On Tue, 26 Aug 2003 05:30 pm, Ian Pitchford wrote:
> Lähettäjä: Timo Järvilehto [mailto: timo.jarvilehto@... ]
> Lähetetty: 26. elokuuta 2003 10:00
> Vastaanottaja: evolutionary-psychology@yahoogroups.com
> Aihe: Re: [evol-psych] Will fact match fiction as scientists start
> work on thinking robot?
[snip]
> "To sum up, the research on robotics and artificial intelligence is
> on a wrong path when trying to develop conscious machines, similarly
> as the modern brain research is faced with an impossible task when
> trying to find special areas for consciousness in the brain. This
> doesn't mean denial of the importance of the brain or the nervous
> system when consciousness is studied, or that machines could not
> simulate conscious acts. However, locating consciousness in the brain
> or in the machine leads to questions which cannot be answered,
> because for consciousness to exist, we need much more than the brain
> or the machine alone.
>
> Thus, a machine or a brain, as such, may never have consciousness of
> their own. Robots cannot exist as autonomous beings, because their
> existence as robots is bound to the human culture.

Is this not equally true of human beings? Do not the children raised by
wolves or otherwise in total isolation from other human beings fail to
develop as functioning human beings?

If you get right down to it, no human being is a fully autonomous being.
We are all utterly helpless, unable to even run away from a threat, for
months, and reliant on other human beings for years afterwards.


> They are neither
> "interested" in co-operation or in communication, as little as spades
> are interested in digging holes or computers in the content of their
> calculations; they do this only when they are programmed and used by
> the human beings.

Yes, but this pre-supposes that robots could never be created that are
"interested" in co-operation. How do you know that this is the case?


> Furthermore, there are also deep ethical issues related to such
> endeavors. If we start to humanize machines then it easily follows
> that we start to mechanize human beings.

I'm sorry, but this does not follow at all. In fact, this sounds awfully
like the argument against animal rights that if we humanize animals, we
will only end up treating humans worse; or of the Fundamentalist
Creationist argument that if we teach our children we are animals, they
will go on to act like animals. Presumably they fear that they will
roll around in the mud like elephants rather than bath.

Your argument supposes that people have a limited quantity of humanity
to apply to other beings, and if we waste it on machines, then there
will be less available to apply to other Homo sapiens. I see no
evidence of this.

Over historical periods, we human beings have gone from more or less
denying the humanity of anyone from another tribe, to conceiving of the
notion that even machines and aliens from other worlds might be human.
Far from having a limited quantity of humanity to apply, it seems that
the further we spread our notion of humanity, the more we have to
spread further still.

> Here genetic engineering and
> development of robotics seem to be just two sides of the same coin.
> Already now there are strong efforts towards genetic manipulation of
> babies, which reflect the attitude that a baby is just a doll which
> serves the needs and satisfaction of its parents,

This sounds pretty much standard human behaviour to me, at least for a
large portion of the human species. I know many adults whose parents
expect them to serve their own needs and satisfactions, and none of
them were genetically manipulated.

[snip]
> Human
> consciousness is based on long developmental history and co-operation
> with the other human beings. Therefore, it is impossible to create
> consciousness artificially.

This supposes that there is one and only one way of creating
consciousness, namely the specific way that consciousness in human
beings develops.

The flaw in the reasoning can be easily seen if we apply the same logic
to a slightly different situation:

"Human chess-playing is based on long developmental history and
co-operation with the other human beings. Therefore, it is impossible
to create chess-playing artificially."


--
Steven D'Aprano

Does anyone have some good references (preferably on-line) or pointers
to books that discuss crime and punishment issues from an Evol-Psych
perspective?

I'm thinking about from a policy perspective, as in whether the death
penalty is a deterant to crime in general, whether harsh prison
conditions and long sentences or rehabilitation work best for reducing
either specific crimes or the general crime rate, etc.

Are there good, reliable statistics for the incidence of crime and the
effectiveness of different strategies for dealing with it?

Thank you,



--
Steven D'Aprano

A question for the neuroscientists on this list. It may not have an answer yet.

I was thinking about modularity in the brain, and how it might be formed. The
classic example of a little sub-module is if course the visual system, where
little regions appear which are dedicated to particular sub-tasks like vertical
edge detection, detection of movement in a particular direction, etc etc. these
small sub-populations of neurons can readily be distinguished by function, and
by the way the way they are connected among themselves and to the outside world,
so that if I stick an electrode into a monkey’s visual cortex and watch what
happens I can pretty much tell which cells I am monitoring. But suppose I took
the cells out of the monkey and examined them. Would there be anything in the
structure or shape of a particular neuron to tell me which bit of the visual
cortex it had come from? As I understand it, the answer is ‘no’. There are
certainly no distinctions which could be read off the DNA expressed within a
particular neuron.

So in what sense is this specialisation, which we find in all healthy adult
mammals, and which has a clear survival advantage, genetic? Where are the genes
involved? What do they do? I know that the brain doesn’t form these connections
without the right stimulation. But the ability to respond to stimulation must be
genetically encoded, in some sense.

I can think of two sorts of general answer. There might be chemical or physical
factors in the growing brain that encouraged connections to form in some parts
and not in others. There might be something about the geometry of neurones that
gives them assemblies of them a ‘natural’ size, which would tend, of itself, to
produce a brain full of sub-modules.

But is anything actually know for certain about these mechanisms? I can think of
consequences if the second mechanism were important: there might be mutations
which affected the ‘sociability’ of neurones, and these would have an  impact on
intelligence.

The obvious way to study all this would be to look at congenital blindness, and
see what’s missing there but all the research I know of (very little) has been
about animals artificially blinded – kittens with their eyes sewn up and so on.
It may be that congenital blindness is just too rare to study in mammals. It is
the sort of thing that would be very strongly selected against.

  --

Andrew Brown
Phone +44 (0)1799-516812
Fax   +44 (0)1799-500726
What I do: http://www.darwinwars.comm

Steven D'Aprano [mailto:dippy@...] wrote:
(Timo Jarvilehto)
> > Thus, a machine or a brain, as such, may never have consciousness of
> > their own. Robots cannot exist as autonomous beings, because their
> > existence as robots is bound to the human culture.
> (Steven D'Aprano)
> Is this not equally true of human beings? Do not the children raised by
> wolves or otherwise in total isolation from other human beings fail to
> develop as functioning human beings?
>
> If you get right down to it, no human being is a fully autonomous being.
> We are all utterly helpless, unable to even run away from a threat, for
> months, and reliant on other human beings for years afterwards.

Yes, you are right; human beings may develop (human) consciousness only as a
part of human co-operation and culture. However, it is important to note
that we build a machine for our purposes in order to extend and fortify our
own activity. Thus, in this respect a machine is not a separate being, but
exists only as a part of our own activity; it cannot have its "own"
consciousness, because it is part of our consciousness as much as our brain
or the hands.

> > They are neither
> > "interested" in co-operation or in communication, as little as spades
> > are interested in digging holes or computers in the content of their
> > calculations; they do this only when they are programmed and used by
> > the human beings.
>
> Yes, but this pre-supposes that robots could never be created that are
> "interested" in co-operation. How do you know that this is the case?

