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Do humans have instincts? What is instinct?

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I think the question that should be asked is what an "error" is.

Volition is a prerequisite to error.

"Error", as I understand it, does not mean merely that the "program" has not executed correctly (although that could happen). "Error" means that the purpose for which the program/instinct/reflex exists was not fulfilled.

Volition is not a necessary condition for error. I think you may be mistakenly assuming that a purpose must be consciously chosen. If that were true (which it is not), then non-human animals could have no purposes and thus commit no errors.

But animals' actions do have purposes -- they need to survive and reproduce in order for their kind to continue to exist. The requirements of their mode of survival and reproduction are their purposes. They have not chosen their purposes, but their purposes have been set for them by Darwinian evolution.

No, that would mean that we have a "reflex" to drive to work in the morning, or to seek a particular kind of mate, or to invent computers, or to plant certain crops in certain locations.

David, I think that you misunderstood what I was saying. I was saying that animals have automatic reactions similar to what we call reflexes in humans. These automatic reactions would include not only the patellar reflex but also more complex reactions which are called instincts.

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"Error", as I understand it, does not mean merely that the "program" has not executed correctly (although that could happen).  "Error" means that the purpose for which the program/instinct/reflex exists was not fulfilled.
Okay. That isn't how I understand the term and I don't think that's how Rand uses it, so when you're considering what Rand said about "instinct", you should omit the word "unerring" in your reading of that passage, since you wouldn't be referring to the same thing. The disagreement seems to center around "purpose", and I don't understand how you define the term or what its ontology is. How does an objective observer determine the purpose of an object, such as an electron, rock or gnu (not the software)? What I'd like to know is whether in your view "purpose" is created by the observer, so that I might hold that the purpose of a zebra is to provide food for big cats but you might hold that they have a different purpose. I have a particular view of the purpose of saccharomyces cerevisiae, but maybe Tuliptree would see its purpose differently. Is there an objective way of determining purpose, in you view of purpose?
I was saying that animals have automatic reactions similar to what we call reflexes in humans.  These automatic reactions would include not only the patellar reflex but also more complex reactions which are called instincts.
In other words, reflexes are the instant brain-stem responses, and both humans and animals have those. In addition, animals (unlike humans) have instincts. Right?
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"Error", as I understand it, does not mean merely that the "program" has not executed correctly (although that could happen).  "Error" means that the purpose for which the program/instinct/reflex exists was not fulfilled.

Error doesn't mean either of those things. It means you've had a compiler error, in essence, and no proper program was created, period. This doesn't stop people from creating an endless supply of useless "programs" though.

Let's say that deer have this instinct to run from sudden movement, because it might be a predator. The "purpose" of said instinct is to prevent them from being eaten by wolves. If a bird suddenly takes flight from a bush, triggering them to run, the "purpose" of the program (not being eaten by wolves) has indeed been fulfilled. Never mind that there just weren't any wolves there at the time. It's not an error.

Or, let's say that there actually WAS a wolf and it charges the deer and they run. However, one of them is a bit ill and it can't outrun the wolf, so it gets eaten. According to your definition, this would be an error, but the only distinguishing factor in this situation was that the deer was sick, not that the program somehow failed.

Your definition of error is kind of useless in this context, as it doesn't serve to distinguish the applicable situations from each other. An error refers to a mistake in conceptualization. The situations above might more properly be described as accidents, mistakes, or failures.

Dictionary.com defines an error as:

1. An act, assertion, or belief that unintentionally deviates from what is correct, right, or true.

2. The condition of having incorrect or false knowledge.

3. The act or an instance of deviating from an accepted code of behavior.

All of these definitions imply volition and conceptualization as a base.

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"Error" means that the purpose for which the program/instinct/reflex exists was not fulfilled.

.....

But animals' actions do have purposes -- they need to survive and reproduce in order for their kind to continue to exist. The requirements of their mode of survival and reproduction are their purposes.

The disagreement seems to center around "purpose", and I don't understand how you define the term or what its ontology is. How does an objective observer determine the purpose of an object, such as an electron, rock or gnu (not the software)? What I'd like to know is whether in your view "purpose" is created by the observer, so that I might hold that the purpose of a zebra is to provide food for big cats but you might hold that they have a different purpose.

I meant the purpose of an attribute of a living thing to that living thing. So this does not apply to electrons or rocks which are non-living. Nor was I talking about the value of a zebra to a lion as food.

