Vygotsky vs Reality: Evidence Supporting/Contradicting Claims on Mind

[ConradDJ]

Anything that has memory has some sort of introspection period.

Of course. I have no doubt that monkeys, dogs, birds, etc. introspect. They just don't do it with agile terms (words). And neither do we most of the time. We, as well as other animals, introspect in terms of sensual recollections of events and our emotional associations with those events. As a wise man once said, you might not remember anything of what someone has said to you, but you will remember how that person made you feel.

I remember a high-school English teacher who told us that "we think with words" and I got incensed (as I often did in that class)... it was so obvious to me that most of what I'm "conscious of" can't even be put into words.

However, human language operates within consciousness at a much deeper level. As we learn to talk, we not only learn how to perceive and interpret the world as other people do, but most importantly, we learn how to conduct purposeful communicative relationships with them. As apeiron noted in a parallel thread –

The point about humans is that we carry around in our heads a second "objective" view of ourselves - the view that society would have of our actions and our existence.

In conversation we learn to see ourselves as other people see us, and also begin to conduct conversations with them and with ourselves, in our heads. This process couldn’t happen without words and grammar. But the “internal dialogue” in our heads also involves all those feelings and perceptions that we can’t “put into words.” So “talking to ourselves” evolves into the process called “thinking” in which words and grammar fall into the background.

So it’s true that what we’re “conscious of” goes way beyond words. But it’s also true that the ability to think about things beyond the “here and now” or to think about ourselves – which is what I understand by “introspection” – is completely dependent not only on the tools of language, but even more basically on the kinds of interpersonal relationships we develop through talking, including our relationship to ourselves.

I think investigations into the mentality of other primates are very interesting... the pre-linguistic brain-hardware we inherit from our ancestors is such remarkably sophisticated technology that I’m sure we’ll still be making major new discoveries about how it works a hundred years from now, long after we’ve figured out physics. But I don’t see that this argues against the importance of linguistic software in the way humans think.

 

[Pythagorean]

None of this seems unreasonable to me. I had the idea from the opening post that this was a Nature vs. Nurture argument and Vygostsky took the side of Nurture.

But now it seems (with Conrad and apeiron's contributions) more that Vygotsky only makes the point about Nurture's contributions, not claims they're the end-all.

It seems to me, anyway, that the Nature vs. Nurture arguments is long dead. Nature and Nurture are shown to be coupled to each other; this should be especially clear in the wake of the "junk DNA" and epigenetics. Protein action can effect genes, genes code proteins...

proteins interact with neurons, which interact with stimuli, which come from the environment. There's an obvious Nature side to our higher mental functions (the evolutionary developments that allow us to have larger brains in the first place also constrains how the brains must operate.) And then coming, full circle, the evolutionary development of the brain is guided by stimuli from the environment. This is actually very exciting for neuroscience:

An organism's behavioral and physiological and social milieu influence and are influenced by the epigenome, which is composed predominantly of chromatin and the covalent modification of DNA by methylation. Epigenetic patterns are sculpted during development to shape the diversity of gene expression programs in the organism. In contrast to the genetic sequence, which is determined by inheritance and is virtually identical in all tissues, the epigenetic pattern varies from cell type to cell type and is potentially dynamic throughout life. It is postulated here that different environmental exposures, including early parental care, could impact epigenetic patterns, with important implications for mental health in humans. Because epigenetic programming defines the state of expression of genes, epigenetic differences could have the same consequences as genetic polymorphisms. Yet in contrast to genetic sequence differences, epigenetic alterations are potentially reversible. This review will discuss basic epigenetic mechanisms and how epigenetic processes early in life might play a role in defining inter-individual trajectories of human behavior. In this regard, we will examine evidence for the possibility that epigenetic mechanisms can contribute to later-onset neurological dysfunction and disease.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20053376

Here, we're particularly interested in stimuli from other members of our species, or even other species (which we call social). But we still have a very powerful source from Nature to consider that drives social development: sync. This is beyond genes, even: our solar system's dance gives us night and day (earth's rotation), months (moon cycle), seasons and years (earth's orbit).

The way sync appears in the social context (as in syncing behavior of members of a group of organisms) is fascinating... but what's even more fascinating is the feedback loop that develops between Nature and Nurture across many spatiotemporal scales in this view.

Strogatz (Author of "Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos" textbook) on sync:
http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_strogatz_on_sync.html

I have no doubt that the development of language has greatly influenced the Nature of man. That should be a rather uncontroversial statement.

The only question I have at the moment is how we know whether another species has an equally complex and articulate language that we don't happen to comprehend because we weren't raised (socially "encoded") by these species, and once we have an example of someone who is (animal raised feral children) ... we don't understand them (or they us) enough for such an inquiry.

I think dolphins could be such a candidate. While looking at other primates is interesting because we're primates, we tend to forget that all the other species (including other primates) have evolved in parallel with us.

