At 01:06 PM 3/8/2009, you wrote:
>[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.
Krimel,
There is a difference between causal and correlation, and I'm still
not sure which you think it is when it comes to thinking. You used
both terms. If it's causal, is it the brain chemistry creating the
thoughts or the thoughts manipulating the brain chemistry. A
correlation would mean a reciprocal relation or interdependence. So
I'm still confused what to you meant. Also you didn't exactly state
anything definitive about social behavior, which you stated came
earlier than thinking. Was it biological or not. It was difficult
to know where the last sentence should be applied. The previous
paragraph was all about social behavior and stated nothing about
biological processes.
Marsha
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.
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