Difference between human emotions and animal instinct

Questions about Objectivism
41

 

 

The term ‘fundamental’ has a specific meaning: that from which everything (or the greatest number of things) in a given context arises. Humans are definitely fundamentally different than other animals because we have a conceptual faculty and other animals do not. This conceptual faculty is absolutely fundamental to human beings.

 

Careful with your terms. Humans are not the only animals capable of forming concepts. Arguably, a great deal of animals are capable of forming concepts - being able to regard a group of entities as a single entity, as many animals have been proven capable of (off the top of my head, several species of birds, especially crows, dolphins, apes, et cetera), is a conceptual task. I’ll have to look for the paper on it, because the way they demonstrated this ability was actually quite clever. But besides that, many animals are capable of primitive use of tools, some monkeys have primitive systems of trade, and have even been taught to use currency. Simply associating sets of words with sets of actions, as many animals are capable of doing, is a conceptual task.

 

So no, we are not the only animals with a conceptual faculty, nor are we the only animals with a faculty of reason. Our faculty of reason is far and away better than any other animal’s of course, and this is a fundamental part of understanding human beings. But I would not argue that it makes us “fundamentally different” from other animals, because all naturally occurring parts of being human can also be found in other animals to greater or lesser degrees. 

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Careful with your terms. Humans are not the only animals capable of forming concepts. Arguably, a great deal of animals are capable of forming concepts - being able to regard a group of entities as a single entity, as many animals have been proven capable of (off the top of my head, several species of birds, especially crows, dolphins, apes, et cetera), is a conceptual task. I’ll have to look for the paper on it, because the way they demonstrated this ability was actually quite clever. But besides that, many animals are capable of primitive use of tools, some monkeys have primitive systems of trade, and have even been taught to use currency. Simply associating sets of words with sets of actions, as many animals are capable of doing, is a conceptual task.

 

So what? Maybe other animals form simple concepts but no other animal is capable of moving beyond this and certainly isn’t capable of conceptualizing on a level anywhere close to that of humans. This difference is what gives rise to the many many other differences between man and animal. As such, it’s fundamental.

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So what? Maybe other animals form simple concepts but no other animal is capable of moving beyond this and certainly isn’t capable of conceptualizing on a level anywhere close to that of humans. This difference is what gives rise to the many many other differences between man and animal. As such, it’s fundamental.

 

We know nothing as to how other animals might ‘conceptualize’ because the meaning of ‘concept’ refers to how we humans understand how humans think. In other words, ‘concept’ is really just a philosophically-sounding synonym for ‘generalization’. Sometimes, we say, 'abstraction, too.

 

In the Scholastic period, ‘concept’ referred to ‘meaning’, as to create a third category of metaphysics next to ‘word’ and ‘object’, in hopes of resolving the Great Nominalist debate. Hence the modern confusion. For example, Deleuze uses concept in the older, traditional way: “Philosophy is the study of concepts”…

 

In this sense, it’s impossible to understand what things mean to another species. For more, please see Nagel, “What’s it like to be  a bat”. He, btw, was the advisor to Binswanger.

 

Beyond saying that concepts are ‘fundamental’ to human distinction, we would have to ask what is meant by 'fundamental in another, more provable sense. After all, the etimology means ‘base’, from the Middle French ‘fond’, from the Latin.

 

For example, can you say that our neuronal cells are different, or even the networking? Well, no, only that we have more mass, a far higher % of ‘mirror cells’ and the same rain-forest structureless networking with far more junctions than strands.

 

Re DNA ,can you say that there’s a ‘fundamentally’ different variance in the % of shared versus different genes? No, again, as the distinction between homo and chimp is normally givenn at 1%. Ontogeny seems to recreate phylogeny on a relatively smooth curve of variability.

 

So other than an excuse for hand waving with still more adjectives such as ‘essentially’, i’m at a loss as to what 'fundamental might mean…

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We know nothing as to how other animals might ‘conceptualize’ because the meaning of ‘concept’ refers to how we humans understand how humans think. In other words, ‘concept’ is really just a philosophically-sounding synonym for ‘generalization’. Sometimes, we say, 'abstraction, too.

 

How does this make any sense at all? I don’t know what epistemology you subscribe to but this is a whole lot of gobbly gook.

 

 

Beyond saying that concepts are ‘fundamental’ to human distinction, we would have to ask what is meant by 'fundamental in another, more provable sense. After all, the etimology means ‘base’, from the Middle French ‘fond’, from the Latin.

