Thoughts on Whitehead

If I’m somewhat understanding Burl’s very deft translations and commentary on Whitehead, then apprehension is mental and prehension is energy. And therefore animals have no intention, rather they feel the energy that percolates up through their cells and then through their metabolic, mechanical and neurological systems and then go on to formulate a coherent response to their world. Furthermore, prehension fundamentally revolves around a state of resonance with energy, and therefore animals learn in reverse, backwards in time which is another argument against intention since that is forward directed. In other words, animals develop in embryo in complete resonance, they are born with the answer already inculcated in every cell, fibre, tissue and neuron of their being, and then through prehension (sense the essence within the form) they ultimately connect with those things in nature that serve to recapitulate resonance. Whereas the human intellect sees them working things out as if they are mentally apprehending what’s happening over time and relative to other points of view, when they are really “learning: backwards in time, regressing internally to a state of resonance but now, by unconsciously inducing the object of attraction to play its part as a counterbalance in that same wave function, and given all the experiences they’ve metabolized as stress, incorporating all that energy of resistance back to a smooth wave function of resonance has added more energy to the network. So animals are out there as stress magnets bumping into things, generating friction, and then turning this into a wave function which we otherwise recognize as social structures. This resistance is now part of consciousness, and more  importantly as information that expands the network. It seems to me that prehension is a manifestation of a network consciousness.

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Published July 15, 2010 by Kevin Behan

210 responses to “Thoughts on Whitehead”

  1. Burl says:

    Kevin,

    Well…this discussion is not turning out to be the self-reflective exercise I think is warranted. Instead, another pep-rally of those who frequent this site for gratuitous behavioral consults, closely related friends and family setting up topic-deflections, and one or two who have less to lose and a lot to gain if you as originator of a unique training method face critical book reviews from competing trainers and writers in the field.

    I have seen numerous past observations and reviews in many web locations citing new-age and vague/inconsistent explanations as well as an overly-deterministic behavior model based on the 1st book. These negatives will, IMO, resonate and amplify with publication of this pseudo-science quantum consciousness you are adding to NDT.

    You are making a categorical science error in thinking QM has any relevance to dog behavior – it has none. Even classical physics is largely irrelevant compared with biology, physiology, and psychology. You are likewise opposing the current zeitgeist (network consciousness. If you like) of animal cognition researchers with your refusal to reconsider your barely conscious dog ala Decartes.

    While you at least allow Darwin’s animal emotion in your dog-ma, he went further in believing dogs had the same variety of thought categories as humans. If nothing else comes from this discussion I raise, you should at least consider that you will at some point have to cite references for where you are drawing your hypotheses/conclusions.

    I offer constructive critical analysis here – I got no dog in this hunt. You will do what you wish, and if I am wrong, so much the better for your new book and NDT.

    Best
    Burl

  2. kbehan says:

    NDT and network consciousness is wholly consistent with developments in self-organizing systems, emergence theory, devolution, robotics, epigenetics etc, etc.. I didn’t develop my model from physics, merely by observing dogs as creatures of the immediate moment. What’s the citation for what I learned by training a police dog to hold a criminal at bay after a high speed chase at 3am and the man gives up as the dog runs him down out of sight and hundreds of yards from the handler? (By the way, a thinking police dog means a dead police dog handler.) I turn to physics because logically it applies and to help people understand what I’m saying about network consciousness. It turns out however that the more I learn of physics, the more I know animals. And conversely, the more science were to learn of animals, the more they would know physics. If you would put as much effort into understanding what I’m trying to say before trying to debunk it out of sheer reflex, your critique could be valuable. Instead you offer declarative statements in a rhetorical vein and never deal directly with a point of contention.
    It’s good you don’t have a dog in the quantum hunt because if a nerve synapse puts electrons into motion, as does all microscopic cellular function, then quantum effects will prove to be as real in brain matter and body function as they are in a cell phone, and I don’t see how any model of consciousness, most especially Whiteheads will escape its all-encompassing reach. Apparently in the romantic view only the machinery of the brain can have consciousness. Darwin said “we are all netted,” but how? The only logical way all things can be connected is by way of energy. And if you would like to present Darwin’s citation for thought categories in dogs as equivalent to humans, then I will be able to show you Descarte’s error as committed by Darwin.
    Finally, feel free to bring forward one inconsistent statement. The inconsistencies are constantly committed by the thought-centrists. When I offer a model for the dog’s mind, the critics say one can never know what’s in the mind of an animal. And when I say that dogs go by feel and not by thought, the critics say that whatever it is that is going on in the dog’s mind, we can assure you it is thinking. Everything NDT says is scrutinized for one inconsistency, when this is really looking at the situation inside out. If only one thing I say is true, then everything about the old paradigm is false. If but once it can be shown the earth revolves around the sun, then the geocentric view of the universe is obsolete. Dogs don’t think a little bit just as the sun doesn’t once in a while revolve around the earth.

  3. christine randolph says:

    the human race is not going to find out how the brain and emotions and other parts of the body and nervous system interact by studying darwin or whitehead.

  4. Heather says:

    [dog thinking]: “should I eat my owner’s toe or not? On the one hand, I know I am not supposed to bite him, but on the other hand, he will die if I don’t eat that toe, oh what the heck, yes I am going to bite his toe off, but he is asleep so he won’t know that I’m biting him, and it is the right thing to do…”

    _____________________

    ROCKFORD, Mich. — A Michigan man says he’s grateful his dog ate most of his toe while he was passed out drunk.

    Jerry Douthett of Rockford says Kiko’s action helped uncover an undiagnosed diabetic condition and led to treatment that could save his life.

    The Grand Rapids Press reported that the 48-year-old musician knew for a while something was wrong with his foot. He resisted seeking care until giving in to his nurse wife’s pressure one day last month.

    Before going for an appointment, Douthett says he went out drinking, then came home and passed out. When he awoke, the terrier was beside him in bed and lots of blood was where his toe used to be.

    His wife rushed him to Spectrum Health Blodgett Campus, where doctors found a bone infection and amputated the rest of the toe.

    _____________

  5. Heather says:

    I assume everyone knows I’m being facetious.

    But what exactly would the “thinking dog” camp have to say about what the dog was thinking?

    I actually thought that this was a great example of group mind…but also hoping to get the official NDT take on why the dog ate his owner’s toe!

