Do humans have instincts? What is instinct?

[DavidOdden]

So which is it?

Maybe you're not aware of the distinction between sensing and perception. You don't have to learn anything for light to smack the optic nerve, get transduced into an electrochemical signal that gets into your brain and then stuff happens. You do have to learn to process it cognitively, to grasp things perceptually. Sensing is automatic. Note that there is a long-standing terminological problem regarding sensation, perception and conceptualization.

[Robert J. Kolker]

<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>(Note: This topic was split from the discussion about having children, into a topic of its own.)</span>

From an evolutionary perspective, almost certainly. But then predispositions arent determining, and I've no desire to ever have children. I've even been toying around with the idea of a vasectomy for a while, although I havent given it really serious thought.

I suspect we have a built in disposition to couple with persons of the other gender. Children are a side effect.

Bob Kolker

[Tenure]

David: In response to this whole issue of emotions and facial expressions, well, it got me thinking. You study linguistics, and you probably have a better understanding than the rest of us about how language is formed in humans - how patterns emerge and languages are inevitably formed. Well, facial expressions are a form of body language, are they not?

It seems, considering we have no other instincts, that it makes little sense to suggest we just happen to have one instinct, in facial expressions. Instead, does it not seem far more likely, that as we all share the same mind (genetically speaking, not mystically ), that we have formed a body language out of the same system in which we have form a spoken language?

It seems like a very exciting field to study actually, a kind of extended form of linguistics really. Just a thought, but it could bring a kind of resolution to this issue.

Edited June 14, 2007 by Tenure

[KendallJ]

Tenure, very interesting proposition.

Body language is actually highly studied, at least in animals. My trainer just published this book on the topic. I think the ability to form certain body postures or expressions might come genetically, but what they mean is very much formed during a socialization process. Unsocialized dogs do not understand what specific body language actually means, and so may respond with inappropriate behavior.

The topic of body language, at least in dogs, is fascinating, at least to me!

Edited June 14, 2007 by KendallJ

[Robert J. Kolker]

Tenure, very interesting proposition.

Body language is actually highly studied, at least in animals. My trainer just published this book on the topic. I think the ability to form certain body postures or expressions might come genetically, but what they mean is very much formed during a socialization process. Unsocialized dogs do not understand what specific body language actually means, and so may respond with inappropriate behavior.

The topic of body language, at least in dogs, is fascinating, at least to me!

Autistic humans also have a hard time with body language and face-speak. Normal humans express their emotional states with more or less standard body language from an early age (trust me, I have observed this in four children and five grandchildren).

I suspect it is a combination of wired in behavior and learned behavior. Actors learn to simulate body language and deceivers who have mastered body language as a technique use it to deceive. Consider the character -Dexter- on the ShowTime series of the same name. He is a sociopath who has learned to simulate normal outward signs to literally get away with murder.

Bob Kolker

[DavidOdden]

Well, facial expressions are a form of body language, are they not?

I guess. I object to calling it "body language", since languages are vastly more complex and structured, and facial expressions lack the essentials that characterise actual languages. The set of things you can convey with these supposedly instinctive facial expresions is very limited -- there's no way to squint in a manner than means "Please put the knife next to the fork and remove the napkin". Real languages are composed of serially-ordered objects, and the objects are internally structured (examples: sentences have ordered strings of words, words have ordered strings of sounds; sentences are not just sentences, they are subjects and predicates, subjects are noun phrases with nouns, adjectives, determiners; sounds themselves have internal structure defining how they are produced). Facial expressions are just whole objects, not "built up" in any meaningful sense.

Instead, does it not seem far more likely, that as we all share the same mind (genetically speaking, not mystically ), that we have formed a body language out of the same system in which we have form a spoken language?

Well, I think it's more likely that facial grestures is the genetic residue of the older system. The nature of human language is so totally different from facial expressions that I can't see how there is any relationship. I think it's more likely that language developed at the same time as general reasoning and the conceptual faculty developed -- that is where you find the real similarity, the ability to group things together, arrange hierarchically, to serially reuse simpler elements.

The "language" aspect of facial expressions and other kinds of body "language" stems from the fact that you can infer certain things from a gesture or facial expression. So it might seem to be a communicative system. But you can infer things from the fact that a person is bleeding, or vomiting, yet we couldn't (usually) call vomiting a kind of "body language" (although... in one textbook that covers primate communication, it actually lists vomiting as a sign that communicates "nausea"). Body language may be communicative in that it allows plausible inferences about the subject's mental state, but it isn't really language.

[Tenure]

Well ok, thanks for correcting me. So, body language is a form of communication, but it is not tied to any sort of language component? It is more a series of signals that have been accepted to mean certain things? Alright then, I'm just trying to work out how everyone is born recognising certain signals, like that experiment mentioned above with the smiley faces, or that thing about certain types of expressions being inherited.

[Tenure]

Can someone explain one small thing for me? I'm still a bit confused about how animals survive and how they gain knowledge.

