Evolution:The never-ending story

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
Interesting you say that.
I've always wondered why birds are so beautiful. I mean, I know the brighter the plumes, the more elaborate the dance etc entices more females.

But why do birds like bright plumages? What forces make the hen able to recognise beauty much in the same way humans do?

Who says they do? Some birds prefer mates that are also beautiful in the eyes of humans. Some do not. Rooks aren't particularly pretty, and neither are their cries, but still they manage to find one another.

A peahen prefers the peacock with the most impressive tail because those tend to be the healthiest ones, who can afford the effort and the bother of dragging the thing along. Skylarks prefer the mates with the most intricate song for similar reasons. Swans - who knows? But none of this proves that any bird has a sense of "beauty" in the aesthetic meaning of the word. What they prefer, when they do have a preference, is effort.

A better question would be why humans find these birds beautiful. There is good reason for us to prefer a human mate with shiny hair and smooth skin over one with matte hair and rough skin - the former is obviously more healthy. There's no reason for us to prefer a chrome yellow canary over a yellow-green one. But we do.
There are some factors that are probably part of the reason. For example, most primates are attracted to bright-coloured fruits, because they're more likely to be ripe and edible. This preference may influence our opinion about coloured birds, as well. But that's not the whole reason, and in the end it's still the human sense of beauty which is the unexplained factor, not the birds'.

Richard

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
[b]For all we know, the hen has absolutely no perception or concept of beauty and is just driven by unconscious
blind instinct like a totally cold unfeeling robot.

When was the last time you looked at a pair of perfect perky breasts? Did you feel like a cold, unfeeling robot then?

How do you measure that? I mean, what none arbitrary criteria es are generally preferred.'


http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/papers/ComplexityGrowth.html[/b]

When was the last time you looked at a pair of perfect perky breasts? Did you feel like a cold, unfeeling robot then?

I am not a hen. If I was a hen and I was attracted to bright plumage then this would be relevant -but I am not.
I cannot rationally extrapolate from what I feel when I see a pair of perfect perky breasts ( by the way, I am more of a bum person than a breast person ) to conclude what a hen feels when the hen sees brightly coloured plumage. Regardless of whether the hen actually does feel something or what the hen feels if anything, I cannot rationally conclude that the hen does feel anything at all nor can I rationally conclude merely that the hen probably does sometimes feesl something! -anything! -i.e. the hen is merely capable of having a feeling!
This does not imply that a hen has no feelings -only that neither I nor you can rationally know it even if it was true.

Such an increase in absolute fitness is NECESSARILY accompanied by an increase in functional complexity. ( my emphasis )

No, that is false. Example: after the evolution of lungs, when our ancestors evolved to loose functionality of gills by them evolving to becoming vestiges because they not only cease to be used but they have become a hindrance to survival due to getting in the way, that 'greater fitness' ( or, rather, “greater adaptiveness” would be better words ) was surely NOT accompanied by an increase in 'functional complexity' in this case but rather a decrease because the evolutionary adaptation in this example involves actually loosing some functionality!
The rest of your argument is flawed because of this.

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Who says they do? Some birds prefer mates that are also beautiful in the eyes of humans. Some do not. Rooks aren't particularly pretty, and neither are their cries, but still they manage to find one another.

A peahen prefers the peacock with the most impressive tail because those tend to be the healthiest ones, who can afford the effort and the bothe ll the human sense of beauty which is the unexplained factor, not the birds'.

Richard

Do you think that a peahen understand the concept of effort then?

So if another peacock suiter turned up with a brick tied to it's ass
it would be the local stud right?

I think you're over-simplifying evolution by removing the concious act
of selection.

Birds plumage extends beyond effort into subtelty and symmetry.

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/news-seven-blow-your-mind-beautiful-kinds-bird?image=3

I agree that simpler animals may work in the same way as for example
a Newcastle nightclub. With brute force and sexual goods readily out on
display. But more complex organisms have the ability to form decisions
based on an understanding of fitness by means of symmetry and innovation.
I don't think a birds understanding of beauty is far removed from our
own. In fact I would say much of our own understanding of beauty is built
on an understanding of birds.

