mbd_map 19: A Dedication homepage homepage forum lectures 1: A Word of Encouragement 2: Dar al-Hikma 3: Proclus' Elements 4: Reversion in the Corporeal 5: Mathematical Recursion 6: Episodic Memory 7: Mortality 7 Supplement: Classical Mortality Arguments 8: Personal Identity 9: Existential Passage 10: Precedent at Dar al-Hikma 10 Supplement: Images of Dar al-Hikma 11: Passage Types 12: A Metaphysical Grammar 13: Merger Probability 14: Ex Nihilo Probability 15: Noetic Reduction 16: Summary of Mathematical Results 17: Application to Other Species 18: Potential Benefits 19: A Dedication appendices works cited
 

Home - Welcome

Forum  (new)

Lectures

1

A Word of Encouragement

2

Dar al-Hikma

3

Proclus' Elements

4

Reversion in the Corporeal

5

Mathematical Recursion

6

Episodic Memory

7

Mortality

7s

Classical Mortality Arguments

8

Personal Identity
1   2   3   4  

9

Existential Passage
1   2   3  

10

Precedent at Dar al-Hikma

10s

Images of Dar al-Hikma

11

Passage Types

12

A Metaphysical Grammar

13

Merger Probability

14

Ex Nihilo Probability

15

Noetic Reduction

16

Summary of Mathematical Results

17

Application to Other Species
1   2   3   4  

18

Potential Benefits

19

A Dedication

Appendices

Works Cited



E-mail the author.

E-mail the webmaster.




.



 

Chapter 17
Application to Other Species


continued, Section 4 of 4


The Subjectivity Criterion, by Entity Class:

Restating the working definition:
Subjectivity: "Subjectivity" will stand for the "subjective locus," or "the ability to distinguish self from not-self."  If the definition is to be substantial, it should exclude purely reflexive physiologies and behaviors.  Reflexes do not separate, or abstract, conscious experience from primitive sensation.  Bare reflexes are almost certainly inadequate for subjective awareness.


Inanimates:  Inanimates in nature lack even reflexive behavior, and exhibit no subjective awareness of other inanimates. All natural inanimates fail the subjectivity criterion.

Eukaryotes/prokaryotes:  Cells display a chemical recognition of neighboring cells, through the reaction of surface biochemistries.  But the behavioral range of eukaryotes and prokaryotes would seem to be bounded by the formulae of biochemistry.  Eukaryotes and prokaryotes lack structures for transmitting representations (or perceptions) of their external and internal environments — a prerequisite of subjective awareness.   Even mobile bacteria, whose motions are certainly directed, are thought for this reason to be unaware of their environment.[40]  Consequently, all single-celled organisms fail the subjectivity criterion.

Multi-celled plants:  What is true of single-celled plants is true of multi-celled plants.  All plants fail the subjectivity criterion.