From my point of view, development of consciousness is possible only in a
group of structurally similar beings, because only the common structure
ensures that the interests are similar, which would be a prerequisite for
fruitful co-operation. If one could develop an "interested" robot it would
probably try to eat all electricity available in the human society...

>
> > Furthermore, there are also deep ethical issues related to such
> > endeavors. If we start to humanize machines then it easily follows
> > that we start to mechanize human beings.
>
> I'm sorry, but this does not follow at all. In fact, this sounds awfully
> like the argument against animal rights that if we humanize animals, we
> will only end up treating humans worse; or of the Fundamentalist
> Creationist argument that if we teach our children we are animals, they
> will go on to act like animals. Presumably they fear that they will
> roll around in the mud like elephants rather than bath.

Well, my statement was not a logical conclusion and, in fact, most of the
neuroscientific research has treated human beings (and especially their
brain) as machines already for a long time.

> [snip]
> > Human
> > consciousness is based on long developmental history and co-operation
> > with the other human beings. Therefore, it is impossible to create
> > consciousness artificially.
>
> This supposes that there is one and only one way of creating
> consciousness, namely the specific way that consciousness in human
> beings develops.
>
> The flaw in the reasoning can be easily seen if we apply the same logic
> to a slightly different situation:
>
> "Human chess-playing is based on long developmental history and
> co-operation with the other human beings. Therefore, it is impossible
> to create chess-playing artificially."

I am sorry, but it seems you don't quite get my point. Chess-playing is a
human invention with its specific figures and rules, and therefore it is not
too difficult to mechanize such kind of activity. On the contrary, your
example demonstrates exactly one situation, in which application of machines
may widen the human skills. However, we didn't invent our life and
consciousness, but they had a long developmental history already before we
existed.
Every description of life is a metaphor created by humans, and it touches
only some aspect of life. In constructing artificial life we have the
problem that we try to build this metaphor, which results in something that
is precisely “artificial” and imitation only. Life cannot be exhaustively
described, and even if it could this description is not identical with life.
We cannot create life by following linguistic descriptions. Life can be
created only by living, not by imitating life. Construction of functioning
machines according to the instructions is possible, because the machines are
from the beginning constructed by humans. The human being himself, however,
is a ”construction” of life and nature.


Timo Jarvilehto, PhD
Professor of psychology
Homepage: http://cc.oulu.fi/~tjarvile/indexe.htm
Email: timo.jarvilehto@...
University of Oulu
PB 2000
90014 Oulun yliopisto

> What I've heard from ZImbardo is that in retrospect the young men in the
> Prison Experiment felt it was a positive experience, from which they learned a
> great deal, although at the time they participated, they were quite
distressed.
> I've heard that those who participated in Milgram's original experiment
> remained very distressed about it.

One thing that this discussion seem to ignore is that most people tend
to avoid admitting that they have done something that they shouldn't,
in any sense. Thus most people will tend to avoid admitting distress
from something that they did willfully. If the distress is mild, I
would guess that there will be random relation between those that
report distress and those that actually experience. Other wuestions,
like framimng the question, the weather etc will have larger effect on
the response.

I understand that the five factor (or, possibly, six factor) traits are
independent of one another; but what about the facets or sub-scales that
make up the tests for each trait?  Are these correlated with one another? If
they are, does anyone know what the correlation is? Is the correlation among
subscales within one trait the same as the correlation among subscales
within the other 4?

~Alypius Skinner

PS--And why do we double the r in relation when we put the prefix co- in
front of it? Even for English, this seems to be pushing the envelope of
inconsistency.  It drives me crazy.  To restore some consistency to the
English tongue, I suggest we all begin spelling the word rrelate and its
various derivatives (rrelative, rrelationship, etc.) with rr.  Maybe I can
lobby the Congress to pass a law, or, failing that, bribe the publisher of
Merriam-Webster's dictionary to introduce this logical reform.  That would
make me feel much better whenever I write "correlation."

On Sunday 31 August 2003 18:01, Paul Okami wrote:
> What is important is not how many people
> were "distressed" by having participated in Milgram's experiments,
> but whether their number, and the magnitude of their distress,
> outweighs the benefits of the research.

Are you sure about that? I think this opinion puts you on a slippery
slope. How much suffering of a few are you willing to trade for the
benefit of the many? I, for one, don't want others to decide how much
distress I ought to endure for some greater good.

Michael

--
Michael Schuerig
mailto:michael@...
http://www.schuerig.de/michael/

On Tue, 26 Aug 2003 03:35 am, Rich Faussette wrote:

> I would suggest that if the small groups of elites achieve their
> superior rationality and don't find a way of inculcating morals into
> the great masses beneath them who are not as intellectually gifted,
> then they are not amoral but immoral. Most ancient religious texts
> are written on two levels, one for the "elite" and one for  the
> masses. It is only 21st century elitists who would take away the
> surface allegory and leave the irrational highly emotive masses with
> nothing at all!

Don't you feel that you are being horribly elitist to assume that the
"irrational highly emotive masses" are incapable of understanding
anything but the surface allegory?

>   Joseph Campbell in Myths To Live By:
>
>
> "For not only has it always been the way of multitudes to interpret
> their own symbols literally; but such literally read symbolic forms
> have always been -- and still are, in fact -- the supports of their
> civilizations, the supports of their moral orders, their cohesion,
> vitality, and creative powers. With the loss of them there follows
> uncertainty, and with uncertainty, disequilibrium, since life, as
> both Nietzsche and Ibsen knew, requires life supporting illusions;
> and where these have been dispelled there is nothing secure to hold
> on to, no moral law, nothing firm. We have seen what has happened
> for example, to primitive communities unsettled by the white man's
> civilization. With their old taboos discredited, they immediately go
> to pieces, disintegrate and become resorts of vice and disease.

Is Campbell correct about "primitive communities unsettled by the white
man's civilization"?


>                  Today the same thing is happening to us. With our
> own mythologically founded taboos unsettled by our own modern
> sciences, there is everywhere in the civilized world a rapidly rising
> incidence of vice and crime, mental disorders, suicides and drug
> addictions, shattered homes, impudent children, violence, murder and
> despair. These are facts; I am not inventing them.

But are they the facts? Is society and civilization decaying around us
thanks to science?


--
Steven D'Aprano

On Sun, 31 Aug 2003, Fredric Weizmann wrote:

> There is something oxy-moronic in the the idea of bureaucratically
> employed and trained ethicists. Diogenes would weep.

	 I have met just two formally trained, MA level bio-ethicists.  One
was doing PR for a major drug co. and the other, as far as I could
ascertain, was running borderline legal, bio-tech market scams.
	 I am sure these people must do other things, but I am curious as
to what.