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
Do you think that a peahen understand the concept of effort then?

So if another peacock suiter turned up with a brick tied to it's ass
it would be the local stud right?

I think you're over-simplifying evolution by removing the concious act
of selection.

Birds plumage extends beyond effort into subtelty and symmetry.

http://www.environmentalgr t I would say much of our own understanding of beauty is built
on an understanding of birds.

Do you think that a peahen understand the concept of effort then?

Shallow Blue said “...who can afford the effort...” and not “....who can understand the effort...”

I think you're over-simplifying evolution by removing the concious act
of selection

how do you know that a bird is “conscious” of its selections?
We are “conscious” of our selections but we are a different species ( and with much greater intellect and larger brains ) but you cannot rationally extrapolate from that to conclude birds are “conscious” of their selections.

But more complex organisms have the ability to form decisions
based on an understanding of fitness by means of symmetry and innovation. (my emphasis)

no, no, no, more complex organisms do not require and generally would not have an 'understanding' of fitness .
Why would a more complex organism need to 'understand' the concept of 'fitness' for a blind instinctively driven selection of, say, the bird with the brighter plumage, to work? More complex organism generally would not need to 'understand' anything at all for their blind unintelligent unconscious instinct to be perfectly effective.
Let me put it this way:
A rabbit does not need to 'know' that a fox will kill it if it catches it nor does it have to 'understand' the concept of 'death' nor need to 'know' that it should run away from the fox to survive for the running-from-the-fox instinct to work and therefore for that running-from-the-fox instinct to be selected by natural selection thus for rabbits to evolve to run from foxes. The rabbit doesn't need to and may not 'know' or 'understand' anything at all!

Shallow Blue said “...who can afford the effort...” and not “....who can understand the effort...”

Well if I knew the difference between affording and understanding I'd sack my accountant for starters. What's your take on it?

I know it's an impossible question to ask.

We are “conscious” of our selections but we are a different species

Are we really conscious of our selections though, Really? Isn't that why we devised fine Art in the first place?

A rabbit does not need to 'know' that a fox will kill it if it catches it nor does it have to 'understand' the concept of 'death' nor need to 'know' that it should run away from the fox to survive for the running-from-the-fox instinct to work and therefore for that running-from-the-fox instinct to be selected by natural selection thus for rabbits to evolve to run from foxes. The rabbit doesn't need to and may not 'know' or 'understand' anything at all!

I think that's BS. A rabbit knows to be afraid. It may not know what of until it sees it but it darn well knows.

You should read The Selfish Gene by Dawkins. It's very well written and perhaps Dawkins can explain it better than posters here (assuming you want to understand how evolution works).

Originally posted by Thequ1ck

Shallow Blue said “...who can afford the effort...” and not “....who can understand the effort...”

Well if I knew the difference between affording and understanding I'd sack my accountant for starters. What's your take on it?

I know it's an impossible question to ask.

[quote]We are “conscious” of our selections but we are a differen ...[text shortened]... to be afraid. It may not know what of until it sees it but it darn well knows.

A rabbit knows to be afraid.

how do you know this?

Originally posted by humy

A rabbit knows to be afraid.

how do you know this?

Its kind of obvious. How would you know if a human is afraid? Surely language is not the only way to observe feelings/emotions?

Originally posted by twhitehead
Its kind of obvious. How would you know if a human is afraid? Surely language is not the only way to observe feelings/emotions?

How would you know if a human is afraid?

It is like this:

1, I have direct conscious awareness of my own fear so I know I can be afraid.

2, When I am afraid, I am aware that that fear makes me behave in certain ways such as making me give certain facial expressions etc.

3, If I then see those same facial expressions and other behaviour on another human under similar circumstances that would make me afraid, I would naturally extrapolate from 1 and 2 that that human is probably also afraid.

But note that I know that other species of animal may not necessarily have any conscious awareness of the state of the brain that we would call 'fear' so that, for I know, other animals don't have fear.