Computers:  No computer has yet demonstrated overt subjective awareness.  Even global networks of computers behave as a single, undifferentiated entity unless explicitly programmed not to.  Generally speaking, computer networks offer a poor "insect-like" imitation of social behavior.  Indeed, some social insects (considered hereafter) exhibit a greater range of behaviors than can be found in the most sophisticated of computerized robots.[41]
       On the other hand, the neural net models of attention and awareness mentioned in Chapter 8 might seem to contradict these critical statements.  Those models mimic the physiology of human brain systems; systems whose abilities far exceed those of insect neural groups, as demonstrated by their contributions to human subjectivity.  So it might be tempting to assign subjectivity to robotic models of those systems as well.
       But we cannot afford to lose sight of the fact that a model of a system is just a model — it is not the real system itself.  When the system is simple a model may come close to acquiring all its fine-grained properties.  For example, a ballistics model may predict projectile motion with great precision.  It succeeds in this mimicry because a ballistics system is simple in comparison with, say, a biological system.  But neural systems, being biological, are staggeringly complex.  For this reason neural net models can mimic only the grossest behaviors of living neural net structures.[42]   The hippocampal CA3 neural net of Chapter 6 is exceptional in that its small size and uniform structure have made it a good candidate for modeling and mimicry.   The diverse attentional structures of Chapter 8, however, are among the largest and most complex neurologies ever modeled.  Current models of these structures are therefore piecemeal:  useful as tools of investigation, but useless as mimics.  The models do not themselves enact attentional behaviors.
       We might profitably compare this situation with the current state-of-the-art in hurricane simulation programs.  These programs model the gross characteristics of hurricanes; predicting, for example, a hurricane's track, rainfall, and cloud coverage.  The simulations are useful to meteorologists, but no one has ever confused a hurricane simulation with a real hurricane.  Certainly, a simulation does bear a resemblance to the real thing from afar.  But up close it is not at all faithful to the details.  There are no "simulated raindrops" in a hurricane simulation.  The mathematics of raindrop formation are not currently incorporated within the mathematics of hurricane formation.[43]
       Nature operates at all levels and scales concurrently.  A real hurricane may be an ocean-spanning weather system, but at the same time it is also every single raindrop that falls from its clouds.  It follows that only when a simulation faithfully models all levels and scales of the hurricane — from the wide ocean down to the solitary raindrop — will it then qualify as a "full-blown" storm.
       The functional gap between model and reality is vast, even for an inanimate like a hurricane.  The neural intricacy of subjective animates suggests a functional gap of comparable vastness.   Perhaps this gap will narrow in future, but at present all computers fail the subjectivity criterion.

Invertebrates:  Social insects, such as bees, exhibit what might appear at first glance to be a rudimentary awareness of others of their own species.  Their social behavior is, however, highly regimented and in large measure genetically determined.[44]  With at most a million neurons,[45] and with no need for sophisticated social judgments, these creatures might find subjective awareness of other individuals to be an expensive and superfluous mental construct.  For these reasons it is not surprising that some behaviors characterized as "social" are seen upon closer examination to be reflexive and instinctive.  This seems to be the case with many, though not all, complex invertebrate behaviors.[46]
       A textbook on invertebrate nervous systems gives an example of this limitation, in a study of the apparent plasticity of arthropod locomotion.  That plasticity was once thought to require a kind of sophisticated learning, but is now understood to be determinate:

[A]n apparent plasticity may in fact be its opposite — a stereotypy in a complex and adaptable form....  [P]redetermined, fixed, alternative patterns can be instantly substituted by alternating components of a complex of interlocked circuits and loops and hence changing certain input magnitudes, coupling functions, or time constants....[47]
That text goes on to characterize the nervous systems of arthropods (the invertebrates with segmented bodies and jointed legs).  Emphasis is on the independent function of neural groups, and also on the paucity of interneurons (those neurons which are located entirely within the central nervous system):

The outstanding feature of the arthropod central nervous system is the economy in number of interneurons....  Frequently ganglia of the cord can coordinate a reflex response without the mediation of the brain.  In the claw of the crayfish, touching the inside and the outside of the claw initiates opposite responses of closing and opening, but the brain apparently receives no interneuron which conveys directly the information of the position of the touch....[48]
Arthropod neurology might fairly be categorized as a neurology of loosely-coordinated reflexive structures.  As arthropods lack the integrative superstructure of truly central nervous systems, they are likely incapable of centralizing any coherent subjective locus, or of using it to differentiate themselves from others.



Among invertebrates only the large-brained cephalopod (cuttlefish) species exhibit robust awareness of others.  Octopus vulgaris has demonstrated subjective awareness of other octopuses under controlled experimental conditions, through the act of "learning by observation."  A summary of the experiment[49] suggests the scope of subjectivity and memory shown to be present in the octopus:

