Cognition

[Minimalist]

demonstrating evolutionary differentiation amongst the great tit population of Wytham, Oxfordshire.

Do they have a wet t-shirt contest?

[zan]

If being able to learn from another species is the litmus test for evolution, how evolved would we be considered to be?

Sad to say not very evolved...what/how do you think?

That animals can learn from humans, in my opinion, is not evidence of their evolving into humans, or even evolving at all. They are intelligent beings and they want to please us, to interact with us, and also they want to get fed. And so they put up with the hoops we make them jump through.

I am sorry...I did not mean to infer that animals were evolving into humans. When I first posted that it was in response to someone saying that humans were superior in every way to animals and I was showing him that we were equal...with the exception of our so called "advanced technology".

Some of the articles I posted are from observations done in the wild so there were no "hoops".

To go back to N’kisi, to me he is a living example of the theory of revolution, and not the theory of evolution. N’kisi's appearance in the parrot world is the equivalent of HSS’s seemingly sudden appearance in the human world. He’s even got telepathy!

Is not coherent communication a prerequisite for intelligence?
Is not the ability to form abstract ideas and thoughts and communicate them to another step in the ladder of evolution?

Just because we have two hands, two legs, a head, a brain (most of us anyway), and walk upright a does not make us the ONLY sentient beings.

Humans are a herd animal.

The appearance of HSS is considered by some now to be a great leap forward rather than a gradual and incremental evolution from Homo Erectus or the Neanderthals. In other words, HSS seemed to appear from nowhere – just like N’kisi.

We may not ever find the "missing link" you appear to be wanting to see.

BTW...N’kisi is not the only one....nor the only bird that can communicate.

[Minimalist]

Rokcet, who still can't access the board, sent this along this morning.

http://discovermagazine.com/1997/sep/thethirdman1220/

The basic facts about human origins are pretty much agreed upon these days. Around 2.5 million years ago in Africa, Homo evolved from one of the smaller-brained, bipedal man-apes called Australopithecus. The first stone tools also show up in Africa around this time, and some researchers think the two events are connected. There were probably two species of early Homo--H. rudolfensis and H. habilis. The former had bigger brains than Australopithecus; the latter had smaller molars. These advanced traits suggest that one or both early Homo species were making those tools, since toolmaking takes brains, and using them takes some of the load off your teeth

[Ishtar]

Hi Zan

I was really just taking what you posted and then leading on from it to make some further points. It wasn't to contradict or to be in antagonism necessarily to anything you posted, which as I said, I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

Let's say that you supplied some interesting food for further thought ... the result of which I put down here.

I agree with most of what you say - except that I'm not looking for a 'missing link', as I don't believe that one will ever be found. The 'missing link' is only, imo, a device to make a theory work that doesn't actually work - like Newton's theory of gravity, which only works if you add into more than 95 per cent of an imaginery material, dark matter.

So the imaginery missing link makes the theory of the descent of man from a common ape ancestor work. That's how 'scientific' it is.

[Ishtar]

Rokcet, who still can't access the board, sent this along this morning.

Really? It must be his computer, surely. I thought we hadn't heard from him for a while. Good of him to send this though.

http://discovermagazine.com/1997/sep/thethirdman1220/

The basic facts about human origins are pretty much agreed upon these days. Around 2.5 million years ago in Africa, Homo evolved from one of the smaller-brained, bipedal man-apes called Australopithecus. The first stone tools also show up in Africa around this time, and some researchers think the two events are connected. There were probably two species of early Homo--H. rudolfensis and H. habilis. The former had bigger brains than Australopithecus; the latter had smaller molars. These advanced traits suggest that one or both early Homo species were making those tools, since toolmaking takes brains, and using them takes some of the load off your teeth

I think it's interesting but it doesn't explain why HSS suddenly appeared. By that, I mean that there doesn't seem to be a smooth and incremental chronological gradation from Australopithecus to HSS - unless it's just that we haven't found the remains yet. We just have these odd primate types popping up here and there that are long way from HSS. I know Bednarik talks about gracialisation .... but gracialisation of which primates and is there any evidence? I may be wrong, and I'll stand corrected if I am, but I don't think so.

