Posted by llrrrpp on June 13, 2006, at 20:51:10
In reply to Re: I don't want any more elephants to die, posted by Declan on June 13, 2006, at 20:34:34
> What does it mean to say you are self aware? Is that about mortality, or (psychological)seperateness, or being aware that you are aware, or what? We repeat things like 'only humans have self awareness', and I realise I don't know what that means. (I feel sure that we grossly underestimate other creatures; just look how we do it to each other.)
> DeclanWell, being self-aware is very difficult to define. One interesting test that I've seen is the ability to represent one's self symbolically. i.e. put a spot of paint on a kids' nose while they're asleep. When they wake up, if they look in the mirror, will they realize that the face in the mirror is their own? will they rub their nose to get the paint off? at some ages they will, at younger ages they won't. I can't remember about non-human primates. I think there might be a finding that chimps do this (Michael Tomasello?)
Another related cognitive/social phenomenon is called Theory of Mind ToM for short. Cognitive and Social Psychologists and others (I wish estella were here!!) developed this idea to characterize the belief that when we interact with our conspecifics (i.e. when I write to Declan) I believe that Declan has a mind that operates according to the same principles as mine. Declan has (his?) own thoughts, his own feelings, his own beliefs, his own experiences. Furthermore, I believe that Declan also knows that I am a separable entity with my own thoughts etc. So, sometime in the first year of life Dev. Psychologist Amanda Woodward has shown that infants understand the rudiments of intentionality. That is, that infants understand that hands that move objects are connected to people with intentions. If a robot hand moves the object, the infant does not attribute intentionality to the motion, rather treats it as a set of causes and effects (paired stimulus-responses) rather than as a movement with a goal of putting an object in a specific place.
Later on, toddlers learn that individuals may not all share the same knowledge. For instance, imagine that a crayon is hidden in a can in front of the teacher. The teacher leaves the room and a naughty kid switches the crayon for a snake. the teacher comes back in and opens the can and is NOT surprised to see a snake. Well, this is consistent with the world-view of a 2 year-old. The cans contents changed. Of course the teacher knows that. Everyone knows that, right? but the 3 year old expects the teacher to freak out upon discovering the snake.
Anyway Tomasello (working at Max Planck Institute in Germany) has done some analagous work with chimps. I don't remember the specifics of it, but I think he has shown that chimps operate under the assumption that different chimps know different things. So, chimps have some kind of rudimentary ToM.
I wonder about elephants?
I wonder about some people sometimes too...
poster:llrrrpp
thread:655690
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20060610/msgs/656644.html