What separates humans from animals in regards to their habits?

First of all, just what defines a habit? I find habits very interesting, personally. Let me mention a few things that happen to me because of habits:

At night, I wear a retainer for my bottom teeth, which is in a case on my nightstand, along with a lamp. At night, I get my retainer and put it in, then turn off the light and fall asleep. When I return from school, I am usually a bit exhausted (mostly from climbing up all of the stairs to my room, with my heavy backpack) and my brain is sort of put on auto-pilot. Upon entering my room, I turn on the ceiling fan and two overhead lights, but I also walk around my bed to the nightstand to turn on the lamp as well. If I have had an especially long day, a couple of times I have actually grabbed my retainer case instead of turning on the light! I guess it is just a habitual action, and as my brain is on auto-pilot, it thinks that, in approaching the nightstand, that it is time for bed.

Another case: Sometimes I habitually flip the light switch when I leave a room, even if I didn’t turn it on when I entered.

There are probably more of these habits that other people have experienced, but I can’t list them all.

These sorts of habits are formed by repetitive action. Our brain seems to learn, after a certain amount of times performing an action, how to do that action with much less conscious thought on our parts.

So, do animals have this? Well, I did notice that habits are similar to conditioning. This has been discussed in class before, where dogs associate a bell with food, for instance. Is it the same thing, or just similar? The question I would ask is, which parts of the brain are involved in human habit forming and then in animals’ conditioning? I am no biologist, and, perhaps apprehensive of a long lecture by Mr. Poeser, I think I will forgo further inquiry, because I think that they are pretty much the same thing, by and large. Who is to say that a human, who heard a bell every time dinner was ready, might feel hungry every time they heard that particular bell? Our senses are linked, right? I know this quite well. Whenever I draw or read, I listen to music. I am listening to Debussy piano etudes at this very moment. Sometimes, if, say, a certain part of what I am reading stands out, then the music I was listening to at the time might trigger a memory of that part of the story. I think most people can relate to this in some way or another, whether it is with smells, images, sounds, or even tastes. This might be a more complex form of the conditioning that animals experience. It might not, who am I to say?

But of course there are other types of habits. Smoking, overeating, drinking, etc. Are these habits? They might be, but I would have to say that the above belong to addictions. Are addictions habits? In a way, at least by definition, they are. A habit is something you do over and over again, and a person addicted to smoking smokes over and over again. But I don’t think this is the unconscious, habitual action of, well, a habit. You might be wondering what on earth is this fool rambling on about? and you’d be justified in such thought, for I am indeed rambling. But I will now try my utmost in bringing this point into relevance for our discussion. Do animals get addicted to anything? I don’t know, but I don’t think so, although I have not studied animals. But let’s face it; the actions of animals are limited. I am addicted to playing the piano, but this is not something that animals can do or enjoy. In all, the different things that animals do are very few: find food, eat food, find/make shelter, sleep in shelter, find a mate, reproduce, protect young, find more food… they are very simple for the most part, and it seems odd to think of any animal addicted to anything. Granted, pets have more activities available to them. I stayed in a house for a while when I first moved to Holland, while searching for a house to rent. The owners of this house, good friends of ours, went to America, and we had charge of the house. They had a dog, whom I quickly befriended, and we had to take care of her whilst they were away. After a time, she was clearly missing her owners. To cheer her up, we decided to take her for a walk. I took out the leash, and she started jumping up and down (on me, I might add) in joy and excitement at seeing the leash; she clearly knew that she would be getting to run outside and be (sort of) free. Now, Moxie is intelligent for a dog. She can shake hands, and she literally growls if you say the C word (cat). But even with her apparent love for taking walks, I really don’t think that she, or any other animal, would be addicted to anything. But of course, if you don’t consider addictions as habits, then this probably doesn’t matter to you anyway. Way back before I started the anecdote about the dog, I promised to make clear my point. I said that I don’t believe that addictions and habits are quite the same. In my feelings on what the word habit means and implies, it has to be something unconscious, and I don’t think that addictions are unconscious, especially for those who are fighting their addictions. Now you might be thinking, what about the phrase habits die hard? habits are hard to break? Well if you are thinking about NOT falling into a habit, you won’t do it, but I don’t think anyone would say that someone addicted to drinking just went into a bar, ordered a drink for a ridiculous sum, and consumed it without realising what they were doing, as if they were on auto-pilot. This is where I draw the line between habits and addictions.

