Nautilidae wrote:

natselrox wrote:And at moments like this, I feel happy that I quit Physics for Biology!

You are dead to me.

I said "at moments like these."

I'll answer tomorrow, Samsa-baby! I'm learning a lot so don't you dare stop answering. And it was Lorenz indeed. I just checked the pic.



I might have forgotten the man as a result of his Nazi-leanings.

I can't seem to get this thread off my head. I thought of doing some research before I posted a reply but it is getting annoying so I'll have another dig.

Mr.Samsa wrote:Because higher cognitive functions are the result of recursive simpler processes!

And you claim that the simpler behaviours are compiled together in exactly the same manner to give rise to complex behaviours of insects and higher cognitive functions in other 'higher' organisms? Sounds totally counter-intuitive to me.

I don't see where we're disagreeing here. What you've said is basically the same position as mine (except I'd quibble over the "slight modify" bit).

Instincts are an outdated concept that no longer have any place in science. This isn't to say that the concept underlying them is wrong, but the definition and typical understanding behind 'instinct' is misleading. The concept of instincts have been split into two areas: 1) reflexes and 2) fixed-action patterns. The former are basic cause and effect behaviors which are usually physiological in nature; for example, the knee jerk reaction. The latter are the more complex behaviors where there needs to be some kind of eliciting stimulus present in order to "trigger" the behavior ("trigger" is an inaccurate description of the process, but it's good enough for now); for example, the herring gulls pecking at the red spot. Don't believe me? Do a google scholar search for "instincts" in the last couple of decades and see how many articles you hit. Then do the same for "reflexes" and "fixed-action patterns". The advantage of the change in classification is that the "instinctual" processes now have more concrete definitions and they can be easily identified now, whereas with the term "instinct" the definition was so wibbly it was totally impractical.

Well, I don't know the exact definitions of the terms as used by pros in the field. What I find odd is that you mentioned 'reflexes' as being physiological in nature? What's the difference between the physiological and the psychological? Fixed neuronal circuits (immune to external modification) exist all over the body leading to what we call instincts/reflexes/FAPs.

And as for the example of the hatchlings, is that the one with the condor shadow? That was an interesting study where they flew the condor "puppet" over the birds to watch their behaviors. I can't remember the exact details of the study.. But the hatchlings didn't react when they flew the puppet backwards did they? And that's how they discovered that the response was a result of the specific shape, and not the shadow exactly. (Or something along those lines.. I read about it years ago).

Isn't it a good example of phylogenetic memory? It might be susceptible to future modification in the lifetime of the bird but it is surely inherited in its original unedited form across generations. Unless you propose some epigenetic mechanisms, conditioning has no effect in the way the circuit is transmitted through the genes.

Seriously, Nats? Give me something harder! Teaching a monkey not to be scared of a snake is like taking candy from a baby - or perhaps more accurately, training a baby to be afraid of cute white fluffy animals. That wasn't a serious request was it? Even if it wasn't the case that monkeys aren't innately afraid of snakes (Hinde (1991) discusses how monkeys raised in a lab don't have an aversion to snakes), changing fears and preferences toward things is one thing that we have perfected in behavioral science.

I might have picked the wrong example. Maybe we could take the pupilary reflex which can be interpreted as 'fear of excess light'. But that's beside the point.

All I wanted to say was that majority of the neuronal wirings are not plastic enough so that we can modify them through external influence. This seems fairly obvious to me.

Without any experience with flying basketballs or catching? The ball would hit me in the face.

Really? I doubt that. In a species that has evolved from a jungle-life, catching a flying object without prior exposure to anything like it should come natural.

The only exception is if I had experience with flying things in general, and at best I might be able to flap the ball away.

No way. How many catches do you think a child misses when he/she first goes out to play?

Judging the trajectory, assuming the final position, gauging the dimensions of the ball and moving your hands to catch them are all a result of learning how to catch a ball an inherited characteristic .

FIFY.

This isn't to say that we don't need the biological systems underpinning it all to make it possible - if we don't have eyes then we wouldn't be able to see it, without a decent memory no learning could take place, etc etc.

Are you serious? Catching a ball requires much more than a pair of eyes. Initial co-ordinates, estimated velocity, acceleration due to gravity, final position, percentage of fibers to contract in the respective muscles... You seriously believe that we learn each of these via a reinforcement mechanism by the age of 5?

natselrox wrote:Forgoing of immediate food for something later is often an evolutionary feature.

