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06-02-2010, 10:57 AM | #31 (permalink) | |
MB quadrant's JM Vincent
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Quote:
I also still can't see why it can't be a combination of the two. The freeing of our hands, a meat diet, and bountiful environment all combining to support the development of self awareness. At the very least, fossil records support that at some point a group of hominid ancestors ceased their nomadic activities and settled for a time, which would only have happened if the environment supported such an action.
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06-02-2010, 11:17 AM | #32 (permalink) | |||
Juicious Maximus III
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I'm not saying that self-awareness comes from a change in diet and ecology, although I see how it may have seen like it. I believe self-awareness, in essence passing a mirror test, was something we could do before our change in diet. Quote:
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What I'm thinking is that you got smarts and self-awareness mixed up. Certainly there were things in our evolutionary history which had to do with food availability that probably made us smarter. What I'm arguing is that self-awareness most likely happened before that. If you were talking about an increase in general smarts and adaptability, I would've been on the same page as you.
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06-02-2010, 11:48 AM | #33 (permalink) | ||
carpe musicam
Join Date: Apr 2009
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Take the beaver for instance, it acts like it's acting as if it knows what it is doing exactly when building a damn as if it were a human engineer. But it that the case? Does a beaver have a self-actualization that it is a dam-builder and goes about it's day with a steadfast determination of realizing it's dam-building potential and endeavors to accomplish it's goal of building a dam or is it just plain instinct? When someone accidently step on a dog, because it is stealthily lieing somewhere on the floor where it can not see it, and it yeps - is this proof of self-awareness? Or it is just a reflex? Grant it, there are animals are animals that are highly intelligent, and even as we speak in Japan they are building humanoid computer robots that imitate human intelligence. But do animals and humanoid computer robots have the same exact self-awareness as humans beings do? Or is it instinct and nifty computer programming?
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"it counts in our hearts" ?ºº? “I have nothing to offer anybody, except my own confusion.” Jack Kerouac. “If one listens to the wrong kind of music, he will become the wrong kind of person.” Aristotle. "If you tried to give Rock and Roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'." John Lennon "I look for ambiguity when I'm writing because life is ambiguous." Keith Richards |
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06-02-2010, 12:04 PM | #34 (permalink) |
Juicious Maximus III
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Scabb Island
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^What you're doing is trying to turn this into some meta-discussion on what self-awareness is. That's all well and good, perhaps there are different ways one could define what self-awareness is.
For me in this thread, it's pretty straightforward. In biology, if we talk about self-awareness in animals, we need to make sure we're talking about the same thing and the solution is this standard mirror test. Although there are some variations of this test, it's pretty much standard in that it has the ability to recognize oneself in the mirror as the criteria for passing. Koko is one of several gorillas to pass such a test. It's also been passed by dolphins, a magpie and other apes. When we talk about self-awareness and I mention this test, then I am using a definition of self-awareness as whatever it is that makes you pass this test. If you want to talk about self-awareness as something other than that, then chances are we're still talking, but no longer about the same thing and the discussion will suffer from misinformation and talking past eachother as a result. Saying something about when humans became self-aware becomes entirely pointless without a solid reference point as to what self-awareness means, so then we might as well kiss the discussion goodbye.
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06-02-2010, 02:40 PM | #35 (permalink) |
MB quadrant's JM Vincent
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I still stand by the belief that self awareness requires some sort of lax survival needs to develop (though I'll concede that how it actually happened is more ambiguous than I previously felt...thanks Tore), but my god every single discussion with Neapolitan degenerates into this kind of crap. He obviously loses the argument and then starts to pick out tiny bits he might still possibly be able to defend, however poorly.
Neapolitan, do you really believe the things you say or feel they form a cogent argument or do you just like to type and this is the easiest way to do it? I really am curious...
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06-02-2010, 03:05 PM | #36 (permalink) |
Juicious Maximus III
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Scabb Island
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Falling back to discussing definitions or other meta arguments is really a kind of cop out the way I see it. It's usually employed when people are not able or willing to partake in the discussion on the level it's at, so they take a step back and formulate meta questions instead. It doesn't take much knowledge to say "but how?" or "how do we define this?" or even stuff like "how do we know anything is real?", so it's kinda cheap, I think.
Sometimes such posts shed light on important problems and solutions that are found on higher levels, but mostly not .. at least not when discussing on forums.
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06-02-2010, 04:49 PM | #37 (permalink) | |
MB quadrant's JM Vincent
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Btw, tore, what is it you study? I'm a plant biologist myself.
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06-02-2010, 05:20 PM | #38 (permalink) | |
Juicious Maximus III
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So, no real work experience as a biologist yet At least not one which pays.
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06-02-2010, 11:35 PM | #39 (permalink) | ||
carpe musicam
Join Date: Apr 2009
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Well, anyway the more import question I asked but overlooked was . Like hypothectically speaking maybe a thousands of years maybe of millions years from now, will the Human species be considered a living fossil species like the Ginko biloba or the Coelacanth?
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Quote:
"it counts in our hearts" ?ºº? “I have nothing to offer anybody, except my own confusion.” Jack Kerouac. “If one listens to the wrong kind of music, he will become the wrong kind of person.” Aristotle. "If you tried to give Rock and Roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'." John Lennon "I look for ambiguity when I'm writing because life is ambiguous." Keith Richards |
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06-03-2010, 12:33 AM | #40 (permalink) | |
Partying on the inside
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 5,584
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The mistake you're making is thinking the idea of the mirror test assumes the animal somehow has the same concept of self-realization as we developed humans do, when it most certainly does not. The very basis of the mirror test is to ascertain whether an animal (or human child, which have also been subjects in the mirror test experiment) can use visual or environmental cues to demonstrate a basic sense of self and individuality... or, SELF AWARENESS. Awareness of one's self, as being independent of any others. Passing this test indicates that the subject already realizes itself as an individual, and recognizes that fact due to being able to distinguish between the mirror image of itself and the actual physical self. Where one animal may see a mirror image of itself and attack it, thinking it's another animal (which happens), others may recognize that the image in the mirror is their own self and notice discrepancies that may have been placed on the subject for the test, and correct those discrepancies as any other self-aware being would. (which happens). I think that's a clear example of the difference between animal survival awareness and an individualistic sense of being. While no one is claiming that animals ponder the existence of god or why they're put on this earth or have an awareness of personality, the idea of self awareness in animals is not a new phenomenon and is demonstrated in its true form whether you want to believe it or not. |
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