What's telling is that we didn't descend from the Neanderthals. This shows that two (and maybe even more) man-type primates can live at the same time, as HSS did with the Neanderthals for thousands of years. So that other man-type primates existed does not, in itself, prove descent.

It's like you can have apple trees and orange trees. Yes, they are both trees ... but an orange tree didn't evolve from an apple tree, or vice versa.

On toolmaking taking brains ... I think there are examples of animals making tools ... certainly using them....but I can't remember where I read it now. Perhaps Zan knows?

I hope Rokcet can get back on soon, as we could do with him in this discussion.

[Minimalist]

I think it's interesting but it doesn't explain why HSS suddenly appeared.

Assuming it was sudden. It wasn't so long ago that HSS was thought to have arisen around 50,000 BC. The last finds a couple of years ago pushed that back to 195,000.


Fossil finds are relatively rare and we can only make estimates based on what is found. A future find could push it back still further but we cannot plan for such a find.

To some degree you have to do what the fundies refuse to do which is look at the whole spectrum of finds to see what the trends are.

[Ishtar]

Trends are only reliable indicators over a significant amount of material. But the gaps here - both in the quality and quantity of the finds - are enormous.

It's a bit like that discussion we were having in the Homo Erectus Pelvis thread the other day. When will a scientist ever say: "We just don't know, because we have so little to go on." ... they always have to speculate. And at least in that example, they had a pelvis of the same species - just that it was the wrong sex, which is not unimportant when you're trying to assess the size of the birth canal!

It seems to me that we have even less information about ancient primates .. so little to go on. And yet, if you did a Vox Pop at your local mall, and asked people if they thought we descended from apes, I reckon about 85 per cent would say 'yes'. And the reason they would say 'yes' is because ever since Desmond Morris went on with the telly with The Human Ape, they think it's already been proved ... when it all really has ever been is speculation.... some might say 'informed speculation' but I don't think it is particularly well informed.

[Minimalist]

"We just don't know, because we have so little to go on."

See, I don't agree with that. That isn't their function. Their function is to speculate about what we have....sometimes, as in the case of the earliest HNS finds, it leads to incorrect conclusions but now the record is being filled in by later finds and HNS is being 'resurrected' to chose a word which will annoy you-know-who.

Ish, you are forgetting about the process of peer review. If everyone who finds a bone sits on it waiting for another bone how are other scholars supposed to evaluate the find? The system is not perfect but it is infinitely preferable to those who say "I read it in a poorly translated old book."

[Ishtar]

another bone how are other scholars supposed to evaluate the find? The system is not perfect but it is infinitely preferable to those who say "I read it in a poorly translated old book."

Bit of a difference, though. Nobody claims that their speculations derived from what they read in a poorly translated old book is science.

[Minimalist]

Really?

Talk to Arch lately?

[Ishtar]

Yes ....

Don't expect me to go in that thread!

Oh sorry, I thought you were talking about mythology, not The Bible as such.

[john]

Rokcet, who still can't access the board, sent this along this morning.

Really? It must be his computer, surely. I thought we hadn't heard from him for a while. Good of him to send this though.

http://discovermagazine.com/1997/sep/thethirdman1220/

The basic facts about human origins are pretty much agreed upon these days. Around 2.5 million years ago in Africa, Homo evolved from one of the smaller-brained, bipedal man-apes called Australopithecus. The first stone tools also show up in Africa around this time, and some researchers think the two events are connected. There were probably two species of early Homo--H. rudolfensis and H. habilis. The former had bigger brains than Australopithecus; the latter had smaller molars. These advanced traits suggest that one or both early Homo species were making those tools, since toolmaking takes brains, and using them takes some of the load off your teeth

I think it's interesting but it doesn't explain why HSS suddenly appeared. By that, I mean that there doesn't seem to be a smooth and incremental chronological gradation from Australopithecus to HSS - unless it's just that we haven't found the remains yet. We just have these odd primate types popping up here and there that are long way from HSS. I know Bednarik talks about gracialisation .... but gracialisation of which primates and is there any evidence? I may be wrong, and I'll stand corrected if I am, but I don't think so.