Surely language is not the only way to observe feelings/emotions?

in humans, of course. But if an animal behaves in a similar way to a scared human, we cannot safely conclude that that animal has conscious awareness of being scared. After all, other animals have brains that are wired up differently from our own. Also, I can program a cold unfeeling robot to show a scared expression on its face and behave just like it was scared in response to some obvious danger -and yet it wouldn't have any conscious awareness of fear. Why can't an animal be just like that cold robot i.e. show a 'fear' response just like a human would and so 'appear' to be scared but not have any conscious awareness of fear?
I am not saying animals don't have fear -I am merely saying we cannot really rationally know it if they do. We don't really know what other animals feel or experience.

Originally posted by humy
It is like this:

1, I have direct conscious awareness of my own fear so I know I can be afraid.

2, When I am afraid, I am aware that that fear makes me behave in certain ways such as making me give certain facial expressions etc.

3, If I then see those same facial expressions and other behaviour on another human under similar circumstances that would ...[text shortened]... te of the brain that we would call 'fear' so that, for I know, other animals don't have fear.

I on the other hand followed your 1 - 3 and concluded that without a doubt many animals can, and do experience fear. And even if it is in some ways different from our experience, I still call it fear and believe that most of the key emotions and reactions to those emotions are very similar.

in humans, of course. But if an animal behaves in a similar way to a scared human, we cannot safely conclude that that animal has conscious awareness of being scared.
What about a young child before it can talk? Would you make the same conclusions about them? And the mentally handicapped?

After all, other animals have brains that are wired up differently from our own.
Not significantly differently. After all, all the basic emotions appear and result in the same patterns of behaviour. If they were that different we would expect significantly different patterns.

Also, I can program a cold unfeeling robot to show a scared expression on its face and behave just like it was scared in response to some obvious danger -and yet it wouldn't have any conscious awareness of fear.
True, but if a Robot that was not programmed to show fear but had an advanced AI and started showing all the symptoms of fear, would it not be reasonable to conclude that it is probably experiencing fear?

Why can't an animal be just like that cold robot i.e. show a 'fear' response just like a human would and so 'appear' to be scared but not have any conscious awareness of fear?
Because it doesn't make sense. Its as ridiculous to me as suggesting that all other humans except myself are cold robots merely acting out their emotions.

I am not saying animals don't have fear -I am merely saying we cannot really rationally know it if they do. We don't really know what other animals feel or experience.
And I am saying that we can rationally know because communication does not solely consist of language. We may not have an accurate picture, but we can do pretty well. We often cant even tell exactly what emotions our fellow humans experience either.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I on the other hand followed your 1 - 3 and concluded that without a doubt many animals can, and do experience fear. And even if it is in some ways different from our experience, I still call it fear and believe that most of the key emotions and reactions to those emotions are very similar.

[b]in humans, of course. But if an animal behaves in a similar ell. We often cant even tell exactly what emotions our fellow humans experience either.[/b]

What about a young child before it can talk? Would you make the same conclusions about them?

of course not. I remember having fear when I was a small child. I don't remember having fear when I was a hen because I was never a hen. In addition, even if I was never a child, I know a child has a human brain and I have a human brain and I can fear so it seems a reasonable guess that the child can fear.

Not significantly differently. After all, all the basic emotions appear and result in the same patterns of behaviour.

how do you know that that same patterns of behaviour are the result of the same basic emotions? I don't. If I see the same patterns of behaviour in other people, I can extrapolate reasonably enough from knowing my emotions cause that behaviour in myself. But animal brains are much more different from my brain than that of other human brains are different from my brain and I have never had experience of being another type of animal.

True, but if a Robot that was not programmed to show fear but had an advanced AI and started showing all the symptoms of fear, would it not be reasonable to conclude that it is probably experiencing fear?

No, because we cannot safely say that those symptoms of 'fear' is accompanied by awareness of the mental state we call 'fear' and those symptoms may have some other cause that do not involve awareness of any feeling. It is possible to have intelligent behaviour that appears 'emotional' but without the awareness of feeling.

