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If you don't mind me saying, you and Harry seem to be viewing animal behaviour from a very human-centric stance, as though humans are the only beings that can possibly have consciousness.
Strikes me as a very religion-like viewpoint; a bit like Christians who believe pets can't go to hell.
Animals are intelligent in their own ways. What's evolved instinct anyway? It's learned behaviour that is somehow passed on from generation.
At some point somewhere, that particular behavior was learned for the first time and it worked and was passed on.
I've already given several examples. Dogs, cats, dolphins, spiders the puffer fish.
What about squirrels? Anybody that has EVER tried to feed birds via a squirrel proof bird feeder knows there is no such thing as a squirrel proof bird feeder. I know. We've tried them all. We've been through dozens of types. They work them out within a couple of days. Every time.
If you don't believe me, research the most squirrel proof bird feeders, buy one, fill it with bird seed and try it. Hang it from the top of a wire on a greasy pole. The squirrels will work it out.
Squirrels can work out the most fool proof assault course.
That's not instinct. That's intelligence.
Here's a bird that can plan ahead and some squirrel fun:
Incorrect. Animal ability has been a puzzle to me for a Long time. These critters don't appear to think, but how do they do apparently planned construction? The coded procedural instructions of DNA provide an answer. I have been previously aware of the problem -solving of some species. They know how to work out elaborate problems of finding nuts. (1) An evolved problem -solving in rodents (which they needed to survive) is encoded in DNA. They don't need to be trained in this. If there are any training courses in rodent families I have never heard of it.
It also looks as though humans developed their problem -solving abilities in a similar way, just as they developed bipedalism because ecological conditions forced them to walk efficiently, and the ice age required them to turn tool -making into technology in order to survive.
You may not accept this, and I don't know how far this view of things is accepted by anthropologists. But I am obliged to put on record that I don't see any need to postulate animal problem -solving at the level of humans, though a number if 'higher mammals' have developed a lot of pack structure, co -operation and probably self -identity, dolphins and the like, for instance.
(1) fir humans it's easy - start an alternative science thread.
That is bizarre as I have pointed out octopuses (think garden slugs that can swim) are conscious. What I am saying is that our brain is not just conscious, that is just a small, slow part of the process. Our brain operates more on the subconscious level (as do other animals), and also on an instinctive level (as do other animals).
One just needs to realize what part of the brain is responsible for which action, and that instinctive behavior alone can create complex behavior.
Ironically it may be you being human centric, attributing human abilities to animals such as the puffer fish.
But is that learning, which implies consciousness? What about simple animals with very basic brains that respond instinctively? They have not learned how to behave, they just evolved that behavior because it worked. Those that did not died out. No conscious learning required.
Exactly our point, it is intelligence. But just because other animals are conscious does not mean every animal is. And if we can get patterns in the universe without intelligent planning (galaxies, snowflakes), we can get some animals doing the same using instinct alone.
And we can get a non -organic evolutionary process, too (chemical evolution). Thus chemical evolution and organic evolution link up as a continua process of unplanned development. Abiogenesis is not proven, but the indirect evidence (it started in water, not from 'dust', unless one Interprets 'dust as meaning whatever the biochemicals were and insists a god had to have been involved) makes something of the kind the better hypothesis than Life being poofed out of nothing.
When my niece was growing up, I noticed something that made me think. She had a remarkable capacity of argumentative self -justification before she was out of single -figures. It was like this was an innate instinct that I'm sure nobody taught her. We are so used to this instinct to win arguments to maintain our self -cred that we hardly bother to wonder where we got this from.
Of course 'we learned it from others' is an obvious explanation, but my genius niece doing it in an adroit and sophisticated way that a Republican Apologist could only envy, before anyone taught her made me wonder. Is that an innate instinctive method, like a whelk being able to build a shell without having to take evening -classes?
Oddly enough, our consciousness is equipped with the capability to create something from nothing. We call it our imagination and it seems boundless.
Imaginings are not created from nothing. They require a functioning brain, which is comprised of matter and is ultimately a result of a star system and its billions-of-years existence.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
Since I believe that God's consciousness establishes the quantum spacetime field (quantum foam?) from which everything manifests that we see and experience as Reality, I find it fairly easy to understand creation ex nihilo as emanating from God's imagination.
It makes no logical sense to attribute something (even if you call it God) as the cause for why there is something rather than nothing, for God's existence is part of that unexplained something. Rest assured, I know the usual 'uncaused cause' silliness that people who need an explanation ironically use (ironically, because it is no explanation at all). Unlike them, I am content to say that I do not know. They don't know either, but they cannot handle not knowing and so pretend to know.
