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Ethology and anthropomorphism: rough draft
this was inspired by louise.
The use of anthropomorphic terminology in animal ethology.
Ethology: The scientific study of animal behavior, especially as it occurs in a natural environment.
Behaviourism lay a solid, quantifiable, replicable foundation for psychology. All learning is done by association. It was considered egregious manners to introduce any semblance of anthropomorphism into any respectable discussion of the topic. There was ample reason for this. First, it was not necessary. It required no consideration of mental states to study stimulus, response, conditioning and memory. Furthermore, resolution of the affective states of H. sapiens has been fraught with mysticism. Lacking properly defined and objective terms for human mental states, how could those same terms be helpful anywhere else?
Of course, any justification for anthropomorphism would be refuted absolutely if there were no validity to the idea of an animal's 'mental state'.
What would provide convincing support for attributions of mental states?
Are terms describing mental states, especially affective states, descriptive, explanatory or useful at all?
Is it fair to say that a lizard is hungry without listing the (perhaps unknown) biological and environmental conditions that elicited the alleged hunger, nor the particular behaviour that substantiated the claim?
Is there a disadvantage to restating the observation that 'the presumed low level of blood sugar or a response to some unobserved stimulus, elicited feeding behaviour' in the form: 'the lizard ate because he was hungry'?
If opinions concerning animal cognition and the attribution of mental states such as beliefs, awareness and consciousness are ever to be resolved, there must first be some definitions of the terms so that actual argumentation CAN take place.
Consciousness occurs on three levels. Sensation, perception, and conception.
Sensation refers to the afferent impulses of a sensory neuron. These signals never reach the brain but are mediated and processed by perception. To illustrate: there are 100 million sensory neurons in the human optical apparatus. Only 1 million neurons carry the information down the optic nerve to the brain. The retina itself preprocesses the sensory data into percepts, i.e. perceptual entities dealing with extensity, intensity and juxtaposition. Similar figures apply to the auditory apparatus. Sentience refers explicitly to the sensory apparatus.
A percept is an array of sensory data taken as a whole. Perceptions are distinguished by the fact that they are done in parallel, as a frame or snapshot.
Concepts are sequences of percepts. The dimension of time is therefore incorporated into the consciousness at this level. Associative links are the elements of conceptualization. Concepts can encompass any phenomenon including concepts themselves. It is even possible to develop concepts that have NO real world value (i.e. fantasy) or they may even have values contradictory to the reality (falsehood).
Ethology need not limit claims for animal awareness to sensation and perception as long as the concepts attributed are defined in objective terms.
We can learn a lot about animal minds by studying their behaviour. They have a specific nature and they live in a specific context. They have traits common to all members of the species. They learn. They develop habits. They have instincts that motivate behaviours that are modified by experience unique to the individuals. They acquire secondary reinforcers which have meaning only to individuals. They are sentient, perceptive and conscious, by the definitions given above.
(A side note: An owner of a large carnivorous reptile should be wise enough to consider his animal's mental state, as it can have serious consequences for his own wellbeing. The fact that a reptile has 'mental states' or moods or attitudes or whatever terms one uses to describe them, is rather well understood and accepted.)
A memory of pleasure or pain is not the same as the actual pleasure or pain- yet that memory has similar motivational power.
Any organism that has evolved a brain can store associations. These associations serve to govern behavior. A behavior associated with pain is likely to be extinguished. A behavior associated with pleasure is likely to be repeated.
Some reptiles have been shown to have very good memory. I read about an iguana who was shown to remember a grad student who had cared for it 4 years previously. Four years is a lot of life for an iguana, yet he recognised his former caretaker by either voice or by sight.
Experience teaches an animal to associate certain things and events with pleasure or pain. If he associates something with pleasure, he will 'like' it. If he associates something with pain he will 'dislike' it. Defining the affective term 'like' in purely behaviorist terms should leave no quibble with using it.
Emotions are the psychological analogue of physical pleasure or pain. The different terms used to describe them merely make reference to the context, for example:
If you feel psychological pain and can identify the agent of it, it may be termed "hate".
If you feel psychological pleasure (which is to say, identify something as good for you) as a response to something it may be termed "love".
The absence of something you think is good for you may be referred to as sadness, etc.
The axis is the same pleasure/pain, but with humans the associative links may be abstractly defined by the recursive process of "deciding" - something that involves telling yourself what is good or bad. For animals who make shorter associative chains and have no language, there aren't such complicated distinctions. Nonetheless, animals do experience these affective states. Animals have emotions by the definitions above.
What can it mean to say an animal likes you? It means simply this: the animal has a preponderance of memories that associate you with pleasure or things that are associated with pleasure. Therefore you are a secondary reinforcer. I can see no disadvantage to rephrasing that as: "he likes you".
It is certain that even a snake can like his keeper above all else (except maybe food!)
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