Its as ridiculous to me as suggesting that all other humans except myself are cold robots merely acting out their emotions.

well no, it isn't as ridiculous because you have direct conscious awareness of your own emotions so of course you know humans and therefore other humans can have emotions. But there is a big limit to how much you can safely extrapolate from that.

And I am saying that we can rationally know because communication does not solely consist of language.

but how could we know that those animal 'communications' ( as you calling it here ) correspond to self-awareness of emotional mental states just like similar human 'communications' correspond to our self-awareness of our emotional mental states? -I hope you can see the distinction between what you refer to 'communication' and self-awareness of emotional mental states for the two do not equate.

We often cant even tell exactly what emotions our fellow humans experience either.

yes, but with other humans, at least we can make a rational extrapolation from our own emotions that we have direct awareness of that they probably do experience some sort of emotions; we just don't always know which ones.




OK, perhaps this will help explain what I am talking about:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Blindsighted
“...
the ability to respond to visual stimuli without having any conscious visual experience; it can occur after some forms of brain damage
..”
OK, this is about visual experience as opposed to emotional experience. But this still proves it IS possible for a human to respond or behave or 'communicate' ( as you call it ) just as if he is having an experience but without actually having the experience. In addition, note that this blindsight is caused by brain damage thus indicating that there is one area of the brain X for respond or behave ( or 'communicate' as you call it ) just as if you having an experience E but a DIFFERENT area of the brain Y for actually having that experience E in a truly conscious sense.

Now, and this is my point here; how can we rationally know that other animal species other than humans have both areas of the brain X AND Y rather than JUST X?
In other words, how do we know that animals are not unlike those few unfortunate blindsighted humans but with that 'blindsightedness' being extended to feeling and emotions rather than just visual experiences? -those animals could certainly appear ( according to our perception ) to behave EXACTLY AS IF they have emotions but will not be consciously aware of anything including their own emotions thus those 'emotions' would be kind of fake.
I am not implying animals are indeed like that -only that, for all we know, they could be.

Originally posted by humy
No, because we cannot safely say that those symptoms of 'fear' is accompanied by awareness of the mental state we call 'fear' and those symptoms may have some other cause that do not involve awareness of any feeling. It is possible to have intelligent behaviour that appears 'emotional' but without the awareness of feeling.

I have two main points to make:
1. I am not convinced that 'fear' is solely defined by a human being consciously aware of something in a specific way. I believe the word describes everything from the emotion to the various reactions and behavior. Even if animals experience it differently, I still call it fear because the resulting behavior fits within the definition.
2. I am not convinced that we cannot know anything about how an animal thinks nor am I convinced that animals think that much differently from us. In fact I would say that you are projecting your own ignorance of animal behavior and thought processes onto me and reality and claiming your ignorance as fact ie just because you don't know, you claim nobody can know. I disagree.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I have two main points to make:
1. I am not convinced that 'fear' is solely defined by a human being consciously aware of something in a specific way. I believe the word describes everything from the emotion to the various reactions and behavior. Even if animals experience it differently, I still call it fear because the resulting behavior fits within th ...[text shortened]... your ignorance as fact ie just because you don't know, you claim nobody can know. I disagree.

1. I am not convinced that 'fear' is solely defined by a human being consciously aware of something in a specific way.

neither am I. But that's not what I am saying. But surely, whether you are a human or a non-human, if you don’t have some sort of conscious awareness of your own fear then that 'fear' is not real but a misnomer?

2. I am not convinced that we cannot know anything about how an animal thinks

neither am I. But I was not talking about what an animal thinks but rather what it feels. What about what an animal feels as opposed to thinks?

In fact I would say that you are projecting your own ignorance of animal behaviour and thought processes onto me and reality and claiming your ignorance as fact ie just because you don't know, you claim nobody can know. (my emphasis)

not true. I was not talking about the animals behaviour and thought processes but rather what the animal feels nor would I claim that we cannot know about an animal behaviour and thought processes because I believe we can esp with behaviour because we obviously directly observe that! I claim we cannot know ( at least not yet with the present state of science ) what an animal feels because we cannot reliably tell what it feels purely from its external behaviour because its external behaviour doesn't tell us what feelings it is aware of; we just need much more information than that which we presently don't have.
I believe one day we will know once science finally gets to grips with understanding exactly how different parts of the brain work and what exactly goes on in the brain in both in humans and in animals with complete or near-complete knowledge so we can finally get a reliable picture of what is really going on in an animal's brain -but that may take a very long time.

