Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit on NDT philosophy

poodleOwned

"richard noggin.

 

There is a NZ horse that got registered as Richard Cranium. You can have a look here

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/29/1098992286897.html?from=storylhs

The registry must have been asleep that day.....

They must have thought it was some new radioactive substance that he was being named for. 

In my model, a cat that arches its back and spits is maximizing its predatory aspect. This reflects/interrupts emotion.

Actually, I think that a cat arching its back and spitting is just using distance increasing signals to ward off a perceived threat.  I don't think of that as predatory behavior, and in fact, it sounds more like prey behavior.  If the cat were "maximizing its predatory aspect", it would probably be engaged in a chase that ended in a kill bite.  And, I should think that the adrenaline rush from that chase would heighten, and not interrupt, emotion, just as it seems to do in humans. (Schacter, Singer 1962)

A predatory aspect isn't an action, it's an innate feature, a universal value of perception. The more upright an object, the more it is manifesting a predatory aspect and so sensitive dogs are alarmed (among other things) by upright objects and also dogs lift their legs on upright objects because these constitute resistance to the expression of emotion (and thus can be sexually arousing). So a cat arching its back is transforming shape from horizontal topline to vertical topline, and hissing/spitting is pushing out, i.e. projecting energy. This augmentation of predatory aspect interrupts/resists if not outright collapses dog's state of attraction. Whereas if a cat acted predator-like then yes it would attack the dog, but this would be a behavior. For example, a dog manifesting the so called "play bow" is minimizing its predatory aspect (lowering its head) while maximizing its preyful aspect (raising its butt and flagging its tail). I won't get into what is going on inside a dog executing a play bow, I'm making the point here that this attracts emotion. Also I believe that none of this is signaling as in the idea of manifesting an intention, a point which Panskepp makes very clear in his explication of affective systems, it is rather in my view an example of emotional logic that synchronizes behavior if the emotional capacity of two individuals is high enough, or the emotional context they happen to find themselves in is conductive enough.   

spiritdogs

And, I should think that the adrenaline rush from that chase would heighten, and not interrupt, emotion, just as it seems to do in humans. (Schacter, Singer 1962)

 

HI Spiritdogs. A point here. In 1962 nearly everything was blamed on adrenaline. Adrenaline in affect is a real crap hormone that in most predators mostly only really exists in defence mode. Most predators hunt in quite a dopamine rich environment, and even the end bite is very neutral. Pansksepp and others will show that there is a part of the brain that may be triggered electrically, even in a rested state. It makes sense that dogs would be in a more relaxed state in a hunt .Generally, Succesful predators (and human fighters , sportspeople) don't rely a whole lot on adrenaline. You can go a long way against fighters who even know what they are doing if you stay more relaxed and aware of your environment than your opponent does.

The wikipedia isn't too bad. I got so P****d  with the more extreme dog trianers saying the adrenalised bit that i offered to encourage their adrenaline production so that they could sort it out for themselves :) (See the bit about defence mode. )

Kevin Behan

A predatory aspect isn't an action,

So how does the animal adopt the pose? What is its' chemical and physiological state? Where does this state originate from?

In my book this is a pose that is hard wired that is triggered by a emotional response to a stimulus. If you had picture of what is happening in the brain it would use a predictable part of the brain and result in an action== behaviour. Energy has nothing to do with it. In this state the kinetic energy is actually really low. The potential energy of some compressed / streched muscles may be  quite high. It is an efficient action.

It is simply a selection pressure because dogs that don't take any notice of it get swiped by a claw and have a huge chance of dying becuase cats claws are filthy. If you take the dogs that take any notice of it. It is quite likely that at some time the dog populaton might have had indidviduals that did not take any notice. These dogs would have literally died out.  Pretty simple stuff. You could test this theory out over and over again, but there is a huge amount of data out there that would suport my arguement. It is simple evolutionl I am just interested in seeing yours.

