Got a goodreads email recently with a nice quote from Steven Pinker. It reminded me about this list (below) of traits shared by the Universal People , researched by Donald E. Brown, and transcribed here from Pinker's, The Language Instinct, pgs. 429-430.
Value placed on articulateness. Gossip. Lying. Misleading. Verbal humour. Humourous insults. Poetic and rhetorical speech forms. Narrative and storytelling. Metaphor. Poetry with repetition of linguistic elements and three-second lines separated by pauses. Word for days, months, seasons, years, past, present, future, body parts, inner states (emotions, sensations, thoughts), behavioural propensities, flora, fauna, weather, tools, space, motion, speed, location, spatial dimensions, physical properties, giving, lending, affecting things and people, numbers (at the very least "one," "two," and "more than two), proper names, possession. Distinctions between mother and father. Kinship categories, defined in terms of mother, father, son, daughter, and age sequence. Binary distinctions, including male and female, black and white, natural and cultural, good and bad. Measures. Logical relations including "not," "and," "same," "equivalent, " "opposite," general versus particular, part versus whole. Conjectural reasoning (inferring the presence of absent invisible entities from their perceptible traces).
Nonlinguistic vocal communication such as cries and squeals. Interpreting intention from behaviour. Recognized facial expressions of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, and contempt. Use of smiles as a friendly greeting. Crying. Coy flirtation with the eyes. Masking, modifying, and mimicking facial expresssions. Displays of affection.
Sense of self versus other, responsibility, voluntary versus involuntary behaviour, intention, private inner life, normal versus abnormal mental states. Empathy. Sexual attraction. Powerful sexual jealousy. Childhood fears, especially of loud noises, and, at the end of the first year, strangers. Fear of snakes. "Oedipal" feelings (possessiveness of mother, coolness toward her consort). Face recognition. Adornment of bodies and arrangement of hair. Sexual attractiveness, based in part on signs of health and, in women, youth. Hygiene. Dance. Music. Play, including play fighting.
Manufacture of, and dependence upon, many kinds of tools, many of them permanent, made according to culturally transmitted motifs, including cutters, pounders, containers, string, levers, spears. Use of fire to cook food and for other purposes. Drugs, both medicinal and recreational. Shelter. Decoration of artifacts.
A standard pattern and time for weaning. Living in groups, which claim a territory and have a sense of being a distinct people. Families built around a mother and children, usually the biological mother, and one or more men. Institutionalized marriage, in the sense of publicly recognized right of sexual access to a woman eligible for childbearing. Socialization of children (including toilet training) by senior kin. Children copying their elders. Distinguishing of close kin from distant kin, and favouring of close kin. Avoidance of incest between mothers and sons. Great interest in the topic of sex.
Status and prestige, both assigned (by kinship, age, sex) and achieved. Some degree of economic inequality. Division of labour by sex and age. More child care by women. More aggression and violence by men. Acknowledgement of differences between male and female natures. Domination by men in the public political sphere. Exchange of labor, goods, and services. Reciprocity, including retaliation. Gifts. Social reasoning. Coalitions. Government, in the sense of binding collective decisions about public affairs. Leaders, almost always nondictatorial, perhaps ephemeral. Laws, rights, and obligations, including laws against violence, rape and murder. Punishment. Conflict, which is deplored. Rape. Seeking of redress for wrongs. Mediation. In-group/Out-group conflicts. Property. Inheritance of property. Sense of right and wrong. Envy.
Etiquette. Hospitality. Feasting. Diurnality. Standards of sexual modesty. Sex generally in private. Fondness for sweets. Food taboos. Discreetness in elimination of body wastes. Supernatural beliefs. Magic to sustain and increase life, and to attract the opposite sex. Theories of fortune and misfortune. Explanations of disease and death. Medicine. Rituals, including rites of passage. Mourning the dead. Dreaming, interpreting dreams.
PInker also says this:
Obviously this is not a list of instincts or innate psychological propensities; it is a list of complex interactions between a universal human nature and the conditions of living in a human body on this planet. Nor, I hasten to add, is it a characterization of the inevitable, a demarcation of the possible, or a prescription of the desireable.
In a comment thread a while ago, I mentioned that aethetics are a driving force in the formation of scientific theories. For example, a search for symmetry is fundamental to particle physics. John Brockman says this in his introduction to a talk with Pinker ...
It turns out that minds, which are brains, are extremely complicated artifacts of natural selection, and as such they have many emergent properties that can best be understood from an engineering point of view.