Oh no, my friend. Without training and experience, all animals are piss poor at self control.

Self-control? I doubt the term is even applicable to 99% of the species on the planet! To those whom it is applicable, it serves an evolutionary purpose and hence can be hijacked (although I am much skeptical about that) by behaviourists to do their research.

Preservation of life? Suicide.

Show me one example where an animal commits suicide before attaining the reproductive age.

My apologies, I forgot that god created us to hold dominion over all animals..

We are animals! If we do it, then it is evidence that animals can do it since we are animals. We could train dogs or mice to be celibate if you like. And when I was a kid, my friend's hamster committed suicide. He had a massive cage for it and it climbed right up to the top tier, squeezed out of the top and jumped out. He found it dead on his floor after school. All the warning signs were there, but everyone thought the cuts on his wrist were just a cry for help...[/quote]

See above.

Lorenz you mean? Yeah, but I'm not only referring to behaviors that only serve a purpose for infants. FAPs continue on into adulthood for a large number of species, and these are just as plastic as other behaviors. It's like we're given a basic template for how to behave in a standard environment, however, if the environment we find ourselves in is radically different in any way, we ditch the base plans and learn new things.

The whole of the human body is a plan FFS! How do you ditch that? Modifiable actions are so negligible that we might we might even consider them insignificant while looking at the broader picture from a Dobzhanskian perspective.

Incidentally, humans don't have any "instincts" or FAPs past the age of about 6 months. The only instinctual behaviors we have are a few reflexes and, arguably, yawning.

Name any behaviour and I'm sure I can show it to be more instinctual and less learned.

natselrox wrote:Of course, Darwin is outdated. His role may be valued in History books but Science is a cold and heartless bitch without any place for sentimental attachment or historical relevance.

Indeed. Just in case I was unclear above, my comment wasn't meant to be an attack on "your hero" - I was basically trying to say what you've just said with Darwin as an example.

natselrox wrote:I can't seem to get this thread off my head. I thought of doing some research before I posted a reply but it is getting annoying so I'll have another dig.

It's currently quite late and I haven't slept for a couple of days as I've been struggling with sound issues on Windows 7, so if my reply makes no sense, then most likely it's because you're a dirty, dirty naturist. It's all your fault, and not mine!

natselrox wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:Because higher cognitive functions are the result of recursive simpler processes!

And you claim that the simpler behaviours are compiled together in exactly the same manner to give rise to complex behaviours of insects and higher cognitive functions in other 'higher' organisms? Sounds totally counter-intuitive to me.

What's the alternative, a sky hook?

natselrox wrote:Well, I don't know the exact definitions of the terms as used by pros in the field. What I find odd is that you mentioned 'reflexes' as being physiological in nature? What's the difference between the physiological and the psychological? Fixed neuronal circuits (immune to external modification) exist all over the body leading to what we call instincts/reflexes/FAPs.

I wasn't being rigorous in my use of the term "physiological" there, as obviously all psychological responses are physiological in nature too. I was simply trying to contrast the basic difference between the two; that is, a reflex is just a cause-effect "behavior", so if you bang the tendon in your knee, your leg jerks etc. whereas a FAP is a more complex set of behaviors that is elicited by a stimulus. Arguably, a FAP is just a complex set of reflexes that doesn't require any physical contact to be initiated.

natselrox wrote:Isn't it a good example of phylogenetic memory? It might be susceptible to future modification in the lifetime of the bird but it is surely inherited in its original unedited form across generations. Unless you propose some epigenetic mechanisms, conditioning has no effect in the way the circuit is transmitted through the genes.

Yeah definitely it is, I wasn't arguing against that. We don't even need to look at extreme examples such as that to make that point though, you could equally point to the fact that mammals respond to sugar whereas other animals respond to tree bark. We have different "starting points" that determines the path that future learning takes. The condor shadow is simply a preset aversion stimulus, in the same way cockroaches find light aversive and we find pain aversive. We don't need to learn those things, and they are universal across all members of the species. Clearly they are innate evolutionary traits.

However, they can be altered, to some degree at least. You can train a hatchling to love the shadow of a condor and you can train a child to enjoy the taste of tree bark. Some things are more difficult to change, and there are still basic biological needs that have to be met, but even with things like pain (which is generally considered to be an aversive stimulus), we could train people or animals to enjoy it - e.g. BDSM.

natselrox wrote:I might have picked the wrong example. Maybe we could take the pupilary reflex which can be interpreted as 'fear of excess light'. But that's beside the point.

