The Environments of Our Hominin Ancestors, Tool-usage, and Scenario Visualization

In this paper, I give an account of how our hominin ancestors evolved a conscious ability I call scenario visualization that enabled them to manufacture novel tools so as to survive and flourish in the ever-changing and complex environments in which they lived. I first present the ideas and arguments put forward by evolutionary psychologists that the mind evolved certain mental capacities as adaptive responses to environmental pressures. Specifically, Steven Mithen thinks that the mind has evolved cognitive fluidity, viz., an ability to exchange information flexibly between and among mental modules. Showing the deficiency in Mithen’s view, I then argue that the flexible exchange of information between and among modules together with scenario visualization is what explains the ability to construct the novel tools needed to survive and flourish in the environments in which our hominin ancestors resided. Finally, I trace the development of the multi-purposed javelin, from its meager beginnings as a stick, in order to illustrate scenario visualization in novel tool manufacturing.     

The Causes and Consequences of Color Vision

The ability to see colors is not universal in the animal kingdom. Those animals that can detect differences in the wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum glean valuable sensory information about their environment. They use color vision to forage, avoid predators, and find high-quality mates. In the past, the colors that humans could see clouded scientists’ study of animals’ color perception. Leaving that bias behind has led to new insights about how and why the color vision of animals evolved. This paper provides a brief introduction to color vision, the genetics of color vision in humans, what colors other animals see, and how scientists study color vision. We examine the consequences of having color vision, including speciation, loss of olfactory capabilities, and sexual selection.     

Unpacking animal metaphors for commercial relationships in the biotechnology industry

Metaphors are cognitive instruments with the capacity to influence how humans think about the world. Guiding our representations and shaping our experiences, metaphor is of anthropological interest because it is an integral aspect of culture. This paper aims to highlight the role of metaphor in the biotechnology industry. In particular, animal metaphors provide a means of consolidating information. In a culture where time is highly restricted, metaphors enable the speedy transmission of knowledge, placing information in a familiar context or cultural model. Ethnographic findings reveal that animal metaphors contribute to a larger conceptual framework that equates biological evolution with commercial relationships. Depending on the context, metaphors both conceal and reveal different aspects of the financial world, affecting interpretations of the market.     

Information processing,computation, and cognition

Computation and information processing are among the most fundamental notions in cognitive science. They are also among the most imprecisely discussed. Many cognitive scientists take it for granted that cognition involves computation, information processing, or both – although others disagree vehemently. Yet different cognitive scientists use ‘computation’ and ‘information processing’ to mean different things, sometimes without realizing that they do. In addition, computation and information processing are surrounded by several myths; first and foremost, that they are the same thing. In this paper, we address this unsatisfactory state of affairs by presenting a general and theory-neutral account of computation and information processing. We also apply our framework by analyzing the relations between computation and information processing on one hand and classicism, connectionism, and computational neuroscience on the other. We defend the relevance to cognitive science of both computation, at least in a generic sense, and information processing, in three important senses of the term. Our account advances several foundational debates in cognitive science by untangling some of their conceptual knots in a theory-neutral way. By leveling the playing field, we pave the way for the future resolution of the debates’ empirical aspects.     

Depth cues, behavioural context, and natural illumination: some potential limitations of video playback techniques

By expanding on issues raised by D’Eath (1998), I address in this article three aspects of vision that are difficult to reproduce in the video- and computer-generated images used in experiments, in which images of conspecifics or of predators are replayed to animals. The lack of depth cues derived from binocular stereopsis, from accommodation, and from motion parallax may be one of the reasons why animals do not respond to video displays in the same way as they do to real conspecifics or to predators. Part of the problem is the difficulty of reproducing the closed-loop nature of natural vision in video playback experiments. Every movement an animal makes has consequences for the pattern of stimulation on its retina and this ”optic flow” in turn carries information about both the animal’s own movement and about the three-dimensional structure of the environment. A further critical issue is the behavioural context that often determines what animals attend to but that may be difficult to induce or reproduce in an experimental setting. I illustrate this point by describing some visual behaviours in fiddler crabs, in which social and spatial context define which part of the visual field a crab attends to and which visual information is used to guide behaviour. I finally mention some aspects of natural illumination that may influence how animals perceive an object or a scene: shadows, specular reflections, and polarisation reflections. Received: 23 November 1999 / Received in revised form: 9 February 2000 / Accepted: 10 February 2000     

