If one fully analyzes the entire range of behavior of humans one quickly comes to the conclusion that most everything we do is instinctual (I prefer to think of it as memory from the past). This would include every aspect associated with movement, emotions, feelings, biological processes, sensing, as well as the thinking process itself. All of this, habitual in nature, prerequisite for any new behavioral formation such as throwing a baseball or using chopsticks. That some of us may find learning to throw a baseball easier than others, is an interesting side observation which provides clues about the nature of instincts, habits, and their relationship to memory. — Rich
As for animals or insects, I have no idea how they communicate but for sure they are learning and forming new habits also all the time. Bed bugs seem to be exceptionally good at this. — Rich
I would think this is the opposite of instinct. This is learned behavior, — schopenhauer1
And this would be instinctual for sure. — schopenhauer1
Observe all of the actions that your body is doing all the time "automatically" such as the processes of eating, breathing, reacting,
and thinking. They can't and shouldn't be ignored simply because they are "automatic". — Rich
Not at all. The learning process is exactly the same. — Rich
But I already recognized there are some basic drives that are indeed baked into the equations — schopenhauer1
Not exactly. I also recognized that animals learn too- but much of their learning is also innate in that they cannot but "help" but learn. — schopenhauer1
If people want to have a child, it is a desire just like any other desire. That is to say, it originates with concepts (I, raise, baby, development, nurture, care for, etc.) and concepts are purely in the realm of linguistic-cultural. — schopenhauer1
Instinct here is defined as an innate behavior in response to stimuli that is essentially "pre-programmed" in the organism. So, a bird flies south for the winter, sea turtles move towards the beach to lay eggs, etc. etc. I will also lump certain forms of learned behavior into instinct as well. — schopenhauer1
Yes, it is not innate, but it seems to be epigenetic in a way for some learned behavior in other animals, as they are "primed" to learn and cannot help but learn based on their programming — schopenhauer1
An example of this is a daughter chimp learns how to be a "good" mother from watching its mom. However, the daughter chimp does not have a choice to do anything but learn from her mother. It cannot say one day, "eh, I don't feel like being a mother". — schopenhauer1
In a way, this is an instinct to learn specialized behaviors for survival. — schopenhauer1
This linguistic mind has changed the way human behavior functions from other animals. It gives humans the ability to create complex hierarchical thinking. — schopenhauer1
Even something as fundamental as child-rearing is not instinctual. If people want to have a child, it is a desire just like any other desire. That is to say, it originates with concepts (I, raise, baby, development, nurture, care for, etc.) and concepts are purely in the realm of linguistic-cultural. — schopenhauer1
How do you know it is an instinct and not just something that is what you simply desire based on your personality and linguistic-cultural enculturation? — schopenhauer1
This is learned behavior, and not the kind where we just can't "help" but learn, but ones where the culture/family/community transmits information and instruction. — schopenhauer1
There is no decision, or alternatives. — schopenhauer1
The content is wide and varied due to ability for conceptual transmission via language. — schopenhauer1
If you do believe that, when do you think the instinct "decoupled" from linguistic-based cognition? — schopenhauer1
I would think this is the opposite of instinct. This is learned behavior, and not the kind where we just can't "help" but learn, but ones where the culture/family/community transmits information and instruction. — schopenhauer1
Almost all other animals' behaviors are driven by instinct. — schopenhauer1
Yes, it is not innate, but it seems to be epigenetic in a way for some learned behavior in other animals, as they are "primed" to learn and cannot help but learn based on their programming.An example of this is a... — schopenhauer1
These aren't just some basic, uninteresting drives. They are behavior that make up the vast amount of our existence. — Rich
You have no evidence of this? How did you arrive at this. Was it actual observations or biases formed during the educational process. Maybe biases are instinctual? — Rich
Just because a bird flies south for the winter doesn't mean that it doesn't 'think' it is doing that of its own accord. Just because a human thinks it has free will doesn't mean it does. — MonfortS26
Is the process of learning in humans any different?? Do humans deliberately learn?? They may be able to deliberately choose what to learn, but the process of learning is mostly intuitive/instinctual in humans as well as animals. — MonfortS26
Is this any different from humans learning how to be good parents?? Is there any evidence to suggest that this is the only place that chimps learn how to be good parents?? That they have no thought process themselves?? And do you have any evidence that chimp mothers are genetically incapable of abandoning their offspring??
Are there any behaviors that humans learn that aren't either specialized for survival or derived from behaviors that are?
Is this the product of instinct or something else?
Are desires not instinctual?? are concepts necessary for desires to exist?? Would a person that was raised in an environment without an existing language be unable to desire?? In my opinion, it seems more likely that desires are all instinctual and we use concepts to be able to communicate them to other people and ourselves, and the adaptation to a language is in itself instinctual.
The only way I could think of to prove that SOME desires are separate from culture would be to perform an experiment on humans to test what would happen if you raised someone in an environment without language or culture, and that would be deeply unethical.
Couldn't it be instinctual for the culture to transmit that information??
You believe in free will don't you?
Yes our ability to learn is improved by our ability to use language, couldn't that be viewed as an instinctual evolutionary advantage? Can you really call the human thought process anything but instinctual???