Do they survive purely by instincts, or can they learn? What is the difference between a humans ability to learn that separates it from animals? I think I'm starting to get a bunch of concepts very confused (especially after reading about the almost completely non-instinctual behaviour of octopuses)

[DavidOdden]

It is more a series of signals that have been accepted to mean certain things? Alright then, I'm just trying to work out how everyone is born recognising certain signals, like that experiment mentioned above with the smiley faces, or that thing about certain types of expressions being inherited.

This is an area that is really hard to research. Most physical gestures that seem to signify something are learned (especially gang signs). There's a small handful of facial expressions that are putatively universal, but I am not persuaded that the relevant experimental controls and random sampling have been in place; for example, it's no proof of genetically-caused universality that Brits make the puckery face at the smell of dead pig just like Americans and Greeks do. Cultural first-contact events probably would introduce your random average lost primitive tribe to these facial expressions, so I would want to look long and hard at the research that is used to advance the universal facial expression theory. I don't think that the existence of genetically governed low-level behaviors is a problem for the thesis that man has to learn all of his knowledge -- behavior isn't the same as knowledge. Still, before I sign on for that claim, I need the appropriate level of scientific proof, and the monkey sign-language jokers have really persuaded me to be skeptical of certain kinds of research.

[Tenure]

I've been having an on-going debate with a friend of mine over the issue of instincts. He seems to be of the opinion that crawling into the fetal position at a loud noise, and raising ones hand when a bear approaches is instinctual. The thing is, these can very easily be described as part-reflexive and part-learned; that's not good enough for him though - "Why can't they just as well be instincts?" I've explained that if humans know nothing else instinctively, then why would they just have these instincts.

The problem is, he's positing (as I mistakenly did in the thread about the teleological argument) a kind of 'what if' hypothesis i.e. There's no proof that there isn't instinct, only a lack of evidence to prove instinct, so the stuff that we call reflexive could be in fact instinctive, therefore, humans have instincts. The problem is, he keeps on ignoring the statement that I'm making about knowledge, and the fact that it is impossible to have free will if you have automatic, compulsory behaviour directed by your consciousness.

Are there any good Objectivist pages on the internet (I've searched to no avail) which talk with at least some zoological authority of animals, so that I can add some more weight to my argument? I think his major problem is that, admittedly not being a zoologist, I can't 'prove' animals rely basically on their instincts.

One more thing: is the pain/pleasure thing that David mentions a couple of times in this thread an instinct, or a drive? It seems more and more in studying this subject, when we look at something like a wolf which has a complex system for hunting, that's it's more like an animal's undeniable drive to survive which separates us from animals, not merely their instincts on how to survive.

[softwareNerd]

Man has no instincts--not even so much as a relic of one.

In "The Psychology of Self-Esteem", Branden questions the application of the term "instinct" to animals. He notes that saying something is an instinct explains little. For example, saying that it is a dog's instinct to bark at strangers is not much different from saying "dogs just do that" or "dogs are just made that way". If one uses the term less loosely, then it can be valid. Branden suggests that if one uses the term "instinctive" to mean those actions that are the direct result of an animal's pain-pleasure mechanism, that would be an example of a valid usage. However, the term is often used broadly as a place-holder for an explanation, rather than being an explanation itself.

Branden recommends: "A Critique of Konrad Lorenz's Theory of Instinctive Behavior" - Daniel S. Lehrman (The Quarterly Review of Biology, vol. 28, pp. 337-363, 1953).

[fivera]

I would describe an instinct as not touching a hot stove, or catching your baby before it falls on the ground.

In "The Psychology of Self-Esteem", Branden questions the application of the term "instinct" to animals. He notes that saying something is an instinct explains little. For example, saying that it is a dog's instinct to bark at strangers is not much different from saying "dogs just do that" or "dogs are just made that way". If one uses the term less loosely, then it can be valid. Branden suggests that if one uses the term "instinctive" to mean those actions that are the direct result of an animal's pain-pleasure mechanism, that would be an example of a valid usage. However, the term is often used broadly as a place-holder for an explanation, rather than being an explanation itself. Branden recommends: "A Critique of Konrad Lorenz's Theory of Instinctive Behavior" - Daniel S. Lehrman (The Quarterly Review of Biology, vol. 28, pp. 337-363, 1953).

surprise! we are animals too!

[softwareNerd]

I would describe an instinct as not touching a hot stove, or catching your baby before it falls on the ground.surprise!

Why? What makes those instincts? The two examples are really different from each other, and both require learning.

A child who has not touched a stove does not have an instinct to avoid doing so. Once he has touched a stove, he might remember and avoid touching another. This would then be the pleasure/pain mechanism from the portion you quoted. Saying "pain/pleasure" is more precise that using a fuzzy term like "instinct".