 

Again, I have no idea where you’re getting this but you should know that this is not consistent with Objectivist epistemology. What is a ‘more proveable sense’?

 

 

For example, can you say that our neuronal cells are different, or even the networking? Well, no, only that we have more mass, a far higher % of ‘mirror cells’ and the same rain-forest structureless networking with far more junctions than strands.

 

Re DNA ,can you say that there’s a ‘fundamentally’ different variance in the % of shared versus different genes? No, again, as the distinction between homo and chimp is normally givenn at 1%. Ontogeny seems to recreate phylogeny on a relatively smooth curve of variability.

 

Colors are the result of varying wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. According to your epistemology, do you deny the distinction between red and green too?

 

 

So other than an excuse for hand waving with still more adjectives such as ‘essentially’, i’m at a loss as to what 'fundamental might mean…

 

That upon which the most things in a given context depend.

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Careful with your terms. Humans are not the only animals capable of forming concepts. Arguably, a great deal of animals are capable of forming concepts - being able to regard a group of entities as a single entity, as many animals have been proven capable of (off the top of my head, several species of birds, especially crows, dolphins, apes, et cetera), is a conceptual task.

Careful with your terms too!

 

That’s a very loose sense of the word ‘concept’, if you only mean the ability to regard a group of entities as a whole. There are many words to use for that same idea besides ‘concept’, and in any case, the context here, we’re discussing how humans are greatly beyond the meager pseudoconcepts of advanced animals. There is little evidence that any animals can manipulate concepts in the way required of language for instance. As I said earlier, dolphins and chimpanzees are probably borderline cases. In the Objectivist  sense, what is meant by conceptual faculty requires language and abstracting from abstractions. This isn’t an idea unique to Objectivism, you can find many contemporary philosophers who argue that humans differ from animals in a fundamentally cognitive way through reason and/or language. Without those features, we’d be talking about different things, even though you happen to use the same word. The thing about a conceptual faculty as fundamental here is the significant mental superiority of humans as observed with language and complex abstractions like science and philosophy. If we remove the word conceptual faculty and give it some other name, and perhaps call it “advanced mental ability”, I doubt you’d disagree with what I said.

 

I can expand more later with examples of studies/citations of why I want to use fine distinctions here..

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Do animal cognition researchers claim that animals can form at least some rudimentary concepts just as man does? If so, how can animals do that without language, either spoken language or audible sounds or sign language of some kind? (True language, not just approximate communication of percepts or states of agitation or contentment )

Do animal cognition researchers use the term “concept” in the same way that Objectivism uses it? How does their understanding and usage of “concept” compare and contrast with the Objectivist understanding of it?

Do animal cognition researchers understand the phenomena of “perceptual association” and “perceptual generalization,” and how those processes differ from concept formation?

 

"Never underestimate the power of the perceptual level of cognition in animals that are constituted to live on that level in a correspondingly conducive habitat. The perceptual level is more effective for those animals than man may have hitherto assumed. Both the recent experiments and the vast array of past observations of animals historically have amply demonstrated this. Those observations do not demonstrate, however, that animals are using human concepts, or functioning on a conceptual level at all, as that form of cognition is understood by man."

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An article tackling concepts in animals can be found below:

http://comparative-cognition-and-behavior-reviews.org/2008/vol3_zentall_wasserman_lazareva_thompson_rattermann/

 

I also found some very clear conclusions succinctly stated, such as the following in Sec. 1.3:

 

"The research reviewed in this section strongly suggests that nonhuman animals very ably master perceptual or basic level concepts[*]. Such mastery appears to rely on the familiar behavioral principles of discrimination and primary stimulus generalization. The roots of conceptualization thus appear to lie deep in the perceived similarity of external stimuli. Differential similarity influences the responses of nonhuman animals in much the same way as it influences the speaking of humans. Although it may not always be the case that humans and nonhuman animals categorize stimuli in the same way (see Roberts & Mazmanian, 1988; Yoshikubo, 1985; Fujita, 1987), based on the results presented here, one can conclude that both conceptual[*] behavior and its underlying cognitive processes are generally similar in humans and nonhuman animals.

 

substitute “perceptual generalization” in place of “concept,”. The authors of the study use the term “concept” entirely too loosely.

1 Like
48

 

Do animal cognition researchers claim that animals can form at least some rudimentary concepts just as man does? If so, how can animals do that without language, either spoken language or audible sounds or sign language of some kind? (True language, not just approximate communication of percepts or states of agitation or contentment )

Do animal cognition researchers use the term “concept” in the same way that Objectivism uses it? How does their understanding and usage of “concept” compare and contrast with the Objectivist understanding of it?