 In my view, emotion exists as a universal protocol in both animals and this is what shapes and guides the way they feel, and so where the animal happens to find itself in this dynamic in any given situation, then determines the hormonal/neurochemical combination, rather than the other way around. So I'm saying I look at both animals as being part of a system rather than as two separate entities, and they are part of the same system because deep down they are both subject to the same universal principles of emotion. The cat is attracted to the dog (perhaps not so obvious), and the dog is attracted to the cat (very obvious) however before any interaction can occur they must first differentiate relative to each other as prey relative to predator, and this is because an emotional transaction can only proceed from predator to prey. If for example the dog can't get out of its predatory mode, it will either have to kill the cat (that would differentiate them  but this would be due to a more complex priinciple) or the far more likely case that it would just avoid the cat, especially if it's a short term interaction as opposed to cat and dog living together.
Why would things have evolved this way so that emotion can only go from predator to prey (noting that all animals have a preyful aspect, their body, and a predatory aspect, their eyes)? Because the first relationship between living organisms would be prey relative to predator. This would precede mother/baby; parent/offspring; male/female; social peer to peer. An individual that is at the predator emotional polarity "projects" a feeling onto the one at the prey polarity, and then if the prey acts like prey, this conducts the feeling. So in the case of the average house dog first encountering the average house cat (the dog hasn't yet learned to chase cats and the cat isn't scared out of its hide) when such a dog pushes himself a little too vigorously onto the cat, this overwhelms the cat's emotional capacity and it erupts into a predatory affect as the 2nd lecturer aptly acted out on the video. This sudden projection of "energy" (sorry) reflects the feeling right back onto the dog, however if it can nevertheless continue to sense something preyful about the cat, in other words, if it can remain aware of its fluffiness, rounded shape, and especially musk odors, then the state of attraction in the dog doesn't collapse but rather intensity of the shock and the physical memory of positive affects from its infancy are brought to the surface of its awareness and we see the dog visibly soften. So now the dog is "emotionally ionizing" if you will, by whatever blend of hormones, neurochemistry, and suite of physical affects/sensations that comprise the physical memory of experiences from its early infancy. In this example we're considering here, now the dog's neonatal or puppy mind takes over and the cat has "control" of the interaction but the dog is happy as well because it's reliving prior positive affects. The softening of the dog restores the cat's emotional capacity (because now the dog is acting prey like) and it too begins to soften as by virtue of being the object of attraction, it can now sense emotional leverage, although again this isn't a cognitive kind of thinking state, but again its earliest physical memories are coming to its surface awareness. As the cat feels more confident about sustaining these memories, and the dog as well, over time they will then begin to flip polarities from predator to prey between themselves, (although the cat will tend to get stuck in predatory mode) because this back and forth feels even better than a one way exchange. The dog will like to be pounced on and the cat will invite a chase, especially outdoors when a tree is handy. Eventually the bond becomes so strong that the cat and dog are one emotional entity and this is how they know and relate to each other. They both feel exactly the same thing because the deepest emotional core that is universal in all animal consciousness is running their body and minds to whatever level of emotional capacity their genetics has encoded for.

 Sorta like this?

 One forgets how good those cartoons were. I also find a lot of animal wisdom in the Disney animators, for example, that dog is never going to learn where the rope ends and so Mr. Rooster can have endless fun at his expense.

Kevin Behan

 One forgets how good those cartoons were. I also find a lot of animal wisdom in the Disney animators, for example, that dog is never going to learn where the rope ends and so Mr. Rooster can have endless fun at his expense.

Is that true of all dogs that they never learn the rope length?  I can almost see that as the case.  How do electric invisible fences work?  Also, will a well trained dog stop his charge at a well learned border? 

 There was one dog in my neighborhood in the seventies, I doubt he ever caught a squirrel, and one day I happened to see him take a body slam at full speed at the end of his trolley range with a squirrel just inches from his grasp. He got up with the biggest smile on his face and then trotted back to his dog house tail high and I swear he carved another notch in the doorway over his hilltop dog house. That's what catching a squirrel felt like for him and so he would do it over and over again, always waiting at the highest point which would have allowed him to attain maximum speed and thus the maximum "grounding" and I mean literally as well as emotionally. This phenomenon also is evident with working dogs that like physical contact irregardless of outcome.

Kevin Behan

If cognition and higher order brain processes that can modify affective behaviors are the key to adapting to unnatural circumstances, then the higher the intellectual endowment of the animal, i.e. the more its brain is like the human brain, therefore such an animal would prove easiest to adapt to man’s world. And so if such an animal were able to learn sign language and abstract concepts then a theory based on affects modified by cognition as a function of adaptability would predict that such an animal would be more able to modify these affective systems which are instinctual adaptations to a long ago world and thereby fit into man's world. Correct or incorrect?

 Poor Kevin, always stuck on dichotomous fallacies. 

Partially correct - that species is H.sapiens.

Also incorrect. Species specific traits are also in effect, among other things. One of the reasons - among many - your arguments have failed so far is because you ignore variables that are inconvenient.  Like the comparison of a canid to an ape. A domesticated to wild. A dichromatic to a trichromatci. Paws to hands. A vitamin C producer to a vitamin C consumer.  And wait until I get to the social and behavioral differences.....

I can't even say that you are comparing apples to oranges. It's more like comparing apples, tennis balls, shoes, and figs to oranges, pineapples, purses and ISP providers. 

Rule number 1 when comparing things.... Isolate the variable.  The same rule that you may have leaned in math class when solving system of equations.

Yes, cognitive function is important when it comes to adapting to circumstances - depending on the circumstances.  There are other factors involved, like biological preparedness.  This is one of the reasons it is so easy to make a monkey afraid of a snake just by letting it observe another monkey reacting with fear. But acting fearful to a flower does not have the same effect.  The same effect with snakes is observed in apes, including humans... and yes Kevin humans are apes and like other apes we are born with a predeliction towards fearing snakes.

As McCarty recounts in 'Becoming A Tiger', a great horned owl does not have an innate fear or is prepared to fear snakes, they dine on them, so even an adverse and painful experience does not induce fear.  Biological preparedness, is also the reason why a trying to housetrain a chimp is exceedingly difficult - did not find a case of such a feat - but an 8 wk old pup can pick it up without a problem.