Fear of excess light?..

natselrox wrote:All I wanted to say was that majority of the neuronal wirings are not plastic enough so that we can modify them through external influence. This seems fairly obvious to me.

Seems counter-intuitive to me

natselrox wrote:

Without any experience with flying basketballs or catching? The ball would hit me in the face.

Really? I doubt that. In a species that has evolved from a jungle-life, catching a flying object without prior exposure to anything like it should come natural.

What do you mean by "natural"? Innately? Do you remember the first time you tried to catch a ball? I bet you failed horribly and that would have been with years of pretraining beforehand.

natselrox wrote:

The only exception is if I had experience with flying things in general, and at best I might be able to flap the ball away.

No way. How many catches do you think a child misses when he/she first goes out to play?

Quite a few, enough to make me question the universality of the 'catching' response. But you've been very sneaky in how you've phrased this: "How many catches do you think a child misses when he/she first goes out to play?" - even if we were to accept that every single child in the entire world made only perfect catches the very first time they go out to play catch, this would not prove your point. Can you see why?

Since you mentioned age 5 below, I assume that this "first time" takes place around then. Now, are you suggesting that up until that age the child has completely ignored all other objects in the world and has never had any experience with anything moving toward him? Of course this is impossible. From the time we're born we have things thrust at us - breasts, pacifiers, food, kisses, etc. All the time we are learning to judge velocities, movements, starting points, and so on.

Seriously, try throwing something to a baby. It just hits them in the nose. Admittedly, this is a difficult topic to study as the impaired motor functions of babies would make catching impossible as it is, so we're stuck again sitting on the nature-nurture fence where it's impossible to accurately tease them apart.

natselrox wrote:

Judging the trajectory, assuming the final position, gauging the dimensions of the ball and moving your hands to catch them are all a result of learning how to catch a ball an inherited characteristic .

FIFY.

You used the wrong acronym there, I think you meant "FUBAR"

natselrox wrote:

This isn't to say that we don't need the biological systems underpinning it all to make it possible - if we don't have eyes then we wouldn't be able to see it, without a decent memory no learning could take place, etc etc.

Are you serious? Catching a ball requires much more than a pair of eyes. Initial co-ordinates, estimated velocity, acceleration due to gravity, final position, percentage of fibers to contract in the respective muscles... You seriously believe that we learn each of these via a reinforcement mechanism by the age of 5?

Just above I have answered your question: yes, definitely. The physical capabilities to be able to make calculations in the first place obviously has a large genetic component, but the initial co-ordinates, estimated velocity, acceleration and final position judgements are all largely learnt. Stick a kid in a room with weird gravity, or some other quirks of physics, which makes flying balls behave in completely fucked up ways, and they will learn to play catch at the same rate a kid in a normal environment will.

If your claim is that we have a genetic predisposition toward being able to learn how to do all those calculations, then obviously I agree, but I think that's the point I was trying to make? If you're suggesting that we calculate all those things using innate rules then I can't see how you could possibly think that was true..

natselrox wrote:Self-control? I doubt the term is even applicable to 99% of the species on the planet! To those whom it is applicable, it serves an evolutionary purpose and hence can be hijacked (although I am much skeptical about that) by behaviourists to do their research.

How so? All animals can show self control when placed in a situation where it is possible. I'm not aware of any studies that show a significant difference between humans and animals when all variables are controlled for.

natselrox wrote:

Lorenz you mean? Yeah, but I'm not only referring to behaviors that only serve a purpose for infants. FAPs continue on into adulthood for a large number of species, and these are just as plastic as other behaviors. It's like we're given a basic template for how to behave in a standard environment, however, if the environment we find ourselves in is radically different in any way, we ditch the base plans and learn new things.

The whole of the human body is a plan FFS! How do you ditch that? Modifiable actions are so negligible that we might we might even consider them insignificant while looking at the broader picture from a Dobzhanskian perspective.

I can't see how you can think modifiable actions are negligible. The only sensible position in science is that behaviors are a complex mix of genetic and learned factors. To swing heavily one way or the other is just wrong and such a position cannot accuse mine of being crazy, or mad.. Madness, you say?

natselrox wrote:

Incidentally, humans don't have any "instincts" or FAPs past the age of about 6 months. The only instinctual behaviors we have are a few reflexes and, arguably, yawning.

