Something I was thinking of..

THE1NE

Ok im new to these boards but this is just something I was thinking up...

All your emotions can be traced to chemicals in your brain,
Science has proved this,
Technically you have no soul in a classical sense.
You are a complex "robot",A product of evolution.
And as you know all of your traits can be atrributed to either or nature/nuture.
Here comes the real freaky part!

The Universe was either created by a higher being or was here forever.
Not going to go into it,Its not too relevant.
Either way in our world millions of years ago single cell organisms evolved.
The first complex animals evolved,With there own DNA which dictated over there reactions and inter-reactions with there environment.
The first men evolved similar to the first animal again his reactions being dictated over by his DNA and his surroundings as there was nobody (Unless you take god into the equation) to dictate over his actions/thought processes.
People evolved..blah..blah.
But everybodies actions can be traced back to the first man who came from the Earth.
Which leads me to the end..
Is it possible that anything that ever happens was determined before we ever got here.
I know this is all a bit vague.

Reply with your opinions.
Has anyone heard of the Infinite Theory what are your views on it.

THE1NE

If I was to say..
Time is an illusion created by moving particles.

What would be your reactions.
It can be justified if you take what I mentioned earlier into context (That emotions are created by reactions in your brain).

Nothing in the Universe would be moving,Nothing would age,Nobody would feel anything,Nothing would happen..etc.

Stark

All your emotions can be traced to chemicals in your brain,
Science has proved this,
Technically you have no soul in a classical sense.
You are a complex "robot",A product of evolution.
And as you know all of your traits can be atrributed to either or nature/nuture.

I believe there are "higher emotions" and "lower emotions". Higher emotions are those not governed by brain chemistry but rather by what we would term "our soul". Humour is often considered a "higher emotion". Love is kind of a grey area. "Lower emotions" are the kinds influenced by say tiredness, drugs, hormones etc.

THE1NE

I don't have the knowledge to back up everything im saying but im pretty sure most emotions can be traced to chemical activity in your brain.
Im going to do Genetics and Cell Biology next year so get back to me then!

I believe in your soul as in everybodys has unique characteristics and thought processes.
Not as in something other-worldly.

DadaKopf

You might like to read this primer on Identity Theory of the mind. Pretty much doesn't stand up, though.

These I picked out:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/functionalism/
http://www.qsmithwmu.com/why_cognitive_scientists_cannot_ignore_by_quentin_smith.htm
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~gallaghr/paris2000.html

Enjoy!

SkepticOne

If we see, say, a cat running away from a wolf chasing it, and assuming we believe the cat is capable of experiencing emotion, it would not be unreasonable to say that that cat is experiencing fear as it runs for its life. As far as what is going on in its brain, it could be that one part of the brain in recognition of seeing the wolf caused certain chemicals to be produced which then produced the experience of fear, or it could be that the fear was produced purely by certain neurons firing and that the chemicals simply affect the physiology of the cat in order to produce the appropriate response.

Either way, we assume the cat is experiencing fear, not because a particular set of chemicals are being produced or because a particular set of neurons are firing but because the cat is such a situation and is reacting in a particular way, that it is natural for those that believe that cat can experience fear, that it is indeed experiencing fear. If we were told (I'm not saying this is the case), that in cats a completely different set of chemicals are produced when faced with a threatening situation from which it must flee to that of, say, a dog (or a human), it would not change our view that the cat is experiencing fear. In this case, we would simply say that a different mechanism is in place in the cat for producing the same emotion.

This, I believe, is basically the functionalist point of view. To me, it doesn't explain what emotions actually are, but removes some difficulties in discussing them. Chemicals are no doubt involved in emotions, but are they the root cause of them? Presumably they cause stimulation of neurons and emotions are then experienced but, if so, is this stimulation not the root cause? In addition, under what conditions do these chemicals get produced? Presumably when the brain is in a particular state. Is this brain state then not the root cause? I don't think there's any good answer to these sorts of questions when it comes to conscious experience.