[W]orkers trained two groups of 'demonstrator' octopuses to discriminate between red and white spheres... until they reached criterion (no errors in five consecutive trials).  Each animal was then tested without reward four times in the field of view of a naive 'observer' octopus in an adjacent tank.  None of the demonstrators made any errors during testing, so what each observer octopus saw was its demonstrator attack one of a pair of objects four times (at five minute intervals).  When the observers were themselves tested without any kind of reward, they attacked the 'correct' shape significantly more than the 'incorrect' one, and their performance was significantly better after four trials than that of the demonstrators at that stage of their own training....  [T]he rapidity claimed for 'observational learning' in this experiment is remarkable, especially as the observers never saw a food reward being given to the demonstrators for an attack on a sphere.
       This finding is yet to be corroborated but... whatever the theoretical basis for this type of learning,... it does seem remarkable in animals such as octopuses....[50]
The text cited above, Cephalopod Behaviour, is a recent (1996) survey of this invertebrate class.  The authors express their broad opinion in an epilogue:

It may also be necessary to temper some of our claims for cephalopods.  In may ways their behaviour is no more remarkable than that of the many fishes, birds and mammals that compete with them and prey upon them, especially if one accepts the thesis... that cephalopods are 'honorary vertebrates.'  It is only when one considers them as invertebrates, and especially as molluscs, that their behaviour seems extraordinary.  The cephalopods we know best have life styles completely unlike those of limpets, sea-slugs, and clams....
       Yet if the behaviour of cephalopods is no more complex than that of fishes or lower vertebrates, it is certainly no less so.  On reviewing the themes discussed in this book, it becomes clear that cephalopod behaviour has two striking characteristics:  versatility and plasticity.  By versatility we mean the possibility of selecting from among several possible courses of action....  By plasticity we mean the ability to change the responses made to a stimulus after it has proved inappropriate.....[51]
       ...To watch a foraging octopus, or a shoal of Sepioteuthis [squid] on a coral reef, is a remarkable experience; the way the animals exhibit what appear to be caution, stealth, intelligence and watchfulness would surely fascinate any biologist.[52]
On the basis of such evidence we can conclude that a few cephalopod invertebrates meet the subjectivity criterion.  Of these, Octopus vulgaris is the most certain candidate.

Vertebrates:  Vertebrates consistently demonstrate subjective awareness of others of their species.  This awareness has been confirmed under controlled conditions by mirror-image stimulation (MIS) experiments.   MIS reflects a mirrored self-image back to the subject, in order to elicit a response.   A qualifying response is a social behavior which the animal reserves for display among others of its own species.  The most common response is a territorial defense action, directed against the (presumed) intruding competitor.  Also common is an "incentive response," in which the animal selects its mirrored image over alternative rewards.
       Many vertebrate species have been seen to respond to a mirrored image.  Some of the lower vertebrate species known to respond readily include stickleback fish,[53] Siamese fighting fish, goldfish, pigeons, chaffinches, and hedge sparrows.[54],[55]
       A mirror-image response is premised on an animal's ability to distinguish others of its species.  The animal must interpret visual cues so as to be aware of the presence of other species-kindred existents.   This species-awareness is a cognitive construct, and is almost certainly a legitimate form of subjective awareness.
          MIS results are supported by field studies of social behaviors among vertebrates in the wild,[56] and also under domestication.[57]  Such field studies provide indirect evidence of subjective awareness among lower vertebrates, in that the observed behaviors require those vertebrate creatures to maintain continual awareness of the presence, and disposition, of others.  Some lower vertebrates, such as the stickleback, have even demonstrated preferential recognition of specific individuals within their social groups.[58]
       In Chapter 8 we looked at the thalamus' central role in the maintenance of subjectivity and awareness.  The thalamus, like the hippocampus, is not unique to humans, but is instead common to all vertebrates.  This structural commonality is consistent with vertebrates' common behavioral demonstrations of subjective awareness, noted above (and also, below).  Photographs and illustrations of several vertebrate species' thalami will help to clarify this commonality.  Figures appropriate to each entity class will be inserted among the paragraphs to follow.
       Beginning with nonmammalian vertebrates:  a schematic diagram of the nonmammalian brain shows the general location and connections of the nonmammalian thalamus in these lower vertebrates:

Figure 17.19 Fig. 17.19
Schematic representation of thalamus in nonmammalian vertebrates[59]

Some non-mammalian thalamic organs are shown below, in cross-section:

Figure 17.20 Fig. 17.20
Frog thalamus:  dorsal thalamic nuclei and nucleus rotundus[60]

Figure 17.21 Fig. 17.21
Lizard nucleus rotundus of thalamus[61]

MIS experiments, field studies and thalamic similarities have been catalogued for only a few of the lower vertebrate species, but the data available at present suggests that all vertebrates satisfy the subjectivity criterion.