We are also discovering that the world itself is very "kludgey"; it is made up of curious Rube Goldberg mechanisms that do cute tricks. This does not sit well with those who want science to be crystalline and precise, like Newton's pure mathematics. The idea that nature might be composed of Rube Goldberg machines is deeply offensive to people who have a strong esthetic drive-those who say that science must be beautiful, that it must be pure, that everything should be symmetrical and deducible from first principles. That esthetic has been a great motivating force in science, since Plato.
Hmmm. He seems to be implying that science is pure and engineering is kludgey. Hey, I resemble that remark!
"...minds, which are brains..."
that's a contentious premise!
"One can argue, for example, that it is at least internally consistent to suppose that there could be a being physically identical to one of us, but who is not conscious at all. This is an odd possibility, and there is little reason to believe it corresponds to anything in the actual world, but it is arguably at least logically possible in that the notion is not contradictory. If so, this suggests that phsyical theory is logically compatible with both the presence and the absence of consciousness. And this in turn suggests that no purely physical theory can explain why consiousness exists in the first place. Levine (1983) has put the point by saying that there is an explanatory gap between physical processes and conscious experiences. " David Chalmers, "The Explanatory Gap", from Toward a Science of Consciousness: The Third Tuscon Discussion and Debates, MIT Press, 1999.
I, however, tend much more toward the kludgey than the pure. I'm the dork that'll poke the poor dead thing with a stick, or wander off the path and tromp on future-affecting butterflies. The idea that my mind is made by my brain is enough of a spooky trip for me - I don't think I need there to be anymore mystery than that. So I very much like the idea of looking at the mind/brain "from an engineering point of view."
The layers of layers model appeals to me. It works in engineering and in evolutionary theory. I just try not to let my reptilian brain make too many decisions.
Speaking layers, Damasio's idea that conciousness is an evolutionary development which allows us to feel our emotions makes sense to me. Seems like awareness and modulation of emotions provides a competitive advantage to highly social apes.
hm. I have a sense of doubt about this. I guess the ape thing is throwing me off. I understand a difference between conscious and not-conscious with regard to distinctions between humand and animals, but with regard to the effective handling of emotions I don't - look at wolf packs! Wouldn't this distinction apply at the level of single-celled slime dwellers? I'm ignorant about this - will go read something before saying anymore.
At the risk of sounding silly.
The other day I thought I had a vision. Turns out I was just seeing things. So I took a picture of it. My mind is still blurry. Nothing has changed.
See y'all been reading that Pinker too, fascinating stuff. When I read 'The Blank Slate' there were moments when I shared the skeptical scientific glee with which he demolishes those Behavoiral Sociological theories. & I start to share the glee with which he skewers those PoMo pretensions in art theory. Then my enthusiasm fades a bit when he goes on too much about how he just doesn't get modern art, and goes on that he thinks it is all just noise. Then I start to think that maybe is just an old fuddy-duddy. But still an entertaining writer.
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Got a goodreads email recently with a nice quote from Steven Pinker. It reminded me about this list (below) of traits shared by the Universal People , researched by Donald E. Brown, and transcribed here from Pinker's, The Language Instinct, pgs. 429-430.
Value placed on articulateness. Gossip. Lying. Misleading. Verbal humour. Humourous insults. Poetic and rhetorical speech forms. Narrative and storytelling. Metaphor. Poetry with repetition of linguistic elements and three-second lines separated by pauses. Word for days, months, seasons, years, past, present, future, body parts, inner states (emotions, sensations, thoughts), behavioural propensities, flora, fauna, weather, tools, space, motion, speed, location, spatial dimensions, physical properties, giving, lending, affecting things and people, numbers (at the very least "one," "two," and "more than two), proper names, possession. Distinctions between mother and father. Kinship categories, defined in terms of mother, father, son, daughter, and age sequence. Binary distinctions, including male and female, black and white, natural and cultural, good and bad. Measures. Logical relations including "not," "and," "same," "equivalent, " "opposite," general versus particular, part versus whole. Conjectural reasoning (inferring the presence of absent invisible entities from their perceptible traces).
Nonlinguistic vocal communication such as cries and squeals. Interpreting intention from behaviour. Recognized facial expressions of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, and contempt. Use of smiles as a friendly greeting. Crying. Coy flirtation with the eyes. Masking, modifying, and mimicking facial expresssions. Displays of affection.