Name any behaviour and I'm sure I can show it to be more instinctual and less learned.

Pick any you like. This isn't my opinion, it's an accepted fact in science. So unless you're using a completely different definition of "instinctual", or can why the scientists studying this are wrong, then you might want to reconsider your position

Obviously, this isn't to say that you can't prove them wrong, and it's entirely possible that they are, but generally if something I think goes against what a whole lot of smart people think, I tend to double and triple check all my assumptions.

Anyone else think that natselrox & Mr.Samsa need to get a room? Really, the Nature/Nurture debate was never so replete with sexual tension

Mr.Samsa wrote:

natselrox wrote:I can't seem to get this thread off my head. I thought of doing some research before I posted a reply but it is getting annoying so I'll have another dig.

It's currently quite late and I haven't slept for a couple of days as I've been struggling with sound issues on Windows 7, so if my reply makes no sense, then most likely it's because you're a dirty, dirty naturist. It's all your fault, and not mine!

I'm writing a project-file. I will reply tomorrow. Catch a sleep in the meantime, you geek.

chairman bill wrote:Anyone else think that natselrox & Mr.Samsa need to get a room? Really, the Nature/Nurture debate was never so replete with sexual tension

So far as the OP is considered, Samsa has no chance.

chairman bill wrote:Anyone else think that natselrox & Mr.Samsa need to get a room? Really, the Nature/Nurture debate was never so replete with sexual tension

To be honest, I'm just trying to wear him down until he accepts my advances. I don't even know what the discussion is about.

natselrox wrote:So far as the OP is considered, Samsa has no chance.

You wish, my handsomely groomed friend. If only you could get a firm grip on my quivering truth, then you'd see that it's you whose on the backfoot. All of my posts are engorged with facts, with the full force of science thrusting away behind them. So I think you'll find that it is you who is mistaken.. Bum sex.

Mr.Samsa wrote:I don't even know what the discussion is about.

Nor do I!

Mr.Samsa wrote:

And you claim that the simpler behaviours are compiled together in exactly the same manner to give rise to complex behaviours of insects and higher cognitive functions in other 'higher' organisms? Sounds totally counter-intuitive to me.

What's the alternative, a sky hook?

I should have been more clear. I meant that the complexity is much higher in the latter case. And you can't simply equate the association between blue colour and food via the octopamine reward system in a bee with the way a human relates his food to different colour perceptions. The basic principle might be the same, but the human brain, by the virtue of being more complex, has more opportunities to modify the simple action-reward circuit than the bee-brain.

I wasn't being rigorous in my use of the term "physiological" there, as obviously all psychological responses are physiological in nature too. I was simply trying to contrast the basic difference between the two; that is, a reflex is just a cause-effect "behavior", so if you bang the tendon in your knee, your leg jerks etc. whereas a FAP is a more complex set of behaviors that is elicited by a stimulus. Arguably, a FAP is just a complex set of reflexes that doesn't require any physical contact to be initiated.

Sound wooish to me! Pupillary reflexes require photons to be initiated. And since you can't transmit information without a physical medium, your so-called difference between reflexes and FAPs crumble.

Yeah definitely it is, I wasn't arguing against that. We don't even need to look at extreme examples such as that to make that point though, you could equally point to the fact that mammals respond to sugar whereas other animals respond to tree bark. We have different "starting points" that determines the path that future learning takes. The condor shadow is simply a preset aversion stimulus, in the same way cockroaches find light aversive and we find pain aversive. We don't need to learn those things, and they are universal across all members of the species. Clearly they are innate evolutionary traits.

So far so good.

However, they can be altered, to some degree at least. You can train a hatchling to love the shadow of a condor and you can train a child to enjoy the taste of tree bark. Some things are more difficult to change, and there are still basic biological needs that have to be met, but even with things like pain (which is generally considered to be an aversive stimulus), we could train people or animals to enjoy it - e.g. BDSM.

Again your bias is showing! When you are making someone enjoy an adverse stimulus, you're merely hijacking another deep-rooted evolutionary trait to achieve this feat. The ones you can modify, are left that way by evolution.

Fear of excess light?..

Why not? An absence of light on your retina can cause your adrenaline levels to go up and symapthetic activation (fear of dark). Similarly excess light on our retina causes your iris to contract and your hands and orbicularis muscles to protect the eye. What's the difference?