Lynn makes some very important points here
<snip>
We are wired for empathy, we don't need culture to control our anti-
social tendencies, but quite the opposite. Our nonconscious minds are
quite prosocial, organized and adaptive, and in many cases culture
provides the training for antisocial behaviors.
<snip>
Gene-culture coevolution theory goes wrong here (at least as
interpreted by Gintis in his Hitch-hiker paper) in seeing altruism
and empathy as norms instilled by culture in a mind predisposed to
them. If a behavior is universal and ubiquitos, except in those with
genetic of physical damage, then why see a role for culture? We may
as well say that feeling hungry or needing affection are also
cultural; there is no way to distinguish them from empathy and
altruism in behavioral groupings. Certainly there is a spectrum of
altruistic behavior and some are more altruistic than others. But
this spectrum exists in all cultures. Cultures can emphasize
altruistic behavior and see an increase in individual altruism, but
there will still be variation. One common statement from those who
heroicly risk their lives to save strangers is "I did not even think
about it, I just did what I had to do." The decision is not made in
the concious, cultural, mind. It is made in the most primitive fight-
or-flight portion of the mind.
Regarding antisocial behaviors, I feel that Lynn's assertion makes an
extremely common error, one I have noted in several other postings
here. Because human group behavior is extremely underexamined, in my
opinion, many or most fail to see that what is commonly refered to as
antisocial behavior is actually in the vast majority of cases
prosocial for the individuals primary allegiance group. Gang members
are acting prosocialy for their strongest group bond, the gang. That
they are antisocial towards those not in their group should be
unsurprising; that is a universal tendency of human behavior. It is
also not culturaly endowed. Group Selection or even multilevel
selection with a strong group component naturally leads to ingroup
favouritism and outgroup bias; and the so-called antisocial behaviors
are simple group dominance assertions which substitute for inter-
tribal warfare in larger societies.
Both Gintis and Lynn make the same error here. They ascribe universal
ubiquitos behaviors to culture. For Evolutionary Psychology to
achieve a solid foundation and realize its potential we need to be
more careful about this error and we must accept genetic explanations
for human behavior when there is ample evidence to support doing so.
Otherwise we will become another system for generating wrong
conclusions about human behavior, and there are enough of those
already.


Carmi Turchick tribalypredisposed@...

On Sun, 31 Aug 2003, Paul Okami wrote:

> The follow up paper on Milgram reported that 84 percent of the
   participants were glad to have participated, 15 percent were neutral,
>  and 1.3 percent expressed negative feelings.  80% believed that this
   type of research should be carried out, and 74% said they had learned
>  something of personal importance from their participation.

	 Don't recall this paper, Paul.  From what I recall of Baumrind's,
however, it was quite negative about self-reports of effects

Hi!

The Short answer....

Neuronal surfaces get specialized contigent on inputs they get and global
topological architecture. (For a nice review of the topic see the book
"Rethinking Innatess").
It's nice for you that you are starting asking this question, because soon after
you will start understand why the all evol-phsy standard story colapses. At that
point, you might want to read "The Brain and Emotion" by E. Rolls.
Natural selection selects brain architectures not behavioral description of
functional behavior, a.ka. adaptations.
Thus, "modules" might just be a particular chemical balances in lower brain
structures, such as the hypotalamus --- Behavior is emergent.

Cheers,
Jorge.

Andrew Brown wrote:

> A question for the neuroscientists on this list. It may not have an answer
yet.
>
> I was thinking about modularity in the brain, and how it might be formed. The
classic example of a little sub-module is if course the visual system, where
little regions appear which are dedicated to particular sub-tasks like vertical
edge detection, detection of movement in a particular direction, etc etc. these
small sub-populations of neurons can readily be distinguished by function, and
by the way the way they are connected among themselves and to the outside world,
so that if I stick an electrode into a monkey’s visual cortex and watch what
happens I can pretty much tell which cells I am monitoring. But suppose I took
the cells out of the monkey and examined them. Would there be anything in the
structure or shape of a particular neuron to tell me which bit of the visual
cortex it had come from? As I understand it, the answer is ‘no’. There are
certainly no distinctions which could be read off the DNA expressed within a
particular neuron.
>
> So in what sense is this specialisation, which we find in all healthy adult
mammals, and which has a clear survival advantage, genetic? Where are the genes
involved? What do they do? I know that the brain doesn’t form these connections
without the right stimulation. But the ability to respond to stimulation must be
genetically encoded, in some sense.
>
> I can think of two sorts of general answer. There might be chemical or
physical factors in the growing brain that encouraged connections to form in
some parts and not in others. There might be something about the geometry of
neurones that gives them assemblies of them a ‘natural’ size, which would tend,
of itself, to produce a brain full of sub-modules.
>
> But is anything actually know for certain about these mechanisms? I can think
of consequences if the second mechanism were important: there might be mutations
which affected the ‘sociability’ of neurones, and these would have an  impact on
intelligence.
>
> The obvious way to study all this would be to look at congenital blindness,
and see what’s missing there but all the research I know of (very little) has
been about animals artificially blinded – kittens with their eyes sewn up and so
on. It may be that congenital blindness is just too rare to study in mammals. It
is the sort of thing that would be very strongly selected against.
>
>  --
>
> Andrew Brown
> Phone +44 (0)1799-516812
> Fax   +44 (0)1799-500726
> What I do: http://www.darwinwars.comm
--
:o) Jorge Paulo Ferreira Simao {jsimao@...} :o)
PhD Student at Computer Science Department, FCT / New University of Lisbon;
Addresses: (office) Departamento de Informática, FCT/UNL, Quinta da Torre,
2829-516 Caparica, Portugal; Phones: (office) +351 21 294 8536; (home) +351 21
0812096; (celular) +351 966850710; Faxes: (office) +351 21 294 8541; (home) +351
21 212 4306; HomePage: centria.di.fct.unl.pt/~jsimao

Both Gintis and Lynn make the same error here. They ascribe universal
ubiquitos behaviors to culture. For Evolutionary Psychology to
achieve a solid foundation and realize its potential we need to be
more careful about this error and we must accept genetic explanations
for human behavior when there is ample evidence to support doing so.
Otherwise we will become another system for generating wrong
conclusions about human behavior, and there are enough of those
already.

Carmi Turchick tribalypredisposed@...



Human Nature Review http://human-nature.com
Evolutionary Psychology http://human-nature.com/ep
Human Nature Daily Review http://human-nature.com/nibbs

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

All research includes risk/benefit analysis.  There would be no research of
any kind without it. IRB forms include detailed description of possible
risks, as well as purpose of the research and potential benefits.  This
information also appears on informed consent forms.

However, this has degenerated into a simple risk evaluation, and potential
benefits are not taken seriously.

Paul


----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Schuerig" <michael@...>
To: <evolutionary-psychology@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 2:32 AM
Subject: Re: [evol-psych] Chilly Research Climate


> On Sunday 31 August 2003 18:01, Paul Okami wrote:
> > What is important is not how many people
> > were "distressed" by having participated in Milgram's experiments,
> > but whether their number, and the magnitude of their distress,
> > outweighs the benefits of the research.
>
> Are you sure about that? I think this opinion puts you on a slippery
> slope. How much suffering of a few are you willing to trade for the
> benefit of the many? I, for one, don't want others to decide how much
> distress I ought to endure for some greater good.
>
> Michael
>
> --
> Michael Schuerig
> mailto:michael@...
> http://www.schuerig.de/michael/

Dear Andrew Brown,
just off-the list: if you are interested on an unorthodox view you could
take a look at a recent article of mine
(http://cc.oulu.fi/~tjarvile/feel2.htm) Here is an exerpt:

Emotions and the brain

With the advent of consciousness studies, and in line with the conviction
that consciousness will be eventually explained by the activity of certain
parts of the brain (e.g., Dennett, 1991), also emotions became during the
last decade a topic of intensive studies among neuropsychologists
and -physiologists. In these studies emotion was usually defined as a
hypothetical intervening variable, being not part of behavior, but a factor
modifying it between the input and the output. Logically, then, also
emotions were located within the brain, and at the present several regions
have been suggested as main sites of different emotions.  Some decades ago
the popular region was the limbic system, the significance of which was
shown by lesion and stimulation experiments. More recently, the right
hemisphere was regarded as a central place for emotions, and - following the
dichotomy of knowledge and emotion - it was contrasted to the "emotionless,"
rational left hemisphere. At the present, one central candidate has been the
prefrontal area which is held to be responsible for many deeply human
feelings, such as responsibility, conscience, or empathy (see, e.g.,
Damasio, 1999).

