Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit on NDT philosophy

 

 Now you're arguing for continuity whereas before you aren't concerned that there isn't a constantly repeating module running consistently through all behavior, from protozoa to human being.

If thinking is going to be your proposed basis for continuity, then why can't apes learn to live with humans since their cognitive capacities are higher than dogs? Until you can identify what enables dogs to adapt to human ways, then you have no model and have no basis to argue for continuity. But then as soon as you get into trouble with the continuity argument, you switch to the emergence out of thin air argument.

"if we cannot anthropomorphize the animals, we cannot anthropomorphize ourselves either." and then we have no definition for the term anthropomorphism as well. The term becomes meaningless in such statements.

On the other hand were you to arrive at a distinction between emotion and instinct, between a feeling and a thought, and that emotional intelligence is what we have in common with animals, with thinking being a higher order of elaboration upon that platform and which distinguishes humans from animals in that they can construct a sense of self apart from their surroundings, and yet this is still consistent with the energy formula of a network consciousness, then a model becomes apparent in the ways of humans and animals and it's the only model that isn't mechanical.

BTW, random neurons firing as source of creativity is the stuff of a machine. In such a system Descartes will have the last laugh.

 As has been said by many w/r your notions on animal consciousness, they are merely - and uniquely - your opinion.  And it is not very compatible with what scientific theories are about.  OK to claim science can be wrong, but it does employ peer review of opinions and use of common terminology.

Your esoteric notions would hold some sway if you could point to a few respected thinkers who believe what you believe.  Can you do this?

And, as I recently noted, use of a more tentative tone when stating your opinion would likely result in fewer fiery contentious replies.  Nobody is certain of anything.

Of course I recognize that these are my subjective interpretations, but I'm also saying that my argument is more logical than the competing theories, and in that regard is completely testable. And I am able to generate a model with precise distinctions, and with a recurring behavioral model that runs consistently through nature from amoeba to human beings. So are there corroborations? more and more in all the disparate fields. In the eighties my view of animal consciousness led me to believe that the point of the bird is the song, not the genes, and now they've discovered the song of the bird stimulates plant cell respiration in preparation for the dawn. Candice Pert, Jill Bolte Taylor, new theory of scent, epigenetics, emergence theory, enteric nervous system, are all unrelated insights until plugged into my model. So all I can say is that the science is headed in my direction and I can't help that the current consensus can't see the contradiction with the notion of an animal's self as a self-contained entity of intelligence.

Also, to put Panskepps' work into proper context, all one has to do is ask, what is first instance of the seeking response in a dog's life? and then the follow up question, what state immediately preceded that? 

Finally as I mentioned earlier, I wouldn't be surprised that what I mean by network consciousness ends up being closely related to what Whitehead means by reason on the macro level. He might even agree with my view of animal self when we boil it down to the micro level of the individual animal. 

 

Kevin Behan

 The dogs with true drive are not swayed by female in heat when they have chance to bite the sleeve

Behan, is once again caught in those self defeating logic loops that he is so fond of projecting on others.  This is called a Scotsman Fallacy

It's a form of begging the question - circular logic that is so commonly used among those defending NDT. Since nearly everything Behan writes is wrong, circular arguments and other logical fallacies are essential aspects of the snake oil marketing program.

Straight logic. Strongest drives = reproduction or survival according to Darwinian logic. Test it with a dog with strong working temperament. Result, Darwinian logic wrong. Prey drive stronger. Any one can test this for themselves. No priests needed, no need to purchase dispensations anymore.

Kevin Behan

 I'm arguing that there is a group consciousness modifying individual behavior which is why every household of dogs emotionally polarize in a patterned way no matter how they are individually treated. I also believe that the belief in thinking as source of cognition in animals will always reduce to a mechanical model in the ultimate irony of how nature plays tricks on the human intellect.

The group consciouness is foolish. While its a major aspect of this pathetic idea, you've never been able to demonstrate even a hint of its existence. Maybe you can use your telepathic powers, collect James Randi's $1 000 000 offer and fund some research to invesitgate it.

On a personal note, I find it amusing how people with next to no education, zero experience in science and research can know so much about it.... maybe they're tapping our brains through those telepathic powers needed to explain the group consciouness.

For example, when two strange dogs meet, the emotionally stable dog with the stronger drive will defer to the dog with weaker drive in order to engage it in play.

Another example of circular logic.  How does Behan "know" one dog has stronger drive? Because it defers.  Why does it defer? Because it has "stronger drive"  A nice neat circle.

 I know because of knowing the dogs in question. No powers of telepathy needed, only powers of observation.

Kevin Behan

 My definition of prey drive accounts for phenomenon of altruism, cooperation, empathy and social structure. It is precise and yields a definition of "self" in the animal mind. The research on affective systems cannot do that because it presumes without evidence or correlation with observed behavior that a "self" is a self-contained faculty of one mind relative to another. This is an assumption, not evidence and it has skewed the interpretation of the experimental data.