That is bizarre as I have pointed out octopuses (think garden slugs that can swim) are conscious. What I am saying is that our brain is not just conscious, that is just a small, slow part of the process. Our brain operates more on the subconscious level (as do other animals), and also on an instinctive level (as do other animals).
One just needs to realize what part of the brain is responsible for which action, and that instinctive behavior alone can create complex behavior.
Ironically it may be you being human centric, attributing human abilities to animals such as the puffer fish.
But is that learning, which implies consciousness? What about simple animals with very basic brains that respond instinctively? They have not learned how to behave, they just evolved that behavior because it worked. Those that did not died out. No conscious learning required.
Exactly our point, it is intelligence. But just because other animals are conscious does not mean every animal is. And if we can get patterns in the universe without intelligent planning (galaxies, snowflakes), we can get some animals doing the same using instinct alone.
Possibly.
I'm trying to see things objectively.
As humans we come up with definitions for things and then get constrained by them - when consciousness and instinct must actually form some sort of gray area in the middle.
It's not like there's a cut off point. It's all directed by the brain.
I like to try to think outside of the box sometimes and explore possibilities, because that's how knowledge and understanding progresses.
Anyway I'm feeling like this whole thing has strayed somewhat from a much earlier point I was trying to make about instinct which was - how does it get passed on?
Yes I know it's just inbuilt / wired in / in our DNA etc- however anybody wants to describe it. But how?
Imaginings are not created from nothing. They require a functioning brain, which is comprised of matter and is ultimately a result of a star system and its billions-of-years existence.
It makes no logical sense to attribute something (even if you call it God) as the cause for why there is something rather than nothing, for God's existence is part of that unexplained something. Rest assured, I know the usual 'uncaused cause' silliness that people who need an explanation ironically use (ironically, because it is no explanation at all). Unlike them, I am content to say that I do not know. They don't know either, but they cannot handle not knowing and so pretend to know.
I am simply NAMING as God what is the source of all existence based entirely on that attribute of whatever it is (whether or not it just exists, was created, or was caused). That leaves the issue of not knowing intact.
Imaginings are not created from nothing. They require a functioning brain, which is comprised of matter and is ultimately a result of a star system and its billions-of-years existence.
It makes no logical sense to attribute something (even if you call it God) as the cause for why there is something rather than nothing, for God's existence is part of that unexplained something. Rest assured, I know the usual 'uncaused cause' silliness that people who need an explanation ironically use (ironically, because it is no explanation at all). Unlike them, I am content to say that I do not know. They don't know either, but they cannot handle not knowing and so pretend to know.
Possibly.
I'm trying to see things objectively.
As humans we come up with definitions for things and then get constrained by them - when consciousness and instinct must actually form some sort of gray area in the middle.
It's not like there's a cut off point. It's all directed by the brain.
I like to try to think outside of the box sometimes and explore possibilities, because that's how knowledge and understanding progresses.
Anyway I'm feeling like this whole thing has strayed somewhat from a much earlier point I was trying to make about instinct which was - how does it get passed on?
Yes I know it's just inbuilt / wired in / in our DNA etc- however anybody wants to describe it. But how?
That would certainly be getting off topic, and would really require an explanation from an expert, but I have seen and read experts and it's not as complicated as you'd think. Think of DNA like a box of switches and they go on or off and an amazing number of combinations can be had (1). Maybe there's a vid out there explaining how it works. It's a fascinating subject. But really gets into 'talking science' which we don't do here.
Very basic, but a good start.
(1)There's an old story of an official who did a great job of work for the ruler of Persia in 4 BC or China 14 AD or Bactria 620..please yourself. But the ruler offered him anything in the kingdom. The official took a chessboard and said:
"Place a grain (wheat, rice, quinoa) on the first square, and two on the next, then four, and double it each time,
When you have used up all the squares, that amount of grain will be my reward."
So the king began to count out the grains and, by the end, there was not enough grain in the kingdom to reward the man. When the crestfallen king said he could not grant the request, the man laughed and said he'd be content with the hand of his daughter in marriage (Woke version, his son) and the king said
"I have a better idea; I shall give her your hand, instead" and had it swept off by the palace snickersnee, which goes to prove that whether or not the experiment will multiply to all the rice in the kingdom (I have never confirmed it), you don't take the P**s out of royalty.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 04-06-2021 at 05:04 PM..
Actually, it really does. That's what makes it fascinating to go out into the woods or hills or wilds. Nature is fascinating!
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