What do you mean by "natural"? Innately? Do you remember the first time you tried to catch a ball? I bet you failed horribly and that would have been with years of pretraining beforehand.

Seriously?

Quite a few, enough to make me question the universality of the 'catching' response. But you've been very sneaky in how you've phrased this: "How many catches do you think a child misses when he/she first goes out to play?" - even if we were to accept that every single child in the entire world made only perfect catches the very first time they go out to play catch, this would not prove your point. Can you see why?

Since you mentioned age 5 below, I assume that this "first time" takes place around then. Now, are you suggesting that up until that age the child has completely ignored all other objects in the world and has never had any experience with anything moving toward him? Of course this is impossible. From the time we're born we have things thrust at us - breasts, pacifiers, food, kisses, etc. All the time we are learning to judge velocities, movements, starting points, and so on.

Oh sure! I know what you mean. But I'm willing to bet that a motion sensing and computing device is inherited in all terrestrial animals. A little bit of tweaking is allowed but not much.

Seriously, try throwing something to a baby. It just hits them in the nose. Admittedly, this is a difficult topic to study as the impaired motor functions of babies would make catching impossible as it is, so we're stuck again sitting on the nature-nurture fence where it's impossible to accurately tease them apart.

Yes.

Just above I have answered your question: yes, definitely. The physical capabilities to be able to make calculations in the first place obviously has a large genetic component

We're getting there.

but the initial co-ordinates, estimated velocity, acceleration and final position judgements are all largely learnt.

Locating the position of an object in a 3D space has a a lot of genetic components (fixed projections of different optical neurons blah blah) and they are different from the calculating circuit. Combine the two and you get the device for calculating velocity and acceleration.

'Learning' is minor junior-artist in this film.

Stick a kid in a room with weird gravity, or some other quirks of physics, which makes flying balls behave in completely fucked up ways, and they will learn to play catch at the same rate a kid in a normal environment will.

Although I doubt that an organism spending 3 billion years on a planet with g=9.8 m/s^2 will suddenly be able to adapt to a zero gravity environment, my point still holds. All it means is that our inherited calculator is pretty good!

If your claim is that we have a genetic predisposition toward being able to learn how to do all those calculations, then obviously I agree, but I think that's the point I was trying to make?

If you're suggesting that we calculate all those things using innate rules then I can't see how you could possibly think that was true..

These positions are not always mutually exclusive. But I don't have the evidence to back it up right now. I'll come back with some non-human examples.

How so? All animals can show self control when placed in a situation where it is possible. I'm not aware of any studies that show a significant difference between humans and animals when all variables are controlled for.

After Hauser-gate, you guys have less credibility but I think I've addressed this before.

I can't see how you can think modifiable actions are negligible. The only sensible position in science is that behaviors are a complex mix of genetic and learned factors. To swing heavily one way or the other is just wrong and such a position cannot accuse mine of being crazy, or mad.. Madness, you say?

You are the one swinging too heavily, you fat bastard!

Pick any you like. This isn't my opinion, it's an accepted fact in science. So unless you're using a completely different definition of "instinctual", or can why the scientists studying this are wrong, then you might want to reconsider your position

I have studied a little bit of the language development and visual system development. You can pick an example from those. The 'catching response' might be a good one as well.

Obviously, this isn't to say that you can't prove them wrong, and it's entirely possible that they are, but generally if something I think goes against what a whole lot of smart people think, I tend to double and triple check all my assumptions.

I don't. I perform like shit at the Iowa gambling task. Must be an orbitofrontal cortex damage and not the way I was brought up, you nurturist!

natselrox wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:
What's the alternative, a sky hook?

I should have been more clear. I meant that the complexity is much higher in the latter case. And you can't simply equate the association between blue colour and food via the octopamine reward system in a bee with the way a human relates his food to different colour perceptions. The basic principle might be the same, but the human brain, by the virtue of being more complex, has more opportunities to modify the simple action-reward circuit than the bee-brain.

Well yes, we have much more complex forms of learning which can override or modify more simple learning associations (like the link to "stimulus equivalence" earlier which is the process by which we develop concepts), but these are still based on behavioral laws. Obviously simplifying behavioral laws to "stimulus-response associations" or "action-reward" type learning makes it sound ridiculous, in the same way describing the visual processing system in people as relying on a "light-image process" would sound silly. On a very general level it's kind of right, but so vague it doesn't really tell us anything.

natselrox wrote:

I wasn't being rigorous in my use of the term "physiological" there, as obviously all psychological responses are physiological in nature too. I was simply trying to contrast the basic difference between the two; that is, a reflex is just a cause-effect "behavior", so if you bang the tendon in your knee, your leg jerks etc. whereas a FAP is a more complex set of behaviors that is elicited by a stimulus. Arguably, a FAP is just a complex set of reflexes that doesn't require any physical contact to be initiated.