An example of what I meant would be the zebra's stripes whose purpose to the zebra is to camouflage it from the lions and other predators. If a predator recognizes the zebra and kills it in spite of its stripes, then that would be an error in the functioning of the stripes. Similarly, if the zebra waits too long to run when approached by a lion and is killed, then that is an error in the instinct to run from predators.

I was saying that animals have automatic reactions similar to what we call reflexes in humans. These automatic reactions would include not only the patellar reflex but also more complex reactions which are called instincts.

In other words, reflexes are the instant brain-stem responses, and both humans and animals have those. In addition, animals (unlike humans) have instincts. Right?

Yes. There is a difference in complexity between reflexes and instincts. And a difference in what part of the nervous system processes them. I was focusing only on the similarity -- both are automatic (non-volitional) responses.

If a bird suddenly takes flight from a bush, triggering [deer] to run, the "purpose" of the program (not being eaten by wolves) has indeed been fulfilled. Never mind that there just weren't any wolves there at the time. It's not an error.

Or, let's say that there actually WAS a wolf and it charges the deer and they run. However, one of them is a bit ill and it can't outrun the wolf, so it gets eaten. According to your definition, this would be an error, but the only distinguishing factor in this situation was that the deer was sick, not that the program somehow failed.

In the first case, I would say that there was no real threat, so the purpose was NOT fulfilled and running wasted the deer's energy and risked injury. So this IS an error.

In the second case, failing to run fast enough to escape IS an error. Sickness is not an excuse. It is the cause of the error.

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I cant help but get the feeling we've started with the proposition "instincts are unerring" and then just defined all the terms involved in a way that makes it true.

If 'error' is defined so as to presuppose volition, and instincts are (by definition) non-volitional, then its trivially true that instincts are unerring. But this only tells us about words, not about reality.

On a sidenote, I'd personally use the word 'error' for actions committed by any entity (volitional or otherwise), and use a different word like 'mistake' to refer to volitional errors. So instincts can be in error, but they cant be mistaken.

edit: I've just noticed that my use of the terms 'error' and 'mistake' are exactly the opposite of Jennifers. But I dont really mind what term goes with which so I'd be happy to agree with her definitions - all that matters are that the 2 cases are distingished.

Edited by Hal
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edit: I deleted this post because it was about whether it was correct to say that animals and computers could have beliefs, which I now think is a bit too offtopic for this thread.

Edited by Hal
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I meant the purpose of an attribute of a living thing to that living thing.  So this does not apply to electrons or rocks which are non-living.  Nor was I talking about the value of a zebra to a lion as food.

An example of what I meant would be the zebra's stripes whose purpose to the zebra is to camouflage it from the lions and other predators.

I'm confused about what kind of claim this is. Do you mean that 'providing camoflauge' is the evolutionary reason why zebras have stripes (in which case this would be an empirical claim rooted in biology), or that 'camoflague' is something that stripes do, regardless of how zebras got them? In the former case, do you think that its correct to say that evolution has a purpose and that all adaptions are purposeful? In the latter case, what is your criteria for determining the purpose of an attribute? I'm assuming you wouldnt want to say that the purpose of a polar bears coat is to slow it down when it walks, even though is one of the effects it has.

A good way to see the distinction here is to consider the question "What is the purpose of human language?". It could be that the evolutionary reason why we have language is very different from what seems like the primary role language plays in our lives.

  If a predator recognizes the zebra and kills it in spite of its stripes, then that would be an error in the functioning of the stripes.
Well yes - assuming that is the stripes actual 'function'. But how are you deciding this?

edit: Its only fair to say what my answers to the above questions would be. I personally think that restricting the word 'purpose' to living creatures is completely arbitrary, since I dont think that 'being alive' is a particularly magical property for an entity to have (the only problem I'd have with describing my computer controlled opponents in video games as 'alive' is that they dont have physically independent bodies, and I'm not really convinced this is essential anyway. But in any case if there was a robot that could do the things they done, I'd attribute life to it with no hesitation). Either 'purposes' should be restricted to volitionally chosen goals (ie human purposes), or it should used to describe any action which can be interpreted as being directed towards some end, whether this is committed by an elephant, a computer program or a thermostat (in this sense I think it might be related to Aristotle's 'final cause'). I dont really mind which of these 2 definitions is used.

Edited by Hal
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Do you mean that 'providing camoflauge' is the evolutionary reason why zebras have stripes (in which case this would be an empirical claim rooted in biology), or that 'camoflague' is something that stripes do, regardless of how zebras got them?

Both are true. Natural selection works on the variations which are available to it regardless of how they arose.