Such theorizing has been supported by the conception that the basic
organization of the brain consists of modules which are responsible for
emotions and other forms of psychological processes, modelled as "bundles"
of separate psychological functions. The standard modular model localizing
psychological processes in the brain (e.g., Tooby and Cosmides, 2000)
assumes that evolution selects brain modules containing  neurons which are
specialized (and connected in modules) for separate psychological
"functions," such as analysis and detection of environmental features,
realization of different kinds of emotions, production of speech, etc.

Functional systems

According to the organism-environment theory, no separate psychological
functions exist, because all psychological concepts describe only different
aspects of the same unity, the organism-environment system. Also, from the
point of view of recordings of  brain activity, such separate functions are
only an experimental artifact, based on the stimulus-response method (see
Alexandrov and Järvilehto, 1993). For example, the division of neurons into
"sensory" and "motor" neurons, and the correlation of this division with
perception and action, respectively, are only due to the fact that in
standard experiments such a division is accomplished already by the
experimental methodology before the experiment is started. The results of
the study are predetermined, because the only data accepted are responses of
the subject to stimuli presented by the experimenter.

If the specialization of neurons is studied in real behavior, the firing of
neurons is not in a constant relation to stimuli, or to operationalized
psychological "functions" (perception, memory etc.), but to behavioral
outcomes in which all such psychological functions are integrated
(Alexandrov et al., 1990). Perception and action are only different sides of
the same coin, and the neurons in the "sensory" areas are as much
specialized for motion as the neurons in the "motor" areas for perception
(Jarvilehto, 1999). Perception and action are not functions of separate
cortical modules,  but different aspects of  behavior (including the brain,
the body and the environment) leading to useful results. Therefore,  the
search for specific locations of emotions in the brain is misguided. The
brain does not contain psychological processes or "functions," but neurons
which, as living units, must take care of their metabolism.

  According to the organism-environment theory, the main principle of brain
function is not that of information processing or computing (Järvilehto,
1998b; cf. also Edelman, 1987; Freeman, 1995; Núñez, 1997; Nishizaka,
2000b). The information-processing model is an anthropocentric view of the
neuron's function, because it is based on an interpretation of the neuronal
activity, implicitly assuming that the neurons serve the purposes of a
homunculus who is receiving the information from other neurons. However, no
homunculus exists who had constructed neurons for its purposes -- on the
contrary, the neurons "construct" human beings as living formations. The
brain is one organ in the body, and consists of living cells, which can
maintain their metabolism only by tight connection to the other cells of the
body and to the environmental energies.

A neuron is a living system, an organism-environment system; hence, it is
not important for a neuron to process signals for the human's purposes, but
rather to achieve useful results in its metabolism. The neurons are not
interested in our fears or joys, or in stimuli or signal transmission from
the environment (and even less in dots or lines, or faces of our
relatives!), but in metabolites necessary in their life process. The neuron
must be active in order to receive the metabolites it needs. To this end it
must join to other neurons, build networks, and co-operate with other
neurons in order to create such constellations of elements that may - in a
larger scale - subserve the achievement of behavioral results. Thus, the
organism is a symphony of diverse "needs" of active cells that must support
each other; if this doesn't happen, the multicellular constellation breaks
down.

The experimental finding that there is spatial order (topography) in the
nervous system  --  the fact that has especially led to the idea of
localization of function -- does not  show the existence of emotions in the
brain. In fact, the research trying to show such a localization begins with
the assumption that this kind of localization exists, and then uses
correlative data (i.e. activation of some area in an emotional situation) as
a proof for its basic assumption. However, such findings can be interpreted
also in a much simpler way. It is clear that some cortical neurons, for
example,  are more related to the eye and some to the ear. Such an
organization of cells is, however, not due to the need of the cells to form
pictures, or representations of tones in the brain. If the cells are
specialized so that they use the same body parts in the achievement of their
metabolic results, it is probably useful for them to be closely spaced,
because organized thus they may give the best mutual support to each other

From the point of view of the organism-environment system, the necessary
behavioral results are realized by functional systems (Anokhin, 1949, 1974;
Alexandrov and Järvilehto, 1993). A functional system is the unit of
analysis of the organism-environment system in the neurophysiological
domain. It consists of all specialized neurons, elements of the body, and
environmental constituents, which are necessary in the achievement of a
specific behavioral result. A functional system is not a system subserving
separate psychological "functions" (i.e., perception, memory, emotion,
etc.), but it is organized for behavioral results, in which all
psychological processes are integrated.

The functional differences between the brain areas are not based on
localization of psychological functions, but such differences are related to
the behavioral specialization of  the units in these structures (Alexandrov
et al., 1990). Behavioral specialization means the participation of the
units in the realization of certain functional systems organized towards
achievement of specific behavioral results. Behavioral specialization of the
units is a part of the learning process that occurs both in phylo- and
ontogeny. Thus, the individual units in different brain structures
participate in functional systems which are formed during different
developmental periods.

Functional systems may be classified on the basis of their "learning
history," many "old" systems being related to species characteristics, and
being structurally ready at birth (e.g., systems for oxygen intake, feeding,
different kinds of motions, etc.), but "new" systems develop after birth
with the appearance of the necessary environmental constituents. One
necessary condition in the development of  functional systems and
specialization of neurons is the organization of the nervous networks
supporting certain kinds of behavioral outcomes. This presupposes maturation
of the brain, and there is evidence indicating that such a maturation (in
the form of developing structure and connections between the neurons)
proceeds from deeper brain structures into the right frontal area, from
there to the parietal area, and finally to the left frontal area (Hudspeth
and Pribram, 1990, 1992). It is, furthermore, probable that the functional
systems for different kinds of behavioral results are formed as a nested
hierarchy in this maturational process, the new systems building upon the
old ones, and including these as necessary constituents. Such a formation of
systems proceeds from more basic behavioral results (such as respiration,
food acquisition, and locomotion) to systems for more differentiated and
complex behavioral outcomes.

The more basic the role of the behaviorally specialized neuron, the more
important it is to secure its normal functioning. The earlier the
recruitment of neurons has happened -- i.e. the older the system to which it
belongs --  the more new systems depend upon their integrity. This means
that the more basic the role of the neuron, the larger reorganizational
consequences result from a failure of that neuron's action. Especially the
achievement of complex behavioral results presupposes that many basic "needs
" of the neurons are satisfied, which can happen only if the old systems
function in the appropriate manner. Thus, if for some reason the old system
doesn't supply results which support the process of achievement of the more
recently learned results, then there is a large reorganizational process in
the organism-environment system.