What's telling is that we didn't descend from the Neanderthals. This shows that two (and maybe even more) man-type primates can live at the same time, as HSS did with the Neanderthals for thousands of years. So that other man-type primates existed does not, in itself, prove descent.

It's like you can have apple trees and orange trees. Yes, they are both trees ... but an orange tree didn't evolve from an apple tree, or vice versa.

On toolmaking taking brains ... I think there are examples of animals making tools ... certainly using them....but I can't remember where I read it now. Perhaps Zan knows?

I hope Rokcet can get back on soon, as we could do with him in this discussion.

All -

Speaking of apples and oranges...........

We shall go into the heart of darkness, here.

I cannot apply the Darwinian meta hodos of fractional, physical, mutation

To the quantum appearance of cognition.

Cognition, as a quantum event, is not a mutation. QED.

Nor, as is theorised, is it God waving his hand over the chosen few.

Second. It is my suspicion that many species possess cognition.

We don't have, necessarily, the cognitive key to their cognition.

However, I think of St. Francis of Assisi and

A number of elements in the Irish myth cycle

And a huge number of Shamanic legacies,

Not to speak of Western fairy tales,

And Shinto

Which differently but directly iterate the

Ability to converse with animals.

Apparently there is a rare, but significant

Polymath crossover here.

Tool use?

I have watched the Sea Otters up here in the Northwest

Surface with a stone in one hand and a clam, or other

Bivalve, in the other.

They roll over onto their back, put stone on chest and

Proceed to break the shell of the bivalve and eat the contents.

Seagulls and crows take advantage of waterside parking lots

By picking up bivalves, flying up 50 or 100 feet and dropping

Said food on the hard to break,

Then eat the contents.

So, cutting back to the chase here,

If the state of cognition is not a biological, i.e., genetic mutation,

And if it is not a dispensation from God

(My read on the Christian Variant is actually

That cognition is a direct result of Original Sin

Which tends to cut the legs out from under

The Creationist argument)

Then what kind of alligator we got here?

Finally, two quotes:

"Mistah Kurz, he dead."

From Mr. Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"

And

"When Reason Fails,

The Devil Provides"

Fyodor Dostoyevsky



hoka hey


john

[Ishtar]

John

This is absolutely correct. I used to know a guru in northern India who had a black bird (a raven or rook, I think) who perched on his left shoulder and who would tell him what was going on, a bit like an intelligence agent.

In the world of shamanism, it is the black birds and the blackbirds that commonly perform this function. Black birds (in this case, ravens) are particularly prevalent on what's known as the Toltec path, which is the branch of South American shamanism that extends from Don Juan, Carlos Castenada's teacher.


Raven




Rook





For myself, last year I had a huge black bird (a crow, I think) come and roost in the tree in my garden, and then this bird came into in my dreams. He left in the Spring (I guess for the north) but now has recently come back, this time with a mate. And when I'm in the garden doing shamanic work - and thus in a half trance state - I have, on occasion, heard them talking to me, and each other.


Crow




The other thing that's happened since becoming a shaman is that birds will come right up to me. They no longer fly off when I go into the garden, and will come quite close to my feet. They're not afraid of me, in other words. I don't seem alien to them. And cats always talk to me too, now, whether I know them or not. Sometimes, when out walking, I come upon a cat and nine times out of ten it will miaou 'hello'.

In the Egyptian flood story, Horus (on the Ark) sends out first a black bird (Nephthys) and then a white bird (Isis, sister to Nephthys) to search for land. Nephthys doesn't find any and presumably sacrifices her life in the process, which would be typical of her relationship with her adored sister, Isis. However, Isis the white bird finds that land and comes back with a sycamore fig twig. This is why the black and white ibis bird was considered sacred to the Egyptians.




Egyptian ibis





In the OT version, the same story is told with the white bird becoming the dove ... but because it is misunderstood, in some interpretations I've read, the black bird is considered bad because she didn't return. Typical!

Maybe that's why the collective noun for crows is "a murder of crows"?







