Did the conscience really evolve in lower species?
True mammals are great social creatures and have a since of community. However the treatment of outsiders can just be horrific. Even their owners are not immune to unpredictable behavior:
http://news.yahoo.com/pregnant-woman-killed-pit-bull-died-blood-loss...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,494067,00.html
The human conscience will extend beyond the communities and to other species. What evolutionary impetus gave rise to this? And in which ancestor is the evolution apparent?
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Permalink Reply by Michael on August 16, 2011 at 7:28pm Sea turtles have been known to rescue kids far out at sea and bring them ashore.
Aquatic mammals all seem to have an affinity for man.
And most mammals can become pets. Is it the low development of the frontal lobes that cause some animals to give in to their animalistic behavior?
Do animals taken out of their natural environment, simply can't cope and get frustrated?
Permalink Reply by Michael on August 16, 2011 at 7:47pm Yes, it is only the frontal lobes that separate us from animals. Our brains have a reptilian inner core.
Permalink Reply by Michael on August 16, 2011 at 8:48pm The Highly developed frontal lobes, generally larger brain and increased folds.
For instance Hobbit mans brain looks though diminutive , homo-sapien, whereas, a chimpanzee is clearly a primate (folds less apparent).
Permalink Reply by Michael on August 16, 2011 at 7:34pm Maybe both animals and humans kill out of frustration. Humans kill their own family members.
However mammals usually don't kill their own family. The capacity to kill family maybe be the downside of highly developed frontal lobes.
Permalink Reply by Michael on August 16, 2011 at 8:58pm Interesting. In order to map out consciousness on our level I suppose there would have be a sense of the future and thus, long term future consequences and a higher intellect.
I wonder how much intellect is retained after a lobotomy? Clearly it does not reduce the patient to an animal completely.
Permalink Reply by Laura Jones on August 16, 2011 at 7:41pm Just finished reading The Third Chimpanzee, which deals with these questions. It's a little dated in some areas, but overall, a worthwhile read.
Permalink Reply by Michael on August 17, 2011 at 12:20pm Just noting that folds in the cerebral cortex maybe just as important as highly developed frontal lobes, inorder to manifest a conscience that overrides instinctive behavior.
Permalink Reply by Michael on August 17, 2011 at 1:08pm What is amazing is that the most famous Idiot Savant is extremely lacking a functional corpus callosum. Yet his memory is encylopedia like. Never forgets a fact.
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Permalink Reply by Michael on August 17, 2011 at 9:21pm On Morgan Freeman's "Through the Wormhole", a segment is shown where they have brain cells from a rat interacting with a micro circuit to control motorized devices in an arena. This cyber eventually learns how to navigate at some level.
At what point can we say the cyber has entity? This question is posed on the episode
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