  6. kbehan says:

    I got it immediately. I talk about this kind of thing in “Your Dog/Your Mirror” as just such an example of the group mind. Once we can start to see how all behaviors are but a manifestation of the group mind, we can begin to see how network consciousness is organizing behavior. For example, when training a dog to “fetch” an object, one points at it and excites the dog. In effect one is putting a charge on that object, in other words, the trainer is in effect demonstrating an intense attraction to an object but also is blocked and transmitting a lot of vibration, friction, and so a dog feels a compulsion to bring that charge to ground (grab with its mouth) as a way of connecting with the intensity of its owner to which it feels viscerally attached. Therefore, this means that in this case of the terrier eating the man’s toe, the man’s diabetic condition (and over-indulgence in Margaritas) represents an emotional charge, an intense vibration that ultimately found physical manifestation in the necrotic abscess that was at the base of his toe. So the dog ate the diseased tissue (which in a diabetic state has no feeling and so the dog’s gnawing didn’t wake the man up) in order to bring its mind to ground, i.e. the group mind which is largely defined by its owner’s emotional mass. Everything is a function of the group mind and an expression of an immediate-moment alignment or blockage around a charge.
    Your point is well taken. There is no thought that can encompass such behavior, or a dog navigating across the great unknown to rejoin with its owner, or a dog afraid of thunderstorms, or a dog guarding its food bowl, or a dog loving to ride in helicopters, or perform police service work, and on and on.

  7. Heather says:

    So I was thinking (always a dangerous thing) that the more a certain dog owner identifies with the concept of *human* “free will,” the less likely the owner is going to be inclined to consider that their dog has a group mind. Considering animal consciousness in this way is a major assault on a belief system, not just an intellectual exercise.

    This is actually related to the discussion of physics, and how it relates to NDT and dogs (and people), at least indirectly…

    whenever I think of physics I think of Einstein, and on matters of free will Einstein said we don’t have it. I see free will as being synonymous with individuals being self-contained entities of intelligence, ie, as being disconnected/separate from others. Since that separateness is in fact just a false construct of human thought, humans are no more self-contained entities of intelligence than dogs are, there is no “free will.” This is what I think Einstein meant.

    So for Kevin to say that dogs don’t think, he isn’t really just saying that dogs don’t think…the implications of that are huge.

  8. Christine says:

    Heather, how/why do you consider the group mind to be a major assault on a belief system? Just curious.

  9. Heather says:

    Maybe I should’ve connected the information a bit more…

    I was thinking why would someone be so committed to Whitehead to describe dog behavior, yet be opposed to physics? Also what is this crazy insistence that NDT is “deterministic,” and equates dogs to machines?

    Then I realized that the inability/unwillingness to contemplate the NDT model, and the irrational insistence that it is deterministic in spite of page after page of detailed explanation of what it *is* (anything but deterministic), actually makes sense if what is appealing about Whitehead’s universe is not so much that it is “characterized by process and change,” but that such process and change is “carried out by the agents of free will [such that] Self-determination characterizes everything in the universe.” (those quotes are from Wikipedia.)

    I think the error in the thinking is to conclude that if sentient beings are not self-contained entities of intelligence, then the alternative is being doomed to scientific materialism/determinism. I don’t think Einstein was deterministic at all, he was arguably the most brilliant person in modern history, and made the most significant contributions to our understanding of physics/how the universe works ever made, and what he saw was not what Whitehead saw.

    So yes I think physics is directly relevant to ALL consciousness, and therefore all behavior.

  10. Heather says:

    Also I should clarify (before Burl does, haha) that Einstein himself did say that he was deterministic. And I would argue that what he was referring to is true in the “absolute” sense, ie, as to what Kevin refers to as the “network consciousness”. On that macro level, there’s no free will, and everything is in service to that, although it’s too complex to imagine.

    But at the relative level (the individual), it is as though free will exists, and we do have to act within our relative limitations of space and time…

    I would say the mistake is to use thoughts to build a strong sense of where one “self” begins and another ends, ie, making the self-centered thought the be-all, end-all of sentient beings. That is 100% a human error. EG, “ordering” animals along a continuum of ability to reason and think. This turns nature on its head in my view, and interferes with any true understanding.

  11. kbehan says:

    Heather I think you’re “unpacking” the whole package of ideas and issues very adroitly. I appreciate the thought you’re putting into this. We think of Will as the result of a personal, autonomous volition, but everything revolves around the nature of information and it takes a network to make information; there is nothing to feel, want, react or think about without the network. Every living being is interfaced via the network, we are part of a linked intelligence, just as no one in an economy is allowed to print their own money otherwise there is no economy. So if there were such a thing as autonomy, there would not be any information. In my reading of nature information is energy that reliably repeats itself, i.e. a circle. And this means that the nature of information is adding energy to the circle so that it is perpetuated.
    Everything evolved according to principles of energy, there is no other possible interpretation of evolution; the first mineral crystal replicators, proto-cells and then cells, systems of cells and ultimately the behavior of multi-cellular organisms. Every cell membrane in our body has an ion channel and so is subservient to the principles of electromagnetism.
    The object of all behavior is to maintain the network and/or add energy otherwise there is no network and no information. Information isn’t about making choices, it’s about adding energy to the circuit so that the network is constantly expanding, otherwise entropy takes over. But this is not a reflex, there is room for choice, it’s just that again this runs into the paradox of the notions of a self-contained intelligence and a free will because in my reading of nature it takes two to make a choice. We need an external trigger to have consciousness and then we can choose to opt for a good feeling (synchronize with object of attraction) or go for safety. These are the only two possibilities, we can act either from need, or from desire. The former maintains the network charge, in which case as an individual we are fodder for evolution although this does preserve the species’ survival; Or we can act to be a dynamic energy node and go by desire, i.e. turn energy into information, in which case we as an individual flourish. What we can learn from dogs is that they have an innate drive to opt for desire as the purest physical embodiments of a network consciousness. They go more by feel and less by instinct than any other being.
    As an aside, while species may go in and out of existence, the information they embody never does, that precise definition of complexity remains as part of the network no matter how much it shifts in the overall and thereby sheds any particular species. And when an individual is in harmony with the network (because we are turning change into energy and energy into information that begets new energy), we feel free and ironically, autonomous because our internal guidance mechanism now serves as our ultimate authority rather than any external arbiter.
    So if someone learns to fly a plane or hang glide, they feel free, and yet this feeling is dependent on the force of gravity. Its resistance informs every movement of the body and simultaneously bonds every living thing to the planet. It’s not possible to feel free without this far more fundamental interconnectedness.

