Dear Doug, (01)
My responses are embedded below,
-Rich (02)
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2 (03)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of doug foxvog
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2012 9:22 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Self Interest
Ontology: Emotions in animals (04)
On Mon, January 2, 2012 22:42, Rich Cooper said:
> Dear Self Interested Ontologists, (05)
> This is a post from another newsgroup (06)
Thanks for sharing this, Rich. (07)
> which I
> think demonstrates how basic the emotional
drives
> (i. e. self interest) are. (08)
I find it curious to equate "emotional drives"
with
"self interest". I agree that there are
relationships
between various drives and *perceived* self
interest,
but would hold that the relationship between them
and
self interest is more complex. (09)
[RGC] Agreed, I think emotional drives are the
basic constructions of self interest, and that
self interest in humans gets very complex indeed.
But it seems to build on top of emotional
experience. That is, the reason I believe
something is in my self interest is because I have
experienced it, or been able to imagine
experiencing it vividly, and that experiencing
brought emotions of wanting the experience to
repeat. (010)
So yes, self interest in my view is complex due to
the layering of experiences. For example, I have
always enjoyed math, but my sister hated it. Is
that due to some innate talent, or instead due to
the experiences I had with math from childhood,
with good math teachers, a father who explained
electronics to me using math, and many other early
experiences that I particularly found emotionally
satisfying. (011)
The article below discusses that electrical
stimulation
of subcortical regions for the various emotional
arousals
have been used as "rewards" and "punishments" in
various
experiments. (012)
[RGC] You may be familiar with the historic
experiments where psychologists provide a reward
by stimulating the so called "pleasure center" of
the brains of pigeons, rats, whatever critter they
can use, and the subject wouldn't even take time
to eat. Instead they were so motivated with those
reward charges that they constantly pecked the
lever, or pushed the lever, or whatever they had
to do to get it. (013)
The emotions referred to are:
>> ... Seven types of emotional arousals
>> have been described; using a special
capitalized
>> nomenclature for such primary process emotional
>> systems, they are SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, LUST,
CARE,
>> PANIC/GRIEF and PLAY. (014)
It seems non-intuitive to me that PANIC and GRIEF
would
be so tied together, that their regions of
activation
would not be distinguishable, when the others
would. (015)
[RGC] Same here. Panic and grief certainly feel
different to me. Panic activates me, while grief
deactivates me, for example. Perhaps the
psychologists who did the experiment were
projecting their own interpretations, which you
and I find not personally valid for us. (016)
In fact, simply naming any emotion is a risky and
probabilistic undertaking. In conversations with
friends, I sometimes interpret their expressions
in ways which they later tell me are not the ways
they actually felt. (017)
Studies of schizophrenia, autism, and other mental
discomforts seem to show runaway emotions
(schizophrenia) or emotional detachment (autism),
yet autistics are said to use repetitious
behaviors "to reduce anxiety" which seems to
satisfactorily explain their behaviors to
psychologists. (018)
So the role of self interest is, IMHO, to combine
the organism's history of experiences in ways that
lead them to find more satisfying situations,
while avoiding the dissatisfying ones. However,
that is simply a vague trend that can be
predicted, but you and I both have some degree of
behaviors we call "self discipline" in which we
choose longer term benefits over immediate
satisfactions at times. (019)
> Even simple animals have them, (020)
The below post only stated that they were present
in all
vertebrates -- not in anything simpler. Perhaps
you meant
to write "simple vertebrates". (021)
[RGC] Yes, that would have been a more accurate
statement, but I guess I did have in mind
vertebrates such as pigeons, rats, and so forth.
I wouldn't know how to interpret emotions in
worms, for example, yet I believe they do have
them. When a worm is hurt, it seems to become
more activated, for example. Whether I call this
panic, fear, anger, or heartburn it still must
have some survival function in the animal's
behavioral repertoire. (022)
-- doug f (023)
> as has often been denied in the
> literature, but which is clarified in this post. (024)
> HTH,
>
> -Rich
>
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Rich Cooper
>
> EnglishLogicKernel.com
>
> Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
>
> 9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
>
> _____
>
> From: Discussion Group for Psychology and the
Arts
> [mailto:PSYART@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Norman
> Holland
> Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 4:56 PM
> To: PSYART@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Emotions in animals
>
>
>
> These are important findings from the father of
> "affective neuroscience," Jaak Panksepp. As
every
> pet owner knows, cats and dogs have emotions.
But
> which and how? What's particularly intriguing
is
> the idea that there is a certain finite number
of
> focal emotions.
>
> --Norm
>
>
> 1.
>
> PLoS One. 2011;6(9):e21236. Epub 2011 Sep 7.
>
>
> Cross-species
> <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21915252>
> affective neuroscience decoding of the primal
> affective experiences of humans and related
> animals.