What's particularly motivating for me is that I have experience with wild porpoises (I used to fish commercially) who like to play with humans (no, we don't give them our fish) and have been known to save humans, even. And these aren't even dolphins (who have the second highest brain/body ratio next to humans).

But here's a more expert opinion:

Like most other animals, dolphins do have communication. Their squeals and whistles communicate emotional states and, often, the presence of danger and food in the area. They may also help them coordinate “herding” processes. Dolphin females often act as “midwives” to new mothers, and every dolphin in the pod cares for the others.

But do they communicate linguistically? There’s some evidence for it. Dolphins tend to stay within their own pods, and may have trouble understanding “foreign” dolphins. In studies done on dolphins near Scotland, individuals appear to have names; or at least, other dolphins use specific and unique whistles only in the presence of certain other dolphins, as if calling them by name. Unlike any other animal besides humans, dolphins exhibit a great tendency to take turns when vocalizing – making their communications sound like a conversation.

There have also been very basic linguistic studies of dolphin sound patterns. According to some studies, dolphin sounds follow the same basic patterns of all human-based language, from Morse code to Chinese. Though we cannot understand what they’re saying, it’s not beyond the bounds to state that dolphins may indeed have language, though it’s certainly a language unlike any we know today.

http://www.dolphins-world.com/Dolphin_Language.html
(bolded mine, note: not a scientific study, don't know the author, but summarizes a nature show or two I've seen)

Anyway, my point being that if these findings are accurate, then apeiron's demands might be met by Dolphins:

The animal sense of self would be the completely subjective emboddied form. The point about humans is that we carry around in our heads a second "objective" view of ourselves - the view that society would have of our actions and our existence. Our every emboddied response or impulse is being run through that secondary layer of ideas that is socially evolved.

 

[apeiron]

Anyway, my point being that if these findings are accurate, then apeiron's demands might be met by Dolphins:

I think not. Proper researchers, like Louis Herman at Hawaii's Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory, have spent years attempting to teach dolphins to communicate. Like apes, you can get to the level of grammatical fluency of a two year old, but it never takes off like it does in humans. Their brains just aren't wired for speech as we know it.

Dolphins are of course smart and sociable and so have sophisticated calls. But that article you linked to is little over the top.

 

[Pythagorean]

I think not. Proper researchers, like Louis Herman at Hawaii's Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory, have spent years attempting to teach dolphins to communicate. Like apes, you can get to the level of grammatical fluency of a two year old, but it never takes off like it does in humans. Their brains just aren't wired for speech as we know it.

Dolphins are of course smart and sociable and so have sophisticated calls. But that article you linked to is little over the top.

Was there a particular claim you wanted to refute from the article?

Animal Communication: Do Dolphins Have Names?
Robert A. Barton
Volume 16, Issue 15, 8 August 2006, Pages R598-R599

Also, recognize from Barton's article...

Although it may be tempting to jump to the most cognitively remarkable and anthropomorphic interpretations consistent with the data, further careful experiments together with objective interpretations of their implications will be paramount.

.. that my point is only that the question deserves more investigation. I'm aware of my tendency to view things anthropomorphically, but on the other side I'm aware that we all share an ancestor.

Also, from you're own reference, Louis Herman:

"Comperehension of sentences by bottlenosed dolphins"
Cognition
Volume 16, Issue 2, March 1984, Pages 129-219

The comprehension approach used was a radical departure from the emphasis on language production in studies of the linguistic abilities of apes; the result obtained offer the first convincing evidence of the ability of animals to process both semantic and syntactic features of sentences. The ability of the dolphins to utilize both their visual and acoustic modalities in these tasks underscored the amodal dependency of the sentence understanding skill.

 

[apeiron]

Was there a particular claim you wanted to refute from the article?

Sorry, where is the bit which says dolphins have a sociocultural sense of self because they have grammatically-structured symbolic speech (rather than being social animals with sophisticated calls)?

 

[Math Is Hard]

Sorry, where is the bit which says dolphins have a sociocultural sense of self because they have grammatically-structured symbolic speech (rather than being social animals with sophisticated calls)?

What does it mean to have a sociocultural sense of self? Does it mean you introspect about your role in a group? About the roles of others in your group?

 

[Pythagorean]

Sorry, where is the bit which says dolphins have a sociocultural sense of self because they have grammatically-structured symbolic speech (rather than being social animals with sophisticated calls)?

I asked you what claim you wanted to refute from the article. Is this response a distraction, a delay, or some sort of cryptic Socratic wisdom? Because I've already addressed this point, which I'll reiterate:

I explicitly questioned whether:

b) the evidence shows that the "because" in your distraction question is worth investigating
c) there is strong evidence for the statements on either side of the "because".

So now I'm confused as to the nature of your question

your counter to b) was:

Louis Herman at Hawaii's Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory, have spent years attempting to teach dolphins to communicate. Like apes, you can get to the level of grammatical fluency of a two year old, but it never takes off like it does in humans. Their brains just aren't wired for speech as we know it.

