Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA02942 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 21 Nov 2001 16:03:55 GMT Message-ID: <001a01c172a6$1f59c900$f7a0bed4@default> From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <001001c16c62$3552d3e0$3524f4d8@teddace><01111916483600.01049@storm.berkeley.edu><000701c17203$67090fc0$f9a2bed4@default> <01112018184003.01049@storm.berkeley.edu> Subject: Re: Debunking pseudoscience: Why horoscopes really work Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 17:03:06 +0100 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
----- Original Message -----
From: Philip A.E. Jonkers <phae@uclink.berkeley.edu>
> I never intended Kenneth. I wonder how many intellectual or higher
> cognitive functions (consciousness, emphathy, reasoning) are
> truly intrinsic. You are right when you imply that the phenomenon
> of feral children don't really answer that question. For all we know their
> `civilized' human properties have been supplanted by more animal-like
ones.
> However, this view is rather hard to maitain if we consider the fact
> that humans really have to learn most mental activities from
> scratch (including perceptual, let alone something as complex as
> consciousness), i.e. no stimulus no learning, no neurological wiring.
> We are very apt students indeed, but we have to learn nonetheless.
<< True, but both outcomes are complete different settings.
We do, of course have to learn almost everything and in a way we get than
those higher intellectual abilities and properties.
But, on the other hand, a feral child does have no need for such properties.
IMO, the brain if you like, kicks itself one step back_ that is pre-
intellectual,
more instinctive patterns re- appear.
The brain, sharpens itself all the time in order to maintain the integrity
of the
human organism. Darwinistic dispositions about survival emerge and built
a bridge between the gap of " survival- stategies" and the actual situation.
Connections about emphathy and reasoning aren 't made, but others ( most
of them connected with survival) are.
I don 't think the feral child needs human " models " to survive, at one
point,
IMO, the brain " takes over ", sensorial input is different, the brain will
make
connections accordingly.
The kid will ' learn ' as we do, but than along different lines of survival.
> Giving that paradigm it seems more natural to assume that the human
> higher order mental software has not been programmed on birth but needs
> to come from exposure to and interaction with human culture and its
society.
<< I think it has, when the time is ripe, when the situation is
there,...when
the effect of any possible connection is needed, the software will release
its information.
In the early years that info will be more species- bound, with learning and
with the exposure to culture and society more software connections will be
made, but IMO the basic- info upon which the rest is built is already there.
We all begin more or less with the same human isomorphism, the variation
is due to genetic intervention.
We all start with the genes that were good of building bodies in the
particular
way of our species, the difference between us all is due, not to the genes,
but due to their effects.
In a way each gene drags along it own software. It is hardware, but it
becomes
software in the Darwinian jungle of connections.
Regards,
Kenneth
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