This is actually self-evident already for the vegetative processes in the
body. The pumping action of the heart is a prerequisite for all other
physiological processes. If it fails then the "reorganization" is so large
that it may lead to immediate death. On the other hand, breathing is
strongly related to such newly acquired skills as speech. Sufficient oxygen
supply is necessary for the action of all neurons, and if there is a problem
in breathing then speaking also is disturbed, and a reorganization follows
in which the speaker must first restore the normal functioning of breathing.

From such an organization it follows that the intensity of the
reorganizational processes - and thus emotions -  in the
organism-environment system is related to the "age" of the functional
systems that fail in achievement of useful results. If the functioning of
these "old" systems is prevented, then the failure has far-reaching
reorganizational consequences, because all new systems that are based on the
old ones must be reorganized. This is why all intense emotions (e.g. love,
hunger, and death) are related to very basic conditions of life (such as
breeding, feeding, self-preservation). It is, indeed, difficult to imagine
any intense emotions which were related to newly learned events, e.g.,
something one has learned yesterday -- assuming that this recent learning is
not somehow directly connected to very basic life conditions.

Thus the parts of the brain most closely related to intense emotions are not
the sites of those emotions, but they are probably brain regions that are
important from the point of view of the reorganizational processes of the
organism-environment system. Stimulation or destruction of these brain areas
interferes in the old functional systems and destroys the basis of the
functioning of the newer ones, which leads to reorganization of the whole
organism-environment system, expressed in emotional behavior. It follows
that the results of experiments showing correlation of activity of a certain
brain area with emotional behavior do not indicate any specific locations
for the emotions in the brain, but that such results reflect instead the
development of specialization of neurons, and their role in the
reorganizational processes of the organism-environment system.

Best wishes,
Timo Jarvilehto
----------------------------------------------------------------

Timo Jarvilehto, PhD
Professor of psychology
Homepage: http://cc.oulu.fi/~tjarvile/indexe.htm
Email: timo.jarvilehto@...
University of Oulu
PB 2000
90014 Oulun yliopisto



> -----Alkuperäinen viesti-----
> Lähettäjä: Andrew Brown [mailto:alloneword@...]
> Lähetetty: 1. syyskuuta 2003 11:24
> Vastaanottaja: evolutionary-psychology@yahoogroups.com
> Aihe: [evol-psych] how are brain structures inherited?
>
>
> A question for the neuroscientists on this list. It may not have
> an answer yet.
>
> I was thinking about modularity in the brain, and how it might be
> formed. The classic example of a little sub-module is if course
> the visual system, where little regions appear which are
> dedicated to particular sub-tasks like vertical edge detection,
> detection of movement in a particular direction, etc etc. these
> small sub-populations of neurons can readily be distinguished by
> function, and by the way the way they are connected among
> themselves and to the outside world, so that if I stick an
> electrode into a monkey?s visual cortex and watch what happens I
> can pretty much tell which cells I am monitoring. But suppose I
> took the cells out of the monkey and examined them. Would there
> be anything in the structure or shape of a particular neuron to
> tell me which bit of the visual cortex it had come from? As I
> understand it, the answer is ?no?. There are certainly no
> distinctions which could be read off the DNA expressed within a
> particular neuron.
>
> So in what sense is this specialisation, which we find in all
> healthy adult mammals, and which has a clear survival advantage,
> genetic? Where are the genes involved? What do they do? I know
> that the brain doesn?t form these connections without the right
> stimulation. But the ability to respond to stimulation must be
> genetically encoded, in some sense.
>
> I can think of two sorts of general answer. There might be
> chemical or physical factors in the growing brain that encouraged
> connections to form in some parts and not in others. There might
> be something about the geometry of neurones that gives them
> assemblies of them a ?natural? size, which would tend, of itself,
> to produce a brain full of sub-modules.
>
> But is anything actually know for certain about these mechanisms?
> I can think of consequences if the second mechanism were
> important: there might be mutations which affected the
> ?sociability? of neurones, and these would have an  impact on
> intelligence.
>
> The obvious way to study all this would be to look at congenital
> blindness, and see what?s missing there but all the research I
> know of (very little) has been about animals artificially blinded
> ? kittens with their eyes sewn up and so on. It may be that
> congenital blindness is just too rare to study in mammals. It is
> the sort of thing that would be very strongly selected against.
>
>  --
>
> Andrew Brown
> Phone +44 (0)1799-516812
> Fax   +44 (0)1799-500726
> What I do: http://www.darwinwars.comm

Herbert Gintis wrote:
  > At 02:11 PM 8/29/2003 -0400, Phil Roberts, Jr. wrote:
  >
  >>
  >> I assume you agree with me that if human culture were
  >> eradicated and human organisms were to somehow survive the calamity that
  >> it would be many millennia before prudence, let alone prosociality, would
  >> reappear on the planet.  So aren't we both in agreement with Dawkins,
  >> at least on the point that generosity and altruism are cultural inventions
  >> totally dependent on culture for their transmission?
  >
  >         I quite disagree with this.

'Prosocial' is a term I've borrowed from you, and I am no doubt using
it clumsily to refer to something a little too specific, such as
the willfulness of one organism to endure physical discomfort or
pain to relieve the physical discomfort or pain of a non-related
subordinate, e.g., hunger.  In other words, I'm using it to
refer to instances of empathy that cash out in currency
that counts.  And, based on my own childhood experiences with
deficiencies in this department and personal interactions with
young children, I think this sort of behavior is likely only to
appear within a cognitive environment typical of an evolved culture
and, even then, probably limited to mature individuals who have
been properly inculcated with the norms (Kohlberg comes to mind).
Half the time I won't even make those kind of sacrifices for
my own future (repeated postponements of my dental appointments
come to mind), and we're talking a full blown mature individual
functioning in a highly evolved culture here.

To be honest, I don't think it is at all straining credulity to
suspect that even something as basic as maternal concern is highly
dependent on culture.  For example, I recall a TV documentary
in which it was observed that unenculturated zoo gorillas not only
don't care for their newborns, but exhibit no awareness that they
even SHOULD care for them.  And in my psychodynamics paper I
have offered additional arguments based on Hume's observations
on the manner in which "association facilitates the sympathy".
If such were the case, and even something as basic as maternal
concern requres enculturation, then it would mean our
hypothetical experiment with totally unenculturated humans
would require constant behind the scenes intervention just to
keep the experiment going.  And I don't think you have to have
much of an imagination to appreciate what sort of offspring
we would be talking about here (experiments on monkeys, etc.).
Given this possibility, I suspect my contention that
"prosociality" would reappear only after many millennia is
probably too optimistic.


  > Prosocial emotions for instance (empathy, shame, spite, etc.)


As with your practice of referring to non self regarding behavior
as 'prosocial' rather than 'emotionally selfish', I believe your
referring to emotions such as shame, quilt, spite, etc.
as 'prosocial' presupposes we already understand their function.
Of course, I agree that their effects are often prosocial, and
they certainly LOOK like they might have been designed to perform
this function, but I think in a world a little less inculcated
with behaviorist leanings they could with equal justification
be referred to as ego-related or self-worth related emotion.

Of course, viewed from this perspective, their adaptiveness seems
more questionable, in that one is inevitably faced with having to
ask far more difficult and potentially disturbing questions such
as 'Why is there a species of naturally selected organism incurring
huge physical costs in the pursuit of the survivalistically bizarre
non-physical objective of maximizing self-worth?'