Which I found insufficient as a proof, especially with:

"but it never takes off like it does in humans" (a quantitative statement, where we're discussing quality has no bearing on the discussion).

and:

"Their brains just aren't wired for speech as we know it."

Which is not a rebuttal at all, since you qualified it with "as we know it", which is the point I've made.

 

[apeiron]

What does it mean to have a sociocultural sense of self? Does it mean you introspect about your role in a group? About the roles of others in your group?

It means you step back to see yourself as a self. You have debates about your actions, weighing your personal wants against social constraints. Self-regulation, impulse control, conscience, rebellion, all that kind of stuff.

The Vygotskean view is that language upgrades all mental faculties. So animals recognise, but humans also recollect. Animals anticipate, humans imagine. Animals think, humans also reason. Animals feel, humans have socialised emotions (scripts such as loyalty, bravery, respect). And so on.

The key difference is animals are driven by external contexts. They respond intelligently to the world as it is happening. Or in response only to very simple internal drives/feelings like hunger, lust, lethagy.

Humans can carry around language-encoded and socially evolved contexts. We apply this extra set of constraints "at all times". We are reacting also to inner ideas, independent of what is going on around us.

Psychologists often call this "voluntary" behaviour. Vygotsky explains the mechanism by which humans can act as selves, rather than just simply react as selves.

 

[apeiron]

I asked you what claim you wanted to refute from the article.

You are not making any sense. You asked if you had answered my question, and quoted a passage...

The animal sense of self would be the completely subjective emboddied form. The point about humans is that we carry around in our heads a second "objective" view of ourselves - the view that society would have of our actions and our existence. Our every emboddied response or impulse is being run through that secondary layer of ideas that is socially evolved.

So again, what about the dolphin papers addresses that passage?

And what is it that you are really trying to argue?

That dolphins have speech...of a sort that does not add that extra level of sociocultural evolution and control over mentality that humans enjoy?

Or that dolphins have a human-like mentality...even though they don't have human-type explosive fluency?

My confusion has only been compounded because the caution of your second reference directly contradicted the breezy assurance of the first...

Do these results resolve the controversy over signature whistles? Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that there should now be no doubt that dolphins produce individually distinctive whistles that others recognize; but no, in the sense that the cognitive significance of these whistles remains highly uncertain. Janik et al. [8] suggest that signature whistles may be an example of referential communication, the use of a stereotyped signal to refer to things or individuals. This would imply that dolphins, like humans, have names. It is important to be clear, however, that this has not yet been demonstrated. There is a danger of slippage, evident in media coverage of this study (for example, see http:// news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/4750471.stm) between accepting that dolphins can recognize and copy one another’s whistles, and the notion that they are using these calls to refer to individuals, either themselves or others.

 

[SolidGold]

OK You win. "This Phd guy said it". (Not to mention that the first article was about learning, the visual pathway, and memory and the second article the psychologist explicitly stated that she wasn't sure that monkeys knew we had minds or thoughts) So who is concluding this exactly? And, again, how does this demonstrate the error in Socially-mediated views on psychology?...

How does this demonstrate the error in socially mediated views on psychology? You demonstrated it in your post I quoted.

The first guy, who is accredited, said that this provides some evidence that monkeys can introspect. He came to this conclusion by studying the actual brain.

In the discover magazine, the girl is also accredited by a socially mediated institution, and although perceiving behavior that fitted the empirical definition of "introspect", said she wasn't sure monkeys knew we had minds or thoughts.

However, they obviously they had to not only introspect, which was required for the logical reasoning of their actions, but also had to use empathy to calculate how the guy being stole from would react (or feel) if he was to witness the theft. So they had to introspect on OUR feelings. It wouldn't be unreasonable to say that all feelings are thoughts as well.

It kind of shows how educated people are so locked into this "static" perception of reality as Paulo Freire called it, which is defined only by what they are told, by perceptions that are constructed FOR them by educators, and failing to use their brains to trust or create their own perceptions. It is a very narrow filter that completely disregards one's obvious perceptions.

 

[Pythagorean]

@apeiron

There's no "breezy assurance". I quoted the same exact sentiments from the first paper and have pointed out twice now that it's worth investigating (meaning it's an unanswered question). The second caution you quoted is equivalent:

"but no, in the sense that the cognitive significance of these whistles remains highly uncertain"

Which has been my point from the start "How do we know other animals don't..."

You, on the other hand, seem to be claiming that you already know the answer based on the fact that we can't get them past two-year old human thinking. I don't see how that is an argument, since we don't expect the dolphins biosocial evolution to be the same as ours.

