Clever Corvids: a degree of abstract thought (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, March 05, 2016, 14:48 (3189 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: Professor Fatt-Grant observed that whenever an organism perceived any sort of threat from another organism, it took precautions to protect itself. He inferred from the combination of threat and precaution that the threatened organism was able to gauge the intentions of the threatening organism, and he points out that reading another organism's intentions entails reading the other organism's mind.-It doesn't take much thought to recognize a grizzly's intent when stumbling upon one on the trail. Luckily I've only seen them at a distance. -> dhw: The reading of intentions as a form of mind-reading is clearly an integral feature of what we call “theory of mind”.-All science research on psychology which studies theory of mind is in doubt:-http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/03/psychologys-replication-crisis-cant-be-wished-away/472272/-"Technical discussion aside, I want to make two points here. First, the Reproducibility Project is far from the only line of evidence for psychology's problems. There's the growing list of failures to replicate textbook phenomena. There's publication bias—the tendency to only publish studies with positive results, while dismissing those with negative ones. There's evidence of questionable research practices that are widespread and condoned.-***-“'As someone who has been doing research for nearly twenty years, I now can't help but wonder if the topics I chose to study are in fact real and robust. Have I been chasing puffs of smoke for all these years? I have spent nearly a decade working on the concept of ego depletion, including work that is critical of the model used to explain the phenomenon. I have been rewarded for this work, and I am convinced that the main reason I get any invitations to speak at colloquia and brown-bags these days is because of this work. The problem is that ego depletion might not even be a thing.'”-Comment: All mind study is fuzzy-
> dhw: From our point of view, though, the all-important conclusion of his study is that all organisms are cognitive and all organisms are able to draw inferences from their cognitive powers that influence their behaviour.-Cognition to recognize danger. Born with it! Ask my newborn horses.-> dhw: I understand he is planning a sequel entitled: Why Do Humans Think That Only Humans Can Think? -Who is the publisher? I'd like a copy.