On the Role of Ideas of Human Nature in Shaping Attitudes Towards Environmental Governance

Attitudes towards the management of the natural environment have been described mainly as building on individuals’ images of nature and the human–nature relationship. However, in previous qualitative research I found strong evidence that in order to understand public views on environmental policies we also need to understand individuals’ beliefs about their fellow humans. The present study tested the hypothesis that beliefs about human nature and preferences for certain governance approaches—such as regulations and collective action—are related to individuals’ attitudes towards concrete management measures. Survey results (n = 155), analysed by means of structural equation modelling, suggest that effects of beliefs about human nature are discernible, but not significant. I could, however, identify generic preferences for particular approaches to environmental governance. These significantly explained variation in attitudes towards environmental governance in an applied context, suggesting a strong need for further research in this politically highly relevant field.     

What animals do not do or fail to find: A novel observational approach for studying cognition in the wild

To understand how our brain evolved and what it is for, we are in urgent need of knowledge about the cognitive skills of a large variety of animal species and individuals, and their relationships to rapidly disappearing social and ecological conditions. But how do we obtain this knowledge? Studying cognition in the wild is a challenge. Field researchers (and their study subjects) face many factors that can easily interfere with their variables of interest. Although field studies of cognition present unique challenges, they are still invaluable for understanding the evolutionary drivers of cognition. In this review, I discuss the advantages and urgency of field‐based studies on animal cognition and introduce a novel observational approach for field research that is guided by three questions: (a) what do animals fail to find?, (b) what do they not do?, and (c) what do they only do when certain conditions are met? My goal is to provide guidance to future field researchers examining primate cognition.     

Core systems of geometry in animal minds

Research on humans from birth to maturity converges with research on diverse animals to reveal foundational cognitive systems in human and animal minds. The present article focuses on two such systems of geometry. One system represents places in the navigable environment by recording the distance and direction of the navigator from surrounding, extended surfaces. The other system represents objects by detecting the shapes of small-scale forms. These two systems show common signatures across animals, suggesting that they evolved in distant ancestral species. As children master symbolic systems such as maps and language, they come productively to combine representations from the two core systems of geometry in uniquely human ways; these combinations may give rise to abstract geometric intuitions. Studies of the ontogenetic and phylogenetic sources of abstract geometry therefore are illuminating of both human and animal cognition. Research on animals brings simpler model systems and richer empirical methods to bear on the analysis of abstract concepts in human minds. In return, research on humans, relating core cognitive capacities to symbolic abilities, sheds light on the content of representations in animal minds.     

Wild justice and fair play: cooperation,forgiveness, and morality in animals

In this paper I argue that we can learn much about ‘wild justice’ and the evolutionary origins of social morality – behaving fairly – by studying social play behavior in group-living animals, and that interdisciplinary cooperation will help immensely. In our efforts to learn more about the evolution of morality we need to broaden our comparative research to include animals other than non-human primates. If one is a good Darwinian, it is premature to claim that only humans can be empathic and moral beings. By asking the question ‘What is it like to be another animal?’ we can discover rules of engagement that guide animals in their social encounters. When I study dogs, for example, I try to be a ‘dogocentrist’ and practice ‘dogomorphism.’ My major arguments center on the following ‘big’ questions: Can animals be moral beings or do they merely act as if they are? What are the evolutionary roots of cooperation, fairness, trust, forgiveness, and morality? What do animals do when they engage in social play? How do animals negotiate agreements to cooperate, to forgive, to behave fairly, to develop trust? Can animals forgive? Why cooperate and play fairly? Why did play evolve as it has? Does ‘being fair’ mean being more fit – do individual variations in play influence an individual's reproductive fitness, are more virtuous individuals more fit than less virtuous individuals? What is the taxonomic distribution of cognitive skills and emotional capacities necessary for individuals to be able to behave fairly, to empathize, to behave morally? Can we use information about moral behavior in animals to help us understand ourselves? I conclude that there is strong selection for cooperative fair play in which individuals establish and maintain a social contract to play because there are mutual benefits when individuals adopt this strategy and group stability may be also be fostered. Numerous mechanisms have evolved to facilitate the initiation and maintenance of social play to keep others engaged, so that agreeing to play fairly and the resulting benefits of doing so can be readily achieved. I also claim that the ability to make accurate predictions about what an individual is likely to do in a given social situation is a useful litmus test for explaining what might be happening in an individual's brain during social encounters, and that intentional or representational explanations are often important for making these predictions.     