Yeah, but would you call that instinct? — schopenhauer1
I guess my evidence is that animals don't just reject learning something. — schopenhauer1
I'm not sure about "decoupling" (what's this?) — Caldwell
Pre-linguistic humans had the instinct of 'force' and how to use it. Remember that cave men would break animal bones by pounding -- they knew how to get the meat inside. How did they know that weight plus application of force equaled deconstruction. (And think about how early ideas of turning plants into powder to make something else out of them -- making a paste, a dough, collecting yeast from the air). You've seen birds take a nut and fly high and drop the nut to break its shell. That's instinct. — Caldwell
baby exposed to human speech.. It WILL learn the language it is exposed to whether it likes it or not. It might have preferred to learn Parisian French, but if it is exposed to Brooklyn Yiddish, that is what it will learn. We are compelled by instinct or we are primed, or it just happens automatically to learn language. The way our brain works is determined by genes. Instinct. — Bitter Crank
Babies seem to be born with very, very basic ideas about the way the world works. A prime demonstration of this is showing a baby a balloon filled with ordinary air. Let go of the ball and the baby smiles. Present the baby with a ballon filled with helium (or better, hydrogen gas about ready to explode spontaneously), let go, and the balloon rises to the ceiling. The baby is shocked. SHOCKED! It is surprised because the rising balloon violates it's basic expectation of the way the world works. — Bitter Crank
Probably not. Birds' survival depends on a lot of instinct and some learning. — Bitter Crank
Dogs that are in laboratory situations where they get rewarded for xyz behavior and can observer the other dogs doing the same thing, will stop cooperating if they do not receive a reward and other dogs do. Primates in a similar situation will stop cooperating if the quality of their rewards are deficient--like getting a piece of lettuce instead a slice of apple. Either there is an instinct for fairness, or the lab animals are capable of seeing futility. What's the point of cooperating if I am not going to get a reward? — Bitter Crank
Most animals have to learn certain things; there is variability among animals--not all worker bees are equally good at their tasks). Squirrels that aren't good at finding their buried food once it gets cold tend to starve. — Bitter Crank
I don't think dogs are born to summon assistance from people, but they do. Perhaps it has something to do with their instinctive gaze-following behavior. Dogs are one of the few animals that follow the human gaze. Dogs learn that if they want something that is inaccessible (the ball under the couch), they can get a person to fetch it for them by directing the persons' gaze to the ball under the couch. Dogs engage in unrelenting staring to alert us to their wishes. Once you stop reading and look at them, they will indicate (physically, of course) whether their food is overdue or that they want to go outside (to shit/piss/bark/wander aimlessly around). — Bitter Crank
Sex is mostly instinctive. Did you have to read a book to learn how to jack off? I hope not. Two dim teenagers can figure out how to have sex the first time without previous coaching. (Prior coaching is hard to avoid these days.) There is no grand design to a good share of the world's many billions of pregnancies. Arousal ----> insertion ----> ejaculation ----> sperm meets egg ----> conception ----> VOILA another baby on the way. It doesn't take any long-range planning (not a bad idea, it just isn't required). — Bitter Crank
I fail to see how this Skinnerian analysis of behavior is accurate. One can say, based on these sentiments, that people who are depressed will remain depressed because it is an instinctual trait of human beings to become depressed. Yet, people come out of depression... — Posty McPostface
I have not been robbed at gunpoint any other time, and I likely never again will. Therefore, my unlearned responses to being robbed at gunpoint will never become habit. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
I do not know if it is due to ignorance or dishonesty, but one that a lot of people really love to completely attribute to "nature" is sexual attitudes and actions. I see from the opposite pole: things like arousal are involuntary biological responses, but probably 99% of "sex" is cultural. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
Humans, somewhere along the way from Australopithicus to Homo sapiens have developed a linguistic/conceptual based mind (with developments of the Broca's region, Wernicke's region, neocortex, amongst other brain regions and networks. This linguistic mind has changed the way human behavior functions from other animals. It gives humans the ability to create complex hierarchical thinking. We still have very basic instincts (e.g. eating to get rid of hunger, warmth, a drive towards pleasure, etc.) but most other behavior any more complex than these basic drives, is based on linguistic-cultural origin and not instinct. — schopenhauer1
Besides language, general cultural features such as hierarchy-formation, domination of individuals and groups over other individuals and groups, story-telling (composing narratives out of experience), eating together, music (nothing specific, just the employment of music and rhythmic motion (dance) in some form, religious behaviors (again, nothing specific), and so on all demonstrate instinct. — Bitter Crank
This linguistic mind has changed the way human behavior functions from other animals. — schopenhauer1
Humans, after all, are born helpless; unlike other primates, a human baby can’t even cling to mother and has to be nursed for some years before becoming mobile. And extra-somatic learning occupies around 18 years for humans, which exceeds the entire lifespan of many other creatures. — Wayfarer
That is one reason why I think that the ‘biologism’ or biological reductionism that is so common today sells the human species short. It wants to argue that humans are ultimately understandable in biological terms - that we’re ‘just animals’, as has already been argued at least once in this thread. I think part of the motivation for that, is that we’re not given the tools to imagine ourselves as something more than animals - after all, what more could there be? Furthermore, it saves us a lot of existential anxiety, trying to ask such an open-ended question. Perhaps I’m being overly polemical in saying that, but it’s a serious point. — Wayfarer
Can't it be argued — schopenhauer1
...with the practical effect that humans are no longer animals as such. Whilst biologically their kinship with animals can’t be disputed, it is just the ability to think and speak which differentiates humans from animals. — Wayfarer
But humans reach a new evolutionary plateau, by being able to ask ‘why do this’, — Wayfarer
we have transcended our animal nature. Tech, bio, and mens don't always jive. — Bitter Crank
I wonder how it will be turn out? — Rich
Given the tools of molecular decoding, we can see that genes direct a significant portion of behaviors. Twin studies show how identical twins who were separated early on, developed remarkably similar lives. Genes presumably carry instincts, along with physical characteristics, in animals (in which we are grouped). — Bitter Crank
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