Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id SAA19888 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 3 Jun 2000 18:48:26 +0100 Message-Id: <200006031746.NAA16601@mail6.lig.bellsouth.net> From: "Joe E. Dees" <joedees@bellsouth.net> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2000 12:50:23 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: RE: Jabbering ! In-reply-to: <4.3.1.0.20000602101930.00ee1330@pop3.htcomp.net> References: <Pine.OSF.4.21.0006020925320.29909-100000@frost.umd.edu> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12b) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Date sent: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 10:24:49 -0400
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: "Mark M. Mills" <mmills@htcomp.net>
Subject: RE: Jabbering !
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> At 09:38 AM 6/2/00 -0400, you wrote:
> >Do caterpillars do things like 'choosing behaviors', arriving at decisions
> >and judgements? Do apes? I think the issue of whether they have 'culture'
> >hinges on this...
>
> Lawrence,
>
> If you are really interested in this, take a look at "The Evolution of
> Culture in Animals" by John Tyler Bonner (1980). It looks very closely
> issue you raise, do animals 'choose' anything..
>
> Mark
>
As was mentioned in Scientific American in their Intelligence issue,
apes will beg for food just as insistently before a blindfolded person
as they will before an unblindfolded one, even after experiencing a
blindfold themselves. This leads one to the conclusion that they
are simply exhibiting the results of stimulus-response positive
reinforcement between begging and being given food, much as the
family dog does, and either do not have a conception of self-
awareness (although they possess rudimentary self-awareness
themselves), or do not apply such a concept to others. It's kinda
hard to build a culture on such foundations, although apes do have
rudiments of one; for animals of lesser cerebral complexity, the
attribution of culture to their intraspecial relations would seem to
stretch credulity.
>
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