Mammals:  As with vertebrates generally.  Mirror-image awareness is pronounced among mammals.  Some have demonstrated very robust subjective awareness of other members of their species.  Mammals have demonstrated this robust awareness in experiment through expressions of overtly social MIS behavior.   MIS behaviors falling into this category include acts of aggression related to social status, habituation to the "unfamiliar other," and curiosity (which animals sometimes demonstrate by looking behind the mirrors).  Sea lions have demonstrated MIS social aggression; and squirrel monkeys, pigtailed monkeys and rhesus monkeys have demonstrated all of the listed MIS social behaviors in experimental settings.[62]
          Field studies have recorded a wide range of mammalian social behaviors in the wild,[63] and also under domestication.[64]  Such field studies provide indirect evidence of subjective awareness among mammals, in that the observed behaviors require the mammals to maintain continual awareness of the presence, and disposition, of others.  Additionally, many mammals have demonstrated preferential recognition of specific individuals within their social groups.[65]
       These MIS findings and field studies are amply corroborated by our experience with familiar mammals.  The household social behaviors of dogs, cats and other domesticated mammals provide additional valid, if informal, evidence of subjective awareness in these species.
       A schematic diagram of the mammalian brain shows the general location and connections of the mammalian thalamus:

Figure 17.22 Fig. 17.22
Schematic representation of thalamus in mammalian vertebrates[66]

The structure and location of the thalamus is notably uniform across mammalian species, as can be seen in the figures below:

Figure 17.23 Fig. 17.23
Opossum thalamus[67]

Figure 17.24 Fig. 17.24
Cat thalamus[68]

All mammals would appear to satisfy the subjectivity criterion.

Great apes:  As with mammals generally.  Additionally, all great apes exhibit robust subjective awareness of others of their species.  Great apes have demonstrated this advanced degree of awareness through social MIS behavior, and through displays recorded in the wild.  Recognition of individuals is commonplace.  Authors of a recent (1997) study state this conclusion unequivocally:  "The evidence that individual primates recognize one another is overwhelming."[69]
       Beyond social behavior, a few of the great apes have also demonstrated subjective awareness of self through self-directed MIS behavior.   The "mark test" is the most famous example of this self-directed behavior.   In this test, researchers would anesthetize the ape and paint a red mark on its eyebrow (outside the ape's range of direct visual perception).   Upon awaking, the ape would see the mark in a mirror and proceed to reach up and remove it.   [To date, only a few orangutans, chimpanzees and bonobos (and a lone gorilla) have passed this test of self-recognition.][70]

Figure 17.25 Fig. 17.25
Monkey thalamus[71]

The great apes exhibit a wide range of social behaviors.  Also, the ape thalamus is very close to the human in form and function.   We can conclude that all of the great apes satisfy the subjectivity criterion.

Humans:  All humans satisfy the subjectivity criterion.  (Self-awareness is not, however, present at birth.  Among human infants recognition of self in a mirror first occurs between 18 and 24 months.)[72]

Figure 17.26 Fig. 17.26
Human thalamus[73]

Table 17.4 appends the results for the subjectivity criterion:

Table 17.4
Personal identity criteria, ordered by entity class
 
 Continuity
 Memory
 Subjectivity
 Humans
 all  all  all
 Great apes
 all  all  all
 Mammals
 all  all  all
 Vertebrates
 all  all  all
 Invertebrates
 all  few  few
 Computers
 all  few  none
 Multi-celled Plants
 all  none  none
 Eukaryotes/prokaryotes
 all  none  none
 Inanimates
 some  none  none



A few notes on the emergence of advanced subjectivity may be appropriate at this point.
       Generally speaking, central nervous system development increases awareness.  A textbook on vertebrate evolution gives a succinct account of the process:

