From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Aug 29 2002 - 01:11:53 MDT
gts writes
> I'm glad to see you back in the discussion, and glad to see that we're
> in agreement for the most part.
Thanks, monsieur.
> > Since we *have* found our limbic system to be the seat of our
> > emotions, it is not unreasonable to suppose that since reptiles
> > don't have them, they don't have emotions.
>
> Reptiles *do* have a limbic system, and for this reason they are capable
> of experiencing emotion. That is the reason I mentioned reptiles in the
> first place -- they are an example of an emotional organism that has no
> cerebral cortex.
The very first link in a Google search on "reptiles limbic system" shows
http://www.healing-arts.org/n-r-limbic.htm
which says otherwise, and the second one
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/kinser/Structure1.html
seems to agree with the first. Is the jury still out? Where
do you find that reptiles *do* have a limbic system? For many
decades I thought that they didn't, but I could easily be out of
date.
> As I wrote to Rafal, if you deny that reptiles experience emotion then
> you've never seen an angry alligator!
Well, one cannot surmise what's going on just from behavior.
Rafal used robots, but the point is that behavior that we
would call angry may or may not be correlated to what we
would call angry experience. This issue gets very difficult
here because (I think) none of us knows how to talk about
experience or consciousness for certain.
To me, it all hinges on whether reptiles have limbic systems.
(I am trying to follow your's and Rafal's excellent discussion
about all this.) Because for humans, we know that the limbic
system is where the emotions take place (I may agree with you
here and disagree with Rafal, though I don't know nearly as
much about it as either of you).
> > The fundamental question that we can ask, and perhaps answer now is,
> > In what way would having emotions benefit the survival of reptiles?
> > Of ants?
>
> Anger and fear both serve very important roles in the survival of genes,
> as does the emotional experience of reward. The reasons should be
> obvious.
Fear in higher animals serves the purpose of being available
for planning and anticipation of imagined consequences. It's
conceivable that reptiles are too stupid to do any planning
or anticipate much in the future beyond what is linked directly
to what they see. I don't know; but I'd like to hear more
evidence that anger and fear occur in reptiles; and I don't
mean just behavior. I'm hardly saying that it's impossible;
it's just that it's likely to depend entirely on whether they
have structures or not that we know in mammals are necessary
for these experiences.
> I think this is an important axiom, and given your comments and Rafal's
> I think it should be made explicit:
>
> *Every human behavior has a motivation.*
>
> Notwithstanding certain diseases that affect motor skills, humans do not
> as a rule act randomly without motivation. The motivation may not always
> be conscious but there is nevertheless a motivation for every action.
I would say that there is an *explanation* for every action,
but hardly a motive.
An extremely wise friend of mine often answers "I don't know"
when certain other friends pester him why he did something.
Usually in his experience, people don't have the real reasons
that they did something, but just make it up on the spot.
The brain supports a lot of different agents, and many have
different agendas.
> In addressing the issue of altruism, the question is "What is the
> motivation for altruistic behavior?"
>
> As I think we now agree, the answer is to be found ultimately in our
> genes.
I don't think that we ever disagreed about this.
> In humans altruistic behavior serves the genes well and so nature
> has selected the altruism trait in humans.
Yes.
> To have the altruism trait is to have the neurological hard-wiring
> necessary for creating the subjective experience of reward for
> acting in ways that help others.
Yes, but you haven't understood why at least three of us think
that this is a bad approach. We do understand (of course) that
the brain is wired to do what it does, and that what it does
is what we are doing. To use Eliezer's example (which I think
you also had a question about), the terrorist who blows himself
up for The Cause is more satisfied in his final seconds than
he would be if he found himself unable to complete his mission.
Please understand that we understand that.
But we *cannot* say that the *reason* he commits the act of
terrorism is to obtain this little satisfaction. He would
obtain vastly more satisfaction by getting seriously drunk
forty or fifty times during the course of the following year.
Now to explain *why* he does what he does is tricky, because
it's so easy to mix levels of explanation. At one level, we
should say that his beliefs (memes) took control and caused
him to kill himself. At another level, we should say that
he valued the triumph of his cause more than he valued his
own genes or life.
We don't like the way that your way of talking has of
emasculating the more useful and thereby more correct
explanations.
Lee
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