In the second example it is unclear in what sense this is an instinct. Do you mean that valuing one's kid is something innate? Or are you referring to the seemingly spontaneous almost automated way in which such a valuer might grab his falling kid? If the former, then how do you explain that there have been people killing their children over the ages? Or, are you're referring to quick gesture, would swerving to avoid a pot-hole be an instinct, and if so, in what sense?

Edited October 24, 2007 by softwareNerd

[MikeJoyous]

Hi:)

First off, emotions are certainly related to our thoughts and values but that's only part of the equation. Emotions can come from focusing on parts of a particular experience that seem to demand awareness, such as pain. They can come from fragmentary ideas of possibilities that, upon calm reflection, are not reasonable. They seem to be related to physiological freedom associated with the thought or feeling. To make things more complex, they can be wildly different depending upon the level of emotional focusing that we do at any one moment and the degree to which we can accept the emotion that is center stage of awareness for us. "Acceptance" refers to a quality of *letting* the emotion feel like it is ours even if it is uncomfortable to do so. This quality of acceptance has been discussed by Branden in "Six Pillars of Self-Esteem" an by Gendlin in "Focusing."

Can we ever fully control our emotions? Nope. All evidence compiled by folks who make a living recording their emotions suggests that many emotions just *happen* whimsically, due to the reasons mentioned above.

An instinct refers to the internal drives to do stereotyped behaviors. Those stereotyped behaviors occur in species other than humans, though some developmental psychologists would disagree with me about this and talk absorbedly about an infant's predilection to certain patterns as "instinctive." Ho hum, as they say. In any case, even instincts are often (not always) the result of learned behaviors. Take a lion cub to your home for years as was done in the famous case of Elsa, and she does not know how to hunt. Elsa had to be *shown* how to hunt. It was very quick learning, but still, it *was* learning.

I forget the last part of your question. Sorry about that.

best wishes, friends,

Mike Rael

[MikeJoyous]

Oh yes, the last part of your question was about feeling making us human? Well, the Jews would argue that one reason the Nazis were inhumanly brutal was that they did not allow themselves to feel what their victims must be going through. Something of what was happening still came through to the Nazi guards, as resulting in sleeplessness, formless anxiety, stuttering, that kind of thing. I think those Holocaust theorists have got a point!

On the other hand, Rand would say that the essence of being human is the head, not the heart. She was reacting against mushy compassion based on altruism, that resulted in all kinds of problems, personal, economic, and political.

Personally, I would argue that we need both. I'm talking not just from a theoretical perspective a la Branden. We can't know what the hell we really want in life, want enough to enable us to overcome internal and external barriers to achieve it, unless we identify our core desires. Deep down. When we *really* want something, we don't need to plan goals to achieve it, as if the planning somehow creates a "want" that did not exist before it. Rather the planning seems to come almost automatically. From this point of view, we already know a lot about the hows of getting things. The problem is we don't know enough about the deep whys that make it worthwhile to us. That is, about the heart.

best wishes, friends,

Mike Rael

[shaitan]

Oh, you mean that fact that infants can breathe, or that they have reflexes? I don't know of any studies that show that infants have instincts, although they do have a number of reflexes that die out in a few months, like the rooting reflex.

Reflexes are neurologically different. Bring your knee over here and I can show you how reflexes work (I've got the hammer, I just need your knee). They are basically spinal chord reactions, and which makes them so lightening fast.

Rooting, i.e. the complex, inborn behavior of making mouth movements specific to the acquisition of milk? It's a reflex? A spinal cord activity?

[DavidOdden]

Rooting, i.e. the complex, inborn behavior of making mouth movements specific to the acquisition of milk? It's a reflex? A spinal cord activity?

Yes, but it's not "specific to the acquisition of milk". It's a simple physical "touch me here I move towards it" reaction. I don't know what your metric of complexity is but it's not that complex.

[agrippa1]

Yes, but it's not "specific to the acquisition of milk". It's a simple physical "touch me here I move towards it" reaction. I don't know what your metric of complexity is but it's not that complex.

Lucky coincidence, that it gets milk into an infant's mouth.

[DavidOdden]

Lucky coincidence, that it gets milk into an infant's mouth.

No, the early hominids which turned away from the object died of starvation a million years ago.

[Unfinished_Symphony]

I'm not clear on how we know animals have absolutely no volition. How would we know an animal to have volition if it existed? How would that appear any different to us than an animal behaving strictly automatically? Seems more like a question for science, not philosophy.

This was a very lively debate, didn't read all of it but quite a bit. I guess I'll check back to see if anyone has an answer.

[TheEgoist]

I'm not clear on how we know animals have absolutely no volition. How would we know an animal to have volition if it existed? How would that appear any different to us than an animal behaving strictly automatically? Seems more like a question for science, not philosophy.

This was a very lively debate, didn't read all of it but quite a bit. I guess I'll check back to see if anyone has an answer.

Interesting stuff over at Objectivist Answers

http://objectivistanswers.com/questions/6177/do-objectivists-take-the-position-that-animals-do-not-have-free-will