  12. kbehan says:

    I want to add in regards to your point of thoughts/sense-of-self, that our mind is an energy circuit as epigenetics is beginning to reveal about our genes. Eventually I believe it will prove impossible to envision a mind or a genome as distinct and apart from its surroundings. There aren’t enough genes to account for diversity or for complexity. For example, there is only one gene for all body shapes, from fish to birds to mammals, it’s the timing of the gene’s activation and expression which causes the various body types to emerge. Stress hormones also inhibit the expression of genes and so I’m postulating a direct and inverse relationship between stress and emotion and that the interplay between stress and emotion is a synchronizing effect, turning genes on and off, and a direct link between the environment and the mind on its every level of development. Thus as an individual matures, its genetic architecture is shaped by its physical and emotional environment. Its genes are an expression of a group mind. Emotion and unresolved emotion as stress, E–>UE–>RE, when it is ultimately resolved by an individual synchronizing with an object of attraction, and getting to resolution is the overarching motive of all behavior, the physical actions that result immutably shape the environment in conformance with the network’s desire for increased complexity in service to its expansion and in order to overcome the 2nd law of thermodynamics. (To repeat, new energy just can’t come into the system at random, information must precede an input otherwise the input is toxic.)
    Our reflex is to think of thoughts as the essence of our volition, free will and sense of self, but this is a profound error. No matter how random or free wheeling any given thought may seem to be, it will to a greater or lesser degree trigger a mental memory (in rational beings) of an emotional state and from the network’s point of view merely add to the individual’s charge (because nervous activity of the Big-Brain hasn’t been grounded into the little-brain by way of a feeling which always work according to network protocols) and this merely adds more energy to a force of attraction available to the network. Such an individual finds themselves increasingly locked into a pattern of inventing a person-hood in things in order to trigger the physical memory of unresolved emotion and get this stuck energy moving. But the creation of this false person-hood merely adds conviction to the long standing pattern that caused the unresolved emotion to have become unresolved in the first place. Again this is of no consequence to the network because from its point of view it just adds more energy to maintaining the network’s overall charge and integrity, like the surface tension on a cell membrane that electromagnetically regulates input and output. Nature has all the time in the world, it doesn’t matter to the network when or who resolves the unresolved emotion because physical memory is transferable and sooner or later someone will come along to resolve that stuck energy. This is why in our own minds it really doesn’t matter to us who invented the computer or the internet because sooner or later due to the simple principle of electrical conductivity, someone would have.
    Freedom is the experience when our thoughts, actions, and feelings, proceed in a straight line in accord with the principle of emotional conductivity E–>UE–>RE so that our charge is resolved in a way that adds complexity to the network. We are endowed with a sense of self so that when this straight line (paradoxically maintaining emotional momentum means acting in accord with a circle so that we approach resistance circuitously rather than being monochromatic, but we perceive this as being straight within ourselves) toward resolution isn’t being followed, we will experience friction. This then is our one and only choice, we could personify the source of friction, or we could use it as information to sustain our emotional momentum. So for example, when a dog displays a “problem behavior” or an expression of personality, we could use it as an opportunity to explore the group mind that is really at work and not able to be apprehended by the human intellect but can easily be felt by the human heart.
    I do believe there is a free Will, but it operates as an aggregate of all consciousness. As an aggregate if we all tell the truth, than we can collectively choose the future that feels best. I think a deepening understanding of quantum mechanics will further illuminate this philosophical question, for now, I think our understanding is in the grip of a nihilistic materialism based on the concept of randomness, which I believe is based on our weak understanding of causation and time.
    Some might think I’m arguing for a communal kind of political structure but nothing could be farther from the truth. A true government recognizes that the individual is the cell of network energy and information, emotional intelligence is a bubble-up from below phenomenon, not a trickle-down from above. That’s why we say, “Will of the People.” The Will is always for the good. Only the intellect can think of “strong-willed” as something negative, we never say when we visit a loved one in the hospital, they have too much will to live because our heart knows the truth about the Will.

  13. Heather says:

    “Freedom is the experience when our thoughts, actions, and feelings, proceed in a straight line in accord with the principle of emotional conductivity E–>UE–>RE so that our charge is resolved in a way that adds complexity to the network. We are endowed with a sense of self so that when this straight line (paradoxically maintaining emotional momentum means acting in accord with a circle so that we approach resistance circuitously rather than being monochromatic, but we perceive this as being straight within ourselves) toward resolution isn’t being followed, we will experience friction. This then is our one and only choice, we could personify the source of friction, or we could use it as information to sustain our emotional momentum. So for example, when a dog displays a “problem behavior” or an expression of personality, we could use it as an opportunity to explore the group mind that is really at work and not able to be apprehended by the human intellect but can easily be felt by the human heart.
    I do believe there is a free Will, but it operates as an aggregate of all consciousness. As an aggregate if we all tell the truth, than we can collectively choose the future that feels best. I think a deepening understanding of quantum mechanics will further illuminate this philosophical question, for now, I think our understanding is in the grip of a nihilistic materialism based on the concept of randomness, which I believe is based on our weak understanding of causation and time.”

    This is exactly what I believe about “freedom”. That choice is made over and over and over every moment of every day, in small ways, starting with the moment our “thinking” brain wakes up. It is no small endeavor to stay in drive, yet dogs just do. It is why I believe a few people stand out in history, religion, science, even people unknown but to a relative few (you for example, and also everyone knows someone like this) – those people are able to not just intellectualize /understand the concepts, which is a necessary first step but not sufficient, but they are able to actually experience the freedom, and serve as examples and teachers to others.

    Thank you for reiterating the details, I have to print out the posts for later reading, it is pretty jam-packed with information.

  14. Heather says:

    The reason I think that considering the possiblity of a group mind is virtually impossible sometimes, is related to just how invested a paricular individual has become in his or her “personality” – with some people when they meet the “friction,” choosing the path of “safety”, ie, retreating into thoughts and personality (ironically not safe at all, but perceived safety), is so deeply ingrained that when backed into a literal or figurative corner the choice becomes a matter of life and death (theirs or someone else’s). The analogy of the car coming up too fast in the rear view mirror comes to mind – there are numerous stories of people being tailgated and going into bouts of road rage, in fact killing the other driver. The road rager is to be pitied, he must feel SO isolated and disconnected from others, every bit of friction feels like an all-out assault on him personally, and he has lost all ability to even MAKE the choice. Even in a less charged situation, he would not be able to consider the possiblity of the choice existing.

    That’s why it’s puzzling to me why now that animal consciousness is being studied in earnest, so much time and effort is put on “proving” that animals are suffering as we are (tho it’s clear that dogs can feel and express our suffering).

