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  #21  
Old March 9th, 2006, 04:42 PM
Margaret McGhee Margaret McGhee is offline
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Default Re: Why God Is Probably a Guy

Hi Carey,

Let me just jump in a bit to clarify a few things

I think that the topic of conceptualization in non-human primates is relevant because I think that whatever is different about human brains that allows us to be self-aware may be present in more primitive forms in our closest genetic relatives. (Not that we evolved from apes, just that we had a common ancestor in the not too distant past and there could be valuable clues there.)

I suspect that the orang that hides the screwrdriver for later escape is exhibiting a level of brain behavior that humans probably experienced at some stage of our evolution. Some scientists suspect that a fortuitous modification of our vocal tract then allowed us to verbalize those primitive concepts as words that represented the real objects and communicate them to others.

Without words to store them and communicate them to others, most species have a limited ability to objectify (conceptualize) very may things in their world. So they have evolved in ways and/or remained in niches that don't require that.

But, I suspect that that was such a powerful adaptation for early humans (almost defenseless on the savannah and out of the forest) that our brains quickly developed the ability to hold all these valuable new symbols (concepts) that we could communicate - and that we coincidentally evolved new circuits that could manipulate those symbolic mental images in even more valuable ways (reasoning).

And, since I think that conceptualization is a trick that, once started, can expand exponentially to higher levels with few additional evolutionary changes, I suspect that the ultimate result of all that over a half a million years was our eventual ability to think about (conceptualize) our own state of being and even our own thinking and communicating about conceptualizing - as we are here.

Many neuroscientists consider understanding the mechanism of consciousness as the holy grail and even though I don't qualify as a scientist I find it very intriguing as well. Certainly, our evolved ability to conceptualize and reason - and how that affects our decision-making - bears directly on EP.

Those are the topics that interest me the most here.

***************************

I know that Jarred Diamond, among others, has some strong feelings about our treatment of primates for research. I don't have such strong feelings myself. I am more interested in the science than the ethics. Perhaps I should be more concerned but I try to limit my ideological causes to the ways humans treat other humans - which seems to provide more than enough grist for my mill. I'll admit an insufferably liberal emotional attachment to fairness, tolerance and kindness in human and even animal relations. I am sure Fred will characterize that as evidence of my irrationality (rather than of my morality which he's sure I don't have since I don't believe in God or free will). Perhaps he's right.

On the other hand, I generally deplore unnecessary pain and suffering in any organism, but especially those closest to humans. I think it is important to conduct research on animals only for damned good reasons and as humanely as possible. While I am not overly concerned personally with where that line should be drawn - I am glad that others are because research is conducted with money and there will always be pressure to spend less of that to get the results.

I am aware of these irrational biases that I have and I try to eliminate them from my consideration of scientific questions. You can see from some of my past posts that I'm not always successful and I invite you or others here to point that out when I fail.

Margaret
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  #22  
Old March 9th, 2006, 05:28 PM
Margaret McGhee Margaret McGhee is offline
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Posts: 271
Default Re: Why God Is Probably a Guy

Hi Todd, You said
Quote:
In this partcular argument, I'm not trying to make any point about the mechanisms of the chimp's decision making. I'm just saying that it represents the outcome of a fight in its nervous system, and not terribly differently than we do in some respects. We share enough phylogeny that meaningful comparisons are unavoidable. You and I obviously agree that this representation takes different forms in humans and chimps. I'm just saying that the representation has some commonality as well, it is not entirely symbolic in humans. This is a fundamental premise in evolutionary biology, the continuity of faculties in closely related species, due to the conservatvism of evolutionary adaptation.
I fundamentally agree. However, I see these as layers of representation. The desire to intimidate and perhaps hurt the adversary is at the lowest level and is probably hormonally driven.

Then, there could be emotions attached to memories of past encounters with that particular individual. I'm sure both human and non-human apes can experience these lower levels.

Then, for those organisms that can conceptualize winning and losing and experience the emotional markers of those concepts (euphoria or pain) then the desire to win and not lose may be at a higher level of representation - and may reinforce or inhibit the fight response. (Maybe some non-human apes can do this.)

At an even higher level would be the desire to be a winner and not a loser - a different concept than just desiring the good feelings that would result from winning or avoid the pain from losing. These would be the good feelings and benefits that would result later from being seen and respected as a winner and avoiding the pain and disrespect from being a loser in the band. I'm not sure than non-human apes could do this. Maybe in a primitive way some can. Perhaps this is the precursor to self-awareness.

And then humans may also engage in some logical calculation of one's chances in the fight which would, by way of its own emotional markers of that logical calculation, constitute another set of inputs. Like perhaps realizing that one's adversary forgot his axe when you didn't.

But as you describe, I agree that humans can experience all of those - and not just one or another.

As an aside, this is congruent with my theory of a functionally emotional decision-making mechanism as it expects emotions from many different brain areas to converge in decision-making - the result going in the direction of the strongest net emotions at the moment the decision is made. I suspect that's how it works not just in humans but in all mammals and perhaps even all vertebrates. The differences between them being simply the levels of mental representation that are available to each species.

And it also conforms to
Quote:
. . the fundamental premise in evolutionary biology, the continuity of faculties in closely related species, due to the conservatvism of evolutionary adaptation
. . in this case the slow addition through evolution of ever more refined layers of (emotional) input to a simple and ancient decision-making mechanism - for those species whose survival depends on developing ways to make more accurate decisions in a highly variable environment.

Margaret
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