15 - What Makes us Human? Flashcards
What makes humans human?
Some possible answers include tool use, language, art, conciousness and morality?
Testing for the existence and causes of these things is very difficult
Studying conciousness directly doesn’t attract funding
Morality is easier to define and test than conciousness
No real information on conciousness
How did humans evolve?
Brain volume has increased over hominids and ancestors over the last 6 million years
Evidence suggests that the first hominids came from an area surrounding Lake Victoria in Tanzania and Kenya etc
Evidence suggests there was a greater diversity of hominids when there were more lake basins
Brain size began to increase steadily 1.5 million years ago when freshwater became more scarce
Describe tool use in early humans
Incredibly slow progress in hominids
Homo erectus used store tools
However, non-human animals, incl primates and birds also use tools
Describe the limitations of non-human language.
Primates etc can be taught language but lacks meaning
Apes mainly communicate requests
Little evidence for metaphor or creativity
Human language can tell stories of the past and future
No evidence of animals teaching language to offspring
Describe how art might make us human
Producing art is a key human behaviour
Evidence from 100s of 1000s of yrs ago - painting
Evidence of jewellery from shells and teeth
Chimps can paint - but is it art?
Humans of all cultures celebrate fashion
Argument that chimps do - grass in ears for no purpose
What is conciousness?
We dunno
Assume is has materia basis
Was it directly selected for?
Both philosophical and psychological argue it, along with free will, are an illusion
Can’t use intuition as we are wired to believe everything else is concious
Do dogs show guilt?
Horowitz, 2009, 14 dogs
Dog told to leave treat, owner left room
On return, dog either scolded or greeted
Eating did not impact number of guilty looks
Dog’s guilty look in response to being scolded
How can we find conciousness in other species?
Can’t
Need to use proxies for conciousness
MRI scans are too crude
Is conciousness in one place or distributed
Do apes reconise each other in the mirror?
Humans recognise themselves, cats don’t
Gallup, 1970, test
Chimps habituated to mirrors
Anaesthetized and red, odourless dot put on eyebrow
Significantly greater level of mark directed responses
Only in apes, not monkeys
So, self-recognition, but does this mean self awareness?
Do dolphins recognise themselves in the mirror?
Reiss and Marino
2 bottlenose dolphins in aquarium with mirrored walls
Marks/sham mark (water, control) put on body and behaviour recorded
More self directed behaviour after mark
Do elephants recognize themselves in the mirror?
3 adult females, 1 giant mirror Mark above each eye +controls Only one elephant, Happy, responded by touching trunk to mark repeatedly in front of the mirror Individual variability? Irrelevant stimuli? Mirror of limited interest Mark insignificant due to dust bathing?
Do monkeys recognize themselves in the mirror?
de Waal et al, 2005, capuchins Mirror: constant eye contact Window to stranger: back turn Window to familar: relaxed Somewhere between cat and ape? No evidence for self recognition
Can birds recognize themselves?
Debate over whether birds can
May just be due to feeling of markers on themselves
Presence of mirror
What are the problems with using Mirror Self Recognition (MSR)?
Low sample sizes by necessity
1 year old humans don’t pass
Gorillas - hard to get them to pass but eye contact significant
Relevance of mark and mirror hard to estimate
Von Economo neurons found in brain of humans, apes, some monkeys, elephants and dolphins may be associated with social behaviour and awareness (Evrard et al, 2012)
How do we tell if recognition, awareness and conciousness are the same?
Summarise Brosnan de Waal, 2003.
Cucumber grap experiment - only females reacted to inequality appropriately
Females w cucumber less willing to exchange, may be due to learning across trials
5 females
Capuchins must measure reward in relative terms, just like humans
Engage in food cooperation between individuals, may explain expectation of equity
