Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit on NDT philosophy

Kevin Behan

When a dog is denied something it wants, it experiences intensity.

For someone who claims he doesn't put thoughts into dog's mind, you sure do it remarkably often.

Kevin Behan

This regresses the dog into physical memory.

Does not exist as far as we know. Instead of wasting our time with metaphors, waste your own looking it, then maybe you'll have something.

Kevin Behan

Many dogs will express personality displays or volunteer playful obedience behaviors or play bows, for reasons we could get into, but are associated with behaviors that led it to overcome earlier experiences of resistance/intensity.

The rest of the world disagrees and they have some evidence to back up their claims.  You might as well say the difference is due to the invisible fairies riding on top of each dog.

 You might as well say the difference is due to the invisible fairies riding on top of each dog.

 So that's what's always spooking Peanut!

 http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2010/04/motions_influence_emotions.php

 There's a lot about Whitehead I resonate with. But I don't see how it logically follows that animals think. On the other hand what you call reason may be what I call network consciousness. That might be a point of intersection. 

 If two people "hunger" for each other, and this does indeed invoke the hunger circuitry, they turn themselves inside out in order to fit together.

 Read for comprehension. This does not support your thesis.

Feel free to contact the authors if you still have trouble understanding what the article reads.

http://www.psyweb.nl/homepage/katinka_dijkstra.htm

Kevin Behan

On the other hand what you call reason may be what I call network consciousness.

Invent the physics for this, show us which organs are involved.  Stop making stuff up.

 Yes, there is more intensity with two dogs and so the experience of pressure is greater, especially since the physical memory of getting the food when the other dog actually ingests it complete with sights, sounds and smells, is so vividly triggered.

Kevin Behan

If two people "hunger" for each other, and this does indeed invoke the hunger circuitry, they turn themselves inside out in order to fit together.

You poor monoglot, it's tragically funny how so much of your theory is based on Western and English metaphors that don't carry to other cultures or languages.   This is an excellent example of how Kruger-Dunning applies to you.  The very deficits - lack of knowledge of other cultures and languages - that leads you to these ideas is also what prevents you from realizing how wrong they are.

Behan can you explain how you turn selective imitation into uncontrollable urge?

Can you come up with an experimental scheme to test your beliefs

 KB, do you see what I am saying here?  There is a lot of difference in these scenarios.  At a minimum, mirror neurons are likely involved with 2 dogs.

I am not sure I am can buy this.  With two dogs and one is slighted, that is a different experience than just a lone dog not getting something.  There is a group setting in the former.

Whitehead requires too much of those who are attracted to his ideas, especially me, but even most philosophers don't want to go there (I wish more would).  I just wanted to note he was keen on bringing an organism's body front and center in the process of subjective experience.

 You posted as I was writing.  You see a difference in the two events.  What comes as a natural explanation is that with two, a principle of fairness cannot be denied - there are mant examples of fairness witnessed in nature.

One of the things about science is that we consider all options, other data availabe to us before we make a decision on the validity of an experiment. Sure my dogs could not care less if you do the above experiment...but one of them was very much corrected in his previous home. I could then do an NDT and announce to all and sundry that your data is wrong. mind you you don't have that alone. I disregard about 50% of the behavioural papers i read on statisical grounds. It was sobering tutoring many social and natural science post grads and finding out what a tenuous hold many had on basic stats principals. It doesn't neccessarily invalidate what they are saying, it just reduces the impact. The first clue is if a Stats major doesn't get a nod in the credits. I am always concerned about how lossy the stats are. Have we loxt pertinent data that should have been preserved? Can we reconstruct the experiment?

As a scientist i would say the this experiment is poorly designed, open to subjectivity and variance, and that the result may be a random result. I would have to do it on many dog pairs to establish the results correctly, and one of the things given the nature of nearly all experiments is randomness. This randomness is necessary for behaviours to evolve, is one argument, and it seems reasonable to me.

One of the issues about TOM is anatomical. There is cognition in dogs, and depending on cognition there may be some TOM. we can't erase this brain space from dogs, it is there. What ever you say or do, those dam brain cells and strucure are there and aren't going any time soon... a bit like me!

TheMilkyWay

network consciousness.

Kevin, explain to me how this

TheMilkyWay

network consciousness.

works given what we know about data entropy and your "computational theory" and the energy usage and simplicity and redundancy  and align that with what is said in the lierature not what you think the literature says? Now is your chance. Here is a maths/stats person with a lot of experience in systems and data comms just waiting for you to make some sense???