I'm also confused that you recently used this as an argument to support your seemingly anthropocentric stance:

"[dolphin] brains just aren't wired for speech as we know it." (1)

But before were using the argument that primate brains are all practically identical when indicating the social component:

"But generally the findings, in my view, show that there is surprisingly little that is different about human brain architecture." (2)

So my question here is that based on your social motivation for (2) how can you really get behind (1) and suddenly drop the social motivation that seems to be the basis of your stance?

(by the way, I am agreeing with (1) since you've qualified "as we know it" from because "as we know it" is the whole problem with trying to make judgments about phenomenology. The only reason we're comfortable doing that with other humans is because of our similarities, our "as we know it".)

 

[Lievo]

Vygotskean view (...) animals are driven by external contexts. They respond (...) in response only to very simple internal drives/feelings like hunger, lust, lethagy.

Oh boy... Let me make an analogy. Descartes' philosophy of mind is interesting, but it would be ridiculous to defend his view about animals spirits and pineal gland, isn't it?

Vygotsky's views might also be interesting, I don't know, but it would definately be not a reason to defend any single words he said. If I was trying to attack him, as JDstupi turned to believe, it would have been easy to emphasized this outdated view that animals are driven by external context only.

I did not because this view is clearly ridiculous, because assessing it would have been as unfair as attacking Descartes' animal spirits, and most of all because I thought nobody would pretend it's anything but a must-be-forgoten view. But you apeiron seem to defend it, and even to consider it's at the heart of Vygotsky philosophy. Is it really what you think?

 

[JDStupi]

Lievo, Solid gold. I appreciate that you guys are now saying that you are not looking to shoot down the whole thing, nor accept it all. I would be willing to (though I haven't read enough about it) admit that lower animals have some sense of introspection. That said, I don't think it completely discredits all of the Vygotsky perspective. Is it a coincidence that those animals that are highly sociable exhibit the properties closes to what we call a human "self"? Other aspects of the existence of human inner speech wouldn't be completely discredited by new findings about the behavior of chimps. I think that you should (I don't have the time right now) see if you can google Vygotsky's experiments/perspective on ego-centric speech and then you may see where he is coming from. I'm not saying we should follow him like a bible, I just think the social perspective on certain ways of human thought seems as though it could be a promising research direction.

 

[apeiron]

@apeiron

There's no "breezy assurance". I quoted the same exact sentiments from the first paper and have pointed out twice now that it's worth investigating (meaning it's an unanswered question). The second caution you quoted is equivalent:

"but no, in the sense that the cognitive significance of these whistles remains highly uncertain"

Which has been my point from the start "How do we know other animals don't..."

You, on the other hand, seem to be claiming that you already know the answer based on the fact that we can't get them past two-year old human thinking. I don't see how that is an argument, since we don't expect the dolphins biosocial evolution to be the same as ours.

I'm also confused that you recently used this as an argument to support your seemingly anthropocentric stance:

"[dolphin] brains just aren't wired for speech as we know it." (1)

But before were using the argument that primate brains are all practically identical when indicating the social component:

"But generally the findings, in my view, show that there is surprisingly little that is different about human brain architecture." (2)

So my question here is that based on your social motivation for (2) how can you really get behind (1) and suddenly drop the social motivation that seems to be the basis of your stance?

(by the way, I am agreeing with (1) since you've qualified "as we know it" from because "as we know it" is the whole problem with trying to make judgments about phenomenology. The only reason we're comfortable doing that with other humans is because of our similarities, our "as we know it".)

I can't follow your points here at all. Why for instance would I expect dolphin brains to be closely similar to primate brains? Why should I interpret "highly uncertain" as "probably yes"? What do individual calls have to do with introspective self-awareness (do humans run round shouting out their own name as primary evidence that they know who they are )? There is no thread of argument that I can follow.

 

[apeiron]

Oh boy... Let me make an analogy. Descartes' philosophy of mind is interesting, but it would be ridiculous to defend his view about animals spirits and pineal gland, isn't it?

Vygotsky's views might also be interesting, I don't know, but it would definately be not a reason to defend any single words he said. If I was trying to attack him, as JDstupi turned to believe, it would have been easy to emphasized this outdated view that animals are driven by external context only.

I did not because this view is clearly ridiculous, because assessing it would have been as unfair as attacking Descartes' animal spirits, and most of all because I thought nobody would pretend it's anything but a must-be-forgoten view. But you apeiron seem to defend it, and even to consider it's at the heart of Vygotsky philosophy. Is it really what you think?

So an attack that "isn't an attack" that means you can again dodge supplying actual arguments and sources? :zzz:

What do you think the chimps are sitting there thinking about as they laze in the sun an hour after doing the experimenter's test. Tell us something believable and not clearly ridiculous, like that they are mulling over their performance and tactics in the lack of an external context to trigger any thoughts.

 

[Lievo]

I will take that as a yes

 

[Pythagorean]

I can't follow your points here at all.