Relations of homology between higher cognitive emotions and basic emotions

In the last 10 years, several authors including Griffiths and Matthen have employed classificatory principles from biology to argue for a radical revision in the way that we individuate psychological traits. Arguing that the fundamental basis for classification of traits in biology is that of ‘homology’ (similarity due to common descent) rather than ‘analogy’, or ‘shared function’, and that psychological traits are a special case of biological traits, they maintain that psychological categories should be individuated primarily by relations of homology rather than in terms of shared function. This poses a direct challenge to the dominant philosophical view of how to define psychological categories, viz., ‘functionalism’. Although the implications of this position extend to all psychological traits, the debate has centered around ‘emotion’ as an example of a psychological category ripe for reinterpretation within this new framework of classification. I address arguments by Griffiths that emotions should be divided into at least two distinct classes, basic emotions and higher cognitive emotions, and that these two classes require radically different theories to explain them. Griffiths argues that while basic emotions in humans are homologous to the corresponding states in other animals, higher cognitive emotions are dependent on mental capacities unique to humans, and are therefore not homologous to basic emotions. Using the example of shame, I argue that (a) many emotions that are commonly classified as being higher cognitive emotions actually correspond to certain basic emotions, and that (b) the “higher cognitive forms” of these emotions are best seen as being homologous to their basic forms.     

Humans and Wild Animals in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Texts: Interactions and Metaphors

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the relations between humans and wild animals in the lands of the Bible and ancient Near East and the way in which these cultures used various creatures and their characteristics as metaphors for dangerous enemies. It focuses on three particular periods in which the sources at our disposal document human–wild animal interactions. The first section discusses the emergence of civilization in Mesopotamia as reflected in various texts, discussing their portrait of the epoch in which human culture took shape and domesticated animals began to be clearly differentiated from wild ones. The second part looks at human–canine relations—wild dogs and their domesticated counterparts—briefly surveying how the former serve as metaphors for enemies beyond inhabited regions as evinced in the Egyptian El-Amarna archive. The third section analyzes the human–animal relations portrayed in the biblical texts, reviewing the theological principles they adopt in relation to the animal kingdom and the way in which wild animals became a metaphor for both wicked adversaries and striking physical attributes.     

Termites as models of swarm cognition

Eusociality has evolved independently at least twice among the insects: among the Hymenoptera (ants and bees), and earlier among the Isoptera (termites). Studies of swarm intelligence, and by inference, swarm cognition, have focused largely on the bees and ants, while the termites have been relatively neglected. Yet, termites are among the world’s premier animal architects, and this betokens a sophisticated swarm intelligence capability. In this article, I review new findings on the workings of the mound of Macrotermes which clarify how these remarkable structures work, and how they come to be built. Swarm cognition in these termites is in the form of “extended” cognition, whereby the swarm’s cognitive abilities arise both from interaction amongst the individual agents within a swarm, and from the interaction of the swarm with the environment, mediated by the mound’s dynamic architecture. The latter provides large scale “cognitive maps” which enable termite swarms to assess the functional state of their structure and to guide repair efforts where necessary. The crucial role of the built environment in termite swarm cognition also points to certain “swarm cognitive disorders”, where swarms can be pushed into anomalous activities by manipulating crucial structural and functional attributes of the termite system of “extended cognition.”     

