Re: Is the human mind/brain special wrt animal minds/brains?


"John Harshman" <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:lAGzi.4314$Oo.402@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
r norman wrote:

On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 16:05:47 GMT, John Harshman
<jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Bryan Heit wrote:


On Aug 23, 12:53 pm, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


Could someone with access to PNAS explain what these structures, etc.
are? Presumably they don't include the hippopotamus minor. (Speaking of
language, I find the author's dichotomy between humans and animals to be
archaic and odd.)


The main differences listed are:

1) Neutrons in the human visual cortex are arrayed in a mesh, whereas
other primates are arrayed vertically
2) Humans have more, and larger VEN's - unusually shaped, tapered
neurons
3) Human minicolumns (used for parallel processing) are wider and
contain more synapses
4) Human brains make a lot more thrombospondin, which apparently has
something to do with driving synapse formation

Hmmm...of these, only the first could be considered to be something that
other primates lack. The rest are only what the writer claims the human
brain is not: just bigger and more. How does that fit his argument?


The final paragraph of their intro is interesting:

"Virtually all the newly discovered human singularities are located in
areas associated with either complex social cognition [theory of mind
(TOM)] or language. But the reorganization of the human brain has not
been without cost. In addition to advancing language and TOM, it
brought about neurodegenerative disease: schizophrenia, autism,
Alzheimer's, etc..."

The body of the article then compares a bunch of behaviors shared by
humans and other animals (language, deception, planning, etc), and
basically points out the diffrerences in the way we do it, vs the way
animals do it.

I am not a neurobiologist - but with that caveat in mind I would say I
did not find their arguments particularity compelling. In short form,
the argument appears to be simply that human behavior is more complex
then animal behavior. This increased complexity appears to arise in
specific regions of the brain, some of which are organized differently
then that in animals. Therefore our brains are significantly
different, and it isn't the size that matters but rather the
organization.

They also make a lot of claims that appear to have no factual basis -
i.e. that human learning did not arise as a result of food seeking,
but rather from a "far broader context arguably involving
TOM, language, and aesthetics." Unreferenced, of course. This
statement makes even less pence when taking what we know about evol
and common ancestors into account - maybe today all of those other
things are part of learning, but the most likely diverged from the
food seeking behavior of our earlier ancestors.

In my mind it seems like a lot of assumptions based on very limited
evidence. It also seems to ignore a lot of what we know about human
evolution to reach its conclusions - i.e. throughout they seem to
assume that things like learning, thinking, and language arose de novo
in humans, rather then being traits which diverged from earlier
ancestral traits.

Thanks. Odd.

I agree with John's point -- having more is qualitatively different
from having less only given the possibility that more enables
particular emergent phenomena. Of course I fervently believe in that
possibility and so can readily accept that human mental activity is
qualitatively different from those of even close relatives. Others
may disagree.

My point is that the author's claim that there is a physical basis for
believing that human cognition is qualitatively different from other
primates is not supported by the examples he gives. It may be that
quantity has a quality all its own, but that's not what he was claiming.

Well, just looking at the abstract and Premack's research history, I
would say that his psych-level research shows qualitative differences
between man and non-human ape. So he is annoyed by people who claim
that there are no physical-level differences to account for this, and that
hence, mind and brain must be made of different stuff. Hence his review.

He finds enough physical-level differences to account for the psych-level
differences which he himself has found. The first part of his abstract
seems to be an argument against gradual evolution, but I suspect this
was just clumsy wording. The final sentence of the abstract indicates
that his real purpose was to defend monism.

I will have to investigate the difference between cortical "mesh" and
cortical columns. I thought pretty much all mammalian visual systems
had columnar organization. But then a difference purely in the visual
system is not going to explain any of the cognitive or mental
capacities peculiar to humans.

It does seem very odd to claim that human eyesight is different from
that of other primates. One would not have expected it.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Is the human mind/brain special wrt animal minds/brains?
    ... language, I find the author's dichotomy between humans and animals to be ... But the reorganization of the human brain has not ... quantity has a quality all its own, but that's not what he was claiming. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Is the human mind/brain special wrt animal minds/brains?
    ... language, I find the author's dichotomy between humans and animals to be ... But the reorganization of the human brain has not ... quantity has a quality all its own, but that's not what he was claiming. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Is the human mind/brain special wrt animal minds/brains?
    ... language, I find the author's dichotomy between humans and animals to be ... But the reorganization of the human brain has not ... food seeking behavior of our earlier ancestors. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Is the human mind/brain special wrt animal minds/brains?
    ... language, I find the author's dichotomy between humans and animals to be ... But the reorganization of the human brain has not ... food seeking behavior of our earlier ancestors. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Qualia Question
    ... the assumption that the mind and the brain are one and the same. ... > No-one has shown me how to talk about my experience in physicalese. ... foundation belief for half of the English language. ...
    (comp.ai.philosophy)