Do animal cognition researchers understand the phenomena of “perceptual association” and “perceptual generalization,” and how those processes differ from concept formation?

 

"Never underestimate the power of the perceptual level of cognition in animals that are constituted to live on that level in a correspondingly conducive habitat. The perceptual level is more effective for those animals than man may have hitherto assumed. Both the recent experiments and the vast array of past observations of animals historically have amply demonstrated this. Those observations do not demonstrate, however, that animals are using human concepts, or functioning on a conceptual level at all, as that form of cognition is understood by man."

 

Mikee, of course you answered most of your own questions in a subsequent post ( I LIKE). Permit me, then,  to deal with the issue of the Rand lexicon vs that of science-- in this case, Biology.

 

In the sense of Quine, Rand uses a normative epistemology that’s redolent with ‘oughts’. She likewise employs 'first-principle argument. Both of these strategies are consistent with most of philosophy.

 

Science, OTH is ‘second principle’ whose strategies deal in quantitative distnctions via measurement. To this end, all first principle and/of normative statements are ‘zero-sum’ hypotheses in equal measure.

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How does this make any sense at all? I don’t know what epistemology you subscribe to but this is a whole lot of gobbly gook.

 

 

Again, I have no idea where you’re getting this but you should know that this is not consistent with Objectivist epistemology. What is a ‘more proveable sense’?

 

 

Colors are the result of varying wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. According to your epistemology, do you deny the distinction between red and green too?

 

 

That upon which the most things in a given context depend.

The gobbly in the gook is the attempt to gussy up the word ‘generalization’ with the more profoundly-sounding ‘concept’. What I’m talking about is that doing philosophy is not the ability to employ scholastic terms to everyday modern English.

 

Emitted wavelenghts are measurable (Well, actually, colors are caused as much by absorbtion as emission). This measurement- difference corresponds nicely to what we humans see as ‘colors’, at least within a tiny part of the electromagnetic band.

 

Now the Physicist can call these difference ‘fundamental’ only in so far as the predicate is added…“[fundamental] to the pertception of different colors by the human eye”.

 

In many other ways, it’s not. For example, individual colors are not ‘fundamental’ if the standard of judgment is the electromagnetic spectrum in its entirety. Agruably, then, you’re correct in so far as you emphasize context.

 

So in what sense would you say that a 1% DNA variation causes a ‘fundamental’ distinction between a chimp and a human? Well, if the standard were procreation, the answer would easily be speciation. As for competitive adaptation, the answer is also easy in so far as humans have thrived at the expense of all great apes.

 

In all cases, we discover what we’ve always come to expect in terms of a general ontology of science: quantitative differences eventually become qualitative. But first, you must observe and measure, Until that;'s done we really don’t know where the tipping point resides.

 

Finding tipping points is what science does. In this sense, empiricism justifies its own epistemology by its method. What’s therefore fundamental for the scientist is accounting for cause. What, in that 1% DNA difference accounts for speciation?

 

OTH, labeling certain of these distinctions as ‘fundamental’ is what normative epistemology does because, after all, ‘fundamentals’ are the differences themselves that science discovers. But in back of this normativity, or ‘ought’, is the subjectivity of the epistemo-philosopher who determines fundamentality itself. “Things are as fundametal as i say they are at the time that i say it”.

 

But this is as profound as putting lipstick on a pig. By many other criteria, chimps and humans are fundamentally the same.

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Yes the answer is pretty clear. The extent to which humans use concepts is far greater than what non-human animals can achieve and that can be seen when contrasting measurement omission and abstractions from other obstractions with first order level concepts or perceptual generalizations which non human animals are capable of.

What would be interesting to see is how Orcas or chimpanzees fair agsinst marginal humans.

51

At this moment I am trying to fully understand Objectivism’s model concerning this subject rather than whether or not that model is valid…etc.

 

In terms of animal instinct, I think so far what has been posted suggest my current understanding, that instincts are hardwired cause & effect circuits (automatic knowledge). How would this theory explain animals learning hunting techniques from their parents? I guess they would learn though pure experience and pattern recognition.

 

Sensory Percepts —> adjusted instinct circuits

 

 

In terms of human emotion, my current understanding then is that the process is thus:

 

Sensory Percepts —> Volition fuelled Rational Faculty processing —> produced Concepts <— Emotional Response

 

(do correct me if I’m wrong here)

 

If the above process is correct, then what is the element that dictates which emotional response is attributed to which concept?