That's become apparent over the last couple posts. I'm not going to rearrange the words again. You have a preconception in your mind of what my argument is and you keep projecting it on to me (history repeats itself). I'll leave you to keep arguing with an imaginary me since it doesn't require my presence.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

Just because it was in the news today and seemed on topic-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9401000/9401945.stm

 

[JDStupi]

*Speculation alert*. The studies that seem to indicate that certain primates can have at least some level of self-awareness are certainly interesting. Possibly Vygotsky's ideas of language being the root of self-awareness in general can be correlated as a special case of some type of social function. Such that a certain amount of social interaction is necessary in order for animals to develop some sense of self-awareness, but the language capacities of humans have allowed us to develop a whole new level of self-awareness and inner control. Now language is no longer the sole root (not that I"m claiming this was Vygotsky's intent) of human awareness, but rather related to the more genealogically fundamental social functions.

 

[apeiron]

Just because it was in the news today and seemed on topic-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9401000/9401945.stm

Again, demonstrating animals responding intelligently to a current context is not the same as an animal being able to have an inner life of private rumination, reacting to imagined scenarios, recreating past experiences, etc. It is this "off-line" thinking that needs a supra-neurological mechanism like structured speech and the habits of thought that structured speech allows.

 

[Pythagorean]

*Speculation alert*. The studies that seem to indicate that certain primates can have at least some level of self-awareness are certainly interesting. Possibly Vygotsky's ideas of language being the root of self-awareness in general can be correlated as a special case of some type of social function. Such that a certain amount of social interaction is necessary in order for animals to develop some sense of self-awareness, but the language capacities of humans have allowed us to develop a whole new level of self-awareness and inner control. Now language is no longer the sole root (not that I"m claiming this was Vygotsky's intent) of human awareness, but rather related to the more genealogically fundamental social functions.

Dolphin, Human, and Elephant brain complexity is higher than non-human primate complexity. They also happen to be very social animals. That doesn't mean that they all have higher self-awareness, but it makes them good candidates for study (nothing says they DON'T have self-awareness, either). The elephant brain appears, by some measures, to be more complex than the human brain. We can't hook these animals up to an fmri and ask them how they're day went.

The first problem is that its very difficult to infer conscious experience from an animal that's not like you (it's often difficult enough between humans as it is).

I wouldn't expect Dolphin and Elephant consciousness to be an analog of human consciousness, but I have no doubts that behaviorally they heavily influence each other through non-survival social mechanisms (play time, specifically, which serves as art & science time for dolphins: that is, they engage in creative behavior, like making different bubble cascade shapes, then following them up and echo-locating on them to examine their work. They play with each other and other humans, even want to save humans.

Elephants have a complex signaling language, they exhibit tool use (and alteration), and play time.

That's already interesting enough. I'm not sure what dolphin motivation for saving humans is, I've never heard an evolutionary or biological explanation.

Anyway, the point is that there's apparently fine line between anthropomorphism and anthropocentrism. I'm not saying that dolphins think like humans, I'm saying we have a tendency to think we're special or unique in terms of our experience, but we really have no way to judge that until we can get our bearings on our own experience.

Up to just a decade or so ago, we though humans that didn't move weren't self-aware. My ancestors thought people with dark skin weren't self-aware. We've done a lot of harm with this kind of ideology.

So this is an area that deserves more research, in my opinion.

By the way, I harbor no illusions:
http://www.doublex.com/blog/oystersgarter/dark-secrets-dolphins-dont-want-you-know

 

[disregardthat]

The first problem is that its very difficult to infer conscious experience from an animal that's not like you (it's often difficult enough between humans as it is).

How is it even possible to infer conscious experience, how is it testable? I assume you mean subjective experience. To me it seems all we do is testing what characterizes conscious experience by assumptions of what this may be (and our assumptions may be all correct) and inferring with respect to these assumptions, but I think it is a major and unfounded conceptual leap to infer conscious experience per se.

 

[Pythagorean]

How is it even possible to infer conscious experience, how is it testable? I assume you mean subjective experience. To me it seems all we do is testing what characterizes conscious experience by assumptions of what this may be (and our assumptions may be all correct) and inferring with respect to these assumptions, but I think it is a major and unfounded conceptual leap to infer conscious experience per se.

inferring is all we can do precisely because it's not testable.

infer: Deduce or conclude (information) from evidence and reasoning rather than from explicit statements.

With humans, we speak their language so we can ask them how they feel and make inferences. We don't even understand the language of other higher mammals, so our inference is reduced to behavioral observations (which is all we do with humans, too, but since we understand language we don't think of it that way, we can "relate" from our own personal experiences with humans).

 

[fuzzyfelt]

Again, demonstrating animals responding intelligently to a current context is not the same as an animal being able to have an inner life of private rumination, reacting to imagined scenarios, recreating past experiences, etc. It is this "off-line" thinking that needs a supra-neurological mechanism like structured speech and the habits of thought that structured speech allows.

apeiron, from your post in the last NZ earthquake thread, I'm sad to hear of another, and I hope that you are ok, and for the best in NZ.