While more difficult, and potentially more disturbing, this sort
of question harbors the promise for avoiding the sort of
explanatory narrowness Dawkins has complained about in that,
arguably, 99% of everything human beings think or do could
conceivably come under this heading (e.g., needs for love, romance,
attention, achievement, purpose, meaning, religion, moral integrity,
autonomy, dignity, wealth, power, etc.).


  > are clearly the product of gene-culture
  > coevolution, not simply culture impressed on a genetic "blank slate."

Nor is it the product of just any old culture impressed on a gene
for empathy.  Its gene-culture CO-evolution, IMHO, an ongoing
process in which BOTH culture and prosociality evolve together.
For example, there is a huge increase in the number of individuals
who come under the heading of 'thy neighbor' as a result of modern
forms of communication, etc. in our shrinking world.  (Singer's
views on the expanding circle come to mind).

  > We
  > are genetically predisposed to incorporate generosity and altruism into
  > our behavior, and many of those humans who do not (e.g., sociopaths) are
  > likely lacking in some of the genetic machinery for prosociality.
  >

Agreed.  Its just that I would argue, based on Hume's observations
on the manner in which "association facilitates the sympathy",
that in a totally unenculturated group of humans everyone would
be a sociopath by today's standards, for a time at least
(the wild boy of aveyron comes to mind).

  >> And aren't
  >> we also in agreement that, whatever has led to these developments,
  >> nature is engaged in a relentless crusade to eliminate self
  >> sacrifice, throttling every 9/11 terrorist and self-incinerating
  >> Buddhist monk she can get her hands on?
  >
  >         We cannot agree on this, either. Culture and nature conspire to
  > create as many self-sacrificing individuals as self-sacrifice.

Wow!  You've blown my mind!  Self-incinerating monk genes don't
have to pay a heavy price for their phenotypic propensities?

In my psychodynamics paper (URL'd below) I've offered an alternative
perspective in which it is assumed that, via cultural evolution, nature
has been "inadvertently" manufacturing altruism at a faster rate than it
can be eliminated.

  >
  >> Perhaps you have succeeded where so many have failed.  But I'm
  >> a tad bit skeptical, as I'm sure you will understand.
  >> I don't think this problem is going to be resolved by tinkering
  >> with the models, and I don't think it comes even close to the
  >> sort of radical restart Dawkins has in mind:
  >
  >         Tinkering with models??? That's what you call scientific
  > research? Tinkering with models is science, or at least an important
  > part of science. And the models are ways to explain new evidence. New
  > evidence is important in science.

I'm sorry.  It wasn't my intention to be flippant, but I just don't
know of any other way to put it.  But on rereading you're
Hitchhiker paper I think we may agree more than I realized.  I
agree about the hitchhiking business and, indeed, have been
promoting a similar idea (that emotional instability and
increased concern for others are maladaptive by-products of
the evolution of rationality) for almost twenty years now e.g.,
see:

    'A Divergent Theory of Emotional Instability'
http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/dada/90/emostab.htm


Just replace your adaptive gene for internal norms with the
gene for rationality and, Voila!, you've entered my domain.
Its also the theme that underlies my psychodynamics paper
(below), in case you haven't noticed.

--

                     Phil Roberts, Jr.


Why We Turned Out Like Captain Kirk Instead of Mr. Spock:
          The Psychodynamics of Genetic Indeterminism
        http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/dada/90/

John A. Johnson wrote:

> My own view is that good science
> does not depend upon
> dismissiveness or
> non-dismissiveness of data per se.

-- Agreed -- no theory has ever fitted all of the available data. In other
words, there are always some observational results that a given theory
cannot accommodate, which have to be dismissed as "aberrant".

> Rather, it is the absence of
> passion-induced blindness to the
> possibility that one might be
> wrong

-- Can't agree with you here, though. Often the best theories are promoted
by aggressive partisans who are quite blind to the possibility that they
are mistaken. They have to go through the motions of taking objections
seriously, of course, or else others won't take them or their favoured
theory seriously. It's a "game", but the real "competitors" are theories
rather than the scientists who promote them, and it doesn't matter much how
the latter behave as long as the "winner" is usually the best theory.

Some scientists are better than others, and the best have a wide range of
"virtues" such as a lively imagination, an awareness of how problems have
been solved in the past, a love of controversy, etc. These "virtues" are
not moral virtues, and they might well include strong -- even chauvinistic
-- commitment to a favoured theory. They do not include being Mother Teresa
of Calcutta.

In most intellectual endeavours, being dispassionate does nothing but turn
you into a bore. I believe that passionately.

Jack Parsons wrote:

> I strongly favour the view that the
> science, if any, is in the practitioner,
> not the subject matter

-- I favour the view that science consists in the judicious application of
logic, which differs from one discipline to the next. Newton's work in
alchemy was not good science, even though Newton was the one who was doing
it.

I've often argued that IF the credentials of a practice depend on the
virtuousness of the practitioner, THEN the practice does not stand up to
scrutiny on its own merits, and so it cannot be counted as science at all.

Jeremy Bowman

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Most researchers and scholars, even those well disposed to the idea that
heritability measures are useful in some contexts have not championed their
use when looking at different groups..  Heritability measures are sensitive
to environmental variation as well as genetic variation. In particular,
restricted ranges of environmental variation constrain the size of
heritability differences. Hence the general problem of disentangling
hereditary and environmental influences in this area is magnified when
studying inter-group differences. --which may be why people don't spend a lot
of time looking for them.

Fredric Weizmann
"A. Alexander Beaujean" wrote:

> I am wondering if anyone knows, offhand, any articles/chapters
> that address differential heritabilities across races on
> "social" variables (e.g., IQ, Personality). I have done a
> literature search, and am shocked at the paucity I am coming
> across.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Alex
>
> -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
> A. Alexander Beaujean
> University of Missouri-Columbia
> http://www.missouri.edu/~aab2b3
>
> ________________________________________________
> Get your own "800" number
> Voicemail, fax, email, and a lot more
> http://www.ureach.com/reg/tag

Searching the evolution of human sexuality
The Intelligencer

A book review in The New York Times caught my eye.

       The title of the book is "Sex, Time and Power: How Women's Sexuality
Shaped Human Evolution" (Viking, $29.95) by Leonard Shlain.

       According to the reviewer - Meredith F. Small, a professor of
anthropology at Cornell University - Shlain's book concentrates on women and
their need for the mineral iron as the key to our evolutionary past.

       Simply put, women need high stores of iron because they menstruate every
month, become pregnant and nurse. The way to replenish iron is to eat meat.

       "But women (in our distant past) were probably not hunters," Small
writes, "so they must have manipulated men with sexual favors to bringing home
a blood-soaked dinner. This manipulative move, Shlain suggests, then set into
motion just about every aspect of human behavior."

       The evolutionary tradeoff, therefor, is meat for sex, "and everyone wins
as genes are passed down by the iron-rich women who produce healthy,
intelligent babies."

       Well, I'm not an anthropologist, but I'm a man, and like all men I know
that it takes a lot more than a 24-ounce T-bone to score points in the mating
game. Believe me. It's a lot more complex than that. All human interaction,
especially the male-female kind, is extremely complex. In fact, it's baffling.