Did you read the last two paragraphs of my last post? They were the only important bits. Can you answer the critical question I posed in the last paragraph which gets at the hart of what I am trying to say here? The question was:

how do we know that animals are not unlike those few unfortunate blindsighted humans but with that 'blindsightedness' being extended to feeling and emotions rather than just visual experiences?

-you have to see it in the context of the two paragraphs to understand the question.

Originally posted by humy
neither am I. But that's not what I am saying. But surely, whether you are a human or a non-human, if you don’t have some sort of conscious awareness of your own fear then that 'fear' is not real but a misnomer?

No, not at all. If my cat is clearly afraid of me, then she is afraid of me. I don't see why I have to proove she is consciously aware that she is afraid before I can call it fear.

neither am I. But I was not talking about what an animal thinks but rather what it feels. What about what an animal feels as opposed to thinks?
Yet conciousness seems to feature very high in your 'feeling' definition. Why should it? Isn't feeling a function of thinking combined with other 'effects' in the brain? Does conciousness even come into it other than recording the outcome?

not true. I was not talking about the animals [b]behaviour and thought processes but rather what the animal feels nor would I claim that we cannot know about an animal behaviour and thought processes because I believe we can esp with behaviour because we obviously directly observe that! I claim we cannot know ( at least not yet with the present state of science ) what an animal feels because we cannot reliably tell what it feels purely from its external behaviour because its external behaviour doesn't tell us what feelings it is aware of; we just need much more information than that which we presently don't have.[/b]
I think we just have very different understandings of what it means to feel.

how do we know that animals are not unlike those few unfortunate blindsighted humans but with that 'blindsightedness' being extended to feeling and emotions rather than just visual experiences?
As the name implies these people are sighted and can see. You seem to define seeing as being consciously aware of seeing, I say it is the whole experience. Similarly, I say fear and other emotions are the whole experience, not just the concious awareness part.

Originally posted by twhitehead
No, not at all. If my cat is clearly afraid of me, then she is afraid of me. I don't see why I have to proove she is consciously aware that she is afraid before I can call it fear.

[b]neither am I. But I was not talking about what an animal thinks but rather what it feels. What about what an animal feels as opposed to thinks ear and other emotions are the whole experience, not just the concious awareness part.[/b]

Why should it? Isn't feeling a function of thinking combined with other 'effects' in the brain? (my emphasis)

No. Where did you get that from? If I look at a red patch of light, I have a red visual sensation of light which I would say I 'feel' ( the word 'feel' sounds to me a bit inappropriate here but I am at a loss to think of any alternative word for it and I have to call it something! ) . Exactly what “thinking” am I doing to 'feel' that? What logical ( or illogical ) thought processes am I conducting to have that red sensation ( with or without any emotional response I may have to that ) ? -none I would say! I don't have to think anything to have that sensation, just be consciously aware of what I 'see'.

As the name implies these people are sighted and can see. You seem to define seeing as being consciously aware of seeing, I say it is the whole experience.

I wasn't really talking about 'seeing' but rather 'visual experiences'. A robot may 'see' but without having a visual experience because that requires consciousness. The same might be true for an animal.

I say fear and other emotions are the whole experience, not just the concious awareness part.

Can you feel fear without being consciously aware of it? -I cannot imagin how! can you?
Can you remember a particular occasion when you felt fear without being consciously aware of it?
Perhaps the conscious awareness of the feeling of fear is not the “whole experience” as you put it. But without the conscious awareness part of the feeling of fear, surely you would have none of it!? i.e. Whole or otherwise!? Instead, without conscious awarness, you would, at best, have I kind of 'fake' fear where you merely behave exactly as if you had fear but have no actual feeling of fear. Why couldn't this be true for animals?