So, habits might exist in animals, they might not, depending on what kind of habit you are talking about.

Wait a minute! I thought about a horrible habit I used to have, of biting my fingernails! This is a terrible habit to have (mind this was well before I had any desire to be a piano player) and the only reason I broke it was because of getting braces. They made it impossible, as the brackets protruding from my teeth pushed my fingers away enough to restrain the nail from reaching the point where top and bottom teeth meet. Forcing it would be risky; the glue holding the brackets in place is tight, but not infallible. And biting my fingernails certainly was not an addiction! It is painful: constant hangnails, jagged nails scratching my hands…. And quite disgusting considering the dirt that collects under the fingernails. Do animals have habits that would match this sort of thing? A dog scratching fleas, perhaps? No, that is caused by the itch of the fleas of course. I really can’t think of any habits like that that any animals have. But what do I know?

Speaking of what I know, this blog assessment is supposed to use ways of knowing, and areas of knowledge. Out of the four, perception and reason seem to be the most relevant, with perception at the top. What we see determines a lot about what we know, or think we know. I have mentioned observing animals, and also the fact that I have not really done this myself. But, really, what can observation of animals tell us about their habits, or lack thereof? Back to the limited activities subject, animals mostly repeat the same thing every day, so who’s to say that’s not habit? Again, I have not studied animals with intent to learn more about their behaviour, so I can’t sit here and write Animals do not have habits or Animals have habits. And if you are going to use WoK #4, emotion, then your results will be even more skewed. I am sure many pet owners form emotional attachments to their pets, and regard them as members of their family. They spend much time with them, and they learn their characteristics and nuances. Where a certain cat likes to nap, or a certain dog likes to bury his bone. Emotion can be a way of knowing, but at the same time an obstacle, blurring the lines between what we think we know and the truth. What is the truth? I don’t know.

I like being cryptic.

Right. Onto the areas of knowledge. These include, but are not limited to: The natural sciences, the human sciences, mathematics, arts. Looking at the index, the heading Problems with Observation jumps out, pg. 228, under natural sciences. Are animals affected by the observer effect, I wonder? Hard to know, because you can’t observe a subject without observing it. The observer effect not only states that the knowledge of being watched affects behaviour, but that simply the act of observation affects behaviour. After all, not many animals are familiar with the functions of cameras, but an animal in a controlled environment is not in its natural habitat. You could take cameras out into the jungle I suppose, but that’s not really feasible. You could place some small cameras about, and hope they capture something. But it’s not going to give great results.

Having discussed one area of knowledge, the logical area to discuss next would be the human sciences. That’s exactly what I am going to do! I am in the chapter of the book right now. It starts at page 257. Already it talks about whether or not we “just animals,”… I’m browsing the chapter for anything related to habits… note that observer effect is again mentioned… OK. Ignoring a call to investigate free will which could tie into habits, possibly… I am going to discuss psychology. Pg. 264, it says, “…rise to a school of psychology known as behaviourism, which redefined the subject as the scientific study, not of consciousness, but of behaviour. Habits fall under behaviour, don’t they? Well, I’m not sure myself just where I am going with this topic, but I suppose that, if one was to say that habit was a sort of automated behaviour, which I have already said could possibly be shared between animals and ourselves, as with the habits we experience, and with conditioning in animals, then the whole matter of habits is really a fruitless venture for any study if one wants to gain evidence either for or against the original argument.

Personally, I think that habits are irrelevant when discussing the difference between humans and animals. Indeed, in my own personal opinion, the only difference that really matters when talking about the difference between us and animals is that we have a soul, and they don’t. Of course, many people don’t believe this (including the majority of our class, if I’m not mistaken) so this is a most unsatisfactory answer for the question. So do people who don’t believe that humans have souls ever believe that humans and animals are different (which is to say, that humans cannot be defined as animals, save in the symbolic sense)? If so, I am curious as to what their reasoning is. It seems that their reasons would be mere technicalities, at least relative to the scope of the implications of humans’ possession of souls. Indeed I think that for the most part the debate between those who separate humans from animals and those who don’t is this whole matter of the soul. Not always, but, I think, usually. For those who believe that humans have a soul, and that animals don’t (as of course there are some religions in which it is thought that people can be reincarnated as animals, in which case the level of human is not brought down to animal level, but the level of animals is brought up to human level. Sort of like PETA) it is inconsequential: all of the things like habits or what have you. The only thing to be considered in distinguishing humans from animals should be the soul. At least, it is what I deem to be the most important part of the whole thing. And that whole matter of the soul is of course a different topic of discussion entirely.

