There is something fascinating about this video where a monkey seems to be teaching a human (or at least uses a human) to crush leaves. The man should watch closely. We previously saw how monkeys have a much more efficient way to peel bananas.
The monkey could be playing or using the human for the task. Either way, it is rather riveting.
There is growing evidence of various species using tools – a task once thought to distinguish humans from the rest of the animal kingdom.
The scientific paper I have cited to concerning the evolution of cognition, was published in Physica:
(Wikipedia, “Physica Journal”). The main author Eshel Ben-Jacob, is an advisor to the NASA Ames Microbes Mind Forum.
Here is a lecture he gave:
Gene: It causes drain bamage.
Ha ha ha. 🙂
Dredd: You seem to be saying that cognition did not evolve. They are saying it did evolve.
That is a false characterization. Cognition evolved, certainly. After neurons evolved as a specialization in multi-cellular animals. Cognition did not evolve in bacteria, and if that is their claim, they are making an overblown claim I would reject as a peer reviewer (which I am, as a professional academician).
Dredd says: it is that if cognition evolves rather than magically appears in a relative instant, then there will be signs of it all along the way.
If you had bothered to read what I said, I already said that. Neurons evolved. In ants and other tiny brained animals, they do not seem to be engaged much in cognition, but seem to be “hard-coded” reactions to sensory patterns.
Dredd says: To give these experts their due, rather than puff our own opinion, what they see is the obvious: “fundamental elements of cognition can also be found in bacteria.
Nothing is “due” them or any other scientist, and I am a scientist and feel no particularly compelling reason to give any scientist, anywhere, deference for being “an expert.” Every formal claim a scientist makes should be judged on its content alone, regardless of their credentials or fame or status of publication; the last of which is supposed to be a garbage filter, and is, but all professional scientists are fully aware it can let through some seriously flawed crap.
Cognition evolved; cognition bears some resemblance to networks, to multi-cellular chemical signaling, etc. Because cognition evolved from neurons, and they are a collection of entities that also are organized, and also signal each other, but uniquely adapt, permanently, to specialist roles. Unlike computers in a network, or bacteria in a colony. Cognition requires that permanent specialization; and requires neurons. Bacterial colonies have evolved a response to certain environmental stimuli that resembles a cognitive decision without being one.
My statement about evolution is that it does the same thing; and people make the mistake (particularly religious people) of asserting some sort of intelligence MUST be behind what they anthropomorphically call “clever” designs or “genius” biological solutions produced by natural selection pressures. But there is no intelligence, or cognition, behind evolution. The physics of reproduction cause reproductively advantageous changes to be preserved, and reproductively disadvantageous changes to be destroyed, so that reproductively advantageous changes tend to accumulate.
To some, those billions (or maybe trillions) of little changes appear to be the result of an astonishing, awe-inspiring level of cognitive design, but they are not, evolution is not cognitive.
Evolution was my example to you of the error you are committing, and the error I believe Jacobs, et al also committed. Not everything that appears to be the result of cognition is a “fundamental element of cognition.” Particularly when evolution itself is involved, as it is in the operation of a bacterial colony!
Dredd,
You really need to learn how to read for comprehension. The reason your comments are out is I released them from the spam filter. If that was the total of your comments? Well then good for you, you ol’ microbe worshipper you. You avoided the Vortex.
You can keep the mead though.
It causes drain bamage.
Gene H. 1, December 7, 2013 at 1:18 pm
Dredd,
I released everything you had stuck in the filter. If you lost something else, it was eaten by the Sarlac, er, WordPress Vortex of Doom.
================================
The “offending paragraphs” which Tony C said is what caused Word Mess to reject my comments all day were Tony C imaginations.
All the comments I made are out of the sinking Word Mess Censor Ship now and are visible.
Thus, they were not, as you put it, eaten by the “Vortex of Doom”, nor as Tony C put it “offending paragraphs” to the doctrine and dogma of the Word Messiness Censorium.
They just offended Tony C, as I said all along.
The two bottles of Mead will be sent to the appropriate anti-Word Mess admin.
Once that Jedi identifies herself, himself, or itself (in case of artificial intelligence).
Mead is good for Scholarly Viking Warriors and Jedi Knights alike.
