Plastic Surgery

[feral chile]

Judgement is words. We are judging the environment and the action in it through words. Acting is not judgement.

But they don't judge. They act.

The judgement comes in deeming it clever to avoid the coal. An animal just avoids - no judgement.

You're saying on the one hand that animals are dumb and just respond to the environment and on the other that we are all clever and judge the environment.

We sit in judgement as we are doing now. We respond to the environment in the abstract sense. Animals do not sit in judgement. They respond to the immediate environment.

Without our ability to sit in judgement, we wouldn't give a toss about problems such as resources etc. Other animals couldn't care less about these things because they do not/cannot judge them.

[worm]

Such as a full cleavage resembleing a bum, which humans may be predisposed to 'read' as a non-verbal display of submission. So culture might not have shaped us as much as we think. We may still be responding to the same stimuli as we always have. But language gives it all a cultural veneer.

Edited December 5, 2010 by worm

[worm]

OK so we can make abstract judgements. Yet so often our judgements are based on what others should do, and not what we ourselves might do in that situation. Is this because, despite language giving us consciousness of our acts, we still behave as we would have done anyway, without language?

[feral chile]

It's not about behaviour, it's about judgement. To be able to judge something (i.e. label it) we have to have intelligence.

How can you judge something 'dumb', 'wrong' or 'sexist' without intelligence?

[worm]

What I'm questioning is whether being able to have a running commentary running through your brain really changes anything. That's why it's easier for us to make moral judgements of others - because then we're using abstract rules, rather than directly experiencing the situation.

[strudders]

To judge what we do as wrong is to show that we are clever. How many times do you want me to repeat this fact?

[feral chile]

That's why I don't like the use of the word intelligent to denote language use. A lot of learning exhibits itself as conditioned behaviour. Lots of humans then devalue this as if it is unintelligent. it's not. It's how intelligent species adapt. A conditioned response just means, in layman's terms, that the animal (including humans) has learnt from prior experience. As dogs etc. don't have language, we dismiss their ability to learn as not involving intelligence (or at least, non-behaviourists do - behaviourists recognise that the animal chooses its behaviour, though they don't consider the cognitive processes involved). Conditioning is not some kind of passive brainwashing. An active response from the animal is essential to its success. The more intelligent the animal, the more conditioned behaviour patterns the animal can exhibit. Like driving a car/playing a piano without having to consciously think about it, in the case of the human animal.

In most of the examples contained in your closing paragraph, I'd say that human aggression has been channeled through human ideology. So language has been used to rationalise something more basic. And more base.

Edited December 5, 2010 by feral chile

[worm]

If I teach my dog the meaning of No

[worm]

That's why I don't like the use of the word intelligent to denote language use. A lot of learning exhibits itself as conditioned behaviour. Lots of humans then devalue this as if it is unintelligent. it's not. It's how intelligent species adapt. A conditioned response just means, in layman's terms, that the animal (including humans) has learnt from prior experience. As dogs etc. don't have language, we dismiss their ability to learn as not involving intelligence (or at least, non-behaviourists do - behaviourists recognise that the animal chooses its behaviour, though they don't consider the cognitive processes involved). Conditioning is not some kind of passive brainwashing. An active response from the animal is essential to its success. The more intelligent the animal, the more conditioned behaviour patterns the animal can exhibit. Like driving a car/playing a piano without having to consciously think about it, in the case of the human animal.

[worm]

Feral & Strudders:

I deem something bad and wrong and painful, yet I love to do it. I now know that I love bad and wrong and painful things.

Explain the above in terms of behavioural conditioning then explain to me how another animal can come to that realisation?

(Clue: the dog is taught the meaning of bad and wrong through asociation and painful through pain)

[feral chile]

Feral & Strudders:

I deem something bad and wrong and painful, yet I love to do it. I now know that I love bad and wrong and painful things.

Explain the above in terms of behavioural conditioning then explain to me how another animal can come to that realisation?

(Clue: the dog is taught the meaning of bad and wrong through asociation and painful through pain)

Edited December 5, 2010 by feral chile

[feral chile]

None of that has anything to do with language Feral. We're talking specifically about language and human judgement, not operant conditioning.

If you're saying that we are dumb then you're saying that the judgement of us as a dumb animal is dumb. I'm struggling to make this point any simpler.

[worm]

conflicting reinforcers, with positive reinforcement being more effective (which it usually is anyway - reinforcement is more effective than punishment).

because the verbal community and environment has taught you that the something is bad, wrong and painful. Usually in the form of punishment/aversive stimuli. But you're also getting reinforced for it. Either because you're getting pleasure or attention, or because it's relieving something unpleasant. So you choose it rather than avoid it - the good outweighs the bad. But you're conflicted, because the reinforcers conflict. Thus the realisation that you love things that are bad.

self harming springs to mind. Cognitive behaviour therapy would be useful if the person were distressed by thinking they loved bad and wrong and painful things. And this is where conditioning and language intermix. because you try to change negative thought patterns into positive ones. Either by relabelling the 'bad' things or by finding alternative reinforcers when tempted to do the 'bad' thing.

And this is precisely where human consciousness comes into its own. By recognising our habitual behaviour/thought patterns (what I would call conditioned responses) and using techniques to change them. I agree, animals are unable to do this. but this can only be achieved by recognising behaviour patterns for what they are, not by denying them.

[worm]

you might be messed up, or confused, and in need of some kind of counselling...

or you might think it's cool

any number of reasons

[worm]

We're talking about intelligence. And intelligence is not all to do with concepts and human judgement.

[feral chile]

All correct. I could be regailing some poetry, I could be talking rubbish, I could be messed up, I could be in need of counselling. All correct.

But what I am most certainly not doing is loving bad, wrong and painful things. I may love them, but I'm never loving them because I'm too busy doing them.

[worm]

Why can't you love something that is wrong and bad and painful?

Edited December 5, 2010 by worm

[worm]

the only thing that's human about it is the word. The intelligence still exists without the language

Edited December 6, 2010 by worm

[worm]

words aren't needed to judge, all they do is enable us to talk about it, argue about it, over-analyse it etc

[worm]

the only purpose of the words would be to relate your judgement to someone else

Edited December 6, 2010 by worm

[worm]

a reflection of our judgement...?

I believe that's what I'm saying

[worm]

if what that means is the same as when we no longer exist, then it's stating the obvious

[worm]

not sure what the difference is really (between intelligence and human judgement)

[feral chile]

It is. Entirely.

Intelligence is a human judgement. It's used in relation to its opposite, stupid. To be applied, it must conform to the human definition. Outside of human intellect, there's absolutely no such thing because nothing's being judged.

[worm]

But part of that judgement includes a definition based on animal learning.

.

Edited December 6, 2010 by worm