I'll look at this another time.

 

[disregardthat]

inferring is all we can do precisely because it's not testable.

infer: Deduce or conclude (information) from evidence and reasoning rather than from explicit statements.

With humans, we speak their language so we can ask them how they feel and make inferences. We don't even understand the language of other higher mammals, so our inference is reduced to behavioral observations (which is all we do with humans, too, but since we understand language we don't think of it that way, we can "relate" from our own personal experiences with humans).

My point was that it is not even testable, so it makes the "inference" much less justifiable! My question was: How do we deduce that there is subjective consciousness? There is nothing in language that justifies us to infer subjective consciousness, which was what I was talking about.

 

[Pythagorean]

My point was that it is not even testable, so it makes the "inference" much less justifiable! My question was: How do we deduce that there is subjective consciousness? There is nothing in language that justifies us to infer subjective consciousness, which was what I was talking about.

Because your dead in the water other wise, you might as well never talk about it. I think it's safe for me to infer you're conscious, for instance, despite not having the most rigorous evidence.

 

[ConradDJ]

How is it even possible to infer conscious experience, how is it testable? ... I think it is a major and unfounded conceptual leap to infer conscious experience per se.

I agree entirely... and of course at the age when we're first learning to communicate with others, we're way too young to "infer" anything about anything. But we're preprogrammed biologically to reach for a certain kind of connection with the people around us -- specifically, a kind that can gradually open up a communications channel and develop into language. The "idea" that other people have their own subjective points of view is built into the structure of human language at its base.. so long before our brains are capable of reflecting on ideas, this "assumption" is already there.

Human consciousness is based on a tacit understanding that others are also conscious... because we only learn to be "conscious" in a human sense by talking to ourselves, taking over the methods we learn for communicating with others and making them reflexive.


Apeiron -- I don't know Vygotsky well enough to know whether this is his perspective as well. Do you think he would describe the basis of language differently?

To me, what’s most remarkable about linguistic communication is that it manages to create a bridge between different people’s subjective universes, creating a very robust illusion that we all live together in the same objective world. By “illusion” I don’t mean that it’s untrue – I mean that we all grow up believing it, despite the fact that none of us will ever experience the world except from our own subjective viewpoint.

We imagine the objective world around us, just as we imagine that the people around us (and animals too) have their own internal mental viewpoints. It’s not “inference” that supports this – it’s just that imagining the world this way works very well for us, makes us able to function as human beings.

So although we often think of human “communication” as basically about exchanging information, at a deeper level what’s going on is a connection of mutual imagining, between two radically distinct universes of experience. But (if our minds are operating normally), it’s only when we grow up and learn to think at a very abstract level that we discover how radically separate our own universe of consciousness really is.

 

[Pythagorean]

To me, what’s most remarkable about linguistic communication is that it manages to create a bridge between different people’s subjective universes, creating a very robust illusion that we all live together in the same objective world. By “illusion” I don’t mean that it’s untrue – I mean that we all grow up believing it, despite the fact that none of us will ever experience the world except from our own subjective viewpoint.

This, I think, can be explained by Vygotsky's ideas. We're somehow born with the "illusion" (and it may as well be an illusion when we're young and it's more-or-less a reflex; mirror neurons for instance. My 14 month old will practice "talking" on the "phone" but I don't think she really has any idea what she's doing. I stuck my tongue out at her when she was an hour old, and she stuck her tongue out back... the well known Meltzoff experiment).

But whether or not it's really an illusion that we're cohesive, we make the illusion a sort of reality by believing it, embracing it, and practicing it. Then setting up a forum and having discussions about it.

Biologically, though, we are quite cohesive through pheromones on a totally unconscious level (human alpha females entraining their beta friend's menstral periods, males messing up the sync; sexual attraction).

 

[fuzzyfelt]

Again, demonstrating animals responding intelligently to a current context is not the same as an animal being able to have an inner life of private rumination, reacting to imagined scenarios, recreating past experiences, etc. It is this "off-line" thinking that needs a supra-neurological mechanism like structured speech and the habits of thought that structured speech allows.

I should have put this week’s BBC news article about macaques displaying thoughts about thoughts in the “Metarepresent” thread with an OP which interests me more, but this thread seemed to involve more discussions about animal cognition.

Just reiterating what I’d said in that thread, I don’t see evidence here that there is a uniquely human self-awareness and I don’t see evidence (that if there is), that it is caused by language.

But briefly, the example of the chimps is about complex trains of thought scaffolded by the immediate situation.
What would be thoughts about thoughts in the human language scaffolded sense would be if a chimp went off and later that afternoon was known to be sitting there, thinking over the tactics it employed, perhaps cursing a wrong decision, considering what might work better next time - then drifting off into daydream fantasies about a pretty bonobo he saw, etc.