Evolution, through selective pressures give each species a variable or very tight spectrum of responses depending on a particular stimulus.  And once again, this is another attempt to compare a species that has been domesticated and shaped for 15ka to a wild animal... even one as smart as a chimp.

I should also point out that this ranking of higher/lower alludes to your anthropocentric/religious views. There is a reason why anthropocentrism was dropped by scientists ages ago.  Look into it.
 

Kevin Behan

I just want to point out that if we understand emotion as the basis for a group consciousness, then we can understand how dogs are more adaptable to man's way than apes by virtue of a group dynamic that is deeper than instinct, and less available to apes that have evolved into a highly advanced brain is adaptively speaking, a highly specialized dead end. Again, I'm not saying that dogs are not intelligent and are insensate robots. I'm saying that their cognition is a function of emotion as a medium for a group consciousness.

We don't need to invent such a construct to get an idea why dogs have been so adaptable. We selected them for it.  We domesticated them.  No other animal has undergone such selection. We've modified their behavior repertoirs and responses to stimuli. This explanation has the benefit of resting on something that we know is real - selective pressure. Do you think non-human apes have undergone such selection for +15Ka? 
 

Kevin Behan

 I'm not playing semantics. I'm offering a logical argument for why dogs are especially symbiotic with humans. And I'm argumentative because I'm striving to show inconsistencies with mainstream biological interpretation of that same evidence so I'm bound to ruffle the top line. I also don't know anyway around the assumption that human beings have the most developed intellect, and in my mind this isn't antithetical to being self-destructive because in my model emotion is what keeps the entire network coherent and this is why I also take issue with that feature of Panskepps' model that says higher brain functions are necessary to moderate affective systems.

 Here Behan shows us once again that his "theory" is ***-backwards.  In order for his "theory" to work he needs man at
the top of the pyramid, so he simply put him there.  Unlike a rational approach where the evidence leads to the conclusion, Behan first makes the conclusion (top human/group/energy) and builds around it.  It's a mythology built around a personal belief.
I will also re-state that despite his claims, Behan has not offered logical arguments. He has made proclamations.

Despite the common belief, humans are not on top of the evolutionary ladder; we are not most evolved, advanced or complex.  Such distinctions have no meaning within the evolutionary framework. The visual metaphor has changed to reflect this view, modern biology books are drifting away from the  'tree' metaphor to illustrate evolution and now often use a radial (or spherical) expansion.

Like Blumberg and Sokoloff, I too find Panksepp's use of higher/lower more/less, or any such value laden comparsions out of place.

The intellect can override emotion and as far as I'm concerned this is the source of most misery on earth.

Dog trainer and Messiah.... who knew???  

(In my model fear is not emotion, fear is the collapse of emotion.)

 I still contend that this is meaningless.

Kevin Behan

In my view, emotion exists as a universal protocol in both animals and this is what shapes and guides the way they feel,

This is a fine example of Behan saying nothing and using a lot of words to do it.  Removing all the detritus we get "Emotion is what shapes they way they feel"  which is both nonsensical and redundant at the same time. Emotion is what animals feel, not what shapes what they feel.

 It's so funny watching you invent a scenario and then demand that evolutionary science explain something you've made up.  He posits the seemingly innocent question "Why would things have evolved this way" and yet the WAY doesn't exist.. it's a fabrication.  Naturally since science can't account for your mad stories, you then deem science to be wrong.  It is the height of intellectual dishonesty 

Kevin, one of the things that happens and offends the more scientifically minded of us is that you claim facts that aren't. In the above quote you say for example ""So I'm saying I look at both animals as being part of a system rather than as two separate entities, and they are part of the same system because deep down they are both subject to the same universal principles of emotion. The cat is attracted to the dog (perhaps not so obvious), and the dog is attracted to the cat (very obvious) however before any interaction can occur they must first differentiate relative to each other as prey relative to predator,""

None of this is known, we are not in the mind of the cat or dog.It is ok to say "I think that..." .

What we do know for sure is that parts of both the cat and dog's emotional system are triggered. The cat is actually displaying the typical behaviours attached to fear and in old parlance is in defence mode.

The dog is prbably seeking mode. They are not in the same emotion at all., the behaviours betray them.

What we do know is that behaviours (in terms of maalebility) are somewhere between open and closed. My old lab was bought up with this absolute tryant of a cat and grew to respect her ways. In the end she used to clean his ears out.  My older poodle grew up in a household with cats too, but she can't quite contain herself, every once in a while the predator slips out.

It is not new at all to consider the behaviour of two organisms as a system. In fact, the analysis of such behaviour fits quite well into the kind of systems work that i do... which has nothing to do with behaviour. We can talk about stable and unstable systems, positive and nagative feedback. You can go a long way by looking at such interactions as a sequence of very simple rules . As we discussed before, we worked out that is was probable that the mechanism for such intercations included visual , aural and scent realted stimuli. In time we won't have to guess, it will be measured.