Sound wooish to me! Pupillary reflexes require photons to be initiated. And since you can't transmit information without a physical medium, your so-called difference between reflexes and FAPs crumble.

Wooish?

Look, there is a difference between a reflex like hitting a tendon and making it flex, compared to the presentation of the colour red causing a pecking behavior. On a physical or deeper level there might not be any difference at all between the two processes, but they are conceptually distinct enough to make it worthwhile dividing them into different categories. Specifically, we have reflexes that refer to "input-output" relations, and FAP which are "input - series of reflexes and learnt behaviors" relations.

natselrox wrote:

However, they can be altered, to some degree at least. You can train a hatchling to love the shadow of a condor and you can train a child to enjoy the taste of tree bark. Some things are more difficult to change, and there are still basic biological needs that have to be met, but even with things like pain (which is generally considered to be an aversive stimulus), we could train people or animals to enjoy it - e.g. BDSM.

Again your bias is showing! When you are making someone enjoy an adverse stimulus, you're merely hijacking another deep-rooted evolutionary trait to achieve this feat. The ones you can modify, are left that way by evolution.

How can my statement possibly be construed as biased? There is nothing in that above paragraph which is unreasonable. It is all trivially true, i.e "We have genetic components, some of which can be modified to a degree by experience and learning". Undeniably true.

Whether something is "left to be modified" by evolution or not is irrelevant to this discussion because such a position is not under debate. We know that some things can be modified, and when they can be modified, we call this learning. The "credit" is not given to genetics by virtue of it being necessary for an organism to live - we inevitably reach a point where we have to change our level of explanation before we can produce any meaningful results.

natselrox wrote:

Fear of excess light?..

Why not? An absence of light on your retina can cause your adrenaline levels to go up and symapthetic activation (fear of dark). Similarly excess light on our retina causes your iris to contract and your hands and orbicularis muscles to protect the eye. What's the difference?

Does the absence of light always produce an increase in adrenaline and sympathetic activation all the time in every person? Surely that would make it incredibly difficult to sleep? Or did you mean that happens in people who are afraid of the dark? In which case, it is an effect of the fear, and not the fear itself. The "fear of light" you've described sounds more like, at most, a physical aversion to light. "Fears" are behavioral phenomena, and these effects may trigger or increase the level of fear, but describing "fear of the dark" as "an increase in adrenaline levels, etc" is looking at it bass ackwards.

natselrox wrote:

What do you mean by "natural"? Innately? Do you remember the first time you tried to catch a ball? I bet you failed horribly and that would have been with years of pretraining beforehand.

Seriously?

Which part? My questioning of the use of the term "natural", my claim that you failed to catch perfectly as a kid, or that it requires years of pretraining? The first claim is perfectly reasonable given the vagueness of the term, the third is undeniably true, but arguably the second is on shaky ground - you bloody Indians probably do have a "cricket gene" in you so you might have always been able to catch perfectly..

natselrox wrote:Oh sure! I know what you mean. But I'm willing to bet that a motion sensing and computing device is inherited in all terrestrial animals. A little bit of tweaking is allowed but not much.

But things like motion sensing requires a degree of skill in discriminating objects from the world, and discriminating pre and post positions of objects, and so on, and all these things are done through learning. So we need the visual system that is capable of being able to see far enough to detect objects, with a "refresh rate" capable of being able to notice motion, etc etc., but the calculations are still learnt. We have a brain powerful enough to make the calculations, yes, but the actual equations we use are all developed over time through our experience with various situations.

natselrox wrote:

but the initial co-ordinates, estimated velocity, acceleration and final position judgements are all largely learnt.

Locating the position of an object in a 3D space has a a lot of genetic components (fixed projections of different optical neurons blah blah) and they are different from the calculating circuit. Combine the two and you get the device for calculating velocity and acceleration.

And identifying what an object is, what a position is, how it behaves in 3D space has a lot of environmental components. Nature/nurture, you can't separate the two and pretend to have a meaningful discussion.

natselrox wrote:'Learning' is minor junior-artist in this film.

