When some encounter an energy theory of behavior, they recast it as something it isn’t, such as telepathy, creationism, intelligent design, mysticism. You know the drill. http://dogbehaviorscience.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/dog-evolution-denier-ken-ham-i-mean-kevin-behan/ I believe that life evolves according to principles of energy, not by random. I also believe that the earth, the moon and the stars evolve according to principles […]

Victor Ros from his web site: “The myths that man has attached to the horse, and the motives we impute to it, continue to form a set of unconscious and often unexamined assumptions about equine nature”  http://equilibregaia.com/author/equilibregaia/ Why not examine the number one assumption? Than animals formulate a sense-of-self as does a human. The number […]

Cliff (of Lenny fame) and Eric Brad has an interesting exchange on Eric’s site, linked below, and this gives me the opportunity to emphasize again the fundamental distinctions between NDT and Learning Theory. And even though I’ve probably said these things many times on this site before, perhaps in this interweaving of a number of […]

System: 1) A complete exhibition of essential principles or facts, arranged in a rational or organized whole, or a complex of ideas or principles forming a coherent whole. Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary   When a personality theory (one animal relative to another animal as in a dominance/submissive interaction) introduces a principle of energy in order […]

It’s my premise that whenever one tries to explain a natural system (such as the animal mind) with a personality theory (the animal as a self-contained entity of intelligence) one will always generate self-defeating logic loops and this will require more and more complex rationales to keep these self-annihilating principles from running into each other. […]

An energy theory is a fantastic proposition. If an energy theory is true, then consciousness comes before the brain. Furthermore this means that genes are the result of consciousness rather than consciousness being the result of genes. In other words, animals didn’t evolve to have consciousness; they evolved in response to consciousness. Admittedly this is […]

{Critiques such as these may sound like they’re saying something, but they’re merely sophisticated name calling, nothing specific and concrete is being debated, but I extend the invitation on the hope for such. And because this particular critic is arguing for a personality theory of behavior, they are always guilty of the exact charge they’re […]

Whether we know it or not, we all develop highly complex theories for animal behavior, most especially dogs. Even someone who doesn’t own a dog and never even thinks about why animals do what they do: nonetheless develops a highly elaborate theory for their nature and for their evolution as well, and without even knowing […]