Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit on NDT philosophy

ron2

And I need to correct my own mistake. A subject is not awarded or rewarded by survival. Survival is simply a thing, neither rewarding or not-rewarding. It just is.

 

Living things do what works.  The cat escapes the large critter that moves fast and makes a noise and so lives to tell the tale.  This is a reward of a sort.  Perhaps the flood of adrenalin/endorphins the cat "enjoys" make it more likely that he will run from that big, fast, loud critter next time.  Perhaps it is truer to say survival rewards the species as a whole, rather than an individual.

 Of course it doesn't understand "forever" or nothingness or infinite, it's just that there is no bound on the moment, I don't know how else one can say that a moment for an animal is forever to get the point across since our intellects are so fixated on time. Think a little creatively and you'll know what I mean. Imagine being somewhere and this is now the totality of all that you can apprehend. You have no idea how you're getting out of there. This opens a window into the animal mind.

Burl

On your discussion of this, my big comment is that all memory is physical memory.  Where else to put it?

In regards to memory, it reminded me of the wonderfully titled paper

Gilgamesh is required for rutabaga-independent olfactory learning in Drosophila.

It's way too esoteric to be discussed here but I liked the title.  This however might be of interest

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6WSN-4XBX62B-8-4&_cdi=7051&_user=10&_pii=S0092867409011805&_coverDate=10%2F02%2F2009&_sk=%23TOC%237051%232009%23998609998%231528091%23FLA%23display%23Volume_139,_Issue_1,_Pages_1-212_%282_October_2009%29%23tagged%23Volume%23first%3D139%23Issue%23first%3D1%23date%23%282_October_2009%29%23&view=c&_gw=y&wchp=dGLbVlW-zSkWb&md5=8b88e2a8f2ae0cb11fc5cc82dd2eeeb2&ie=/sdarticle.pdf

 The action of many NHAnimals indicates that they do have a concept of time, both backwards and forwards. Corvus already pointed this out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M52ZVtmPE9g

Wait till the end to hear how apes fared with this.

Kevin Behan

But at any rate I'm not saying that dogs don't have a memory, but rather that they are informed by a "physical memory" so that the present moment's intensity/resistance value triggers these older memories and thus the dog relives the past by way of the present.

That seems to be more or less what researchers are saying about episodic memory in animals, except that it appears some animals have some sense of time in that they can make decisions based on how long it has been since they last had this same decision before them (see the chickadees paper, for example). In a controlled environment it's possible to take away all other possible cues and rely entirely on the animal's internal sense of time, whether that be an internal clock or a sense of time relative to sequences of events or "long" vs "short" periods. I suspect the latter. I think it's useful to note that some species have skills that other species do not. Animal species that cache are well known for spatial and temporal memory, and I think it's ground squirrels that have such an extensive and detailed suite of vocalisations that it has been bandied about that they have language. They aren't especially brilliant; they just live in an environment and have a social structure where auditory communication is especially useful.

Kevin Behan

I believe that a dog senses the affective change from compression (right before the explosion) to release (this can be a coherent kind of behavior rather than a simple overload explosion) and that this is a basis for responding coherently to the way things change, but not in the linear way of understanding that A caused B and this led to C. Rather, my premise is that from the dog's point of view, whatever it is feeling it then associates with the process of change, in other words, just as if its feelings are what caused things to change.

I think we can all agree that dogs (and other animals, including humans) tend to be superstitious about what they can affect and what they can't. We all know about the confirmation bias. I think the main problem with this idea of feelings causing changes for me is simply clicker training. My dogs have a definite "training mode" that I (and Panksepp, as it happens) equate to SEEKING. When they are in this mode they are all about working out how to get a mark. There is no discernable change in their demeanour when they get a click, generally speaking. We know they get a little surge of dopamine, which is thought to mediate learning. They learn to do stuff without changing emotional states as far as I'm aware. So their feelings can't be what caused things to change for them because they can learn several different behaviours in one training session, all without a change in feelings. I think I must be missing something again. 