Trolling, reported.

natselrox wrote:

Stick a kid in a room with weird gravity, or some other quirks of physics, which makes flying balls behave in completely fucked up ways, and they will learn to play catch at the same rate a kid in a normal environment will.

Although I doubt that an organism spending 3 billion years on a planet with g=9.8 m/s^2 will suddenly be able to adapt to a zero gravity environment, my point still holds. All it means is that our inherited calculator is pretty good!

Doesn't have to be zero gravity, just a different gravity. I can't think of any way to ethically test this though. But if you describe your "inherited calculator" as the thing which requires a mass of environmental data and learning before it can start producing accurate results, then you need to reassess the usefulness of assuming the existence of an "inherited calculator".

natselrox wrote:

If your claim is that we have a genetic predisposition toward being able to learn how to do all those calculations, then obviously I agree, but I think that's the point I was trying to make?

If you're suggesting that we calculate all those things using innate rules then I can't see how you could possibly think that was true..

These positions are not always mutually exclusive. But I don't have the evidence to back it up right now. I'll come back with some non-human examples.

True, they aren't mutually exclusive but given the variation and unpredictable nature of different environments, I imagine that having fixed rules for calculating certain things would be a disadvantage to any organism. Unless, as I said above, you're referring to extremely fundamental rules that facilitate the nature of future learning, then again such a claim is undeniably true.

natselrox wrote:

How so? All animals can show self control when placed in a situation where it is possible. I'm not aware of any studies that show a significant difference between humans and animals when all variables are controlled for.

After Hauser-gate, you guys have less credibility but I think I've addressed this before.

I had never heard of him before, but he sounds like a jackass with shit experiments. Apparently he was measuring the behavior of his subjects by videotaping them and then coding their behavior. May as well sit them down on a leather couch and get them to talk about their feelings..

Anyway, I don't understand what claim you're trying to make by bringing him up. That because one scientist was fraudulent then all of science is flawed? Oh wait, you just wanted to take a specific jab at behavioral researchers... But given that his papers were reviewed by journals like Science, Cognition, etc, then this is a reflection of science in general and not behavioral research. Also, the best rebuttal to people who claim that one bad apple in science refutes all of science (or part of it) is to point out that the misconduct was discovered and refuted by other behavioral researchers..

natselrox wrote:

I can't see how you can think modifiable actions are negligible. The only sensible position in science is that behaviors are a complex mix of genetic and learned factors. To swing heavily one way or the other is just wrong and such a position cannot accuse mine of being crazy, or mad.. Madness, you say?

You are the one swinging too heavily, you fat bastard!

If that's what you think my position is then I haven't explained myself very well. I'm strongly arguing in favour of nature and nurture influences, I don't think arguing for one over the other, or claiming that one is "more" influential, is helpful at all. I do, however, think that people severely misunderstand the role that environmental factors and learning plays in how we understand the world. In other words, I take a similar approach to John Watson:

Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years.

That is, I do sometimes argue for, or emphasise, the side of nurture but this is simply an attempt to balance the scales, not because I think that we can discuss behavior without reference to genetics.

natselrox wrote:

Pick any you like. This isn't my opinion, it's an accepted fact in science. So unless you're using a completely different definition of "instinctual", or can why the scientists studying this are wrong, then you might want to reconsider your position

I have studied a little bit of the language development and visual system development. You can pick an example from those. The 'catching response' might be a good one as well.

How in the world can you argue that language is instinctual?!... (Please, please, please, don't reference Pinker.. )

The visual system development might be a good example, you'd have to be more specific though. And you have to make sure you're discussing behaviors (that which an organism does) and not biological processes. In other words, describing the activation of rods and cones in the eye when light hits them as "instinctual" is as ridiculous as describing a heart beat as "instinctual".

natselrox wrote:I don't. I perform like shit at the Iowa gambling task. Must be an orbitofrontal cortex damage and not the way I was brought up, you nurturist!

Maybe you have a testicular problem, otherwise known as "Big Balls Syndrome"

And just to clarify, my position in no way represents a nurturist position!

I have only read Pinker! And a couple of textbooks!

Will reply tomorrow. Currently watching Mr. Penrose on consciousness ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f477FnTe1M0 ). 23 mins into the video and I can't understand his proof of Godel's theorem.