The evolution of the vertebrate skeleton cannot be divorced from that of the central nervous system; with increased powers of locomotion there follows improved muscular coordination and, its corollary, a greater awareness of the environment.  This can be clearly seen in the evolution of the gross morphology of the brain....[74]
The thalamic attentional system would seem to have evolved in such a way as to support more advanced forms of awareness.  A vertebrate anatomy text points out the fact that simple locomotion does not require thalamic attention:  only complex behaviors with need for focused attention rely upon the thalamocortical system:

[I]n most mammals locomotion still occurs in the absence of the thalamus and isocortex.  Functions that are impaired relate to complex behavioral sequences such as food seeking, predator avoidance, establishment and defense of territories, and reproduction, for example.[75]
We might conjecture to say that when a creature's complex behavior modifies its own environment in important ways, its awareness of environment must take its own behavior into account.  From a physiologic perspective, this condition would require that the thalamic system direct attentional resources back to the self.
       Daniel Povinelli and John Cant[76] have argued that the large arboreal apes acquired a self concept through such a mechanism.  They hypothesize that the great weight of these apes makes clambering in trees especially dangerous, and requires that the apes pay close attention to the effect which their locomotion has on fragile arboreal surroundings.  Such a sustained attention would amount to a persistent "online" self-monitoring strategy.  And it is this strategy which Povinelli and Cant propose led to the emergence of self-concept.  This hypothesis is consistent with experimental evidence that among apes, only the great apes (those large apes descended from the trees) exhibit self-awareness.[77]
       Gordon Gallup has extended Povinelli and Cant's hypothesis.[78]   He proposes that self-awareness, once engaged, has persisted in those great apes on whom it conferred a reproductive advantage.  This hypothesis, too, has some evidence in its favor; for self-awareness is most acute among great apes and humans near the onset of puberty.[79]



But returning to the question which has driven this review, namely:  "Do any non-human creatures also satisfy the requirements of personal identity?"
       We have seen in Table 17.4 that many creatures do appear to meet all three of these "Great Criteria."  These creatures share an anatomic commonality, which is just the central nervous system (CNS).  (It should be noted again that this commonality appears to extend to the invertebrate octopus, as well as to all vertebrate species.)[80]
       In contrast, we've seen that creatures lacking a CNS exhibit only those behaviors allowed by reflexive instinct and conditioned memory.  Consequently those creatures all fail to satisfy at least one of the necessary criteria.
       Table 17.5 highlights this distinction.  A green row indicates an entity class whose members invariably satisfy all three criteria.  A yellow row indicates an entity class wherein only some members satisfy all three criteria.  And a red row indicates an entity class whose members invariably fail to satisfy at least one of the three criteria. 

Table 17.5
CNS creatures satisfy all three criteria of personal identity.
 
 Continuity
 Memory
 Subjectivity
 Humans
 all  all  all
 Great apes
 all  all  all
 Mammals
 all  all  all
 Vertebrates
 all  all  all
 Invertebrates
 all  few  few
 Computers
 all  few  none
 Multi-celled plants
 all  none  none
 Eukaryotes/prokaryotes
 all  none  none
 Inanimates
 some  none  none



The metaphysical significance of this table is clear.  The CNS serves as a rough divide between those entities which appear to participate in Metaphysics by Default, and those entities which appear not to participate.  The divide does exist; and the CNS is an imperfect, but increasingly factual, demarcation of that divide.



