Thank you, Gregg. A worthy read indeed.
When I was a small boy I lived for a while on a rural hillside that was
very much a part of the wildlife. I would play outside daily, and was
accompanied by a bumblebee that follow me or hover next to me while I did
whatever I was doing. This "friendship" felt natural. So in this article I
was struck by the assertions that there is evidence that Bees can recognize
faces and also experience positive mental states. As a reflective adult, I
am encouraged by the possibility of something in-between reductive
stimuli-response models of animal and insect life versus projecting
human-levels complexity onto the behaviors of creatures.
On Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 3:55 PM Jamie D <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I was thinking recently, from your latest graphic showing the levels of
> complexity within a person, that perhaps subjectivity might have to do with
> the very fact there is a jump in levels.
>
> I’m reading Christoph Koch’s latest book called The Feeling of Life
> Itself, on Integrated Information Theory, which says that experience
> results from, or is, the “whole”, that emerges from integrated parts, or
> information, measured by phi.
>
> It seems worth exploring connections to these ideas.
>
> Jamie
>
> On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 8:37 AM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Hi TOK List,
>>
>>
>>
>> Here is an interesting article on how bumble bees can engage in cross
>> modal sensory recognition.
>>
>>
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.abc.net.au_news_science_2020-2D02-2D21_bumblebee-2Dobjects-2Dacross-2Dsenses_11981304&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=DMv1cu_WGQvGLRyE13CoNH9jpA4WCOM_pV2sbY1-WS0&s=-KUKor_gOv5gs_CMMgZOT89D89CG4gfPZNlRsRGnuWE&e=
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.abc.net.au_news_science_2020-2D02-2D21_bumblebee-2Dobjects-2Dacross-2Dsenses_11981304&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=CdHJ4L8y_fvgFzB0nzlad3b6keYki4DuzKG92RhWugg&s=If5zdljswkjLZRPY7Ru_1KNBWNnWIglUlcM2BVxVDeQ&e=>
>>
>>
>>
>> I am particularly interested in it because in my current book, one of the
>> key emphases is on the various ways in which we define/conceptualize
>> “mind”. My argument is that we need Mind (capital red) as the third
>> dimension of behavioral complexity to refer to the set of “mental
>> behaviors”.
>>
>>
>>
>> We also need a scientific conception of the mind, which refers to the
>> information instantiated within and processed by the nervous system. The
>> mind (as defined here) is studied via what I call “neurocognitive
>> functionalism” which basically means you observe the functional awareness
>> and response of animals and build and test neuropsychological models that
>> attempt to describe and explain the patterns of mental behavior. Thus, we
>> can readily consider the above study as a study in bee cognition.
>>
>>
>>
>> A key conceptual problem is the jump from this neurocognitive
>> behavioral-functional scientific view of mind to the subjective
>> experiential view of mind. This is the reference of *what it is like to
>> be an animal*? In this case, what is the experience like to be a bumble
>> bee? This is very hard to know because this involves the two hard problems
>> of phenomenological consciousness. The first problem is the epistemological
>> problem. We can never see what the first person experience is like from
>> anyone or any animal directly. So we can’t observe it firsthand. Second,
>> the ontological problem is that we still don’t know exactly why, in a
>> neurobiological engineering sense, the activity of the brain actually
>> produces the miracle of first person experience.
>>
>>
>>
>> Just some food for thought on a Monday J…
>>
>>
>>
>> Peace,
>> G
>>
>>
>>
>> ___________________________________________
>>
>> Gregg Henriques, Ph.D.
>> Professor
>> Department of Graduate Psychology
>> 216 Johnston Hall
>> MSC 7401
>> James Madison University
>> Harrisonburg, VA 22807
>> (540) 568-7857 (phone)
>> (540) 568-4747 (fax)
>>
>>
>> *Be that which enhances dignity and well-being with integrity.*
>>
>> Check out my Theory of Knowledge blog at Psychology Today at:
>>
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_blog_theory-2Dknowledge&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=DMv1cu_WGQvGLRyE13CoNH9jpA4WCOM_pV2sbY1-WS0&s=RbiA2h-91IDLu_xY2X_gMIhuQhQmiSUNVdyXSO0PaJE&e=
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_blog_theory-2Dknowledge&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=CdHJ4L8y_fvgFzB0nzlad3b6keYki4DuzKG92RhWugg&s=6C8SMhlOrDLnP6VWpWx5pW9cCpPceVzgtt1IMPSa3Ec&e=>
>>
>>
>> ############################
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> --
> -Jamie
> ############################
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