Thanks for collectively straining over the puzzle as to what flocks of birds cavorting aloft, Orcas porpoising alongside boats, Orcas collectively knocking a seal off an ice flow, a horse and dog playing, and in fact we could extend it to all the things that animals do, have in common. Below is a compilation of […]

The Unknown Scientist: “I get the feeling that he doesn’t even read the articles he links to. Did he miss this?” “Once flowers hide away their pollen this way, natural selection favors bees that can give the flowers a harder shake. The harder the bees shake, Dr. Vallejo-Marín and his colleagues have found, the more […]

http://www.wimp.com/throwstick/ Does this dog need its head examined, or does this video reveal something profound about the nature of information? Modern ethologists, behaviorists and many trainers argue that dogs and wolves organize into social structures according to a rational calculation relative to gaining control over resources. Supposedly dogs compute a cost/benefit analysis, while taking in […]

“nothing besides the laws of nature are needed to explain intelligence” http://www.insidescience.org/content/physicist-proposes-new-way-think-about-intelligence/987 Excuse my caps but THE ONLY THEORY OF COGNITION THAT DOES NOT NEED TO BE REVISED…..is NDT. Emotion makes organisms feel just as if they are gravitationally and electromagnetically charged particles of consciousness (through the interplay of the Central Nervous and the Enteric […]

Part Three (17:05) At this point in the interview the subject of the brain reward system comes up and Panksepp points out that this was an unfortunate term because it should actually have been called the “seeking system.” Panksepp’s research discovered that this system elaborates in higher cognitive processes into creative impulses and makes enjoyment […]

Thanks to Russell for the following: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-herding-sheep-selfish.html Emotion is a calculus of motion, feelings are the capacity to apprehend the midpoint of a flow system. Calculating the motion of individual prey animals renders the center mass of the herd and/or defensive formation. The midpoint is place of maximum vulnerability, thus, the young are concentrated at […]

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. […]

Thanks to Lee for the following: Intuitive Physics http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120124113051.htm   “In a review of related scientific literature from the past 30 years, vanMarle and Susan Hespos of Northwestern University found that the evidence for intuitive physics occurs in infants as young as two months — the earliest age at which testing can occur. At that […]

I really like Damasio, but in the interest of time I’m going to be abrupt because simply put, the brain can’t feel a thing. With all due respect to Dr. Damasio: there’s a reason why we place our hand on our heart when we feel moved. We do not point to our brain and this […]