CNS transmigration is a defensible conclusion, but in some ways even more dour than the mortality conclusion of Chapter 7.  Certainly, it is not what we'd prefer.   But the conclusion does have some desirable qualities.  These qualities will be examined in the final chapters.  I think most readers will find that the final chapters lift us from the essay's current, bestial nadir.
       To begin this recovery, I should emphasize that the conjectured entry of CNS creatures into human metaphysics cannot debase human beings.  The soul is not base, but is divinely inspired.  We know this from experience.  Now, the question as to whether it be mortal or immortal — this is only of secondary concern.  It follows that metaphysical theories are not capable of debasing the soul.  To the contrary, the soul's ability to fashion a panoply of metaphysical ideas is testament to its essential divinity.
       These facts of human nature are uncontroversial in my own mind.  I only state them here out of concern for readers who may feel that theories of CNS transmigration somehow cheapen human life.  Such debasement can never occur so long as we are mindful of what is divine in the human, and metaphysical philosophy does always remind us of these things.  Also, we should remember that Hindu, Buddhist and Neoplatonic philosophers have hypothesized CNS transmigration for thousands of years, to no ill effect.  History shows CNS transmigration philosophy to be fully consonant with human dignity.
       Even so, it is possible that a few confused readers might for a time pursue debasement, and attempt to use Metaphysics by Default as a tool for attaining base desires.  We have experience with such persons.  In the previous century self-styled "Social Darwinists" misused Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, twisting it into a rationale for brutality.   Social Darwinists embraced evolution, but only as an excuse for their sins.  A century on, we judge the Social Darwinists as misguided, and false.  The same epithets await those who would misuse Metaphysics by Default for similar ends.



The philosophy's true social application will be presented in the following chapter.  To close out this current chapter, we should reflect upon the words of a philosopher who will figure prominently in the arguments ahead.  He wakes us again to a promethean fact — emergences are real:

There is night and there is day, and to point out that there is twilight does not deny either.  It is not arbitrary to regard one thing as living (a planarian) and another as nonliving (a quartz crystal) just because some things are intermediate (a crystallized virus).  Wolves are sentient and trees nonsentient, although ants live in a twilight zone.  There are gradients of passage, but emergences are real.[81]



In our mind's eye we have now walked onto the fifth and last of the five stepping stones.  This last stone is just the understanding that other CNS species can participate with Homo sapiens in the existential passages of Metaphysics by Default.  Standing on this last stone, we are in position to take a final step — out into the living world that waits beyond the river Lethe.