 First question is to consider if there is evidence that there is a universal code, or platform, by which animals can emotionally bond? I am arguing there is (one example is the hippo/tortoise bond after 2004 tsunami, however the best everyday example is the domestic dog) and the logical consequence of this very far down the line, is that consciousness is an overarching phenomenon of all living things and that evolves in complete integration with the environment rather than it being a self-contained agency of the individual mind merely buffeted by the environment. Therefore all organisms are interconnected via emotion. Emotion and its equal and opposite counterpart, stress, also turns genes on and off and this will prove more logical platform for the genetic shifting of the species and so I believe this is where epigenetics is going to end up.

Now before this logic might appeal to someone, they may first have to recognize that there are some internal contradictions (not just missing pieces) in the current theories and so a clear and concise model is not coming into view. For example, the idea that higher cognitive processes are what moderate the amygdala response to sensory input and then shape toward the higher social virtues. Not that it can't influence to be sure, but that it isn't therefore the source of the high social virtues such as altruism, cooperation, etc. If one doesn't see such contradictions, I suppose they may not see the need to look further. But again, the model must be getting clearer not more muddled. So if one does see an inconsistency with current models, then one could self-experiment and suspend conventional way of looking at animal behavior and entertain the notion of a universal attraction, and then observe how it plays out as the principles are elucidated by complex and time-deferred intelligent behavior. But if one isn't willing to do the latter because of the former I don't know what more I can say because I'm not arguing for new experiments, but for a reinterpretation of the experiments that are already being done.    

poodleOwned

 Hi Spiritdogs

spiritdogs

I think that animals perceive threats, and their responses are either involuntary, planned, or a bit of both.  Simple.  No flowery language required to state that any mammal might have a response from the autonomic nervous system in that instance.  No dams or water involved - just cortisol, adrenaline, etc.  Your verbosity is cumbersome and really doesn't add to understanding, but JMHO.  I don't think that fight or flight is dependent upon whether an animal perceives that the other animal is planning to eat it, hit it, or rape it.  It happens because of fear that can be brought on by the other animal's behavior, which may or may not have anything to do with how predatory it is.  I'd bet that you would feel that little sinking in the pit of your stomach, and have a "reflective aspect" too, if my horse kicked a water bucket out of your hand, but you wouldn't expect him to eat you right afterward, despite the fact that he could easily kill you if the kick were well placed and landed on your gut instead of the bucket.

Sounds good to me..

spiritdogs

By the way, you call your method "natural."  So, does that mean you train puppies without leashes and collars as some of us do?  Interesting that the first negative comment on Amazon about your book says that you rely "heavily" on choke, prong collars and the reader stated a tacit acceptance of electronic collars.  True or not true?

 

I am concerned. I have heard these rumours but kept them out of the discussion.

Often the big split here is on who will use Aversives quite heavily and who won't. I fall nearly entirely in the latter camp, but am also aware that there is a balance somewhere with rights to make decisions for your dog somewhere in the mix.

I teach my puppies pretty much on a voluntary basis so much so that i find it difficult to do lead work. it really puts the pressure on the trainer to get to be highly rewarding and is challenging. With some dogs I am so flakey that i will stand back and let the dog work out where the reward is... Even if they appear to be avoiding the exercise such as SD. It sure makes them relaxed, thinking and desperate to do the job. I think many trainers of all ilks jump in too soon and help the dog out. I thought that was pretty natural.

I am concerned about the collar around the dobe that Kevin was working. We pretty much know for sure that so called balanced systems (reward punishment ) are really confusing to the dog. Even with very powerful and sometimes "high prey drive" working line GSDs, i prefer to work with a fur saver that is locked for safety's sake. If i don't have to then i don't. I don't know about the US, but most dobes i have met are a quite a bit softer than working line GSDs.

If Kevin confirms the  e collar situation, there is a little science that many may like to consider over and above it's use over other Aversives. Until then i will keep my mouth shut :)

Fair enough.  I guess my concern is that the terminology doesn't really reflect the feel that a reader might get from the word "natural" - which, today, is associated with things like "holistic" or "unadulterated" or "wholesome."  First of all, there's nothing "natural" about training dogs with e-collars, or with flat collars or harnesses, for that matter.  Dogs don't come with any of those accoutrements - we humans add them to the equation.  Call me oversensitive, but I've had about enough of people euphemizing the word "shock" into something it is not, and branding training with nebulous terminology to disguise either ruse, lack of education, or inability to argue a point or be accountable in terms of results.  A shock is not a tap, although it could be considered a stimulus - "stim" being ever so much kinder a terminology than "aversive stimulus" which is what most dogs probably perceive it to be, even at low levels.  Heck, I hate winter because I keep getting "stimmed" by the static electricity in my hair;-)