*Wow! 2126 word count! That must be a personal record for blog assignments! A good way to end the year :)

Enjoy your summer break, all who have read my blog! Here's some music for you, if you want.

The Free Will Problem

Determinism: The universe operates in accordance with the causal principle that every event has a cause. Determinists believe that our actions can ultimately be traced back to factors beyond our control, thereby robbing us of our free-will. (Pg. 288-9)
Basically, an event is caused by the previous event, and that event will cause the next event, and so on....
But where does it all start?

My opinion is that determinism is non-sense. Our actions are going to be what they are going to be, but we choose what those actions are. The future may be set in stone, and we can't change it: what's going to happen IS going to happen. But that doesn't mean that we don't have free will. We still choose every one of our actions. This paradox is often presented in TV/movies/books when time travel is involved. It becomes very confusing, and it makes your head hurt trying to think about it. There's no point though, because time travel is impossible (although traveling to the 'future' would be possible if you spent time close to a black hole and returned to earth).

I can see where determinists might be coming from though. If our actions are determined by our previous state then it might make sense that life is just a series of chain reactions.

But it doesn't make sense to me, and It doesn't even have a ring of plausability to it, in my opinion. Our actions aren't always determined by how we feel at a deep level, and sometimes we act against those feelings.

Consider what goes on during a decision making process. Many decisions we make, the programmed decisions, are made impulsively and out of habit. Sometimes, if I am thinking about something else, I will flip the light switch when leaving a room, even if it was off in the first place! Maybe this is what determinists are thinking? But it is just out of habit, and more important are the larger decisions we have to make. They are not made quickly, and, as discussed previously, reason and emotion have to be considered. Difficult decisions require a great deal of thought, and this is why I don't think determinism is true, and that we do have free will.

A final point is that free will is not to be confused with what you can physically do and what you are allowed or not allowed to do. If your parents or teachers say you have to do something, you might feel that you don't have free will anymore. But you don't have to do those things. It's just wise to.

Are the soft sciences harder than the hard sciences?

The difference between soft and hard sciences. First of all, what are they?

Hard Science: Physics, Chemistry, Molecular biology &c.

Soft Science: Anthropology, Psychology, Ecology &c.

Soft sciences are more ambiguous. Hard sciences have a backbone, and it doesn't break easily. In physics, an object will always act the same way, but in psychology, there is no prediction for the behaviour of a human being. As reported in the article, the soft sciences are much harder to measure with a number, if indeed measurement is possible in the first place. In the article on page 283-5 from Jared Diamond, the authour does a good job of explaining how difficult it is to take results of tests from ecology or psychology and turn it into numbers, numbers that can be compared with other results. But he says it is possible. It seems harder to do this than to measure something in the realm of hard sciences. Now, I wouldn't know the first thing to do in measuring, to a number, the sweetness of nectar, besides tasting it myself. But that's just because I'm no scientist. Scientists know exactly how to do it, and they've made a system for doing it. Though it would be difficult for me, the chemists can do it without much difficulty. But with the birds and the density of foliage, it was much harder to measure. It took the creativity of MacArthur to solve the problem, and I think that this is one reason that the soft sciences can be much harder than the hard ones. It's the fact that the soft sciences are so ambiguous and vague that makes it so hard to get solid and useful data. It takes a clever mind and creativity to do it (though not to say that hard scientists don't have that) and even then it won't be perfect. This is why perhaps the two types of sciences have been wrongly named.

Why do we often think of the hard sciences as being more reliable in truth seeking? Well, the hard sciences are themselves more reliable. But it depends on what truth we seek. If you want to know why people act the way they do, you're not going to find the answer in physics. But the hard sciences might be easier to understand than, say, psychology. To understand why people act the way they do one should study that before physics, obviously. But psychology is probably the most abstract soft science of all, which might put many people off studying it, and cause them to turn to the warm embrace of the hard sciences, which might not be so hard after all.