Delectable Creatures and the Fundamental Reality of Metaphor: Biosemiotics and Animal Mind

This article argues that organisms, defined by a semi-permeable membrane or skin separating organism from environment, are (must be) semiotically alert responders to environments (both Innenwelt and Umwelt). As organisms and environments complexify over time, so, necessarily, does semiotic responsiveness, or ‘semiotic freedom’. In complex environments, semiotic responsiveness necessitates increasing plasticity of discernment, or discrimination. Such judgements, in other words, involve interpretations. The latter, in effect, consist of translations of a range of sign relations which, like metaphor, are based on transfers (carryings over) of meanings or expressions from one semiotic ‘site’ to another. The article argues that what humans describe as ‘metaphor’ (and believe is something which only pertains to human speech and mind and, in essence, is ‘not real’) is, in fact, fundamental to all semiotic and biosemiotic sign processes in all living things. The article first argues that metaphor and mind are immanent in all life, and are evolutionary, and, thus, that animals certainly do have minds. Following Heidegger and then Agamben, the article continues by asking about the place of animal mind in humans, and concludes that, as a kind of ‘night science’, ‘humananimal’ mind is central to the semiotics of Peircean abduction.     

Wild Animals in Our Backyard. A Contextual Approach to the Intrinsic Value of Animals

As a reflection on recent debates on the value of wild animals we examine the question of the intrinsic value of wild animals in both natural and man-made surroundings. We examine the concepts being wild and domesticated. In our approach we consider animals as dependent on their environment, whether it is a human or a natural environment. Stressing this dependence we argue that a distinction can be made between three different interpretations of a wild animal’s intrinsic value: a species-specific, a naturalistic, and an individualistic interpretation. According to the species-specific approach, the animal is primarily considered as a member of its species; according to the naturalistic interpretation, the animal is seen as dependent on the natural environment; and according to the individualistic approach, the animal is seen in terms of its relationship to humans. In our opinion, the species-specific interpretation, which is the current dominant view, should be supplemented—but not replaced by—naturalistic and individualistic interpretations, which focus attention on the relationship of the animal to the natural and human environments, respectively. Which of these three interpretations is the most suitable in a given case depends on the circumstances and the opportunity for the animal to grow and develop according to its nature and capabilities.     

Biosymbols: Symbols in Life and Mind

The strong continuity thesis postulates that the properties of mind are an enriched version of the properties of life, and thus that life and mind differ in degree and not kind. A philosophical problem for this view is the ostensive discontinuity between humans and other animals in virtue of our use of symbols—particularly the presumption that the symbolic nature of human cognition bears no relation to the basic properties of life. In this paper, we make the case that a genuine account of strong continuity requires the identification of some sort of correlate of symbol-use in basic life properties. Our strategy is three-fold: 1) we argue that examples of proto-symbolism in simple living systems would be consistent with an evolutionary trajectory that ultimately produced symbolic cognition in humans; 2) we introduce Gordon Tomkins’ biological notion of ‘symbol’ as something that represents to the organism a feature of its environment that is significant to its survival; and 3) we employ this biological understanding of symbol-use to suggest that the symbolic nature of human cognition can be understood as an enriched version of the basic symbolic properties of life, thus preserving life-mind continuity in this context.     

Manipulating Representations

The present paper proposes a definition for the complex polysemic concepts of consciousness and awareness (in humans as well as in other species), and puts forward the idea of a progressive ontological development of consciousness from a state of ‘childhood’ awareness, in order to explain that humans are not only able to manipulate objects, but also their mental representations. The paper builds on the idea of qualia intended as entities posing regular invariant requests to neural processes, trough the permanence of different properties. The concept of semantic differential introduces the properties of metaphorical qualia as an exclusively human ability. Furthermore this paper proposes a classification of qualia, according to the models–with different levels of abstraction–they are implied in, in a taxonomic perspective. This, in turn, becomes a source of categorization of divergent representations, sign systems, and forms of intentionality, relying always on biological criteria. New emerging image-of-the-world-devices are proposed, whose qualia are likely to be only accessible to humans: emotional qualia, where emotion accounts for the invariant and dominant property; and the qualic self where continuity, combined with the oneness of the self, accounts for the invariant and dominant property. The concept of congruence between different domains in a metaphor introduces the possibility of a general evaluation of truth and falsity of all kinds of metaphorical constructs, while the work of Matte Blanco enables us to classify conscious versus unconscious metaphors, both in individuals and in social organizations.     