But this is interesting from Wikipedia. It shows that crows are a) renown for their intelligence and b) make their own tools.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crow

As a group, the crows show remarkable examples of intelligence, and Aesop's fable of The Crow and the Pitcher shows that humans have long viewed the crow as an intelligent animal. Crows and ravens often score very highly on intelligence tests. Certain species top the avian IQ scale[8]. Crows in the northwestern U.S. .... show modest linguistic capabilities and the ability to relay information over great distances, live in complex, hierarchic societies involving hundreds of individuals with various "occupations", and have an intense rivalry with the area's less socially advanced ravens. Wild hooded crows in Israel have learned to use bread crumbs for bait-fishing. Crows will engage in a kind of mid-air jousting, or air-"chicken" to establish pecking order.

One species, the New Caledonian Crow, has also been intensively studied recently because of its ability to manufacture and use its own tools in the day-to-day search for food, including dropping seeds into a heavy trafficked street and waiting for a car to crush them open. On October 5, 2007, researchers from the University of Oxford, England presented data acquired by mounting tiny video cameras on the tails of New Caledonian Crows. It turned out that they use a larger variety of tools than previously known, plucking, smoothing and bending twigs and grass stems to procure a variety of foodstuffs. Crows in Queensland Australia have learned how to eat the toxic cane toad by flipping the cane toad on its back and violently stabbing the throat where the skin is thinner, allowing the crow to access the non-toxic innards; their long beaks ensure that all of the innards can be removed.

And then there's the Crow Nation Native Americans, named after what is obviously their totem spirit animal, a large beaked bird.

The name of the tribe, Apsáalooke (IPA: [əpsaːloːke]), had been mistranslated by early interpreters as "people of [the] crows." It actually meant "people [or children] of the large-beaked bird,"[1] a name given to them by their sister tribe, the Hidatsa. The bird, perhaps now extinct, was defined as a fork-tailed bird resembling the blue jay or magpie [the magpie is a black and white bird, like the ibis - Ish]. They first encountered Europeans in 1743, two Frenchmen (the La Verendryes brothers from Canada), near the present-day town of Hardin, Montana.

Crow Medicine Man

[Cognito]

I think it's interesting but it doesn't explain why HSS suddenly appeared. By that, I mean that there doesn't seem to be a smooth and incremental chronological gradation from Australopithecus to HSS - unless it's just that we haven't found the remains yet.

Ish, the study of Darwin leads most people to conclude that gradual change is part of natural selection. As Min pointed out, Darwin did not have current-day genetics at his disposal, nor do I believe he would buy into the gradualism argument anyway. Species mutations are random, occur in fits and starts, and are never gradual - but severe and immediate. The environment in which the mutation(s) occur will determine whether the outcome will survive or not. And further, by survival I don't mean "survival of the fittest", a cliché. The random nature of genetics can also cause devolution if the environment calls for it. I need to look no further than my neighbor's children for proof.

We just have these odd primate types popping up here and there that are long way from HSS. I know Bednarik talks about gracialisation .... but gracialisation of which primates and is there any evidence? I may be wrong, and I'll stand corrected if I am, but I don't think so.

There was far more variation in ancient species than there is today. We are an exceedingly homogenous species existing in an incredibly stable Holocene epoch. As Hawking warns, we better colonise Mars soon, before the next glacial maximum strikes, or we could be back foraging the savannah for grubs.

What's telling is that we didn't descend from the Neanderthals. This shows that two (and maybe even more) man-type primates can live at the same time, as HSS did with the Neanderthals for thousands of years. So that other man-type primates existed does not, in itself, prove descent.

Different species existed simultaneously. As recent as 50Kya, Neanderthals, Hss, H erectus (Java), and H. floriensis (maybe) were all stomping around the planet at the same time. That would be three other species eventually run over by Hss. BTW, has anyone here noticed? Lack of species variability generally leads to extinction.

[Minimalist]

As recent as 50Kya, Neanderthals, Hss, H erectus (Java), and H. floriensis (maybe) were all stomping around the planet

If they were, in fact, different "species."