  15. Heather says:

    Kevin: “Such an individual finds themselves increasingly locked into a pattern of inventing a person-hood in things in order to trigger the physical memory of unresolved emotion and get this stuck energy moving. But the creation of this false person-hood merely adds conviction to the long standing pattern that caused the unresolved emotion to have become unresolved in the first place”

    I have read that this pattern of inventing a person-hood in things can be illustrated by the “empty rowboat” scenario. Envision that you are in a rowboat and from out of nowhere another rowboat rams into the side of your boat. The first thought would probably be “what the bleep is wrong with the driver of that rowboat?” But what if you look and it’s just an empty rowboat, it completely changes the reaction.

    So the error is in making it personal Anytime there is an angry/hurtful reaction it is sure to be because of that sort of thinking.

  16. christine randolph says:

    there is no way that I will buy into the future sorting itself out without individuals doing anything to fix things. and the idea that this will happen no matter who does it. the people in charge do not carry the positive energy required for this. and the people who might have the good energy are not interested in being in charge, they would likely rather do dog training….

    Other than the much needed and if it happens most likely self-inflicted demise of mankind and allowing animals to live in some kind of equilibrium as it was before humans came onto the scene

  17. kbehan says:

    Once I went tobogganing late at night with my friends from college. We didn’t know it but we had climbed to the top of an impossibly steep ski hill that was out of business. It was dark so we didn’t know what we were in for. I was on the back and about half way down we must have hit a boulder submerged under feet of snow. I was sent easily twenty feet into the air and I had the distinct image of a giant foot kicking me in the butt and lifting me airborne. It was right out of Jack and the Beanstalk kind of imagery. So I think that kind of fill-in-the-blank reflex of the intellect is what we’re up against.

  18. kbehan says:

    I feel it’s up to we individuals to tell the truth, and then a collective intelligence has the chance to express itself. But if we confuse such things as guilt with feeling, and instincts with emotion, the group mind doesn’t fully express and we just build up the charge. I also don’t think we should judge humans relative to animals and try to come up with a hierarchy of value, we are all part of the network and it’s important to see the role each component plays. Each species of animal is a feeling and humans have the opportunity to embody the full spectrum. All animals are attracted to us.

  19. Heather says:

    I read the Time article Lee posted about (on a different thread I think). It is interesting that the researchers are rather extreme animal-rights advocates. The researchers must assume that humans will treat animals better the “smarter” we perceive them to be. They are appealing to people’s self-centeredness. I actually don’t think that is a great strategy, given how people treat each other, reflexively finding evil intent when there is none (eg even in a totally neutral situation, Kevin’s mind automatically created a kicking giant out of a rock).

    I admit that I am idealistic, but I think that huge change can happen if enough individuals soften just a bit (there’s no choice anyway, it has to be from the individual level.) As more people cultivate even a little ability to resolve emotion by making contact and adding energy to the network, instead of choosing the “safety” of their thoughts (storing unresolved emotion as stress and releasing it via an instinct like anger or guilt), it would have a big effect.

    EG, if enough dog owners could get in touch with their own connected-ness through their dog, and poke just a tiny hole in the thought bubble that they have constructed around themselves, there could be a real chance that collective intelligence could be expressed regarding animal welfare. Who knows where that could lead, people might generalize to other people…

  20. Heather says:

    As with anything in nature, though, there is always going to be a continuum, from people who have virtually no capacity for turning energy-into-information (I would say they are 100% open-circuits, in the sense that the circuit is incomplete and can’t carry any energy), to people who are in “drive” all the time, every choice maximizes E–>UE–>RE (100% closed circuits), to people at everyplace in between. Nature itself doesn’t care where we are on the continuum, but I think a world where more people were closed circuits more of the time would look a lot different to us.

  21. See my latest personal blog article

    http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/my-puppy-my-self/201008/do-dogs-have-theory-mind-ii-misunderstanding-dogs-mistreating-them

    as well as my newest one for Psychology Today:

    Do Dogs Have a Theory of Mind? II: Misunderstanding Dogs = Mistreating Them

    “While some scientists want us to believe that dogs have cognitive abilities just like ours, by doing so they’re actually ensuring that the more dogs will be mistreated and abandoned. And not a single one of those dogs will have any idea as to why they’ve been beaten and abused, or left by the side of the road, or why the purity of their love has been denied.”

    http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/my-puppy-my-self/201008/do-dogs-have-theory-mind-ii-misunderstanding-dogs-mistreating-them

    LCK

  22. Heather says:

    Primates really do think, and the bonobo in the Time article was “behind plexiglass” demonstrating all that complex linguistic ability to the author. They take things personally, dogs so clearly don’t.

    It’s too bad this is the direction researchers are going with dogs, I agree that it is going to worsen their predicament with us.

  23. Burl says:

    I hate to do this guys, but I want to look at a different philosopher…

    I hear the crickets and am prehending your collective angst!

    White was not the best choice, but he covered a lot of the network ideas, potential telepathic explanation (via prehension), and his reformed subjectivist principle allowed that all higher order organisms shared similar conscious moments. (I never pushed the thoughts much, and he doesn’t either).

    So, let’s take a look at a more famous philosopher whose notions of experience are precursors to Whiteheads – David Hume. I had overlooked his naturalistic outlook and while searching animal minds came across this interesting link http://www.bartleby.com/37/3/13.html

    He’s easier to read than ole ANW, though Hume’s mid-18th century prose is different. I believe what he says here is quite like what I have been trying to say about animal reasoning. Here is a summary of what he says from http://www.iep.utm.edu/ani-mind/#SH1a: “no truth appears to be more evident, than that beast are endow’d with thought and reason as well as men.” The type of thought that Hume had in mind here was belief, which he defined as a “lively idea” or “image” caused by (or associated with) a prior sensory experience. Reason Hume defined as a mere disposition or instinct to form associations among such ideas on the basis of past experience. In the section of A Treatise of Human Nature entitled, “Of the Reason of Animals,” Hume argued by analogy that since animals behave in ways that closely resemble the behaviors of human beings that we know to be caused by associations among ideas, animals also behave as a result of forming similar associations among ideas in their minds. Given Hume’s definitions of “thought” and “reason,” he took this analogical argument to give “incontestable” proof that animals have thought and reason.

    I have always been attracted to the NDT vision of ‘excess energy that needs to be (re)directed.’ I see it in my mutt’s behavior. I don’t see why it has to be something way removed from species instincts (or, customs, for Hume).

