our
programming. Self-consciousness is the basis for both freedom of
choice and the ability to create signification.
>
> > It can only
> > emerge, however, when the ground conditions are met, which of
> > course includes the presence of conspecifics.
>
> I would add here that survival depends on the ability to cooperate.
>
Cooperation and competition are co-primordial necessities. An
interesting game-theoretical approach is to be found in THE
EVOLUTION OF COOPERATION, by Robert M. Axelrod.
>
> > 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.
>
> I'm not sure. I would think that empathy depends on an already stable platform of self.
>
I am presenting the Piagetian model (which was also the context in
which Lewis and Brooks-Gunn pursued their studies). Further
study in the area would be a good thing.
>
>
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