52

At this moment I am trying to fully understand Objectivism’s model concerning this subject rather than whether or not that model is valid…etc.

 

In terms of animal instinct, I think so far what has been posted suggest my current understanding, that instincts are hardwired cause & effect circuits (automatic knowledge). How would this theory explain animals learning hunting techniques from their parents? I guess they would learn though pure experience and pattern recognition.

 

Sensory Percepts —> adjusted instinct circuits

 

 

In terms of human emotion, my current understanding then is that the process is thus:

 

Sensory Percepts —> Volition fuelled Rational Faculty processing —> produced Concepts <— Emotional Response

 

(do correct me if I’m wrong here)

 

If the above process is correct, then what is the element that dictates which emotional response is attributed to which concept?

Psychology?

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Yes the answer is pretty clear. The extent to which humans use concepts is far greater than what non-human animals can achieve and that can be seen when contrasting measurement omission and abstractions from other obstractions with first order level concepts or perceptual generalizations which non human animals are capable of.

What would be interesting to see is how Orcas or chimpanzees fair agsinst marginal humans.

Yes, the answer is pretty clear. People who don’t know any science can pretend that tey do by using pretentious words such as ‘fundamental’. Other wise, in terms of sctually doing science, the mosr interesting biological study is to understand how each species behaves within its own niche.

54

People who don’t know any science can pretend that tey do by using pretentious words such as ‘fundamental’.

 

Oh come on. :confused:

55

Never mind my last question, rereading the lexicon illustrated that automatic value judgement is the element that determines what emotional response will the mind have towards concepts.

 

If a person truly stops believing something is important due to emergence of new facts or a discovery of prior logic error, then he/she stops having an emotional response towards that thing.

 

If a person wants to stop having a emotional response towards a thing but doesn’t/unable to change their belief that the thing is important, then they will fail and keep on having emotional responses.

 

Too many unaccounted contradictory value beliefs is then attributed to chaotic emotional states. A person can change their beliefs through volition, in that sense they have control over their emotion and emotion is not incompatible with reason. However, people cannot control how they react emotionally towards established beliefs.

 

That seem to make sense so far.

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Oh come on. :confused:

This, of couse, is not to say that there are no ‘fundamentals’ within science…

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If a person truly stops believing something is important due to emergence of new facts or a discovery of prior logic error, then he/she stops having an emotional response towards that thing.

 

If a person wants to stop having a emotional response towards a thing but doesn’t/unable to change their belief that the thing is important, then they will fail and keep on having emotional responses.

 

Yes, that describes the process in essentials I believe but it isn’t that simple in practice. Even if you completely correct the error through logical reasoning that you know to be true, emotions can continue to persist for a while. I believe Peikoff describes (I have no citation for this) a process of sort of dis-integration. Getting rid of a certain context or hierarchy in your values that you hold which gives rise to clashes in your values even when you’ve logically corrected your error. I think that this sort of theory is consistent with phenomenon like needing to go through a mourning process after losing a significant value.

 

 

 

Too many unaccounted contradictory value beliefs is then attributed to chaotic emotional states.

 

Yes, and this also is important when considering Ayn Rand’s definition of happiness: a state of non-contradictory joy. I think what’s she’s saying is that when your values are non-contradictory, your emotional responses will all be in alignment. The joy you feel will be non-contradictory because the achievement of your value didn’t interfere with any of your other values.

 

 

This, of couse, is not to say that there are no ‘fundamentals’ within science…

 

But not with concepts?

 

 

Metaphysically, a fundamental characteristic is that distinctive characteristic which makes the greatest number of others possible; epistemologically, it is the one that explains the greatest number of others.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/fundamentality,_rule_of.html

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Yes, that describes the process in essentials I believe but it isn’t that simple in practice. Even if you completely correct the error through logical reasoning that you know to be true, emotions can continue to persist for a while. I believe Peikoff describes (I have no citation for this) a process of sort of dis-integration. Getting rid of a certain context or hierarchy in your values that you hold which gives rise to clashes in your values even when you’ve logically corrected your error. I think that this sort of theory is consistent with phenomenon like needing to go through a mourning process after losing a significant value.

 

 

Yes, and this also is important when considering Ayn Rand’s definition of happiness: a state of non-contradictory joy. I think what’s she’s saying is that when your values are non-contradictory, your emotional responses will all be in alignment. The joy you feel will be non-contradictory because the achievement of your value didn’t interfere with any of your other values.

 

 

 

But not with concepts?