  24. kbehan says:

    What Hume calls “ideas” seems to be what I would call physical memory, but I make a distinction between this and human conceptual reasoning because in the animal mind one moment becomes connected to another moment not by reason, (or ideas, or cause and effect, etc.)but by the laws of nature, i.e. physics, which the animal apprehends by feeling, sans thought. So for example, if two dogs come together head-to-head, you can see that they are experiencing an electrostatic pressure and they know to tread gingerly as these pressure states are connected via physical memory to shocks. “They aren’t thinking I wonder what that one is up to?” They are literally feeling a pressure in their head and muzzle. These are virtual energies, not real ones, but they are perceived as very real given the way animal consciousness is composed of balance and hunger processes. So when input can’t be grounded into the little-brain (hunger) this is perceived as pressure in the head, its collapse then perceived as an electrical shock.
    The term “associate among ideas” is leaping straight away to a mental conception of linkages just because the behaviors to humans are similar. Whereas in NDT the behaviors are similar between animals and humans because it all is predicated on evolution from energy, with thoughts being the capacity to see the self in relief against the backdrop, but also without seeing that the backdrop is not the totality of it all, just a backdrop to allow the thoughts to see the self in relief. The intellect constructs such a backdrop from its perception of things in order to put the system into conflict which then gives the Will the chance to make a distinction by feel when the intellect enters a state of confusion. From deep in the emotional battery when the intellect is paralyzed by confusion, the Will can triangulate via its connections with others a new value, or distinction, which resolves the impasse and now new information has entered the network.

  25. Burl says:

    As usual, Kevin, I am not catching your drift. Maybe an example?

    I am starting to see that we may be having an issue with Peanut, who gets a build-up of unresolved energy that explodes.

    I have a detailed post http://forum.dog.com/forums/p/108529/883098.aspx#883098 and there are photos at that dog forum site of our mutts. Perhaps you could look there and diagnose what you see back here for this group. I would appreciate your analysis.

  26. Crystal says:

    Burl, I understand your desire to understand and to clarify and that is important. At the same time I wonder have you implemented pushing, pulling, tugging, box work and dogs in their own beds?

    I have found that practicing NDT also helps with comprehension.

  27. Heather says:

    I think NDT is a forest/tree subject – you have to start somewhere, do you start with the theory or the practice? It might be different for different people.

  28. kbehan says:

    As Crystal notes, you could do some of the techniques of NDT because using the body is an important avenue to gaining understanding. And in regards to Heather’s point, I often know something will work and then find the energetic logic later, and then less often I have an abstract insight and find a technique that can implement it, this was how I figured out eye contacting, from the abstract to the practical. At any rate, I hope the following isn’t too opaque as I’m going to begin with the abstract model. The purpose of sociability is to make information, and information is making new energy for the network. To make energy, individuals have to synchronize their energies. This is the essence of sociability. To synchronize their energies, individuals must complement each other by adopting a specific “frequency” (personality) so that they are equal and opposites. Thus they have a common “Big Want,” (to resolve unresolved emotion, which behaviorally translates into bringing the moose to ground) and then around this one Big-Want they self-organize according to a hierarchy of “little wants” which are their respective vibrations and this then keeps friction to a minimum because any discord that comes up merely serves to reinforce the alignment around the one Big-Want. However when this self-organizing system isn’t manifesting, then there is friction. We are inclined to attach a lot of charged words to such behaviors that arise from friction as in the use of the word jealousy, or the concepts of competing for attention and so on, but these mislead us. The reality is that if the dogs aren’t aligned around a Big-Want that can conduct their collective energies, then there is a short circuit in the group mind. (Incidentally, you might be surprised to learn that the younger dog that initiates the fighting is generally not causal, it’s the older dog that adopts the “aloof” polarity who is causal, typically it taught the younger dog the “rules of the pack” when they first came together and by being aloof, it is denying the dog access to its body, which is a part of its mind and so this is no small matter when consciousness is a function of a group mind. Typically a year or so later after such early “discipline” when the younger dog’s stronger temperament comes to fruition, then it’s payback time.) In the absence of a “group trigger” which should be that which can conduct the combined energies of all the dogs so that they can align with each other at a peak level of intensity, i.e. the moose, then typically the attention of the owner becomes the one “Big Want.” In this case, when the owner is petting and giving attention to one dog, to the other dog it is seeing the charge being transmitted, just as if the owner is saying, “get ‘im” — this is the prey. The dog is synchronizing with the owner to bring the other dog to ground. Since the other dog will resist being brought to ground at a peak level of intensity, there is a fight. So because there is no possibility for the dogs to align with each other to bring the “owner to ground,” fighting amongst themselves becomes the “Big Want” because at least they get to bite something with a lot of intensity. So you could say that you are the moose and the energy can’t come to ground and so where you direct your attention becomes the ground for all that intensity that the dog is harboring.

  29. Heather says:

    “The intellect constructs such a backdrop from its perception of things in order to put the system into conflict which then gives the Will the chance to make a distinction by feel when the intellect enters a state of confusion. From deep in the emotional battery when the intellect is paralyzed by confusion, the Will can triangulate via its connections with others a new value, or distinction, which resolves the impasse and now new information has entered the network”

    I am not sure if how I see that triangulation at work is how you see it – could elaborate further on how that works?

    In my experience it takes a lot of “work” to figure out when the intellect enters a state of confusion. For me it takes a lot of quiet meditation to see what thoughts are percolating up most frequently and to feel where the stress is manifesting in my body. It is often through that process that the “right” course of action comes to me. If I get lazy about doing the work, then I reflexively believe my thoughts and I get more confused.

    The fun thing about Happy is that if I can be with him and really pay attention to the immediate moment, it is just like quiet meditation, maybe better, because I can readily notice when my thoughts are creating a sense of confusion. Then it’s easier to let go of the thoughts and return to what is happening energetically. Also, it feels SO much better than forming a never-ending series of judgments about discrete behaviors. That feeling is something that I can carry over to other areas. Some days I’m mostly confused, but sorting through that actually feels good.

  30. Heather says:

    And that is why I feel that NDT is so unique and can be so transformative — every other training technique, philosophy or “science” involves observing, categorizing, effecting or affecting discrete behaviors, and misses the big (amazing) picture. And even if every behavior is “perfect” from the owner’s standpoint, it is sort of sad to reduce a dog to the sum total of our judgments about him. That is what would have happened in my case had I not stumbled on this website, so I’m really grateful for all of the ongoing discussion and explanation.

