Text 646, 127 rader
Skriven 2004-11-04 11:50:00 av Michael Ragland (1:278/230)
Ärende: Re: Are you Conscious?
==============================




JE:- 
If you can ask what consciousness is then you must be conscious because
you have to be to ask this question. Any question 
requires B (awareness of self and other). 

Michael Ragland:
Consciousness can take different forms. A question doesn't necessarily
require awareness of self and "other". A person can be self conscious
and ask a question to themselves without necessarily any reference to
"other". Dolphins who have been marked have deliberately looked at the
mark in mirrors which constitutes a form of consciousness. Yes, if you
can ask what consciousness is then you must be conscious because you
have to be to ask the question but that is very basic. But by that
measure you can be alive if your heart is beating but be brain dead.

JE:-
To my knowledge no animal that has been taught to communicate to humans
using sign language etc has ever asked a _spontaneous_ question. For a
conscious mind the motivation 
for a question has to be the question
itself. Note that animal models always
require other inducements such as food
rewards.

Michael Ragland:
Why should they be necessarily taught to communicate with humans?
Actually, there are many valid scientific reasons for attempting to do
this. You state, "For a conscious mind the motivation for a question has
to be the question itself." You don't think other animals don't ask
questions just because their possible types of language (unknown to us)
can't be understood by us? I quote, "While chimpanzees are our closest
relatives with 98% similarity in genes, we clearly have a different take
on communication. Chimps clap, wave, pick at each other tenderly,
tickle, play, wrestle, gaze into each other's eyes and issue utterances
to each other that some scientists feel constitute a complex chimp
language that may be facilitated by a subtle "gestural-visual" mode
different from that used by humans and thus incomprehensible to
humankind. Dr. Gannon says "Chimpanzees have a sense of self, a great
cognitive capacity to understand a lot of things we teach them and the
neurophysiology behind their communication ability is likely similar to
our own."

You seem to fall into this category. "Other scientists interpret the new
evidence to mean that while chimps and other great apes may have more
complex communications systems than previously thought, these systems
still don't constitute language. They believe that while we may have a
fundamentally similar ancestral brain area, the PT region did not evolve
a functional role in communication-related tasks in chimpanzees as it
did in humans, and that it serves some other purpose."

No kidding ! Tell me, does the possibility we may have a fundamentally
similar ancestral brain area and the PT region did not evolve a
functional role in communication-related tasks in chimpanzees as it did
in humans necessarily mean the chimps don't have a language of their own
based on a gestural-visual mode of clapping, waving, picking at each
other tenderly, tickling, playing, wrestling, gazing into each other's
eyes and issuing utterances to each other that some scientists feel
constitute a complex chimp language? 

To read more about PT in humans and chimps access
http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/nuggets/021/nugget.htm Also, much of human
communication is based on the non-verbal such as body movement, gesture,
facial expression, adornment and fashion, landscape architecture, mass
media, and consumer-product design. All our senses--of balance, hearing,
smell, sight, space, taste, time, and touch--are channels for nonverbal
cues."

Obviously we were non-verbal as a species before we became verbal.
Language was built on the foundation of non-verbal communication. Also,
from my personal experience the two are usually related to each other.
So I think maybe you can appreciate why human scientists are so
interested in studying the communication systems (languages) of other
species, especially those closest to us.

The URL I referenced states:

While further research will illuminate the debate, the Mount Sinai
research suggests that functions of the PT further evolved independently
in humans and chimps to serve each species' growing cognitive and
communicative needs. The scientific methods used by the Mount Sinai
investigative team include: 

MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) with 3-D, computerized images analysis.
This process is helping reveal more detailed evidence of homologous
relations between the cerebral cortexes of great apes and humans. 
Immunocytochemistry, the selective staining of cell parts of the brain,
in this case the planum temporale in human, ape and macaque brain tissue
samples, to study the potential for asymmetric distribution of various
brain chemicals that would further support parallels to the human
condition. 

Forthcoming PET (positron emission tomography) scans, in collaboration
with Dr. Allen Braun of the Language Section, Voice, Speech and Language
Branch, NIH - National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication
Disorders and the Language Research Center at Georgia State University,
to study the brains of chimps and bonobos (sometimes called pygmy
chimps) in action, communicating their way through the day.

This particularly newsworthy research reveals insights into the origins
of human language and speech, including the organization of
language-related areas of the brain and their design, origin and
evolution. It also raises ethical challenges for neuroscience and other
research which utilizes living apes. Dr. Gannon says, "I don't know if
you've ever met a chimp, but they are pretty amazing creatures, very
sophisticated!"

For more information please see:
"Asymmetry of Chimpanzee Planum Temporale: Humanlike Pattern of
Wernicke's Brain Language Area Homolog". Patrick J. Gannon, Ralph L.
Holloway, Douglas C. Broadfield, and Allen R. Braun Science 1998 January
9; 279: 220-222.

"Tiny green men might have been a better experiment."

Stephen Hawking
(paraphrasing from a "Universe in a Nutshell".
---
ū RIMEGate(tm)/RGXPost V1.14 at BBSWORLD * Info@bbsworld.com

---
 * RIMEGate(tm)V10.2á˙* RelayNet(tm) NNTP Gateway * MoonDog BBS
 * RgateImp.MoonDog.BBS at 11/4/04 11:50:59 AM
 * Origin: MoonDog BBS, Brooklyn,NY, 718 692-2498, 1:278/230 (1:278/230)