       But Shlain got it right with the part about women manipulating men with
sexual favors. Women are the smarter sex - no doubt about it - and since the
beginning of time they've perfected the art of getting men to do whatever they
want them to do.

       Men willingly comply with their wishes, no matter how difficult or
incomprehensible the task. Men aren't smart at all.

       It might have begun with a craving for meat, but women obviously
discovered they could get a lot more, the seven-course meal, so to speak.

       At this stage of the evolutionary progression, the most highly evolved
women can make their men try to decipher and deliver their deepest, most
inexplicable emotional and psychological needs. They're often needs that they
cannot even articulate, but they expect men to figure them out and deliver, or
else. That's sheer genius, from a biological standpoint, ensuring that women
will always manipulate men.

       But don't take me too seriously. Traditional gender roles have changed
and are still changing. However, it would be foolish to deny the differences
between men and women, and it's intriguing to speculate about the origin of
these differences in our prehistoric past and how they're reflected today.

       For example, it's generally agreed that early men were primarily hunters
and warriors and early women were gatherers and child rearers. Survival was the
principal occupation of everyone.

       Some postulate that language came about because of the need for men to
plan and execute a successful communal hunt, but I question that in terms of
modern human behavior.

       Everybody knows that women are more verbal than men. Men don't talk as
much as women do. I'd speculate that it's because talking during a hunt scares
away the prey. But women gathering roots, nuts and berries can chatter away
without fear of failure.

       And some say it's these vestigial hunter-warrior instincts that cause
modern men, for example, to watch football. The teamwork, the
testosterone-induced violence and occasional bloodshed stir memories of hunting
and war, occupations in which most modern men are not involved.

       Similarly, the gathering instinct of women causes them to go shopping.
Instead of scouring the forest for morsels to eat, they head for the mall to
find shoes and bath products and scented candles.

       But we can't help it, folks. It's in our genes.

       Think about that, ladies, the next time your mate takes you out for a
steak dinner.

       Lou Sessinger's column is published Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's
also on the Internet at www.phillyburbs.com. He can be contacted at the
Montgomery County office of The Intelligencer, 145 Easton Road, Horsham, PA
19044; phone (215) 957-8172; fax (215) 957-8165; e-mail,
lsessinger@....


       August 31, 2003 5:52 AM

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/137-08312003-151126.html

Dear list,

For those who are interested in the Intelligent design vs evolutionary
psychology debate there is an article on this subject in the latest edition of
Zygon:

Kennair, L. E. O. (2003). Challenging Design: How Best to Account for the
World as It Really Is. Zygon - Journal of Religion and Science, 38
(3):543-558.

Cheers,

Leif Edward

Public release date: 1-Sep-2003
Contact: Richard Davidson rjdavids@...
608-262-8972
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Study shows brain activity influences immune function

MADISON - Staying healthy may involve more than washing hands or keeping a
positive attitude. According to a new study from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, it also may involve a particular pattern of brain activity.

By monitoring activity levels in the human brain's prefrontal cortex, the
researchers demonstrate for the first time that people who have more activity
in the left side of this area also have a stronger immune response against
disease. The findings, soon to be published in the online edition of the
journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, pinpoint one of the
mechanisms underlying the link between mental and physical well-being.

Numerous scientific studies show that keeping a positive attitude can keep a
person healthy, says Richard Davidson, a UW-Madison neuroscientist and senior
author of the paper. But he adds that the reasons why this connection exists
are poorly understood.

By turning to the brain - an organ that sends signals that guide emotional
response - Davidson and his group have identified one possible explanation:
activity in the prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain long associated with
affective style, or how a person responds emotionally to an event.

"Emotions play an important role in modulating bodily systems that influence
our health," says Davidson. "We turned to the brain to understand the
mechanisms by which the mind influences the body."

While earlier studies have linked emotional and physical health, as well as
brain activity and affective style, Davidson says none have established a
direct link between brain activity and immune function.

The latest study by the UW-Madison group demonstrates this connection.

For the study, the researchers worked with 52 individuals between the ages of
57 and 60 who were recruited from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study - a
long-term study of more than 10,000 people who graduated from Wisconsin high
schools in 1957. Specifically, the scientists wanted to know if people who
showed more activity in the left side of the prefrontal cortex - a part of the
brain associated with positive emotional responses - also showed greater
immunity to the influenza virus after vaccination.

To answer this question, the researchers vaccinated all the subjects against
the flu virus. Before vaccination, they measured the study participants' brain
activity, both at a baseline state and during emotion eliciting memory tasks.
During these tasks, the participants were asked to recall two events - one that
made them feel intensely happy and another that left them feeling intensely
sad, fearful or angry. As the respondents focused on the emotion experienced
for one minute, the researchers measured the electrical activity in both the
right and left sides of the prefrontal cortex.

Previous studies, notes Davidson, have shown that individuals with greater
activity on the right side of this brain region tend to have a more negative
affective style, which can cause these individuals to respond inappropriately
to emotional events.

The researchers collected these prefrontal cortex activity levels again after
the subjects spent five minutes writing about the particular events. At this
time, they also measured the participants' eyeblink reflex in response to
sudden noises. This measure, explains Davidson, provides a convenient and
objective way to measure how negatively or positively a person reacts to a
stimulus.

Three times in the six months following vaccination, the researchers collected
serum samples from each subject to track the number of flu-fighting antibodies
in the blood, which can determine immune function.

Six months after being vaccinated against the flu virus, the subjects who had
greater activity in the left side of the prefrontal cortex, instead of the
right side, also had a greater rise in the number of antibodies for influenza,
says Davidson.

"This study establishes that people with a pattern of brain activity that has
been associated with a positive affective style are also the ones to show the
best response to the flu vaccine," says the Wisconsin researcher. "It begins to
suggest a mechanism for why subjects with a more positive emotional disposition
may be healthier."

This research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental
Health and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network
on Mind-Body Interaction.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-09/uow-ssb082903.php

Dear Jorge,

May I suggest:

Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1987). From Evolution to Behavior: Evolutionary
Psychology as the Missing Link. In J. Dupré (Ed.), The latest on the best :
Essays on evolution and optimality (pp. 276-306). Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press.

I believe that once you read this you will understand that the evol-psych
standard story claims that it is not behaviour that evolves rather brain
architectures that cause this behaviour. You are not completely clear below,
but I believe you and C & T might be in full agreement on this - adaptations
are not behaviour, adaptations are the brain architectures that consist of
functional modules or adaptations and rather than these being emergent, as you
point out, it is culture and behaviour that is emergent.

Cheers,

Leif Edward

>===== Original Message From Jorge Simão <jsimao@...> =====
>Hi!
>
>The Short answer....
>
>Neuronal surfaces get specialized contigent on inputs they get and global
topological architecture. (For a nice review of the topic see the book
"Rethinking Innatess").
>It's nice for you that you are starting asking this question, because soon
after you will start understand why the all evol-phsy standard story colapses.
At that point, you might want to read "The Brain and Emotion" by E. Rolls.
>Natural selection selects brain architectures not behavioral description of
functional behavior, a.ka. adaptations.
>Thus, "modules" might just be a particular chemical balances in lower brain
structures, such as the hypotalamus --- Behavior is emergent.
>
>Cheers,
>Jorge.