  31. kbehan says:

    Okay, so we are all born with “the answer” which is the state of resonance we experienced when in the womb, weightless, assuaged by rhythmic pulsation, no resistance to consciousness, a pure state of experience. Then we are born into “the problem.” When we return to a state of resonance, then all the stress we’ve acquired by contact with this world of friction, is converted back into the experience of flow and now we have information. We are more conscious. So in our interactions if they are proceeding according to network protocols, then we are triangulating our stress reservoir with another being’s stress reservoir and if we can synchronize, then we have computed our mutual deposits of stress into a wave function of resonance thereby expanding the network with this new definition of flow.
    The main function of the central nervous system endowed with executive function, is not to be the Executive, but simply to tally intensity values and then in the case of the human intellect, to compare one intensity value to another on the high mental plane which inevitably leads to a deadlock when two values are the same. (In the animal mind, the intensity value of a given stimulus triggers a corresponding intensity value in the emotional battery so in this way intensity values are being compared, but, below the animal’s cognitive understanding of this, it’s just being triggered. If the animal can then perceive the essence within the form of resistance that was the trigger, then it can feel a new emotional value for said object of resistance. So perhaps you can see how the capacity for thought evolves in a smooth bubble-up progression in an energy model, whereas in the current trickle-down models the capacity for thought is an “ABRAKADABRA—Let There Be Thoughts” form of intellectual creationism) When two intensity values are the same, the intellect then enters a state of confusion (This almost always then triggers the judgment against one’s self and so many people become angry or guilty and the essence within the form of any given thing won’t be divined) and in my view, the proper response is to wait for the emotional battery to “compute” a resolution of this conflict via the Heart into a new distinction, a feeling for the essence of the form of the thing and therefore then be able to feel what is the right thing to do. (The Heart apprehends the “center mass” or midpoint of the form, this is potential energy, i.e. its essence.) Sometimes the resolution is quick, but because we are so intellectual and mentally driven, it can take a long time for the answer to bubble up into our awareness and the intellect is not disposed to wait, it wants to leap to a conclusion to get out of a state of confusion which it equates with falling. (This is also why I feel NDT runs into such fierce opposition from many quarters because to get the energy model one has to put every belief into a state of suspended animation until the energy model comes into view. I’ve had a lot of practice at it and so I can appreciate that this is a difficult exercise. I have a chapter in my next to next book entitled “Trust the Confusion” describing how I arrived at a state of utter confusion in the late seventies and then decided not to talk myself out of it. My compass might be broken in that it no longer pointed to True North, CLARITY, but at least it pointed to True South, CONFUSION, and so until the feeling of resonance came through the confusion, I would simply resolve to stay confused. I didn’t know the answer, but I’d recognize it when I felt it. In this way, tiny step by tiny step, I learned to see the energy model. There were some questions of confusion that took decades to answer. The most important thing about confusion is that it allows one to ask a smaller and smaller and more precisely posed question. So I would ask a why-is-the-sky-blue question and then over the years whittle it down into far more answerable components until finally the resolution became obvious.)
    You’re exactly right, just being with a dog and seeing them as creatures of the immediate moment is a very high form of meditation. If you stay in a state of confusion because two intensity values are the same, intellectually you like something about NDT, but can’t feel the whole model, and then there are some powerful elements of other models that have been programmed into your mind that are in equal conflict with NDT intensity wise, then you enter a state of confusion. I’m suggesting as you’re indicating, that you just stay present with the confusion until a feeling comes from your heart. That is what I mean by information. This information can channel far more energy than anything the intellect can come up with. The good news is that soon the intellect will reconfigure itself around this information and then your thoughts will be supporting your feeling. At this point then the intellect will be able to find words to express the feeling and this allows others to triangulate with you and thus the network constantly expands its consciousness.

  32. Heather says:

    “When two intensity values are the same, the intellect then enters a state of confusion (This almost always then triggers the judgment against one’s self and so many people become angry or guilty and the essence within the form of any given thing won’t be divined)”

    What would make two intensity values the same or different? EG filtering a particular form through the lens of past experiences (or in the case of people, not only experiences but personal beliefs?)

    Also, when you say judgment against one’s self, are you referring to the “self’s” judgment that the form it is encountering might cause the self harm…or something different?

    This is what I think of as hard work – the waiting for the heart to “‘compute’ a resolution” of a conflict. Especially if my reflex would be to strike out. But when the resolution comes, its swiftness and finality to end any particular conflict is what always amazes me – especially considering how long-standing some conflicts can be. But there is no shortage of conflicts so that makes room for the next one I guess.

  33. kbehan says:

    Everything has a-resistance-to-being-ingested value and so this computes to an overall intensity. A rabbit could run down a hole and it might take a lot of work to unearth it and this intensity value could be equivalent to running it down in the open. Or your car could be at 3000 rpm in 2nd or 5th gear and while the car’s behavior is fundamentally different in either case, yet the intensity (rpm) is exactly the same. So when two things are held in intellectual contrast at the same time and they have the same intensity value, the intellect becomes confused trying to understand the distinction between them. It will fixate on the form of the things and then come up with elaborate reasoning, but this will always lead to a self-contradicting logic loop because the energetic logic hasn’t been made apparent.
    The fundamental judgment against one’s “self” happens during infancy when we become self-aware, i.e. there are other selves other than my self, and self-conscious, i.e. my wanting something isn’t enough to make it manifest, other selves are necessarily involved in making a want come true. This is when we leave the Garden of Eden of emotional alchemy and enter a world of time. In the world of time the infant mind computes the intensity of this resistance to mean “I am not good enough to have what I want just because I want it.” Every other judgment subsequently acquired piles up on top of this one. Ironically, the form of a thing that best allows us to get down beneath all these layers of judgments is the dog, but then we try to turn it into a person and this reflex will merely confirm all the judgments we have subsequently acquired since we became self-aware and self-conscious and then as an adult began to feel disconnected from our nature and so turn to a dog for a renewal of meaning. I’m suggesting we not turn the dog into a person but rather use the dog to try and get our Will back.
    Once you trust the confusion, you are beginning to trust that the heart will find the resolution and that you have all the time in the world. The function of dysfunction is to be in conflict so that the heart can arrive at distinctions between these intensity values. Eventually one is able to be in conflict without being in conflict and it becomes fun to wait for the surprise and thrill of the resolution as epiphany.

  34. Heather says:

    “there are other selves other than my self, and self-conscious, i.e. my wanting something isn’t enough to make it manifest, other selves are necessarily involved in making a want come true. This is when we leave the Garden of Eden of emotional alchemy and enter a world of time. In the world of time the infant mind computes the intensity of this resistance to mean ‘I am not good enough to have what I want just because I want it.'”

