Hey all,
I typed this whole damn thing out and then my computer just dumped it as I
sent it. I don't believe it got through so here's the slightly abridged
version. If it did (and you get two of these) I apologize. I liked the
article from the JOCS. I have been doing some work in psychology (here at
Cornell) and think that this brief except from an article I recently read
provides some nice insight on the development of consciouness and
intellegence in children (and adults as well I suppose). Upon reading this
I immediatley thought of our beloved RMP. The quotes are from a 1977 paper
by Jean Piajet. The text is commentary from a more contemporary and lesser
known phd.
"Social life is a necessary condition for the development of logic. We
thus believe that social life transforms the individual's very nature."
Cognitive adaptation and intellectual growth are based on a continuous
interaction between experiences (social experiences included), internal
maturation, and the child's active participation in his or her responses to
these enviornmental conditions. For Piajet, growth in knowledge is not a
function of innate tendancies, nor the simple result of enviornmental
experiences or reinforcements. He says, "The organism and the enviornment
form in indissoluable entity, that is to say...there are adaptaional
variations simultaneously involving a structuring of the organism and an
action of the enviornment, the two being inseperable from each other."
It's all good still,
Rick
At 07:23 AM 2/22/99 -0600, you wrote:
>Hi MD,
>
>This is another tidbit from "The Journal of Consciousness Studies".
>What do you think?
>
>Why did consciousness evolve in animals? Consciousness and Human Identity,
>edited by John Cornwell has chapters contributed by Olaf Sporns and
Balleine &
>Dickinson, which might throw light on this issue. I would interpret their
>joint contribution, as it applies to evolution, in the following way:
>Animals were increasingly faced by environmental variabilty as they
started to
>move around and they had to select from that environment that which was
>beneficial to their survival. If the environment had remained stable and
>predictable an instructionist system would have sufficed, much as
>instructionist input suffices for our computers. The tremendous
variability in
>the environment called for equivalent variability in nervous systems as
>animals sought to match their own biological requirements to the environment.
>As animals evolved to forms with more complex behaviours, environmental
>variabilty became greater, requiring adaptation of the nervous system to a
>frankly selectionist approach. Trial and error won the day.
>Organisms, even animals like humans, have no way of directly inspecting their
>own mechanistic biological states, so their biological requirements have to
>make themselves evident in a way that can be readily interpreted. This
>resulted, eventually, in the conscious experience of desire. Consciousness
>evolved as a basic function that presented a particular physiological
state of
>the organism as an affective response, so allowing the grounding of
desires in
>the biology and the pursuit of things that had biological utility. Cognitive
>acts were a later add-on.
>All sounds very convincing to me.
>
>David Friend
>
>--
>Len Maurer
>
>
>MOQ Homepage - http://www.moq.org
>Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
>
>
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