 Your definition is a failure.  The purpose of a definition is to clarify usually by isolating it from other factors.  Your 'defitions" tend to do the opposite. They are exercises in blurring lines and concatenating unrelated concepts.

We also note that his adamant and persistent demands of evidence from others is only surpassed by his efforts to ignore any requests that he present his own evidence.

 

Kevin Behan

Straight logic. Strongest drives = reproduction or survival according to Darwinian logic.

We've already seen many examples demostrating you didn't understand evolution, so this example was not necessary.  Instead of wasting my time, waste yours looking for some documentation supporting this vacuous claim

When I first saw you were drawing on beliefs about quantum consciousness central to Ramtha, I understood you to be adamantly distancing yourself from her and her cohorts.  So when googling Pert and her book _Molecules of Emotion _, I was surprised to find her in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjaok6DmULo&NR=1  (that’s her first appearing at 2 min, with Ramtha at about 4:50).  She speaks of consciousness of cells.

What Jill says must hold for dogs as well as people.  Left brain connects us to external world – without it, the imaginative right brain would not be capable of activity.  At a minimum, Kevin, what you keep calling thoughts vs feelings could loosely be left vs right brain function. http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html In her account, our right brain is like a radio that allows us to receive all signals of consciousness from all other creatures so that we are linked together.

Now it is once again clear what you are referring to as ‘energy’ and as ‘networked consciousness’.  This panpsychism is what you keep asking us to see as primary to Panksepp’s secondary emotional affects, right?

On similarities with Whitehead, I would have to agree there are.  Whitehead is often misrepresented as a panpsychist by those who wish to support mental telepathy.  ANW is more accurately labeled a panexperientialist.  He did hold to mentality all the way down to the cells of an organism.  But I think he would not sign on to what most folks mean by telepathic consciousness.

ANW saw the fundamental bits of reality to be ‘occasions of subjective experience’ for which the entire objective universe is available as data to be taken in (he called this prehension); however, these primary droplets of subjective experience cannot reach in and prehend any other subjective occasion of experience.  

Each such occasion of subjectivity is an independent event in the present moment wherein something new is coming into being based on what was taken in from the past (objective reality).  This ‘actual occasion’ valuates what is present and ‘decides’ what it will become for the future.  Here, he defines Creativity as the fundamental directing activity of all occasions of experience, and fans of Robert Pirsig know this as Quality.  The many brute facts of objective reality come together as one subjective ‘actual occasion’ during which a new novel fact has become yet another of the many brute facts of the past – ‘The many become one, to which one is added’  

ANW is esoteric, and I did long ago offer him up as a reputable and esteemed thinker whose organic philosophy might support your NDT notions.  But he really is hard to wrap your head around, as I have always said.  He was a profound realist and would deny that ‘all is energy’, or all is ‘networked consciousness’; rather, all is subjectively becoming objective in an experiential universe of creative advance toward novelty.

 We see the incredibly low standards of evidence required by Behan when it comes to supporting his views.  That he could such draw such inane conclusions without considering other alternatives show how little interest he has on the facts.  Confirmation bias pollutes every aspect of the arguments.  For all we know with these two dogs -  from which Behan drew a universal conclusion - the shorter deferred to the taller, darker to lighter, older to younger, longer haired to the shorter haired...  the list of variables goes on.  And while a reasonable person sees them, NDT adherents do not.

 

 

Kevin Behan

Now you're arguing for continuity whereas before you aren't concerned that there isn't a constantly repeating module running onsistently through all behavior, from protozoa to human being.

You should really read for ]comprehension.  No such claim was ever made.

Kevin Behan

If thinking is going to be your proposed basis for continuity, then why can't apes learn to live with humans since their cognitive capacities are higher than dogs?

The question is filled with assumptions and suppositions and could only be asked by someone with no understanding of biology.

Kevin Behan

Until you can identify what enables dogs to adapt to human ways, then you have no model and have no basis to argue for continuity.

Evolution is enough.  Feel free to falsify it. 

Kevin Behan

BTW, random neurons firing as source of creativity is the stuff of a machine. In such a system Descartes will have the last laugh.

Again read for comprehension.  I wrote:

Maybe creativity is due to random neuronal firings. Or maybe it's due to subtle differences in perception due to the fact we are not machines. Or maybe it's just an early adaptive feature of our development.... or all or some of those and more. 

 

 It is based on many thousands of dogs, any reader can verify this for themselves.

 Behan's argument degenerates to "Believe me"

He has no evidence. He doesn't know the difference between bite inhibition and aggression; upset stomach and allergy; basic dog anatomy, evolution and whatever the heck he promotes... but we should still believe him.

Kevin Behan

 My definition of prey drive

 

 

One of the reasons we use word and definitions is so that we can communicate clearly. We hide behind them if we wish to do a smoke and mirrors act. I need to see your definition then so that we can have any chance of communicating.