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Charles Darwin 1809 - 1882

Human - Animal Borders. Charles Darwin 1809 - 1882. Are we alone?. Is there consciousness elsewhere in the universe?. Our galaxy is 100,000 light years across. The nearest galaxy is 2.5 million light years away. Charles Darwin 1809 - 1882.

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Charles Darwin 1809 - 1882

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  1. Human - Animal Borders Charles Darwin 1809 - 1882

  2. Are we alone? Is there consciousness elsewhere in the universe? Our galaxy is 100,000 light years across. The nearest galaxy is 2.5 million light years away.

  3. Charles Darwin 1809 - 1882 For most of human history, people believed the earth and Nature was created by God

  4. There were no borders in Eden Our relationship with animals expresses a longing for kinship http://youtu.be/FZ-bJFVJ2P0

  5. c. 1410

  6. c. 1559

  7. Robert Fludd (1574-1637)

  8. The scientific revolution changed our ideas about what’s outside the brain

  9. During the Renaissance, humans began to separate from Nature.

  10. Taking man, therefore, this creature of indeterminate image, He set him in the middle of the world and thus spoke to him: We have given you, O Adam, no visage proper to yourself, nor any endowment properly your own, in order that whatever place, whatever form, whatever gifts you may, with premeditation select, these same you may have and possess through your own judgement and decision. The nature of all other creatures is defined and restricted within Laws which We have laid down. You, by contrast, impeded by no such restrictions, may, by your own free will, to whose custody We have assigned you, trace for yourself the lineaments of your own nature. Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man, Rome, 1486.

  11. Rene Descartes (1596-1650).

  12. The great abstract law of mechanical causality (mechanische Kausalität), now rules the entire universe, as it does the mind of man. It is the steady, immutable pole star, whose clear light falls on our path through the labyrinth of the countless separate phenomena. Haeckel, The Riddle of the Universe. 1899.

  13. Darwin showed that a mechanistic universe could be creative.

  14. Charles Darwin 1809 - 1882 Animals are ancient, humans are very recent

  15. How does evolutionary change come about? Lamarck: If modifications are acquired through intentional action, they are passed on to descendants. Darwin: If modifications are acquired by chance make the organism more successful, then more descendants are produced.

  16. 'Weismann's barrier' rules out simple Lamarckism Then is evolution just genetic roulette? Yes Russell, Huxley, ... Dawkins (sort of) No Bergson, Piaget, G. B. Shaw, W.B. Yates …

  17. Oyama: the theory of evolution is evolving Epigenetics and “Evo-Devo” resemble Lamarkism

  18. If we grant our ancestors even a tiny fraction of the free will, consciousness and culture we humans experience, the increase in complexity over the last several thousand million years becomes easier to explain: life is the product not only of blind physical forces but also of selection in the sense that organisms choose. Margulis, 1995, What is life? Quoted in Scott, 1999, Nonlinear Science.

  19. Human evolution is now cultural

  20. Different forms of life have evolved different minds. Minds lie on an evolutionary continuum from ‘open’ to ‘closed’ The continuum traces the balance between learning and innateness

  21. How well can we know those minds? Nagel: “What's it like to be a bat?”

  22. Psychology has often neglected animal minds, for various reasons Behaviourists claimed minds can’t be studied - only behaviour Studying animal minds is more acceptable to biologist and zoologists such as Darwin, Konrad Lorenz and many others The central question is: “Are human and animal minds on the same continuum if not, what defines the border?” Is it language?

  23. larson

  24. If language marks the border, can animals cross it if they’re helped to acquire it? There have been many attempts to find out For example, Savage-Rumbaugh claims Kanzi is “on the brink of the human mind”

  25. Do animals have episodic memory? Suddendorf & Corballis: No, only humans have that Clayton & Dickinson: Yes, some birds seem to remember when they hid food

  26. Do animals have cultures? Whiten et al. as well as Biro have shown that captive and wild Chimpanzees have cultures

  27. Byrne and Whiten, (1998) Machiavellian behaviour doesn’t need language

  28. How near are apes to a ‘Theory of Mind?’ Povinelli Suspiciously close Tomasello Close, but not close enough

  29. Are animals self conscious? Gallup Yes: they can recognise themselves in mirrors Heyes No: self-consciousness is too difficult to evolve Humphrey Sort of: self-consciousness evolved to facilitate social interaction 

  30. How should we study animals? Objectively, by measurement & detached observation or subjectively, through engagement and empathic participation?

  31. Smuts Empathetic participation, definitely! To understand animals, you have to live with them and become like them.

  32. Tomasello’s puzzle: How did human species become so different so quickly? The answer seems to be: Theory of mind plus the capacity for using symbols Only human beings recognise conspecifics as intentional agents like the self Externalised cultural practices are accumulated through the ‘ratchet-effect’

  33. Charles Darwin 1809 - 1882 Human evolution is now cultural and Lamarckian.

  34. Human minds emerge from a loop: Minds produce Cultures Cultures produce Minds Minds produce: ideas, practices, symbols, technology ... etc. These produce minds: skills, knowledge, beliefs, values … etc.

  35. Donald The Origins of the Modern Mind There have been three major psychological transitions in human cultural evolution Episodic → Mimetic Mimetic → Mythic Mythic → Theoretic

  36. Episodic Social cohesion through shared recall, but without representation Mimetic Representation and communication through mimesis Mythic Internal representation through stories Theoretic Analysis and experiment through symbols

  37. The Loop of Cultural Evolution accelerates Period Years ago Technology Logos Prehistoric 50000 Tools Dream Ancient 5000 Structures Myth Modern 500 Energy Law Postmodern 50 Information Code

  38. Technology is dissolving the boundary between what is alive and what is not. Organisms become mechanisms Mechanisms become organisms. Biology + Computing = Informatics The Science of the Code

  39. What has really let loose the Machine in the world, and for good, is that it both facilitates and indefinitely multiplies our activities. It fulfils the dream of all living creatures by satisfying our instinctive craving for the maximum of consciousness. Teilhard de Chardin, 1969, The Future of Man

  40. Do we also crave to share the consciousness of animals? http://youtu.be/FZ-bJFVJ2P0

  41. Thanks for listening. Charles Darwin 1809 - 1882

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