Mind you, I don't disagree that it can occur the way you suggest. Aggression would be a good example. Dog feels pressured, strikes out, and the person/dog backs away and the dog relaxes. I (and Steven Lindsay, it seems), think this is an opponent-process, where over time the pressure before the dog strikes lessens, but the feeling of relief after the dog strikes becomes stronger. You must love the opponent-process theory.

Kevin Behan

 Think a little creatively and you'll know what I mean. Imagine being somewhere and this is now the totality of all that you can apprehend. You have no idea how you're getting out of there. This opens a window into the animal mind.

 For my part Kevin, I can only insist, as I have with you for probably more than a year now, I do not perceive my dogs as being that damned mindless, like an unplugged toaster.  

Even our recently deceased dogs Happy and Sissy are affectively and cognitively influencing minds (me, Martha, our relatives and friends, and maybe Red and Peanut).  Try and get that from a cell phone.  

Kevin Behan

In other words, resolving unresolved emotion (Drive) is the highest form of pleasure for an animal.

Is that the final word? Isn't that what Panksepp said about instinctive actions being inherently rewarding (or punishing)? But surely it doesn't preclude non-instinctive actions from also being rewarding (or punishing)?

Kevin Behan

Finally, the rabbit that turns its back in avoidance I also see as a function of attraction because the feeling of attraction to that which is more excitement/stress/fear that the rabbit can handle, is what guides the rabbit to want to turn its focus away. The "pull" becomes a "push." It's like not looking at something that one craves so badly it aches to look at it. 

Okay, but what I don't follow is how a pull can become a push without ever appearing to be a pull in the first place. I said before I can see push become pull with the hare, and with the dogs as well for that matter, but to see one become the other I feel like I need both to occur at some point. You didn't answer my question about whether attention is pull. What happens when an animal bolts? The attraction of attention to a potentially dangerous stimulus is overidden by the overwhelming need to increase distance from the threatening thing?

 I still don't understand why you think I'm saying dogs or animals are mindless robots. I'm just saying they don't think, specifically as in compare one moment to another, or one point of view to another and then go on to string moments together via linear reasoning. I'm saying that they are wholly in the moment, although this can be "displaced" so to speak by instinct, and that their mind is a group mind. What you feel they feel as they pick it up via the unconscious ways we deport and move and micro-musculature, scent and so on. I believe they hold images in mind and I'm open to the telepathic end of things as well but I don't concern myself with this as I'm concentrating on the nuts and bolts and the most down to earth stuff. I remember once offering the example of how one can listen to music and enjoy the full range of emotional experience and conscious awareness of the music, and I don't think there's any need for thoughts in order to apprehend and appreciate music. In fact, the less one thinks the more evocative the piece and enjoyable the experience. I believe that the discrepancy between a physical memory that's triggered within the dog by the intensity/resistance value of a present moment, and then the actual reality of the moment, is a potential energy that dogs can sense and then they are able to adapt creatively to conform the moment to their earliest imprint of flow memories. But they don't do this via rational deduction rather through an auto-tuning/feedback dynamic (Temperament or Heart) which enables them to affect their situation in order to feel good within. When observing such a dog we would say it's anticipating or working toward something, whereas I would argue it's a function of physical memory, and the innate intelligence of the emotional dynamic.  

 Kevin, I do appreciate your efforts.

Kevin Behan

When observing such a dog we would say it's anticipating or working toward something, whereas I would argue it's a function of physical memory, and the innate intelligence of the emotional dynamic.

