Well, the nerve pathways are shorter, are they not? Besides, how could anyone know what, if any, perception is going on inside the womb. Is there nerve transmission through the umbilical cord? Look that up.twite said:But what about for say..at birth. When you initially perceive something, you aren't interpreting simultaneously?
Here we run into a situation, where belief and knowledge collide. It is mostly accepted that human beings do not have instincts. Whether this is an ego ploy to further separate man from the animals, is also debatable. Once upon a time, it was believed that man had thousands of instincts. Once upon a time it was believed that you could cure health problems by bleeding someone. To which I might add, with oftentimes disastrous results. It does open up the question what exactly is interpretation of events. To me it seems, in that case, the disease came first.twite said:Because what is your perception based off? Instinct? I was just pondering it. The fact that there is a delay does make sense, it just seems weird that we can perceive something with no prior or simultaneous idea of what it is.
Can't be. It takes finite time to register the stimulus, connect it to known information and then start interpretation -- still more time to lock-intwite said:When you initially perceive something, you aren't interpreting simultaneously?
jobeard said:Can't be. It takes finite time to register the stimulus, connect it to known information and then start interpretation -- still more time to lock-in
an opinion or judgment.
captaincranky said:First, the assignation of the term "round" is a function of language. If you were spanish you'd call it "redondo", and it wouldn't be a "tire" it would be a "llanta" . (Pronounced "yanta").
Second, simply because we perceive the same object in the same terms, that only goes to the physical fact of it's existence. The nomenclature comes from descriptions derived from your, (and my), socialization. Somebody from another planet might see a blue, squareish thingy. We "see it" (actually describe it), the same because we were both socialized in a similar English culture. So that's not a result of any "instinct" whatsoever.
So, you receive a sensory "impression" of a physical object, then you apply the process of interpretation, through a series of learned comparisons. I know a lit stove is not an ice cube through a series of learned evaluations. I perceive it, I evaluate it, I react to it, Hopefully always in that order.
As to whether humans have "instinct", we possess less than all other animals, due to the fact we are born less capable of surviving than all other creatures. Instinct is the term we apply to a creatures ability to survive without formal learning. Actually I think humans do have vestigial instinctive capabilities, but nothing to the extent we could survive on. It takes a few years for a human to learn that a tiger is dangerous, or that a cow could be dinner. The tiger knows that the cow is dinner from the jump, or close to it. The transmission of knowledge from generation to generation is much lower in animals. Mama tiger can't break out a book with a picture of a cow in it to show junior, he's got to learn by watching her.
As to perceiving and interpreting at the same time, you may think you are, but measureably you're not.
captaincranky said:As to whether humans have "instinct", we possess less than all other animals, due to the fact we are born less capable of surviving than all other creatures. Instinct is the term we apply to a creatures ability to survive without formal learning. Actually I think humans do have vestigial instinctive capabilities, but nothing to the extent we could survive on. It takes a few years for a human to learn that a tiger is dangerous, or that a cow could be dinner. The tiger knows that the cow is dinner from the jump, or close to it. The transmission of knowledge from generation to generation is much lower in animals. Mama tiger can't break out a book with a picture of a cow in it to show junior, he's got to learn by watching her.
Obi-Wan Jerkobi said:When we're interpreting, we're like a GUI, changing the base data (Binary in a PC's case) into a language that we can understand.(English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, etc.) Interpretation is taking the original data apart to explain it.
And then you wonder...what does this data transcoding?
Back in the day when sociology was in it's infancy, (right, like it isn't now), it became fashionable for "sociologists" to describe what they considered "instincts" in humans, until the numbers of "human instincts" ran into the thousands. Then they changed their "collective" mind(s). However, your description does bear a similarity to "herd instinct".SNGX1275 said:Evolutionary principles + our ability to defend ourselves allowed us to have more vulnerable offspring because the elders in the community could protect them.
These are the good, solid, fundamental principles behind the arms race. Now, if we could only figure out how a creature with 99% of the same DNA as a Chimpanzee got it's hands on thermonuclear weapons, the rest of life's mysteries would be solved.SNGX1275 said:Anyone that can grip a weapon is now potentially higher on the food chain than anyone that can't, they just need to be able to think well enough to figure out how to use what they have in their hands to their advantage.