next    Chapter 18:  Potential Benefits


Chapter 17, Section 4 Endnotes

[40] George McKee has noted this limitation of bacterial chemotaxis (movement along a chemical gradient) in a 1997 study of functional awareness, entitled "The Engine of Awareness:  Autonomous Synchronous Representations."  His paper is available online.  Quoting from section 4.1.2:
"[B]acteria are sensitive to the distribution of nutrients in their environment and modify their swimming in a way that leads them in the direction of greater nutrient concentrations.  Without understanding the way this modification of behavior occurs, it is characteristic of people to attribute awareness and motivation to each bacterium, saying that it "wants to go" up the nutrient concentration gradient.  After decades of study, however, bacterial chemotaxis is now understood at the molecular level....  The models that have been developed are sufficiently detailed that they can be analyzed exhaustively....  Although such an [exhaustive computational] analysis has not been attempted, it appears likely that... bacteria are not aware of their environment."
[41] We could note, for example, the cooperative behavior exhibited by honeybees during the repair of broken hive combs.  The behavior appears to be programmatic, rather than intentional; yet the honeybees demonstrate a remarkable flexibility under experimental conditions which have been designed to foil rigid rule-driven behavior.  See Remy Chauvin and Bernadette Muckensturm-Chauvin, Behavioral Complexities, trans. Joyce Diamanti (New York: International Universities Press, Inc., 1980) 153-65.  It would be interesting to subject robots to comparable experimental conditions, as a direct comparison of abilities.  A robot which exhibits behaviors near the current limit of robotic neural net flexibility is described in Tani 149-76.
[42] References to ninety years of neuron modelling can be found in Maas, "Networks of Spiking Neurons: The Third Generation of Neural Network Models." Neural Networks 10:9 (1997): 1661.
[43] For results of a recent Delft University of Technology simulation of raindrop formation, see this news article.   For an example of a hurricane simulation, see Yubao Liu's "A Multiscale Numerical Study of Hurricane Andrew (1992). Part I: Explicit Simulation and Verification," abstract and images.
[44] Robin F. A. Moritz and Christian Brandes, "Behavior Genetics of Honeybees (Apis mellifera L.)," Neurobiology and Behavior of Honeybees 21-35.  Behavioral differences in arthropods can be modified readily through selective breeding, as in Felicity Huntingford, The Study of Animal Behaviour (London and New York: Chapman and Hall, 1984) 306-16.   It should also be noted that explicit chemical cues trigger many arthropod recognition behaviors characterized popularly as "social."  See, for example, Maier and Maier 230-33.
[45] Menzel and Bicker 456.
[46] The fiddler crab is an arthropod which might provide an exception to this rule.  Fiddler crabs establish social hiercharies through ritualized competition, as described in Maier and Maier 220-21.  The male fiddler crab appears to recognize other male competitors visually, as indicated by MIS experiment.  See Maier and Maier 234.
       In addition, some social insects have been known to exhibit goal-oriented behaviors which far exceed the cognitive abilities of solitary insects.  Honeybees, for example, have been observed to innovate hive construction methods; to modify dance language within social context; and to plan hive migration routes via group consensus.  See James L. Gould and Carol Grant Gould, The Animal Mind (New York: Scientific American Library, 1994) 88-113.  See also note 41, above, concerning the flexibility of comb repair behaviors.
       Each of these honeybee behaviors, if considered in isolation, might be explicable in terms of conditioned instinct.  But as a whole, such innovative and cooperative stratagems suggest that honeybees have more going on upstairs than can readily be tested.  If honeybees lack the neural mass requisite of true self-concept, as seems likely, perhaps they possess enough grey matter to maintain a general "forage-space-time concept," subservient to a selfless "hive-state concept."  Conceivably, the latter concept could act as a master regulator, driving hive maintenance behaviors through variable action parameters; so that behaviors oriented always towards the ideal hive state.  Such a scheme would make coordinated group behavior possible, without incurring the cost of self-conception.   But here this author is merely speculating, with no clear idea as to how such group behavior really could be implemented in an utterly self-less manner.
       Do social insects have a self concept?  Do they maintain subjective awareness of others?   Reflexive, regimented behaviors and millimeter-diameter brains suggest that they do not.  But goal-oriented, social behaviors suggest something more.   So this author is unsure, and would welcome edifying thoughts on the subject.
[47] Bullock and Horridge 1: 312.
[48] Bullock and Horridge 2: 1119-20.
[49] It should be noted that this experiment has not yet been duplicated.
[50] Hanlon and Messenger 140.
[51] Hanlon and Messenger 181-82.
[52] Hanlon and Messenger 187.  An entertaining account of octopus foraging among laboratory tanks can be found in Ronald Rood, Animals Nobody Loves (Brattleboro, Vermont: The Stephen Greene Press, 1971) 79-81.