In the former case, do you think that its correct to say that evolution has a purpose and that all adaptions are purposeful? In the latter case, what is your criteria for determining the purpose of an attribute? I'm assuming you wouldnt want to say that the purpose of a polar bears coat is to slow it down when it walks, even though is one of the effects it has.
Evolution does not have a purpose; it just happens. But evolution creates purposes for living things. As I said in Post #28, "The requirements of their mode of survival and reproduction are their purposes. They have not chosen their purposes, but their purposes have been set for them by Darwinian evolution.".

Not all attributes of living things serve a purpose, but many do. Many serve multiple purposes. One of the purposes of a polar bear's coat is to provide the bear with thermal insulation. It may have others of which I am not aware.

...  restricting the word 'purpose' to living creatures is completely arbitrary, since I dont think that 'being alive' is a particularly magical property for an entity to have ...

It is restricted to living things because only living things evolve. But objects (which may themselves be living) created or acquired by a living thing may also serve its purposes. So a non-living thing may have a purpose to a living thing as a tool or as food or raw material or whatever.

Life can be kept in existence only by a constant process of self-sustaining action.  The goal of that action, the ultimate VALUE which, to be kept, must gained through its every moment, is the organism's LIFE. .... An organism's life is its STANDARD OF VALUE:  that which furthers its life is the GOOD, that which threatens it is the EVIL.

Notice that Ayn Rand is applying this to all living things and only living things. Notice also that volition is not required for organisms to have values.

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I've just noticed that my use of the terms 'error' and 'mistake' are exactly the opposite of Jennifers. But I dont really mind what term goes with which so I'd be happy to agree with her definitions - all that matters are that the 2 cases are distingished.

Yeah, that's the important point.

Anyway, Miss Rand would use the term "goal-directed action" to distinguish between the purposes of volitional, conceptual beings (humans) and the purposes of actions initiated by plants etc. She took "goal-directed" to be a broader generalization than "purposeful".

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Evolution does not have a purpose; it just happens.  But evolution creates purposes for living things.  As I said in Post #28, "The requirements of their mode of survival and reproduction are their purposes. They have not chosen their purposes, but their purposes have been set for them by Darwinian evolution."

I'm not sure of your intended meaning because the first and last sentences seem to contradict one another. This issue has been discussed in another thread called "Ultimate Value" here in the Ethics forum. So to clarify I quote myself from same:

"Natural selection is a natural process the fortunate outcome of which is survival of the fittest and evolution of higher and higher forms of life. Natural selection can have no aim and can set no goals. This would be like saying that gravity has a goal, it doesn’t, it just is."

Or, to quote Ayn Rand:

When applied to physical phenomena, such as the automatic functions of an organism, the term "goal-directed" is not to be taken to mean "purposive" (a concept applicable only to the actions of a consciousness) and is not to imply the existence of any teleological principle operating in insentient nature. I use the term "goal-directed," in this context, to designate the fact that the automatic functions of living organisms are actions whose nature is such that they result in the preservation of an organism's life.
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Evolution does not have a purpose; ...  [animals'] purposes have been set for them by Darwinian evolution.

I'm not sure of your intended meaning because the first and last sentences seem to contradict one another.

They are consistent. The process of evolution does not serve any purpose either for itself or for any other thing. But it causes living things to have their own purposes (or goals or values, if you prefer).

In one case, the purpose would guide evolution (if it existed, which it does not).

In the other case, the purpose guides particular living things.

So we are not talking about the same thing.

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But it [evolution] causes living things to have their own purposes (or goals or values, if you prefer).

No. Evolution doesn't cause anything either. The ultimate value animals seek to keep is life, so their goal is to remain alive. The observed result of this goal directed behavior is evolution.

In one case, the purpose would guide evolution (if it existed, which it does not).

In the other case, the purpose guides particular living things.

So we are not talking about the same thing.

I cannot decipher this. What are the two cases? Care to elaborate?

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If you have no choice, how can you have an error. Error by definition is making the wrong choice. The stripes on a zebra are a metaphysical fact, not an error, you're opening up the whole can of worms that existence is flawed and imperfect. Existence has no choice.

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There is much more brain research to be done on humans before we can give a positive answer to this question (of whether or not having children is a human instinct). However, other animals have very complex behaviors that are entirely instinctive. It is hard to believe that behaviors so complexed are something the animal is born with (in the form of it's genetic code, that later is translated to certain brain circuits and chemicals that trigger those behaviors), but it is true. The brain is an amazing mechanism.