>
>
> Panksepp J
>
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=%22Pankse
> pp%20J%22%5BAuthor%5D> .
>
>
> Source
>
>
> Department of Veterinary & Comparative Anatomy,
> Pharmacology and Physiology College of
Veterinary
> Medicine, Washington State University, Pullman,
> Washington, United States of America.
>
>
> Abstract
>
>
> BACKGROUND: The issue of whether other animals
> have internally felt experiences has vexed
animal
> behavioral science since its inception. Although
> most investigators remain agnostic on such
> contentious issues, there is now abundant
> experimental evidence indicating that all
mammals
> have negatively and positively-valenced
emotional
> networks concentrated in homologous brain
regions
> that mediate affective experiences when animals
> are emotionally aroused. That is what the
> neuroscientific evidence indicates. PRINCIPAL
> FINDINGS: THE RELEVANT LINES OF EVIDENCE ARE AS
> FOLLOWS: 1) It is easy to elicit powerful
> unconditioned emotional responses using
localized
> electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB); these
> effects are concentrated in ancient subcortical
> brain regions. Seven types of emotional arousals
> have been described; using a special capitalized
> nomenclature for such primary process emotional
> systems, they are SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, LUST,
CARE,
> PANIC/GRIEF and PLAY. 2) These brain circuits
are
> situated in homologous subcortical brain regions
> in all vertebrates tested. Thus, if one
activates
> FEAR arousal circuits in rats, cats or primates,
> all exhibit similar fear responses. 3) All
> primary-process emotional-instinctual urges,
even
> ones as complex as social PLAY, remain intact
> after radical neo-decortication early in life;
> thus, the neocortex is not essential for the
> generation of primary-process emotionality. 4)
> Using diverse measures, one can demonstrate that
> animals like and dislike ESB of brain regions
that
> evoke unconditioned instinctual emotional
> behaviors: Such ESBs can serve as 'rewards' and
> 'punishments' in diverse approach and
> escape/avoidance learning tasks. 5) Comparable
ESB
> of human brains yield comparable affective
> experiences. Thus, robust evidence indicates
that
> raw primary-process (i.e., instinctual,
> unconditioned) emotional behaviors and feelings
> emanate from homologous brain functions in all
> mammals (see Appendix S1), which are regulated
by
> higher brain regions. Such findings suggest
> nested-hierarchies of BrainMind affective
> processing, with primal emotional functions
being
> foundational for secondary-process learning and
> memory mechanisms, which interface with
> tertiary-process cognitive-thoughtful functions
of
> the BrainMind.
>
> PMCID: PMC3168430
>
>
>
> Free PMC Article
>
>
>
>
> PMID:
>
> 21915252
>
>
>
>
> .
>
> Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2011 Aug 19. [Epub ahead
of
> print]
>
>
> The basic
> <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21872619>
> emotional circuits of mammalian brains: Do
animals
> have affective lives?
>
>
> Panksepp J
>
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=%22Pankse
> pp%20J%22%5BAuthor%5D> .
>
>
> Source
>
>
> Department of VCAPP, College of Veterinary
> Medicine, Washington State University, Pullman,
> WA, USA.
>
>
> Abstract
>
>
> The primal affects are intrinsic brain value
> systems that unconditionally and automatically
> inform animals how they are faring in survival.
> They serve an essential function in emotional
> learning. The positive affects index "comfort
> zones" that support survival, while negative
> affects inform animals of circumstances that may
> impair survival. Affective feelings come in
> several varieties, including sensory,
homeostatic,
> and emotional (which I focus on here).
> Primary-process emotional feelings arise from
> ancient caudal and medial subcortical regions,
and
> were among the first subjective experiences to
> exist on the face of the earth. Without them,
> higher forms of conscious "awareness" may not
have
> emerged in primate brain evolution. Because of
> homologous "instinctual" neural infrastructures,
> we can utilize animal brain research to reveal
the
> nature of primary-process human affects. Since
all
> vertebrates appear to have some capacity for
> primal affective feelings, the implications for
> animal-welfare and how we ethically treat other
> animals are vast.
>
> Copyright C 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights
> reserved.
>
>
>
>
> PMID:
>
> 21872619
>
> =====================================
>
>
>
__________________________________________________
_______________
> Message Archives:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
> Config Subscr:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-f
orum/
> Unsubscribe:
mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
> Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
> To join:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePa
ge#nid1J
> (025)
==================================================
===========
doug foxvog doug@xxxxxxxxxx
http://ProgressiveAustin.org (026)
"I speak as an American to the leaders of my own
nation. The great
initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to
stop it must be ours."
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
==================================================
=========== (027)
__________________________________________________
_______________
Message Archives:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-f
orum/
Unsubscribe:
mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePa
ge#nid1J (028)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J (029)
|