From: Robert Schneider (rjschn39@bellsouth.net)
Date: Sat Dec 21 2002 - 08:32:51 EST
Adrian writes:
>
> AT: What you wrote appears to support my argument for a clean
> qualitative break between animals and humans. One chooses freely and
> the other doesn't. Humans arrived on the scene suddenly, although
> there were other human-like, but instinct driven creatures roaming
> around.
>
I'm not so certain that there is "a clean qualitative break between animals
and humans. One chooses freely and the other doesn't." I can think of many
instances when my dog Joshua has chosen freely. And I recall a presentation
many years ago by a colleague of mine in Psychology relating a paper
published by a former disciple of B. F. Skinner. He was thoroughly imbued
with and trained in Skinnerian psychology and the method of positive
reinforcement. An applied psychologist, he was once hired by a bank that
was opening up a new branch in a major city. The bank wanted to put a
display in their front window containing a pig and a piggy-bank. The
bankers wanted this pyschologist to train the pig to pick up wooden nickels
and drop them into the piggy-bank. There would be a painted barnyard
backdrop and dirt, rocks, plants, etc., to give the scene verisimilitude.
Well, the psychologist got to work, put the pig in the "barnyard," and
began a training regiment with positive reinforcement. The training
proceeded step by step: first getting the pig to pick up a wooden nickel,
then to carry it to the piggy bank, then to drop it in. Every time the pig
successfully concluded a step he would get a reward. The training seemed to
be going well, for the pig started to drop these wooden nickels into the
piggy-bank; then all of a sudden the plan started to go awry. It seemed
that the pig developed a fondness for these wooden nickels, and decided to
keep them for himself. Instead of putting them in the bank, he would bury
them in the sand or hide them behind the rocks or plants. The rewards he
was given became less important to him than these little wooden prizes.
Nothing the pyschologist tried in order to get the pig with the program
worked. The bank had to find another way to amuse potential customers, and
the psychologist came to the conclusion that the pig had free will and that
Skinner was wrong.
I do not deny that animals in general are instinct-driven (as my dog
is), but I think that one can make a case that in the evolutionary process
some mammals at least have emerged that exhibit behaviors that arise from
the animal freely choosing one course over another. Some primates,
including great apes and chimpanzees exhibit behavior that is arguably
self-reflective. Koko the gorilla (The Gorilla Foundation: www.gorilla.org)
communicates thoughts to humans that are clearly self-reflective, using a
form of sign language for which she herself has invented signs to put
together phrases and communicate feelings and desires. She hasn't uttered
any philosophical or theological sentences (at least not yet), but she seems
to have a moral sense and communicates moral judgments.
Bob Schneider
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