However, (I’m trying to decipher the ideas, so correct me if I do so incorrectly ) it has been claimed that not only should animals possesses complex trains of thought, but these should be isolated from anything that may be interpreted as external assistance and thus not the correct method, somehow, (for example, immediate situations) to display a (purported) higher consciousness.

It could seem species-centric to expect animals show that they have arrived at the same displays as humans of this purported higher consciousness, by the same means.
Memory test – (Perhaps non-humans think so quickly that any ruminations occur in unnoticeable time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVlJv7ZkvGA&feature=related

The reliance upon this scaffolding also seems a bit circular- that this purported higher consciousness is defined by human language, which defines this purported higher consciousness, and so on. This could just render this higher consciousness meaningless aside from being human language. So it suffices to say humans have a human language and to leave it at that.

Instead, other descriptions of this higher consciousness have been used. How have “thoughts about thoughts”, “thinking over the tactics it employed, perhaps cursing a wrong decision, considering what might work better next time,” “the introspective abilities “(- “which are the product of sociocultural learning”) not been displayed?

The link I gave was about thoughts about thoughts.

Is there a suggestion that various primates, dolphins and elephants (and, according to Jimmy Snyder, not Jimmy Snyder, ever:) https://www.physicsforums.com/showthr...=471841&page=3
post #48) only have bodily self-awareness when looking at a mirror, but not at other times? How does the mirror represent an assisted scaffold?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-pc_M2qI74&feature=related

The Vygotskean view is that language upgrades all mental faculties. So animals recognise, but humans also recollect. Animals anticipate, humans imagine. Animals think, humans also reason. Animals feel, humans have socialised emotions (scripts such as loyalty, bravery, respect). And so on.

I’ll provide some examples that for consideration-
Here, about animal imagination-

A vivid doggy dream


And the suggestion of chimp imagination –
Chimpanzees “make dolls (of small dead animals) and play and carry them for long lengths of time; in Bos-sou, Guinea, they capture live hyraxes for amusement.”
(The Cultured Chimpanzee
Reflections on Cultural Primatology
By W. C. McGrew
Miami University)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40753694/ns/technology_and_science-science/

The seemingly goal-less “waterfall dance”, where a chimpanzee leaves the group in a kind of trance beside the waterfall, running around it and even endangering itself, the “rain dance”, “fire dance”, rolling rocks in ponds becoming excited by the splashes, fire and sunset watching.

Regarding non-human ability to reflect, chimpanzees mourn the loss of dead relatives, individuals even falling into depression, and at times losing the will to live. There is an example of a well, young male chimp loosing the will to live, eventually dying. ( Goodall, J. Garen, personal communication, 2009).

http://scienceblogs.com/primatediaries/2009/10/chimpanzees_mourn_the_death_of.php

From a different angle, is there no "higher consciousness" in those who haven't learned a language?

http://wn.com/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language

“Deaf children signers in Nicaragua systematized their language with almost no access to adults who spoke a fully developed language.”
And how were the children able to create a language with syntax?
More specifically, this sort of thing interests me.

that the invention of symbolic language.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...2&searchtype=a

And, by the way, is this

the too rapid emergence of symbolic culture in sapiens

referring to Stephen Jay Gould’s ideas here?

 

[disregardthat]

Because your dead in the water other wise, you might as well never talk about it. I think it's safe for me to infer you're conscious, for instance, despite not having the most rigorous evidence.

Do you really think that "we are dead in the water other wise" is a valid justification for inferring subjective consciousness? We might very well talk about it, only acknowledging it as an operational assumption for which we might possibly provide proper justification in the future. Isn't this an effective approach in any case?

The problem is not that the evidence is non-rigorous, but that the evidence is not evidence at all. What is it evidence for? We have already agreed that it is not testable. You don't infer that I am conscious, you assume it and it works well.

 

[apeiron]

Apeiron -- I don't know Vygotsky well enough to know whether this is his perspective as well. Do you think he would describe the basis of language differently?

This particular point about self-consciousness being implicit even in personal pronouns - being taught to say "I want" - is perhaps even more strongly stressed by GH Mead's symbolic interactionism. But yes, it is definitely part of Vygotsky's broad picture.

It is worth noting that Vygotsky worked with a team of psychologists (as well as the world-reknown neurologist AR Luria), that these guys did study children's development, and that they also applied their findings in educational and clinical settings. But Vygotsky died young and Stalin suppressed his budding school. All the knowledge was lost until really the 1980s.

To me, it is another illustration of how haphazard science is, especially when we get to the soft sciences like psychology.

Vygotsky met with early quick approval because he could frame his approach as Marxist - emphasising the socially constructed or collective origins of the human mind. But then he fell foul of the regime (he was Jewish I think, some other party psychologist had the ear of the bosses, I forget the full story).