TheMilkyWay

It's way too esoteric to be discussed here but I liked the title.  This however might be of interest

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6WSN-4XBX62B-8-4&_cdi=7051&_user=10&_pii=S0092867409011805&_coverDate=10%2F02%2F2009&_sk=%23TOC%237051%232009%23998609998%231528091%23FLA%23display%23Volume_139,_Issue_1,_Pages_1-212_%282_October_2009%29%23tagged%23Volume%23first%3D139%23Issue%23first%3D1%23date%23%282_October_2009%29%23&view=c&_gw=y&wchp=dGLbVlW-zSkWb&md5=8b88e2a8f2ae0cb11fc5cc82dd2eeeb2&ie=/sdarticle.pdf

This is intersting. One of the side effects of Panksepp is that i had to pick up biology texts after being able to evade this subject in favour of "hard" sciences at about the 14-15 year old mark. It ws hard work!! I can now just with strong effort understand the key points of this paper.

I am very interested in some papers that may help me optimise training sequences (and other activites) in dogs. Can you point me somewhere?

I have observed that less is often more. That stopping a training session quite early and then coming back to this session say 4-6 hours later appears to give a better effect. Of course this is anedcotal. Love to see some science about this...

 Right, I don't believe they are anticipating a reward as in imagining that if they do something it will then lead to the desired consequence, but that they can sense potential energy in the discrepancy between the physical memory that they are reliving, and the actual circumstances that aren't in that moment producing anything tangible as an outright reinforcement. For example, if a dog is conditioned that the ringing of a bell is coupled to the tasting of meat, then the bell rings and the taste of meat is rekindled on their tongue, and yet there is no meat in their mouth and so they become excited. They are sensing potential energy, the discrepancy between what they are feeling, and what is actually happening, i.e. nothing. They then act on their environment in an excited way, and any movement that this excited activity causes or that they perceive as happening (which in the dog's way of understanding is the same thing) is then perceived as a reinforcement because the physical tactile results of such movement are now being associated with the taste of meat that the ringing of a bell rekindled. So a number of variables can become linked together. Whereas if the dog had a thought process then this would be capable of moderating this and a dog wouldn't axiomatically become excited. The bell would ring and the dog would be capable of assaying the situation and noting an absence of meat and would then be in a position to ponder why there was no meat in this instance as opposed to all those prior experiences. So intensity/resistance triggers physical memories, these "potentiate" the moment, and then the dog's drive comes up to conform the moment to what it is feeling.  

(I don't know much about dopamine and nothing technical about anticipatory states.)

"Okay, but what I don't follow is how a pull can become a push without ever appearing to be a pull in the first place. I said before I can see push become pull with the hare, and with the dogs as well for that matter, but to see one become the other I feel like I need both to occur at some point. You didn't answer my question about whether attention is pull."

KB:  Yes I would agree that a state of attention is a state of attraction, and furthermore that it's composed of two focal beams, the external focal gaze directed toward the object of attraction, and then a corresponding, internal subliminal beam directed internally, specifically, to the body's physical center-of-gravity.

What happens when an animal bolts? The attraction of attention to a potentially dangerous stimulus is overidden by the overwhelming need to increase distance from the threatening thing?

KB: It's not that one is overidden per se, it's that the strength of the attraction exceeds the individual's emotional capacity and it then collapses and this triggers the fundamental fear universal to all animals, even birds, the fear of falling. Therefore the two are directly related so that the force of repulsion is equal to the strength of the attraction, so when it collapses, there is a proportional and corresponding burst of flight. But even that collapse increases the individuals' attraction to the object of attraction. The question being, can the animal manifest the emotional capacity at some point to eventually make contact, and this is what we're typically observing when dog and cat "work things out."   

 Take it up with Coppinger, Budiansky, Wang and then get back to me so I can adjust. They are the ones who say domestication was inadvertent, that it's more accurate to say wolf or some such common ancestor domesticated itself into dog. So the question remains, given the nature of the dog, what traits were inadvertently selected for?

Kevin Behan

 Take it up with Coppinger, Budiansky, Wang and then get back to me so I can adjust. They are the ones who say domestication was inadvertent, that it's more accurate to say wolf or some such common ancestor domesticated itself into dog. So the question remains, given the nature of the dog, what traits were inadvertently selected for?