*pokes head in*

Mr.Samsa wrote:

natselrox wrote:

Pick any you like. This isn't my opinion, it's an accepted fact in science. So unless you're using a completely different definition of "instinctual", or can why the scientists studying this are wrong, then you might want to reconsider your position

I have studied a little bit of the language development and visual system development. You can pick an example from those. The 'catching response' might be a good one as well.

How in the world can you argue that language is instinctual?!... (Please, please, please, don't reference Pinker.. )

My, this is getting interesting. I smell blood. Pinker's, that is, when Mr. Samsa tears him to pieces.

Just for the lolz, I might take Pinker's side.

Bring it on!

natselrox wrote:Just for the lolz, I might take Pinker's side.

Bring it on!

I think this deserves a separate thread focussing on the "language instinct". Shall we?

natselrox wrote::tehe:

I have only read Pinker! And a couple of textbooks!

natselrox wrote:Just for the lolz, I might take Pinker's side.

Bring it on!

katja z wrote:
I think this deserves a separate thread focussing on the "language instinct". Shall we?

Nooooooooooooo! Why Katja? Why must you torment me like this? *shakes fist at the sky*

(And yes, a separate thread would probably be appropriate. To be honest, the last couple of pages of this thread probably deserves to be in a separate thread..)

natselrox wrote:Will reply tomorrow. Currently watching Mr. Penrose on consciousness ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f477FnTe1M0 ). 23 mins into the video and I can't understand his proof of Godel's theorem.

Oh, Nats

Penrose is attacked on two fronts for his ideas on quantum consciousness - firstly, he's attacked by physicists for mangling quantum theory so severely, and secondly he's attacked by psychologists for completely misunderstanding how humans operate. Penrose, an otherwise brilliant man as far as I know, is a prime example of why being smart in one area does not permit you to pretend to be smart in another.

In much the same way Pinker is a smart man in the area of being wrong but he pretends to be smart in science..

I knew it. Every review of the "Emperor's New Mind" says the same thing! Anyway, I stopped watching after 23 mins. I'll have to know Godel's doodledoo before I continue.

When Crick was young, he thought that there were two unsolved problems in biology. One was life and the other was consciousness. He solved the former and died trying to solve the latter.

natselrox wrote:
When Crick was young, he thought that there were two unsolved problems in biology. One was life and the other was consciousness. He solved the former and died trying to solve the latter.

You might like to stop by in the thread on consciousness in the Psychology and Neuroscience forum. It's unlikely that we're going to solve the problem of consciousness by posting comments to strangers on the internet, but I think it's quite an interesting discussion there - with a focus on the science and evolutionary issues associated with the phenomenon.

Mr.Samsa wrote:

natselrox wrote:
When Crick was young, he thought that there were two unsolved problems in biology. One was life and the other was consciousness. He solved the former and died trying to solve the latter.

You might like to stop by in the thread on consciousness in the Psychology and Neuroscience forum. It's unlikely that we're going to solve the problem of consciousness by posting comments to strangers on the internet, but I think it's quite an interesting discussion there - with a focus on the science and evolutionary issues associated with the phenomenon.

I'm reading all the posts there but I really don't know anything about these stuff.

Mr.Samsa wrote:

natselrox wrote::tehe:

I have only read Pinker! And a couple of textbooks!

natselrox wrote:Just for the lolz, I might take Pinker's side.

Bring it on!

katja z wrote:
I think this deserves a separate thread focussing on the "language instinct". Shall we?

Nooooooooooooo! Why Katja? Why must you torment me like this? *shakes fist at the sky*

(And yes, a separate thread would probably be appropriate. To be honest, the last couple of pages of this thread probably deserves to be in a separate thread..)

Hehe. You don't have to participate, you know. It's your free choice to let yourself be so tormented.

Give me some minutes to formulate an OP and then I'll post the link here. Of course, you're free not to click on it ... but I hope you will. In fact, I think that you have a FAP that consists in responding to such OPs

Evil Katja ftw!

There go your study-plans, Samsa!

natselrox wrote:
I'm reading all the posts there but I really don't know anything about these stuff.

Well ask questions there if you don't understand, I'm sure someone will be able to help you out. Then you might be able to suggest some genetic mechanisms that assist the production of consciousness, or at the very least, get help finding some reading material on the subject.

natselrox wrote:Evil Katja ftw!

There go your study-plans, Samsa!

Too right. I'll have to get Lazar to come back me up, Pinkerians can get nasty when you point out that Pinker is a crappy scientist.