Evolution of a predictive internal model in an embodied and situated agent

We show how simulated robots evolved for the ability to display a context-dependent periodic behavior can spontaneously develop an internal model and rely on it to fulfill their task when sensory stimulation is temporarily unavailable. The analysis of some of the best evolved agents indicates that their internal model operates by anticipating sensory stimuli. More precisely, it anticipates functional properties of the next sensory state rather than the exact state that sensors will assume. The characteristics of the states that are anticipated and of the sensorimotor rules that determine how the agents react to the experienced states, however, ensure that they produce very similar behaviour during normal and blind phases in which sensory stimulation is available or is self-generated by the agent, respectively. Agents’ internal models also ensure an effective transition during the phases in which agents’ internal dynamics is decoupled and re-coupled with the sensorimotor flow. Our results suggest that internal models might have arisen for behavioral reasons and successively exapted for other cognitive functions. Moreover, the obtained results suggest that self-generated internal states should not necessarily match in detail the corresponding sensory states and might rather encode more abstract and motor-oriented information.     

Resistance to tetracycline, macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin, trimethoprim, and sulfonamide drug classes

The discovery and use of antimicrobial agents in the last 50 yr has been one of medicine’s greatest achievements. These agents have reduced morbidity and mortality of humans and animals and have directly contributed to human’s increased life span. However, bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to these agents by mutations, which alter existing bacterial proteins, and/or acquisition of new genes, which provide new proteins. The latter are often associated with mobile elements that can be exchanged quickly across bacterial populations and may carry multiple antibiotic genes fo resistance. In some case, virulence factors are also found on these same mobile elements. There is mounting evidence that antimicrobial use in agriculture, both plant and animal, and for environmental purposes does influence the antimicrobial resistant development in bacteria important in humans and in reverse. In this article, we will examine the genes which confer resistance to tetracycline, macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin (MLS), trimethoprim, and sulfonamide.     

Superstition and belief as inevitable by-products of an adaptive learning strategy

The existence of superstition and religious beliefs in most, if not all, human societies is puzzling for behavioral ecology. These phenomena bring about various fitness costs ranging from burial objects to celibacy, and these costs are not outweighed by any obvious benefits. In an attempt to resolve this problem, we present a verbal model describing how humans and other organisms learn from the observation of coincidence (associative learning). As in statistical analysis, learning organisms need rules to distinguish between real patterns and randomness. These rules, which we argue are equivalent to setting the level of α for rejection of the null hypothesis in statistics, are governed by risk management as well as by comparison to previous experiences. Risk management means that the cost of a possible type I error (superstition) has to be traded off against the cost of a possible type II error (ignorance). This trade-off implies that the occurrence of superstitious beliefs is an inevitable consequence of an organism’s ability to learn from observation of coincidence. Comparison with previous experiences (as in Bayesian statistics) improves the chances of making the right decision. While this Bayesian approach is found in most learning organisms, humans have evolved a unique ability to judge from experiences whether a candidate subject has the power to mechanistically cause the observed effect. Such “strong” causal thinking evolved because it allowed humans to understand and manipulate their environment. Strong causal thinking, however, involves the generation of hypotheses about underlying mechanisms (i.e., beliefs). Assuming that natural selection has favored individuals that learn quicker and more successfully than others owing to (1) active search to detect patterns and (2) the desire to explain these patterns mechanistically, we suggest that superstition has evolved as a by-product of the first, and that belief has evolved as a by-product of the second.