    So just so I’m understanding…the implication of this is that there is the inherent potential for conflict between the self and any/all other selves/forms in the world? Or is it that every encouter of a certain intensity has the potential to bring back that early conclusion of “I am not good enough” and the subsequent adoption of a particular personality trait to compensate (which is then triggered, and sometimes expressed if the ability to trust the confusion isn’t cultivated for that trigger)? Or maybe that is a distinction without a difference?

    “then as an adult began to feel disconnected from our nature and so turn to a dog for a renewal of meaning. I’m suggesting we not turn the dog into a person but rather use the dog to try and get our Will back”

    Well, this is exactly what happened to me, only I didn’t have any inkling that dogs held such a valuable key. That accounts for my numerous posts, it’s like finding a hidden treasure and I’m excited about it.

    Also I guess we have made a complete circle, because after so many posts now I realize what you meant when in the original article you said “animals learn in reverse, backwards in time which is another argument against intention since that is forward directed. In other words, animals develop in embryo in complete resonance, they are born with the answer already inculcated in every cell, fibre, tissue and neuron of their being, and then through prehension (sense the essence within the form) they ultimately connect with those things in nature that serve to recapitulate resonance. Whereas the human intellect sees them working things out as if they are mentally apprehending what’s happening over time and relative to other points of view, when they are really ‘learning: backwards in time, regressing internally to a state of resonance but now, by unconsciously inducing the object of attraction to play its part as a counterbalance in that same wave function, and given all the experiences they’ve metabolized as stress, incorporating all that energy of resistance back to a smooth wave function of resonance has added more energy to the network'”

  35. kbehan says:

    Right, until we integrate and synchronize with another, there is inevitably friction. But if this energy can be added to the bond, then it merely raises consciousness, which is why if you notice the dogs that are most charged by each other, always end up playing with the most intensity if they are helped to a point of synchronization. (This by the way is why I’m against dogs sleeping in the bed, it homogenizes the vibration of each individual so that it’s harder for them to synchronize and turn friction into new energy.) The intensity of this friction triggers earliest memories of not being good enough, but if we resist projecting these THOUGHTS onto others, then the potential arises for either synchronization if the other individual participates in the process of synchronization, or at least awareness if they don’t. Either way one can arrive at resolution.
    Thank you for completing the circle. We have to go backwards to get our Will back. Sting has a great line, “Forget about the future, let’s get busy with the past.”

  36. Burl says:

    Kevin, I was able to follow a couple of points. Could you rephrase your reasoning about sleepin’ w/ Fido? Also, I had kinda wondered about this one before “Incidentally, you might be surprised to learn that the younger dog that initiates the fighting is generally not causal, it’s the older dog that adopts the “aloof” polarity who is causal, typically it taught the younger dog the “rules of the pack” … Typically a year or so later after such early “discipline” when the younger dog’s stronger temperament comes to fruition, then it’s payback time.” How would anyone tell if Peanut is justified in revenge?

  37. kbehan says:

    The goal of all behavior is to make new energy. Animals experience friction to a pure expression of emotion as attraction to things, and then if they can synchronize with other triggers of this friction that’s been captured and stored as stress in the emotional battery, then this becomes new energy, i.e. social information. So to facilitate this synchronization, every animal needs a sense of space so that it is different, it is vibrating at a different pitch then other beings and this then makes it easier to synchronize with other beings. I liken a social structure to being like a choir, if every singer sings the same note, there is no harmony. We need altos, sopranos, tenors and bass each singing in their own space to evoke the full spectrum of harmonic potentials. When dogs sleep on the bed (and I’m fully aware that 9 out of 10 dogs won’t manifest symptoms of this phenomenon that rise to the level of being problematic, but they manifest its quirks nonetheless) then they are all vibrating at the same pitch and so their involuntary systems increase “the volume” so that they are trying to out-vibrate the others to arrive at some place of differentiation. At any rate, this is many hours of friction building without giving them a platform for synchronization. Most dogs find their own space in other moments, so this alleviates the tension, but some dogs can’t and then the sparks and fur will fly.
    Finally, it can only get out of the battery the way it went in. So Peanuts isn’t seeking revenge, she only has access to the deeper layer of her consciousness by being triggered by the other that put it in there, and so she finds herself intensely attracted to the dog that “disciplined her” and she is desperate to connect with her “self” and that aloof pose is provocative because by being withdrawn, unbeknownst to the dog of course, it is denying access to Peanuts to Peanuts. So Peanuts chooses life over death by fighting for her Self.

  38. Heather says:

    I want to jump back in at another point on the circle if it is OK…some things I sort of gave a nod to understanding but then thought more and realized that I really didn’t get what was being said.

    This is regarding the issue of physical memory vs. “time”. I am starting to think about that and how perhaps why it is so difficult to *really get* that dogs are not “mentally apprehending what’s happening over time” — it is because of the way our minds automatically string together events in time, ie, we are all slaves to the notion that time “exists” and that there is some “absolute” clock tick, tick, ticking away out there.

    EG you said earlier,
    “What is confusing to the human intellect is the passage of time between volley and return in the instance of the ping/pong going on between two dogs meeting and greeting and then forming a relationship in whichever way or form it evolves to be, so the human intellect fill this void with thoughts because we don’t believe there can be action-over-time of an intelligent nature without a mental ether. . . . I’m concentrating on the physical memory affects that synchronize individuals into a group mind and which represents action over time, time being just another form of distance since time and space are on the same continuum”

    If there really is an absolute physical “clock of the universe,” then it would make sense that all animals would be subject to its effects and that learning might be a case of comparing one moment to the next, what might be or not be sort of thing. BUT since science is showing that time is not that way at all, it is just a fabrication of the mind, then it actually doesn’t follow that learning is a temporal cause-and-effect sort of phenomenon.

    I googled and found a good, recent article regarding the physics of time:

    http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/in-no-time/article_view?b_start:int=1&-C=

    The way our minds work is really interesting. The tricks it plays (the mental either, ie, filling up the gaps between clock ticks with thoughts) can be something we can observe, as they are something we add to the immediate moment that really isn’t there.

  39. Heather says:

    Sorry, I linked to the 2nd page of that article, here is a link to the beginning:

    http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/in-no-time/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=

  40. Burl says:

    Heather, what did you think of Hume’s explanation of how we dogs and humans experience the same world thru similar sens organs and neural physiology, and based on our repeated experiences in and of worldly objects and subjects, learn to form beliefs (associations of ideas pointing to what is likely to follow from what), and this is what is meant by reasoning which is much the same for Fido as for Fred?