At least that is what it says in the Runes of the Midichlorians.
Tony C. 1, December 7, 2013 at 2:37 pm
Dredd: That presumes there is an offending paragraph.
Yes, and there is. The fact that we can post other things makes it true that some arrangement of words in your post is causing WordPress to flag your entire post as Spam. But, experience tells me, that the WP span of attention, like yours, is relatively short. Or to be more specific and less anthropomorphic, its range of analysis, in letters or words, is fairly small, and typically if one tries a short number of sentences at a time, what I loosely called a “paragraph,” they will pass and the locus of offending language will be found relatively quickly. It does not necessarily have to be offensive to humans; just to WP.
==================
I don’t doubt that that is your experience.
It is just that you do not learn from it.
I just posted two more comments to Tony C.
After sending to him for approval, please release them so the others reading this post can view them.
Thanks Word Mess.
In The Court of Pubic Opinion
=================================
Tony C.
vs.
All Scientists
Who Deign to
Disagree With
My Science
=================================
ANSWER of THE DEFENDANT SCIENTIFIC EXPERTS
COMES NOW the defendants and answer plaintiff Tony C’s complaint as follows:
1) DENY.
2) DENY.
3) DENY.
4) Wherefore, defendants pray that plaintiff take nothing.
5) By way of further response to plaintiff Tony C, defendants set forth the following affirmative defense:
(Seeking the foundations of cognition in bacteria, E. Ben Jacob et al. / Physica A 359 (2006) 495–524).
Tony C. 1, December 7, 2013 at 2:59 pm
E. Ben Jacob, via Dredd: We do not imply that bacteria possess human capabilities but that fundamental elements of cognition can also be found in bacteria
I think Jacob, et al, are stretching it beyond the breaking point. Does evolution “learn by experience?” Yes, it does, the experience of dying before reproduction filters out certain genetically determined capabilities (or lack thereof) that “discourage” those genetic configurations.
And it “learns” by the experience of highly successful reproduction that certain genetic sequences are “favored.”
But to suggest evolution has “cognition” because we can recast some of the ramifications of evolution as similar to ramifications of cognition does not make evolution “cognition.” It does not mean the roots of “cognition” are in evolution, somehow.
…
===============================
You seem to be saying that cognition did not evolve.
They are saying it did evolve.
It is not that “evolution has “cognition” as you put it, it is that if cognition evolves rather than magically appears in a relative instant, then there will be signs of it all along the way.
To give these experts their due, rather than puff our own opinion, what they see is the obvious: “fundamental elements of cognition can also be found in bacteria. From a practical perspective, this realization can shed light on the evolution of cognition and on the most basic requirement for its facilitation in all organisms.”
That seems to me to be so basic as to be something that belongs in Evolution 101.
E. Ben Jacob, via Dredd: We do not imply that bacteria possess human capabilities but that fundamental elements of cognition can also be found in bacteria
I think Jacob, et al, are stretching it beyond the breaking point. Does evolution “learn by experience?” Yes, it does, the experience of dying before reproduction filters out certain genetically determined capabilities (or lack thereof) that “discourage” those genetic configurations.
And it “learns” by the experience of highly successful reproduction that certain genetic sequences are “favored.”
But to suggest evolution has “cognition” because we can recast some of the ramifications of evolution as similar to ramifications of cognition does not make evolution “cognition.” It does not mean the roots of “cognition” are in evolution, somehow.
In peer review of this paper I would reject this statement as overblown rhetoric. Two routes to the same outcome do not imply the same underlying mechanism is at work.
Undoubtedly it is true that neural organization bears similarities to other collections of single-cell organizations, and will exhibit similarities to networks as well, but neural organization is not anything like the ad hoc organization of bacteria. The most glaring difference there is that in the neural network every neuron is specialized with a unique shape and relatively permanent (organically grown) connections to specific other neurons, and has customized itself specifically to process those and only those inputs from specific other neurons. Bacterium are not specialists, they are all essentially physically identical (or have a small collection of types), and their “connections” are diffuse, literally, by diffusion of chemical signals.
The cognition of humans and anything that looks like the cognition of bacterial colonies are so different it is misleading to try and call them the same thing; it is like calling tuberculosis and lung cancer two manifestations of the same “lung disease.”