Was the Jelly Belly experiment scientific?

The Jelly Belly Experiment was an experiment to test the level at which sight affects taste. If you have a really bad memory, or weren't there, this is how the experiment happened. There were two testers who were blindfolded; two were not. There were 13 different flavours of jelly bean. Using a list of possible flavours, the testers were fed beans and guessed their flavours. The data was assembled in a table, and compared with the correct answers. Here are the results:
The blindfolded testers missed 11 out of 13 and 8 out of 12 (one bean was missing apparently) respectively. The sight-enabled testers missed 3 and 2 respectively.

Taste is a sense that is a lot weaker than our sight, and it's used far less. So it is logical that seeing what you are about to eat is going to alter your experience of the taste, and therefore how it actually tastes. For instance, If you see a yellow Jelly Bean, it probably won't be cotton-candy flavoured, and even if it tastes cotton-candy flavoured, you won't put that down on paper because, well, how could it be? In this experiment, the added advantage of sight meant that the testers got most of the flavours right. But the blindfolded tasters weren't biased by sight, and judged on taste alone. Also they didn't know all of the flavours possible (at least at first) so they might be thinking, for example, "blueberry" only to find it's not a choice. It was a choice, but it's just an example. Anyway, the blindfolded testers scored far worse. This shows that sight does affect our reaction to taste. But just how seriously should we take that result?

Was the experiment "scientific"?

Conditions
The testers did not have a drink of water in between each bean, which meant that they had remnants of previous beans in their teeth. This does not help get accurate results. A scientific investigation should not allow for such error when it can be avoided.
Quantity
There were only two testers per group. A good scientific investigation needs a sample size of larger than two.
Controllability
The start of the experiment was chaos. During the process of figuring out which numbers the beans went on, some of the testers discovered accidentally the flavour of one or two beans. A good scientific experiment should not be so largely improvised, as this one was. The beans should have been ready to be tested from the beginning. At the very least a plan should have been laid out. This was not the case.
Measurability? Repeatability?
A good experiment is repeatable, which means that a repeat performance will achieve similar results. In this case, the testers are likely to get better with each test, as they become more familiar with the flavours. If the test was repeated with different testers though, and different flavours, then it probably would get similar results each time, but of course there is the variability of different people's ability to taste and previous familiarity with the Jelly Bean flavours.
A good experiment has measurable results. This is where our experiment is the strongest. Our results were certainly measurable, and a comparison of those measurements was all we needed to test our hypothesis.

In conclusion, the process at the beginning of our experiment would make real scientists laugh, and the lack of quantitative evidence makes the reliability of the data lower than it could be. However, the results do match our hypothesis and what is simply logical. I will say that the experiment was quasi-scientific.

Will Science One Day Provide The Answer--The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything Else?

It is impossible to imagine the future.

A paradigm shift is not something small. It is a complete change in mentality, and it takes a great effort to make that change. Stubbornness will make that change even harder, and usually a paradigm shift occurs over a generation. When Einstein's theories of relativity showed scientists that Newton's laws were imperfect, it was not an immediate change; it didn't happen over night. When we try to think of what the future may hold for science, it is very hard to imagine a new theory disproving Einstein's, for example. However, the same held true for the people before Einstein. In Newton's day, it would have been hard to imagine anything else. And even longer ago, it would have been hard to imagine that the earth was round. It is very interesting to see older movies that portray the future. Have you seen the films Back to the Future? In that movie, the future holds hover-boards and time-machines. Will the future have hover boards? I'd like one! We can't know, however. It seems hard to imagine anything better than, say, an iPod. (Besides one with more memory) But it was also impossible for people with record players back in the day to imagine that such tiny devices as iPods would be able to store all that music. So what I'm saying is that the future of science cannot be predicted.
Science is about testing what is known, in order to find truth. So what if the final theory is made: The answer to life, the universe, and everything else? Won't scientists keep running tests to find out if it is true or not? Will they ever stop? Because if they do, and there is more then they will miss out. I don't think that science holds all the answers. In fact, it leaves many questions unanswered. That does not mean that I believe science to be a useless endeavour, not at all! We owe it to ourselves to explore science to the fullest. But there are other things that should be pursued; science should not be the sole object of life.