[53] For a study of stickleback MIS behavior, see Chauvin and Chauvin 129-32.  For an MIS study of stickleback cooperation in predator inspection, see Lee Alan Dugatkin, Cooperation Among Animals: An Evolutionary Perspective (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) 59-70.  See especially section 3.9.3, "Do inspectors use the Tit for Tat Strategy?"
[54] For a review of MIS among several vertebrate species, see Gordon G. Gallup, Jr., "Towards an Operational Definition of Self-Awareness," Socioecology and Psychology of Primates, Ed. Russell H. Tutle (The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1975) 309-421.
[55] This author is not aware of any MIS studies which have been conducted on octopus species.  References to any such studies would fill a lacuna in this section of the essay, and would be welcome.
[56] For entertaining descriptions of fish social behaviors, see Konrad Z. Lorenz, King Solomon's Ring:  New Light on Animal Ways (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1952) 22-38; and Chauvin and Chauvin 123-40, especially 132-33.  For cooperative social behavior among fish species, see Dugatkin 45-70.  For cooperative social behavior among birds, see Dugatkin 71-89.
[57] For social behaviors of domestic birds, see E. S. E. Hafez, ed., The Behaviour of Domestic Animals, 2nd edition (Baltimore: The Williams & Wilkins Company, 1969).  See especially the several sections devoted to social relationships in Part Four, "Behaviour of Birds."
[58] Stickleback and parrot indivualizations are noted in Chauvin and Chauvin 21-24.  A relevant stickleback observation is recorded in Lorenz 32-36.
[59] Wake 683.
[60] Sarnat and Netsky 408.
[61] Sarnat and Netsky 408.
[62] See especially Gallup 310-12.
[63] See, for example, Trevor B. Poole, Social Behaviour in Mammals. (Glasgow and London: Blackie, 1985) 156-96; Chapter 6, "An Order-By-Order Synopsis of Social Behaviour."  For recent field studies of dolphins, see Richard C. Connor, Rachel A. Smolker, and Andrew F. Richards, "Dolphin Alliances and Coalitions," Coalitions and Alliances in Humans and Other Animals, eds. Alexander H. Harcourt and Frans B. M. De Waal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992) 415-43.
[64]See, for example, Hafez, The Behaviour of Domestic Animals.  See especially the several sections devoted to social relationships in Part Three, "Behaviour of Mammals."
[65] See, for example, Chauvin and Chauvin 21-22.
[66] Wake 685.
[67] Sarnat and Netsky 409.
[68] Sarnat and Netsky 409.
[69] Michael Tomasello, and Josep Call, Primate Cognition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) 193.  For supporting evidence of primate social awareness, see especially Chapters 7-12.
[70] An early study (1975) is found in Gallup 321-30.  A more recent survey (1997) of great ape MIS studies is found in Karyl B. Swartz, "What Is Mirror Self-Recognition in Nonhuman Primates, and What Is It Not?" The Self Across Psychology: Self-recognition, Self-awareness, and the Self Concept, eds. Joan Gay Snodgrass and Robert L. Thompson (New York: The New York Academy of Sciences, 1997) 65-71.  Another recent review of great ape MIS studies can be found in Tomasello and Call 331-37.
       It should be noted that bottlenose dolphins may have passed a modified version of the test.  See Kenneth Marten and Suchi Psarakos, "Evidence of self-awareness in the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus)," Self-awareness in animals and humans, eds. Sue Taylor Parker, Robert W. Mitchell and Maria L. Boccia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) 361-79.
[71] University of Oregon biology images, available online.
[72] J. R. Anderson, "The Development of Self-recognition: A Review," Developmental Psychobiology 17:1 (1984): 35-49.  See also Robert W. Mitchell, "The Evolution of Primate Cognition: Simulation, Self-Knowledge, and Knowledge of Other Minds," Hominid Culture in Primate Perspective, eds. Duane Quiatt and Junichiro Itani (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1994) 216.
[73] Sarnat and Netsky 409.
[74] L. B. Halstead, The Pattern of Vertebrate Evolution (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1969) 57.  See also: Encyclopaedia Britannica article on vertebrate encephalization.
[75] Wake 683.
[76] Daniel J. Povinelli and John G. H. Cant. "Arboreal Clambering and the Evolution of Self-Conception," The Quarterly Review of Biology 70:4 (1995): 393-421.  See also:  "Animal Self-Awareness: A Debate with Gallup and Povinelli."
[77] Swartz 65-71. See also Mitchell 177-232.
[78] Gordon G. Gallup, Jr., "On the Rise and Fall of Self-Conception in Primates," The Self Across Psychology: Self-recognition, Self-awareness, and the Self Concept 73-82.  See also:  "Animal Self-Awareness: A Debate with Gallup and Povinelli."
[79] Gallup, "On the Rise and Fall of Self-Conception in Primates," The Self Across Psychology: Self-recognition, Self-awareness, and the Self Concept 76-80.  Other social factors may have contributed to the emergence of a self concept.  The cognitive demands of apprenticeship and Machievellian scenarios have been examined in this light.  See Sue Taylor Parker and Robert W. Mitchell, "Evolving self-awareness," Self-awareness in animals and humans, eds. Sue Taylor Parker, Robert W. Mitchell and Maria L. Boccia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) 424-25.
[80] For a well-written introduction to contemporary studies of animal cognition, see James L. Gould and Carol Grant Gould, The Animal Mind.  Here also is a listing of some relevant online references:
[81] Holmes Rolston, III, Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Values in the Natural World (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988) 70.
 
Copyright © 1999

Wayne Stewart
Last update 4/19/11