Most studies of behaviors are of courtship and coupling. In the simple case of the fruit fly, the fly identifies the female, flies in her direction, touches her with his leg, examines her response, and accordingly starts singing her the specie's love song by moving his wings in a certain manner. Those behaviors have been tracked down to a few genes that are responsible for this behavior. Modifying them has caused the fly to make mistakes in identifying males from females, errors in the length of the "love song", and even caused them to not proceed to coupling after courtship.

An animal's behavior is the result of brain circuits, and communication between nerve cells, which is both chemical and electrical.

I think that if abilities such as identifying females from males can be tracked down to a few genes, and switched on and off by producing mutant-flies, then it makes sense that same thing exists in regard to offsprings.

I also know of a case where researchers discovered a gene responsible for monogamy in certain species (can't find the article, and it's not in English anyway).

I believe that the need to look after cubs is hard-wired in animal's brains: which means that their nervous system develops that way (to have the ability to identify the shape, sound, smell etc of the offspring and to react accordingly) automatically.

Simple animals have behaviors that are relatively simple, and do not involve a lot of processing in the brain, while more complex animals still have instincts, but there is a lot more calculations going on in the brain before a certain behavior is decided on.

I think that the difference is the size/structure of a certain region of the brain of humans and other smart animals that allows more complex information to be processed.

For certain apes it means the ability to use and invent tools creatively, and to learn and use the sign language. For human beings it means the ability to invent whole theories, to understand complex mathematics, invent much more complex devices, ability to understand complex concepts etc'.

So reason is the mediator between instincts and behavior in some cases.

I believe that having offsprings or guarding them is an instinct. I think that sexual drives is another example.

Those things are known to exist in other animals, and since we share the same biological mechanisms, and a large portion of the same genes, it makes sense that humans also have those instincts. We just have a brain with a much much greater capability to process information, but the instincts remain.

Edited by ifatart
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I believe that having offsprings or guarding them is an instinct. I think that sexual drives is another example.

Those things are known to exist in other animals, and since we share the same biological mechanisms, and a large portion of the same genes, it makes sense that humans also have those instincts. We just have a brain with a much much greater capability to process information, but the instincts remain.

Don't confuse genetic dispositions with instincts. The physical act of having sex I think is pretty instinctive, just as breathing, eating, etc. they require little thought to do. The sexual drive and what translates into desires isn't. Instinct involves doing something without thinking and having children is not something done without thinking, it's a genetic disposition to want to have children. Some people find value in having them, some don't and some get one whether they wanted one or not by not taking precautions, not because they did it instinctively.

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Can one call something an instinct if its bevahior can be overriden or surpressed?

Instinct is merely an automatic reaction, something done without thinking. If you think about it, you can surpress instincts, i.e. hold your breath, don't flinch at a needle going in your arm, don't close your eyes when you put your contacts in, etc.

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However, other animals have very complex behaviors that are entirely instinctive.
That clearly has no weight ni deciding if humans have instincts. No animals have a conceptual faculty, language or free will. Therefore, there must be somethere very different between humans and animals. Not one shred of evidence for instinct in animals has relevance for humans.
For certain apes it means the ability to use and invent tools creatively, and to learn and use the sign language.
I'll leave the tools claim open, but apes have no ability to learn or use sign language.
For human beings it means the ability to invent whole theories, to understand complex mathematics, invent much more complex devices, ability to understand complex concepts etc'.
But that hasn't got anything to do with instinct.
I believe that having offsprings or guarding them is an instinct.
In animals it is, but not in humans. Which is why it's harder for human to raise children, since they have to actually choose to do so and learn how.
We just have a brain with a much much greater capability to process information, but the instincts remain.
There are no instincts in humans, whatsoever.
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sure we have instincts. we have the instinct to withdraw our hand from something that burns it. we have the instinct to breath, sleep, and eat. we have the instinct to want pleasure and to avoid pain. thats pretty much how far our 'animal instincts' go. If we have to learn something its not an instinct.

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sure we have instincts. we have the instinct to withdraw our hand from something that burns it. we have the instinct to breath, sleep, and eat. we have the instinct to want pleasure and to avoid pain. thats pretty much how far our 'animal instincts' go. If we have to learn something its not an instinct.
This so-called "instinct" to withdraw your hand from the fire when you burn it is not an instinct, it is a reflex: the spinal cord responds, not the brain. I guess I'd suggest that before people start making claims about instincts, that you should find out what we are talking about. Examples of instincts are the annual migratory patterns of birds and fish, the bowing down of wolf pups, cats eating grass to correct dietary problems, honeybee dance, the cuckoo's song. Breathing, heartbeat, eye-blink and digestion are reflexes.
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