Herbert Gintis wrote:
> At 02:01 PM 8/25/2003 -0400, Phil Roberts, Jr. wrote:
>
>>
>> Why would one need to consult with neuroscientists if one's primary
>> objective were to understand the mind (as opposed to the brain)?
>
>         Because thousands of years of introspection have failed to tease
> apart human mental phenomena, and perhaps more controlled and
> quantifiable setting will be able to do so.

I think you're forgetting about the venerable Hume, Herb.  Some
might even argue that, compared to Hume, the past seventy-five
years of controlled and quantifiable experiments haven't
been all that helpful:

     "Discussions of scientific method have tended to stress
     problems of testability, while neglecting...those
     aspects of the universe which in some sense are most central
     and significant for the area of reality with which the
     science deals." "It has been frequently assumed that only
     those events which in principle can be simultaneously observed
     by multiple observers ... are to be accepted as constituting a
     legitimate observational basis for science." "I am suggesting
     that the more general and, to me, acceptable, objective intended
     by the criterion of interobserver agreement would be...the criterion
     of repeatability....a more general trust in one's own experience"
     ...and the abandonment of "a corresponding uncritical acceptance
     of the significance of verbal reports."  (Karl Zener)

>
>>   Phenomena of consciousness are "private," in the sense indicated
>>   earlier, namely, that the only consciousness a man can experience
>>   directly is his own.  But, as was also indicated, the inferences
>>   a psychologist makes, on the basis of his introspection,
>>   concerning the nature and functions of consciousness, may be
>>   checked by his fellow workers, who also have recourse to
>>   introspection -- just as one scientist checks on the reported
>>   findings of another by repeating the other's experiment in his
>>   own laboratory.  If psychologists sometimes disagree about what
>>   they perceive, this is true of physical scientists also.  And
>>   the method of resolving such differences is, in principle, the
>>   same: to investigate further to compare data more carefully, to
>>   define terms more precisely, to explore other, possibly relevant
>>   facts, to check their conclusions in the light of the rest of
>>   their knowledge to search for contradictions or non sequiturs
>>   in the their reports. (Nathaniel Branden)
>
>         I don't see anything wrong with this, except that, in fact,
> introspection does not give us enough data to agree. This is why there
> are so many discordant models of human psyche and behavior running
> around the various behavioral disciplines.
>

Yep.  Zener and Branden seem to be on the right track all right,
but neither of them have offered us much in the way of an
explanation for why introspectively based psychology has remained
such a basket case -- why there seems to be so much difficulty
in getting data on which we can all agree.  I believe the fly
in the ointment has nothing to do with the study of minds,
but rather with the study of HUMAN BEINGS, arising from the
fact that we are so INDIVIDUALIZED.  But since this would
constitute an ORDER problem as opposed to a privacy problem,
the fix would be entirely different from the one proposed by
the behaviorists.  In the paper URL'd below, if I can actually
call it a paper, I've sketch my own views on how to address
this individualization problem, a methodology that has served
me well over the past several decades:


'Rehabilitating Introspection'
http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/dada/90/rehabint.htm

Cheers!

PR

Hi, again!

I get your point. And I read it and *believed* about it several years ago when I
read the Adapted mind.
My general point is that EP uses past task-environments (i.e. hunter-gather live
style) to explain the function humans are adapted too. This leaves out the
problem
how to explain new function (e,g, job specialization in a cosmpolis life-style).
On the other hand, theories of continuos plasticity of the nervous system
provide
some light.
EP postulates theoretical entities to explain behavior --- mental adaptations,
which where OK back in the 80's but simply do not fit the modern neurological
evidence. It happens all the time in science --- its called a paradigm shift (in
T. Kuhn words) or a falsification (if you a Poperian). There is no reason why EP
should not be the case. The manuscripts of today become the textbooks of the
past.

Another reference that you might find relevant is: "Affective NeuroScience: The
foundations of human and animal Emotions"., Jaak Panksepp.

Cheers,
Jorge.

PS: The precis of E. Rolls book is online:
http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/04/89/index.html

leiedoke wrote:

> Dear Jorge,
>
> May I suggest:
>
> Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1987). From Evolution to Behavior: Evolutionary
> Psychology as the Missing Link. In J. Dupré (Ed.), The latest on the best :
> Essays on evolution and optimality (pp. 276-306). Cambridge, MA: The MIT
> Press.
>
> I believe that once you read this you will understand that the evol-psych
> standard story claims that it is not behaviour that evolves rather brain
> architectures that cause this behaviour. You are not completely clear below,
> but I believe you and C & T might be in full agreement on this - adaptations
> are not behaviour, adaptations are the brain architectures that consist of
> functional modules or adaptations and rather than these being emergent, as you
> point out, it is culture and behaviour that is emergent.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Leif Edward

On Tuesday, September 2, 2003, at 8:12:02 AM, Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair wrote:

LEOK> adaptations
LEOK> are not behaviour, adaptations are the brain architectures that consist of
LEOK> functional modules

But how are these brain architectures supposed to be encoded in the
DNA?

  --

Andrew Brown
Phone +44 (0)1799-516812
Fax   +44 (0)1799-500726
What I do: http://www.darwinwars.com

>
> Neuronal surfaces get specialized contigent on inputs they get and
> global topological architecture. (For a nice review of the topic see
> the book "Rethinking Innatess").

> It's nice for you that you are starting asking this question,
> because soon after you will start understand why the all evol-phsy
> standard story colapses. At that point, you might want to read "The
> Brain and Emotion" by E. Rolls.

I would recommend starting with a base-level textbook, rather than
monographs, because the latter tend more to distort the data to fit
their theories.

Even the textbooks in Neuroscience are by now sometime quite
misleading, and you need to be critical when you read them, making
sure that you distinguish between data and interpretations.

Yehouda Harpaz
http://human-brain.org/evolpsy2.html

--- In evolutionary-psychology@yahoogroups.com, "Paul Okami" <
kozure.okami@c...> wrote:
> All research includes risk/benefit analysis.  There would be no research of
> any kind without it. IRB forms include detailed description of possible
> risks, as well as purpose of the research and potential benefits.  This
> information also appears on informed consent forms.
>
> However, this has degenerated into a simple risk evaluation, and potential
> benefits are not taken seriously.
>
> Paul

I probably got the links below from this list so I apologise if this is
repitition but the articles are certainly apposite to this discussion,
taking the principles involved to a broader scale. They relate to a
conference in London arranged by spiked, an internet magazine, which
took place at the Royal Institution (spiked seemed keen to mention
that). There are more articles in the relevant section, all listed at -
http://www.spiked-online.com/Sections/risk/index.htm

- SCIENCE, RISK AND THE PRICE OF PRECAUTION
by Sandy Starr
The scientific community imagines what society would have lost, had the
'precautionary principle' governed science in the past.
http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/00000006DD7A.htm

- CHALLENGING THE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE
by Helene Guldberg
How has society come to be governed by the maxim 'better safe than
sorry'?
http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/00000006DE2F.htm

- WHO WANTS TO LIVE UNDER A SYSTEM OF ORGANISED PARANOIA?
by Mick Hume
The principle of safety first has become the major barrier to social
advance.
http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/00000006DDA5.htm

Michael Jameson.