  41. Heather says:

    What I was thinking is, take out the notion of linear time as a variable, and that is not at all some fantasic idea, where does that leave behaviorism? It definitely leaves the NDT physical memory model not only in tact but helps to better visualize what is happening in the moment, when the intensity value of one thing triggers a physical memory of the same intensity, and how the resulting feeling would inform the dog exactly what to do.

  42. Burl says:

    Not sure time was anything explicitly mentioned by Hume, let alone ‘the notion of linear time.’

    It is certainly implicit, as any past events are available for association in a present experience only by means of neural/physical memory. For Hume and Whitehead, the future is not a reality, yet. I think some of your holdouts on mentality is that it takes a long time to form an idea in the present duration of experience, but it is not so. Multiple adjacent short durations of time (only the last of which is actually the present duration) can account for any associations of ideas needed to reason out a given behavioral action. These durations are on the order of 2/10 sec.

    Just as there is no such thing as a mathematical point, there is no instantaneous (immediate) present.

  43. Heather says:

    I am not sure how it exactly relates to Hume or is different, I haven’t read anything written by Hume, but based just on what you summarized, I would agree with Hume that the physical experience of a particular being
    defines the immediate moment reality.

    I think it makes sense to try to put things in NDT terms so as not to be more confusing with ideas:

    I believe that emotions can arise from physical experiences, the arising emotion is what Kevin would call “unresolved”. I *don’t* believe that the *relevant* repeated (past is what I take that to mean) experiences are those that are conceptualized and held in the mind as memories–rather, I believe that ALL of the past/related experiences (unresolved emotions with similar intensity values I think is what Kevin would call them) are not truly “past,” I believe that they are fully present and felt in the immediate moment — they can be felt at various places in the body as tension.

    In the “functional” way of being, which all sentient beings are capable of (humans have thought barriers though and they can act very dysfunctionally) it is possible (to use Kevin’s term) to “triangulate” a feeling, ie, resolve an unresolved emotion, by simply experiencing (ingesting) the physical sensations caused by the emotion in the moment, and actions with respect to the form that gave rise to the emotion will be constructive, ie, energy will be added to the network, and the distinction between the object and the subject ceases to be, they have “connected,” they are not separate (the separation is a mental construct).

    It is also possible for an emotion to remain unresolved, and the resulting physical sensations it generates in that case will be stored as stress. The subject feels that the object is separate, and the actions relative to the object will reflect that. The stress is energy that is not available to the organism, and it will be triggered again.

    So in that sense I think we all, humans and non-humans, operate the same way.

    The beliefs, ideas about what is to come next (based on a false faith in what time is), etc., which are heralded as “reason”, the things that are held conceptually as memories, as real as they seem, are just imaginary/sheer fantasy, the very interesting but totally irrelevant workings of the self-centered mind. If animals do have these conceptual, temporally-linked memories, it is not these intangibles that are driving their behavior. They DO drive human behavior a lot, but that is because we are not living the self-examined life, so to speak, we are on autopilot, reflexively believing whatever our little minds come up with.

    As a person, I can notice my own self-centered thoughts, that is constructive, but having thoughts about my thoughts, beliefs about my thoughts, deciding what to do next based on my thoughts, that is going down the rabbit hole in my opinion, and it is the one and only impediment to experiencing the immediate moment.

  44. Heather says:

    So in that sense while I definitely agree with Kevin that we have to go backwards to get our Will back, to resolve unresolved emotion (human or not) it is not at all necessary to ruminate on the past, compare one event to another, go through years of psychotherapy dredging up memories, finding out the “reasons” for certain behaviors…in every sentient being the past and present (and probably the future, I have no idea!) is all right there being experienced.

  45. kbehan says:

    That’s exactly right. So…. if you subtract time and ergo thoughts from the dog’s behavior, what is left, and what accords “meaning” to the experience?

  46. Heather says:

    In my understanding it is the release of the emotional energy (ie, a feeling) that enables the subject (dog) to align/connect with the object of its attraction. The feeling of resolving a particular quantity of emotional energy is then associated with that object, and alignment (for whatever purpose) is the meaning of the experience.

  47. kbehan says:

    Yes, that’s about right in terms of the abstract theory, so here’s the 64 million dollar question, what is the dog feeling when emotion is released and then what is it feeling when it aligns with object of attraction?

  48. Burl says:

    “Yes, that’s about right in terms of the abstract theory, so here’s the 64 million dollar question, what is the dog feeling when emotion is released and then what is it feeling when it aligns with object of attraction?”

    Given our shared emotional physiology, the answer is “However it works for us, it works for them.”

    You keep saying we are naturally similar creatures, then flip and say we are completely different with different physiological explanations for our behavior. Either put man in nature (e.g., ala some we have discussed like Hume, Whitehead, Damasio), or own up to dualism ala Descartes, wherein we are completely differeny types of beings.

    One or the other – our behaviors are very similarly explained, or not.

  49. kbehan says:

    Yes, it works exactly the same, the animal in us is exactly the same as the dog, but for the most part (although it trickles out in our intuitive use of language) we are unaware of this because our Big Brain is so powerful and we confuse emotion with instinct and thoughts with feelings. There is an alternative between thoughts and instinct, the choice isn’t restricted to Damasio et al, vs. Descartes. So the question remains, what exactly is the animal mind experiencing once we subtract all thoughts and Time from the experience, in other words, what is the animal experiencing if a moment is forever?

  50. Heather says:

    I believe he experiences what I do – a feeling of “getting the self back”, being one and the same with an object, in fact being part of the same whole in that experience, simply functioning, no fear.

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Books about Natural Dog Training by Kevin Behan

In Your Dog Is Your Mirror, dog trainer Kevin Behan proposes a radical new model for understanding canine behavior: a dog’s behavior and emotion, indeed its very cognition, are driven by our emotion. The dog doesn’t respond to what the owner thinks, says, or does; it responds to what the owner feels. And in this way, dogs can actually put people back in touch with their own emotions. Behan demonstrates that dogs and humans are connected more profoundly than has ever been imagined — by heart — and that this approach to dog cognition can help us understand many of dogs’ most inscrutable behaviors. This groundbreaking, provocative book opens the door to a whole new understanding between species, and perhaps a whole new understanding of ourselves.
  Natural Dog Training is about how dogs see the world and what this means in regards to training. The first part of this book presents a new theory for the social behavior of canines, featuring the drive to hunt, not the pack instincts, as seminal to canine behavior. The second part reinterprets how dogs actually learn. The third section presents exercises and handling techniques to put this theory into practice with a puppy. The final section sets forth a training program with a special emphasis on coming when called.
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