If forced to say what emotions actually are, I would say that they were the experience of an instinct or drive.

THE1NE

I see where your coming from.
Its obviously not as straight-forward as I was making it sound.

The article on Functionalism was interesting..

Georgiana

Two comments

Firstly I think it helps to assume that humans have no more significant a place in the natural order of the universe than any other form of life. As humans we find this concept difficult, but our vulnerability and our physical characteristics suggest we are merely a species of primate.

Secondly, the unanswerable issues of time and space throw a question mark over all issues to do with the sequence and ordering of existential events and whether there is even a sequence of events etc It is our own biological clock and our observation of cycles in the natural order which lead us to assume chronological time in the way it is usually discussed. Time may not exist in the way we normally discuss it.

vibe666

THE1NE wrote:

If I was to say..
Time is an illusion created by moving particles.

What would be your reactions.

well you know, if it wasn't for time, everythign would happen all at once.

Brenner

SkepticOne wrote:

Chemicals are no doubt involved in emotions, but are they the root cause of them? Presumably they cause stimulation of neurons and emotions are then experienced .

In my view, with Humans that is, the fact that certain chemicals are excreted is a reaction to emotion, one that is caused by the manifold of qualities that are directly associated with consequences and which in turn are new causal links in the chain reaction of reality.

I don't believe that a cat is capable of realising fear basically because a cat is not attributed with the ability to readdress & understand its reactions to stimuli. So its reaction is more like the basic survival mechanism of instinct, a mechanism that doesn't incorporate the retrospective analysis of previous situations that were similar. The reactions are programed reactions leading to chemical secreations as only one of the predictable outcomes of the event. For me this is the crutial issue when addressing the emotions-for-animals debate, animals are predictable, they never deviate from a set of instructions, perhaps the robot analogy fits here but with Human Beings & so called "human nature" there is constant evidence of self adjustment and improvement qualities which animals don't generally exibit.

Fysh

Brenner wrote:

I don't believe that a cat is capable of realising fear basically because a cat is not attributed with the ability to readdress & understand its reactions to stimuli. So its reaction is more like the basic survival mechanism of instinct, a mechanism that doesn't incorporate the retrospective analysis of previous situations that were similar. The reactions are programed reactions leading to chemical secreations as only one of the predictable outcomes of the event. For me this is the crutial issue when addressing the emotions-for-animals debate, animals are predictable, they never deviate from a set of instructions, perhaps the robot analogy fits here but with Human Beings & so called "human nature" there is constant evidence of self adjustment and improvement qualities which animals don't generally exibit.

Having had cats & dogs as pets for my entire life, I question this. Cats and dogs in particular emphatically do not operate "from a set of instructions" - they are capable of developing what would be considered emotional ties not only to their owners but with other animals. Bear in mind that these in particular are higher mammals and as such a lot closer to us than, say, beetles.

Now, I'm sure I've mentioned this before in older posts, but there is an issue that comes up when trying to house-train dogs (and to a lesser extent cats, mainly because cats are arrogant little gits who pretty much do what they like anyway and so house-training them is like trying to stop rain by breathing at it). The issue is that a dog's ability to create cause-effect chains is very much limited compared to a human's, so if you punish a dog for something he did five hours ago, he probably won't understand or learn his lesson. If you punish him immediately after he does it, he will understand and you can therefore condition him not to do it again.

Why am I mentioning this? Because I think that self-perception is a very tricky subject - you say that with human beings there is "constant evidence of self-adjustment and improvement" which is not present in animals. I disagree, and I think this can be proven (put simply, how can a social underclass exist, if all humans constantly strive to improve themselves?).

So do we have a situation where some humans are genuinely human, and others are merely animals in human bodies? Do we end up considering some animals more worthy of humane treatment?

Brenner

Emotional animals...humans only please...

Self-improvement was a term I used to illustrate potential, not a measure of a human being. I've never seen any evidence of a dog or cat, chastising itself.