42

What Makes Pseudo-Science Pseudo?

There are many differences between true science and pseudo-science. As discussed in class, science by its nature begs to be disproved. Without the constant strive to disprove (or test the validity) what we think we know there will be no ascension in the level of collected knowledge of our race. This is how our knowledge is ever increasing. As Popper said, our knowledge is constantly going through revolutions or paradigm shifts.
But with any pseudo-science, "psientists," as I will dub them, do not like to test their theories. They will get uncomfortable if you try, which immediately suggests that they are uncertain of their theories. If they had any true faith in them, they would say, "By all means, test my theory!" But they don't, generally speaking. And if you do, and you find contradicting evidence, they will ignore it, and write it off as an exception. This is bad. Any theory with exceptions is one filled with holes. For scientific law there can be no exceptions. Now for specific examples.
Astrologists believe that the position of the stars has some sort of significance in our lives, and, indeed, our love lives even! However, I don't think astrology should even be considered as science-anything--whether it's pseudo- or otherwise. It is not at all founded upon any scientific evidence. Despite truckloads of disproving evidence, believers in astrology continue to waste time reading horoscopes. They just ignore falsifying evidence and jump and hang on to every single thing that confirms it, even when it happens only one out of ten-- nay, one hundred times.

I want to talk about Feng Shui now. Last year, during a project week, there was a presentation about Feng Shui in school. I was sick that whole week, and I spent it writing music at home. Anyway, I learned that Feng Shui is an art of moving things about in your room to improve ki (chi/qi/whatever) flow. More specifically, I believe it has something to do with negative and positive energy. I'm not sure. Now, I can see how, for instance, being in a cluttered room painted orange would cause a person to feel rather a lot of negative energy. If that person is affected by the colour of orange, which is said to make you feel restless, and if that person is claustrophobic, then it would make sense that the person would feel discomforted by being in that room. However, that has nothing to do with "ki energy." On the topic of ki, there are interesting videos circling YouTube about things called "Chi Spinners." They are clever devices that spin when the heat of a person's hand is close enough. However, others would have you believe that they spin by your internal energy. The first video is advertising the chi spinner, and the second, a video of a clever young lad discrediting the spinner, and bringing its trickery to light.



I don't know what's more sad: The fact that they are actually looking through this manual and trying to figure out their chi level, or the fact that they spent $10 on it! Clearly the manufacturers are on to a money winning scheme....

Now let's watch someone who isn't fooled...



Even though he states that he does believe in chi energy, he is able to see through the chi spinner.

Oh, and this guy is just hilarious...



His arguments are extremely weak, and have no backing in evidence. The only thing I feel if I rotate my arm is it getting tired. Now, if this guy had rotated his arm and powered an electrical device with his "chi," then that would be something. But he doesn't, and this lack of solid evidence is another difference between science and false science.

Are mathematicians smarter than us?

Supposedly, good mathematicians have better...

a) Short term memory/retention of data in short term

b) Ability to problem solve with numbers

Now, a lot of good mathematicians are able to take a problem and arrive at an answer using logic and, well, smarts as it may be called. In this sense, mathematicians are quite smart, but are they smarter than other people? Just because a person can't solve a math problem, doesn't mean that they can't solve real-life problems. But it does depend on how you define intelligence. If it is indeed defined by level of short term memory, and ability to solve math problems, then mathematicians are smarter than the rest of us mere mortals. Indeed it is quite interesting, the way we gauge intelligence in our world. For instance, SAT tests, which you need to take to get into college in America, they test you on two things: English, and Mathematics. Now the English one makes perfect sense; it tests your command of the English language, and the Essay shows your ability to use language to formulate your thoughts. But it could be that someone does excellently on the math portion, and horribly on the English part (I'm working under the assumption that English is this person's mother-tongue). And then another person does bad on the math, but great on the English. Which one is smarter than the other?

It cannot be determined. At least, not by these methods. Intelligence is manifested in different ways and in different areas of knowledge in different people.

So does short term memory improve mathematical ability? It certainly seems helpful, and an advantage in problem solving.

OK I just took a break from this blog to work on math homework. Thankfully, my Mom helps me with it... I have now concluded that mathematicians are indeed smarter than the rest of us, and that we owe them all a debt of gratitude. Thus I conclude my blog assignment.