 

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/fundamentality,_rule_of.html

i believe that to speak of fundamental concepts is a bit redundant, and here’s why:

 

We form concepts as generalizations from individual entities. For example, we might define a discreet set of ‘water-dwelling animals’ as ‘hsif’, those with gills are ‘fish’ and those withot are ‘mammal’.

 

If our intenet were to construct a phylogeny based upon the aquisition of selective-adaptive traits, ‘fihs’ would be irrelevant, while fish and mammal impostant.

 

Suppose, OTH, we were simply on an island looking for a meal. ‘Hsif’ would be relevantly subclassified as to possibility of capture, resistance, and aquisition of protein and carbs per energy spent.

 

What, then is conceptually 'fundamental woud depend upon situation. Or rather, simoly say that our minds would conceptualize ‘hsif’ because it’s meaningful, and reject Linneus because his classification was not.

 

Moreover, our island-dwelling children would learn a hsif-system, and not the Linnean.

 

In short, the essentail value to both ‘concept’ and fundamental dwells in the sense of meaning: what’s classified and how depends upon need and utility. The scholastics said as much when they conceptualized supernatural entities as neitherthing nor word. It simply corresponded to their world view, or fram of reference,as it were.

 

Of course, the huge collection of ethnographic materaial that deals in nomenclature suppots this view…

59

i believe that to speak of fundamental concepts is a bit redundant, and here’s why:

 

We form concepts as generalizations from individual entities. For example, we might define a discreet set of ‘water-dwelling animals’ as ‘hsif’, those with gills are ‘fish’ and those withot are ‘mammal’.

 

If our intenet were to construct a phylogeny based upon the aquisition of selective-adaptive traits, ‘fihs’ would be irrelevant, while fish and mammal impostant.

 

Suppose, OTH, we were simply on an island looking for a meal. ‘Hsif’ would be relevantly subclassified as to possibility of capture, resistance, and aquisition of protein and carbs per energy spent.

 

What, then is conceptually 'fundamental woud depend upon situation. Or rather, simoly say that our minds would conceptualize ‘hsif’ because it’s meaningful, and reject Linneus because his classification was not.

 

Moreover, our island-dwelling children would learn a hsif-system, and not the Linnean.

 

In short, the essentail value to both ‘concept’ and fundamental dwells in the sense of meaning: what’s classified and how depends upon need and utility. The scholastics said as much when they conceptualized supernatural entities as neitherthing nor word. It simply corresponded to their world view, or fram of reference,as it were.

 

Of course, the huge collection of ethnographic materaial that deals in nomenclature suppots this view…

 

Fundamentality is contextual. In what way does this make fundamentality redundent? Redundent in what respect?

 

Where is the redundancy in Rand’s example?:

 

 

For instance, one could observe that man is the only animal who speaks English, wears wristwatches, flies airplanes, manufactures lipstick, studies geometry, reads newspapers, writes poems, darns socks, etc. None of these is an essential characteristic: none of them explains the others; none of them applies to all men; omit any or all of them, assume a man who has never done any of these things, and he will still be a man. But observe that all these activities (and innumerable others) require a conceptual grasp of reality, that an animal would not be able to understand them, that they are the expressions and consequences of man’s rational faculty, that an organism without that faculty would not be a man—and you will know why man’s rational faculty is his essential distinguishing and defining characteristic.

60

Fundamentality is contextual. In what way does this make fundamentality redundent? Redundent in what respect?

 

Where is the redundancy in Rand’s example?:

We form concepts by aggregating individual things and facts together. The scientific motive for aggregation is called ‘cause’, which gives the sort of meaning that scientists think is important. Concepts, then, are aggregates that we think are important.

 

So, of course, fundamentality is contextual because to say something is meaningful --hence, conceptual–means that we feel that this particular way of aggregating is ‘fundamental’ relative to other possible ways.

 

Again–to belabor the point a bit-- a tribesman on a pacific island classifies all things that swim in the sea in meaningful, fundamental ways that fit the culture’s needs. Concepts, based upon differences deemed contextually imporant are thereby formed. Or fundamentally’ important, if you please. same thing.

 

We now know that other animals create concepts because they have language–which was not generally known during Rand’s life. IMHO, to edit out her statements that were based on factualities that are now known to be false would be of great service to her memory.

 

During her life, Rand talked and wrote with intelligence, passion, verve, and vigor. She was indeed a master at conceptualizing facts. which is to say endowing them with a remarkable sense of meaning.

 

In the citation that you sent, her position was clearly staked with respect to the old assumption that only humans possessed language. Knowing what we know today, she’d not have written this.