Meanwhile, around the world, other accounts were competing for academic favour. You had of course Freud and that little fast growing story of psychic development (a rehash of Plato's tripartide soul in fact). You had then Piaget's structuralism which went down well with the academic educationalists (because it had easy experiments and made a lot of good sense). And then Watson's behaviourism (Watson was an advertising guy!) which was based on another good Russian's work, Pavlov and his salivating dogs, and had the brutal reductionist atomism (simple actions chained together by conditioning) that was very appealing to the anglo-saxon turn of mind.

So you could say that different cultures produced the different kinds of models of the mind that you might have expected. That is how socially-shaped our thinking is!

Vygotsky goes down really well in some countries, like Holland and Canada in my experience, but is not liked at all in others.

In the late 80s/early 90s, Vygotskeanism really started to take off in the West. The translations were becoming available. New experiments were happening. I remember the psychology shelf at London's university bookshop suddenly having a whole section devoted.

But then, along came evolutionary psychology as a huge academic bandwagon. It was back to genetic determinism. The model that anglo-saxon culture wants to believe in found a new vehicle - behaviourism, and then cognitive psychology, having been rather dismal busts.

So this OP was a demand about "where is the evidence?". There is of course ample evidence if you are willing to look (it is scattered I agree). But really, as I see it, the story is about the failure of psychology to be able to push back the weight of people's prejudices.

It is basic to modern western culture that humans are a certain way - autonomous selves rather than created beings - and so the game becomes to find a way to give scientific support to that key cultural myth.

The science cannot win because even if it does have good evidence to offer, people's eyes refuse to see it.

 

[apeiron]

So it suffices to say humans have a human language and to leave it at that.

You mention a whole array of research and views, all of which I am familiar with. I agree it is hard to pin down the difference that language makes because animals are generally more intelligent, there is more going on in their heads, then generally given credit.

There was a pendulum swing. Most early cultures were animistic - even the winds, the trees, the planets, were thought to have souls or minds. Then along came Western philosophy (church-influenced scholasticism) that wanted to make instead a sharp divide between brute animal and touched-by-the-divine humans. Thus the kind of views espoused by Decartes (who Lievo so amusingly accused me of supporting! When Vico, Hobbes and Locke would have been the more obvious reference).

Anyway we went the other way too far with the "dumb animals" and animal behaviourists have been steadily rowing the boat back with their more careful experiments.

But there is still clearly a difference, and language is clearly the reason. So how to talk about that difference simply so it does not denigrate the animal mind, and yet also does justice to the actual difference?

One quick way is to say animals are stuck in the present tense, whereas through the structuring power of language, we have the other tenses of thought available to us. We have the past tense, the future tense, etc.

Animals can of course anticipate - but that is a present tense brain activity. In fact, the best theory of awareness, of how the brain is designed, is as an anticipatory machine. That is what brains are for (not to percieve, or to feel, but to evaluate the potential for action).

But still, naked animal awareness is locked into intelligent reactions about the moment. Yes, it could be current pangs of thirst that set off a long trek by an elephant to a long-remembered water hole. But that is still present tense driven.

Future tense driven would be the elephant thinking that tomorrow it is going to be feeling thirsty, even if it isn't right now, and deciding it will set off for that waterhole a day early.

So you see why all the evidence that animals can have mental search images, or make judgements of relative certainty, or recognised their images in mirrors, are not facts against the Vygotskean approach? They are all present tense thinking. The structure of the thought is in the context, in the current circumstances.

It is when the structure of our thoughts becomes essentially free of current circumstances that it becomes human level thinking.

And don't forget the sociocultural aspect. Once thinking is free in this fashion, thoughts can be passed around the group. They can be handed down over generations (being polished and perfected as ideas in the process). So it is also the fact that humans can become loaded with a software of culturally-evolved thoughts.

We are all thinking the distilled wisdom of several thousand years of our cultures. Everything educated in your head once went through other heads. Now which animals can say this is possible for them?

 

[Lievo]

So this OP was a demand about "where is the evidence?". There is of course ample evidence

The fantom evidences. There are all around us, but you can't cite a single one.

 

[apeiron]

The fantom evidences. There are all around us, but you can't cite a single one.

So you keep saying, even though you know I responded to your PM with two articles with comprehensive references.

You have yet to make any response to the simple query I posed you about your chimp example. (And that is on top of repeated similar failures all along the line).

I have yet to see you demonstrate any academic competence in the subject under discussion. Whereas I have published books on this translated into several languages, reviewed in Nature and American Scientist, etc, etc.

 

[Lievo]

So you keep saying, even though you know I responded to your PM with two articles with comprehensive references.

As I said earlier, several times, you did not provided any specific reference to any evidence adressing any of the claims you pretended were evidence-based.

You have yet to make any response to the simple query I posed you about your chimp example. (And that is on top of repeated similar failures all along the line).

That will of course wait until you start answering the topic of this thread, or stop pretending you did.

I have published books on this translated into several languages, reviewed in Nature and American Scientist, etc, etc.

Wow. I'm quite impressed, etc, etc. Did you ever talk to Chalmer in person?