[lit-ideas] Re: CymaGlyphs, holographic bubbles, & dolphin-speak...

  • From: "Julie Krueger" <juliereneb@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 12:26:48 -0600

Chris -- many of the comments you make below were running in the background
of my mind as questions as I read the article.  Somehow it seems to me that
this course of scientific study could perhaps introduce new concepts, or
change existing concepts, re. language itself -- could be some interesting
implications for philosophy of language.

I'm loving reading the responses because they offer trajectories my puny
mind hadn't thought about.

Julie Krueger



On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 10:57 AM, Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>  DMcE:
> >>Next (evolutionary?) step: insofar as brain mass develops outside the
> confines of the ratio needed to deal with relative body mass (and merely
> physiological functions), can't this nevertheless be understood as a
> response to certain evolutionary pressures or "needs"? My understanding of
> evolution is that the answer here is 'yes' not 'no': and so I remain curious
> about the 'understanding' that suggests otherwise.<<
>
> No, it cannot be so understood.  There are no pressures or needs or purpose
> driving evolution.  Evolution is accidental change to the genetic
> structure of an organism that, if beneficial to the survival of the
> organism, comes to dominance in the species through inheritance of the
> survivors' genome.  Evolution is neither Lamarckism nor Intelligent Design.
> I know that you know this, but it makes mad as hell when people, writing of
> evolution, write statements that could be construed to imply that
> evolutionary change happens for a purpose.  Larger brain mass compared to
> body mass is not the result of a 'need' "for higher intelligence", it's a
> typo on the part of mitosis.  Higher intelligence is a by-product of faulty
> genetic processing or of damaged goods.  If there's anything that can be
> remotely thought of as a kind of driving force behind evolution, it is the
> 'laws' of molecular attraction.  Given certain molecules, they more often
> than not combine in such and such a way just because that's the downhill
> way.  Life, like me, follows the law of least exertion.
>
> Despite being a being of 'higher' intelligence, I couldn't make heads or
> tails of the article.  Do dolphins see wave forms in the water like sound
> waves on an oscilloscope?  I've always thought that oscilloscopes should be
> capable of reversing the process and turning the visual waves back into
> sound waves.  Why hasn't anyone done that?  I don't understand the
> world.
>
> Chris wonders: "What *is* it like to be a dolphin?"
>
> It's like being wet all the time.  It's like wondering if Neptune really
> exists.  It's like being really glad you don't have to walk anywhere or ride
> the bus any more -- they were originally terrestrial creatures, they
> remember.  It's like being a clown for two-legged terrestrial simpletons --
> how easily they're amused!  "Goll durn!!  Look at that, woodja!"  It's like
> always having to watch out for sharks.  It's like every fish creature's
> "being-like" except that they're not fish.  Their babies call them "Mama".
> We're distant cousins, some say, but it all seems very fishy to me.
>
>
> Mike Geary,
> living proof that evolution is a random, accidental, purposeless process
> happening even in Memphis
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Donal McEvoy" <
> donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 5:00 AM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: CymaGlyphs, holographic bubbles, &
> dolphin-speak...
>
> Snip:-
>
> >>Among many other things, cf. Wittgenstein on object/picture
> 'correspondence'.
> >>Nature tends not to evolve brain mass without a need ...
>
> >I have yet to read or hear a convincing argument for this statement,
> >which seems to run counter to what I understand about evolution.
>
> The statement does not run much counter to my understanding of evolution so
> I am curious what understanding of evolution it does run up against:- of
> course, evolutionary understanding is that brain mass is largely taken up
> with controlling physical functions which is why larger creatures may have
> bigger brains without necessarily being smarter - but this increase in brain
> mass does answer a physiological "need", and thus can be explained in
> evolutionary terms. The intelligence quotient relative to brain size is
> therefore, in large part, better understood as an aspect of the ratio of
> brain mass to body mass - this evolution teaches also.
>
> Next (evolutionary?) step: insofar as brain mass develops outside the
> confines of the ratio needed to deal with relative body mass (and merely
> physiological functions), can't this nevertheless be understood as a
> response to certain evolutionary pressures or "needs"? My understanding of
> evolution is that the answer here is 'yes' not 'no': and so I remain curious
> about the 'understanding' that suggests otherwise.
>
> In the same thread Robert Paul wrote:-
>
> > Kassewitz was probably getting close to learning the
> > dolphin words for 'for cough!'
>
> Here is another possibility: dolphins (the few freshwater types aside) do
> not drink water but obtain the water they need through what they eat. In
> captivity they will drink from a fresh water hose, but will not then eat:
> because they have no way of distinguishing between being sated through food
> or liquid (since in their natural habitat it is always through food that
> they are sated, this distinction would serve no "need"). When deprived of
> food, dolphins do not die of hunger but of thirst. Ergo: that clicky-shrieky
> noise is just a gasping for water.
>
> Donal
> Haven't thought this all through, admittedly
> Sunny England
>
>
>
>
>
>
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