>[Krimel] >Intellect is a biological function that evolved in higher primates. It is >what assures the survival of our species. Social behavior evolves even >earlier.
[Marsha] This is confusing to me. You are saying that intellect, by which I take you to mean thinking, is a biological function. Do you mean the brain? Is the relationship a causation or a correlation. And what of social behavior which you are saying evolved earlier? Is it biological? How so? [Krimel] Intellect developed in humans in the same way that speed developed in cheetahs. Those who had more of it in the past were better able to scatter their genes into the present. I don't think you could find much argument that thinking is correlated with brain activity. Or that particular kinds of experience can be correlated with increased activity in particular parts of the brain. I am personally convinced that the relationship is very much causal. I think studies of individuals with particular kinds of brain damage show impairment of specific functions that are caused by the damage. There are a variety of lesion studies in animals that back this up as well. We can see within the human brain, layers of evolutionary development and we can see this process unfold in the individual development of every new member of our species. The hind brain develops first in embryos. It is the lowest and deepest layer it handles most of the functions that any animal needs to survive, heart rate, respiration, digestion, aspects of locomotion, etc. The mid-brain is higher up and handles mainly emotional responses. For example all of the sensory receptors, with exception of smell, are feed to the thalamus. It seems to combine the diverse sensory inputs and makes a quick but fundamentally MoQlike judgment. It says this is "good" or this is "bad". If the sensory input is intense enough it forwards that data to another mid-brain structure, the amygdale, which produces in us a sense of fear, anger or disgust. It also passes information to the hypothalamus where it is processed into memory. At this middle layer, our brains tell us if things are good are bad but also stimulate our metabolisms to either speed up or slow down. Eventually the data from the thalamus is routed to the cortex which is the latest and greatest evolutionary layer in humans. The front parts of the brain seem to be heavily involved in evaluating emotions. This is what gives us the evolutionary edge. Rather than responding emotionally solely based on the midbrain's rather hardwired approach, the neocortex allows us to compare and contrast the data of the moment with data from the past. It allows humans to expand temporally out of the Now moment. It removes us from dependence on sequential access to the instantaneous flow of time from one instant to the next. Instead memory gives us random access to the story of our own life history. See Pirsig for an account of the advantages of random access. The study done not long ago with the Dali Lama's monks suggested that experienced meditators had increased activity in the prefrontal areas of the brain that are most associated with feelings of compassion. Feelings of compassion, BTW, can also be produced with the substance oxtitocin. This substance is found in high levels during child birth for example. It stimulates lactation in mothers and in mothers, babies and even fathers to kick starts the process of the family bonding together as a unit. They all feel close together and at one with each other. Social behavior is a much earlier evolutionary development. Primates are with few exceptions very social animals. The higher primates, apes especially but many species of monkeys as well have a variety of emotional displays to communicate their emotional states to other members of the group. They have grooming and food sharing behaviors, dominance hierarchy, differences in socially acceptable behaviors for males and females, young and old. The literature on primate social behavior is large and detailed and one thing it shows is increased elaboration of social behavior the higher up the order of primates you look. So yeah, I think its causal and yeah I think its biological. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