I know I used to attribute excitement & joy to my dog when I fed him, his heart is racing and adrenaline was pumping - he jumped up and down. I know I suspended disbelief because it was more rewarding that the truth that my dog was aware, via conditioning, that when I "rang the bell" his innate preoccupation with eating was going to be satisfied.

Cats don't want to be alone because they want their "independence", they are solitary animals. Anything with "attitude" that a cat does can be put down to being forced to share space, leading to confused reactions. Dogs work in packs, they need leaders or are leaders. Wanting others around is part of their genetic programing for survival, not emotional attachment. Dogs attack when they think they're the boss, not because they're angry.

Are animals outside of their natural habitat that different to their wild counterparts?

DadaKopf

Brenner wrote:

Wanting others around is part of their genetic programing for survival, not emotional attachment.

Unless they're part of the same thing. The biological system.

Brenner wrote:

Are animals outside of their natural habitat that different to their wild counterparts?

What's 'natural' anyway? An attitude invented by humans perhaps?

Brenner wrote:

I've never seen any evidence of a dog or cat, chastising itself

I don't know, they adapt their behaviour to environments and personal experiences, and scolding from parents. In other words: they learn. Obviously they don't go to school, or read newspapers or whatever, but they have these capacities. They just don't write books about it.

People on this thread are concentrating too much in looking for innate properties of animals (humans included) rather than seeing all of them as creatures with intelligence and intentions which respond to their environments.

The conviction that there's some natural order to things, and that humans are somehow beyond this, is absurd. And by extension, that cats and dogs are somehow not true to their nature because we've put them in an 'unnatural' environment is silly.

Then again, I've lost the train of this conversation.

Brenner

Ok. Point taken, suppose we sat at the idea that its is a matter of oppinion...emotions are either integrated into an animal to such an extent that they are about as readable as human beings .or. they exhibit what we humans would apply to other humans, behavioural characteristics denoting emotion, but only by projection.

Although I don't agree...
"that cats and dogs are somehow not true to their nature because we've put them in an 'unnatural' environment" as being silly.

Nothing was said about an 'unnatural' environment. There is no such thing as an environment outside of nature, true enough. But there are places that aren't wholly suited to the physical makeup of some creatures: A desert is an unnatural place for fish, as is a bowl? Or... would you say that domestication is a 'natural' occurance?

Vegetarian dogs... now that would be silly.

SkepticOne

Brenner wrote:

Ok. Point taken, suppose we sat at the idea that its is a matter of oppinion...emotions are either integrated into an animal to such an extent that they are about as readable as human beings .or. they exhibit what we humans would apply to other humans, behavioural characteristics denoting emotion, but only by projection.

This boils down to the issue of consciousness. You can't have emotions without having the ability to be conscious of them, yet the only thing we have to go on is the animals behavior in the face of situations and the fact that it has similar neural structures. The same problem of projecting emotions onto animals also applies to other humans and the basic problem is that of consciousness.

DadaKopf

Here's a pretty famous article on this very topic, Brenner.

It's What is it Like to Be a Bat? by Thomas Nagel.

Certainly not the last word on the debate by any means.

Chipboard

[QUOTEcats and dogs are somehow not true to their nature because we've put them in an 'unnatural' environment is silly[/QUOTE]

If anyone thinks that we put cats and dogs in an unnatural environment, they should keep an eye out for a documentart called 'The Canine Conspiracy'. It proposes that (probably) millenia ago, wild dogs basically saw man eating at the campfire and with time, were brave enough to approach, eventually got some of the scraps and found it was easier to endear themselves to man and get the scraps as reward than to hunt in the wild. As time went on (this would have been a slow process of evolution over hundreds, maybe thousands of years) dogs became conditioned to almost perform for man, for food and attention, shelter etc. I had mixed feelings about the documentary at first, because I love dogs and dont like to think their attention is for selfish reasons but its a fasinating documentary - keep an eye out for it.

Mind you, I dont believe that a dog thinks to himself, here's Bob coming, if I act real cute maybe he'll bring me in an give me a bone - its instinctive but very convincing.