What Jacobs, et al should have said is, “In bacterial colonies, nature has found an alternate route to address several fundamental issues we might previously had thought required cognition…”
Which is what I would have told them had I reviewed their claim, as one of my points under the heading of “Recommend against publication without addressing the following corrections or issues:”
TC
Dredd: That presumes there is an offending paragraph.
Yes, and there is. The fact that we can post other things makes it true that some arrangement of words in your post is causing WordPress to flag your entire post as Spam. But, experience tells me, that the WP span of attention, like yours, is relatively short. Or to be more specific and less anthropomorphic, its range of analysis, in letters or words, is fairly small, and typically if one tries a short number of sentences at a time, what I loosely called a “paragraph,” they will pass and the locus of offending language will be found relatively quickly. It does not necessarily have to be offensive to humans; just to WP.
Dredd,
I released everything you had stuck in the filter. If you lost something else, it was eaten by the Sarlac, er, WordPress Vortex of Doom.
cog·ni·tion [kog-nish-uhn]
1375–1425; late Middle English cognicioun < Latin cognitiōn- (stem of cognitiō ), equivalent to cognit ( us ), past participle of cognōscere ( co- co- + gni-, variant stem of gnōscere, nōscere, to learn (see know1 ) + -tus past participle suffix) + -iōn- -ion
Grandpa’s dictionary is not quite up to the new stuff.
That means these scientists hate grandpa.
Tony C. 1, December 7, 2013 at 11:09 am
Dredd: You are paranoid. Try posting in pieces; with “(to be continued)” at the end, to find the offending paragraph.
========================
That presumes there is an offending paragraph.
There isn’t.
There is just your presumption pretending it is science.
Good Jedi, nice midtrick, I will send a bottle of Mead.
And repost the missing post for Tony C, and let the others go.
Do you send a post to your homie and have them approve it so it does not get lost?
I posted the lost one again just now.
Two bottles of Mead filled with midichloreans for the first Jedi who works up the courage to unleash it from the blog of fears.
Or you could realize that the spam filter has no cognition, Dredd, and that while one of us will check the filter from time to time it’s not as if we hover over it. It is not uncommon to find posts in the spam filter that say “Cleared by Askimet” either. The algorithms it uses to identify potentially new sources of spam and flag them are far from perfect or even being an expert system much less conscious.
Dredd: You are paranoid. Try posting in pieces; with “(to be continued)” at the end, to find the offending paragraph.
Someone is censoring my comments.
I posted three or four, the last with no formating whatsoever.
Punks.
The term ‘cognition’ usually refers to human mental functions associated with capacities such as the use of semantic and pragmatic levels of language, perceiving self vs. non-self, association with group identity and perceiving individual and group goals. It is now realized that bacteria facilitate surprising collective functions. They can develop collective memory, use and generate common knowledge, develop group chemical identity, distinguish the chemical identity of other colonies in their environment or even higher organisms, learn from experience to improve their collective state and more.
These are the bacteria faculties we refer to when using the term fundamental elements of cognition. We emphasize that these features should not be confused with the unique, human level of symbolic cognition. We do not imply that bacteria possess human capabilities but that fundamental elements of cognition can also be found in bacteria. From a practical perspective, this realization can shed light on the evolution of cognition and on the most basic requirement for its facilitation in all organisms.
“The term ‘‘cognition’’ usually refers to human mental functions associated with capacities such as the use of semantic and pragmatic levels of language, perceiving self vs. non-self, association with group identity and perceiving individual and group goals. It is now realized that bacteria facilitate surprising collective functions. They can develop collective memory, use and generate common knowledge, develop group chemical identity, distinguish the chemical identity of other colonies in their environment or even higher organisms, learn from experience to improve their collective state and more.
These are the bacteria faculties we refer to when using the term fundamental elements of cognition. We emphasize that these features should not be confused with the unique, human level of symbolic cognition. We do not imply that bacteria possess human capabilities but that fundamental elements of cognition can also be found in bacteria. From a practical perspective, this realization can shed light on the evolution of cognition and on the most basic requirement for its facilitation in all organisms.”
–E. Ben Jacob et al. / Physica A 359 (2006) 495–524.