Dr Rick

*sigh*...

"....your heart, your digestive tract and many other organs are guided by independent nervous systems that are more complex than those of most animals "brains." The cardiac nervous system, for instance, processes information and reacts. It senses its environment such as vascular volume and reacts with changes in contractility and rates of contractions, and it communicates with other parts of the body through hormonal and neurochemical signals. It's responses are distinct from more general abilities to process information or behave intelligently [number 5]. It will function on its own even if all connections with the brain and spinal cord are severed."

Dr Rick

Oh, alright...

No man ever want's to here that from an intelligent and beautiful women; whatever happened to "I'll show you mine if you show me yours"?

<strong> The response is a reflex; specifically the "fight or flight" reflex in response to a perceived threat. The threat of danger from a car accident is cognitive, or learned. Your autonomic nervous system is "tapped" into your cerebral cortex and responds to the danger you perceive by "ordering" the release of adrenergic hormones reflexively through stimulation via the lower (or non-cognitive) nervous system.

Another example would be a threatening phone call in the middle of the night. You would cognitively perceive the threat and trigger "an adrenaline rush" reflexively in the same way a near car wreck does.

Now suppose that the caller speaks a language that you don't understand. There's still a phone call and a threat, but you are not cognizant of it (because you can't understand the message) and so there is no adrenergic reflexive response.

You do not instinctively know a threat of a car wreck or of a threatening phone call; you learn these things.

<strong> Remember, though, that we are discussing a specific mammal: humans. Other mammals behave similarly to humans in some ways but differently in others. We can not automatically liken human behavior to that of other species without first demonstrating that the behaviors have similar purposes and origins.

<strong> There's a difference between a drive (or urge) and an action. The addict and the prisoner learn their respective behaviors and act in response to drives. There is no instinct to pick-up a hypodermic needle and humans do not instinctively know how to perform intercourse, anal or otherwise. These behaviors are learned.

[ March 14, 2002: Message edited by: rbochnermd ]</p>

Dr Rick

It's my fault: I blasphemed.

I had the audacity to challenge the belief that adult humans possess instincts. I've been "acting as though the last 50 years of cognitive science never occurred." It's "as if [I] had walked in here and suddenly started arguing for phrenology or the theory that disease was caused by humors and star alignments." "It is blindingly obvious that we...have plenty of what, for want of a better term, are called instincts," and I'm just too "clueless" to see it.

[ March 14, 2002: Message edited by: rbochnermd ]</p>

Oolon Colluphid

Well I said I'd stay out of this, but since I'm being selectively quoted ...

The full quotation, with the left out bits in bold, is:

It continued with

It is not "blasphemous" to challenge that. But immediately a question arises for anyone who does disagree: do other animals, specifically mammals -- rats, say, or monkeys -- have instincts?

TTFN, Oolon

[ March 15, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>

Dr Rick

Welcome back to the fray, Oolon.

Your statement was and is an unsubstantiated implicitly derisive assertion.
The correctness of your postion is not "blindingly obvious," and by choosing those words you are figuratively implying that I am deficient because I do not agree with you.

<strong> Nonetheless, the attacks in response to my position suggest the belief I challenge is not just accepted by those who defend it, but somehow cherished.

<strong> Do either of these possess "inherited purposive adaptations of an action or series of actions involving the cerebral cortex and not governed by awareness of the end to be attained ?"

Rick

[ March 15, 2002: Message edited by: rbochnermd ]</p>

Oolon Colluphid

Fair enough then Rick, please mentally insert "I thought that it was" in front of the "blindingly obvious...". I thought that it was, but apparently it's not. I thought the matter done and dusted, and it was just a case of figuring out the proportions of nature to nurture. I don't particularly 'cherish' it, it was just how it seemed from everything -- yeah, everything -- that I'd read. But ho hum.

Well I had thought so, but I'll go check. I certainly thought that insects, at least, function largely on instinct.

Meanwhile, assuming they do (or else whence the term in the first place?)... why might humans not?

Cheers, Oolon

Vorkosigan

I am unable to provide credible evidence for instincts in humans. I withdraw my remarks. I am sorry I offended you and attacked your ideas, rbochermond.

Michael

[ March 15, 2002: Message edited by: turtonm ]</p>

Dr Rick

Michael:

Thank you, my friend; you are most gracious. Apology accepted, and no hard feelings.

Rick

Dr Rick

Instincts and reflexes, I believe. Insects have been shown to possess "memory," but I don't know if they can learn. Insects do not possess a cerebral cortex, so we need to complete our definition of instinct and better distinguish it from reflex to include these organisms, as well.

Instincts are inherited purposive adaptations of an action or series of actions in an organized being not governed by consciousness of the end to be attained. They are distinguished from reflexes in that reflexes are characterized by immediacy of purpose whereas the attainment of instinct goals are delayed. In mammals at least, instincts always involve the cerebral cortex, while reflexes are confined to the lower nerve centres.

This definition is refined to include animals that don't have a cerebral cortex and/or possess cognizance: I left the italicized portion out earlier because this further distinction was not necessary in discussing mammals.

An example of a reflex would be the rapid withdrawal of a body part or limb from an intense heat source. From experience, most of us realize that this action occurs before the pain of the burn is experienced; it is mediated without perception. Of course, insects and other "lower" animals may not perceive pain as we do even if they sense it because perception requires cognizance, but that doesn't matter here. They, like we, reflexively draw away from the source. We perceive discomfort shortly after the reflex arc has been completed, though insects may or may not. An insect may even not ever become aware that it was threatened with injury or death from an event.

The reflex has an immediate goal in response to the stimulus: prevention of impending injury or death from a burn. Mating, on the other hand, has a delayed goal: the production of offspring. The stimulus here is the sex drive, possibly triggered by phermones. An insect mates instinctively but cannot possibly be aware at the time of the action that it is perpetuating its genes, and later when the eggs are layed it is highly unlikely that it can relate the earlier action to the delayed outcome.

[Edited in the wildly unlikely hope that correcting my spelling errors will prevent any further misunderstanding of what I have posted here].

[ March 15, 2002: Message edited by: rbochnermd ]</p>

Peez

Is it your position, then, that humans do not have a sex drive, or that we mate because we want to pass on our genes, or is there another possibility that I have not considered?

Peez