Sense of self versus other, responsibility, voluntary versus involuntary behaviour, intention, private inner life, normal versus abnormal mental states. Empathy. Sexual attraction. Powerful sexual jealousy. Childhood fears, especially of loud noises, and, at the end of the first year, strangers. Fear of snakes. "Oedipal" feelings (possessiveness of mother, coolness toward her consort). Face recognition. Adornment of bodies and arrangement of hair. Sexual attractiveness, based in part on signs of health and, in women, youth. Hygiene. Dance. Music. Play, including play fighting.
Manufacture of, and dependence upon, many kinds of tools, many of them permanent, made according to culturally transmitted motifs, including cutters, pounders, containers, string, levers, spears. Use of fire to cook food and for other purposes. Drugs, both medicinal and recreational. Shelter. Decoration of artifacts.
A standard pattern and time for weaning. Living in groups, which claim a territory and have a sense of being a distinct people. Families built around a mother and children, usually the biological mother, and one or more men. Institutionalized marriage, in the sense of publicly recognized right of sexual access to a woman eligible for childbearing. Socialization of children (including toilet training) by senior kin. Children copying their elders. Distinguishing of close kin from distant kin, and favouring of close kin. Avoidance of incest between mothers and sons. Great interest in the topic of sex.
Status and prestige, both assigned (by kinship, age, sex) and achieved. Some degree of economic inequality. Division of labour by sex and age. More child care by women. More aggression and violence by men. Acknowledgement of differences between male and female natures. Domination by men in the public political sphere. Exchange of labor, goods, and services. Reciprocity, including retaliation. Gifts. Social reasoning. Coalitions. Government, in the sense of binding collective decisions about public affairs. Leaders, almost always nondictatorial, perhaps ephemeral. Laws, rights, and obligations, including laws against violence, rape and murder. Punishment. Conflict, which is deplored. Rape. Seeking of redress for wrongs. Mediation. In-group/Out-group conflicts. Property. Inheritance of property. Sense of right and wrong. Envy.
Etiquette. Hospitality. Feasting. Diurnality. Standards of sexual modesty. Sex generally in private. Fondness for sweets. Food taboos. Discreetness in elimination of body wastes. Supernatural beliefs. Magic to sustain and increase life, and to attract the opposite sex. Theories of fortune and misfortune. Explanations of disease and death. Medicine. Rituals, including rites of passage. Mourning the dead. Dreaming, interpreting dreams.
- sally mckay 2-05-2004 8:33 am
PInker also says this: Obviously this is not a list of instincts or innate psychological propensities; it is a list of complex interactions between a universal human nature and the conditions of living in a human body on this planet. Nor, I hasten to add, is it a characterization of the inevitable, a demarcation of the possible, or a prescription of the desireable.
- sally mckay 2-05-2004 8:40 am
In a comment thread a while ago, I mentioned that aethetics are a driving force in the formation of scientific theories. For example, a search for symmetry is fundamental to particle physics. John Brockman says this in his introduction to a talk with Pinker ...
Hmmm. He seems to be implying that science is pure and engineering is kludgey. Hey, I resemble that remark!- mark 2-05-2004 9:06 am
"...minds, which are brains..."
that's a contentious premise!
"One can argue, for example, that it is at least internally consistent to suppose that there could be a being physically identical to one of us, but who is not conscious at all. This is an odd possibility, and there is little reason to believe it corresponds to anything in the actual world, but it is arguably at least logically possible in that the notion is not contradictory. If so, this suggests that phsyical theory is logically compatible with both the presence and the absence of consciousness. And this in turn suggests that no purely physical theory can explain why consiousness exists in the first place. Levine (1983) has put the point by saying that there is an explanatory gap between physical processes and conscious experiences. " David Chalmers, "The Explanatory Gap", from Toward a Science of Consciousness: The Third Tuscon Discussion and Debates, MIT Press, 1999.
I, however, tend much more toward the kludgey than the pure. I'm the dork that'll poke the poor dead thing with a stick, or wander off the path and tromp on future-affecting butterflies. The idea that my mind is made by my brain is enough of a spooky trip for me - I don't think I need there to be anymore mystery than that. So I very much like the idea of looking at the mind/brain "from an engineering point of view."
- sally mckay 2-05-2004 9:42 am
The layers of layers model appeals to me. It works in engineering and in evolutionary theory. I just try not to let my reptilian brain make too many decisions.
Speaking layers, Damasio's idea that conciousness is an evolutionary development which allows us to feel our emotions makes sense to me. Seems like awareness and modulation of emotions provides a competitive advantage to highly social apes.
- mark 2-05-2004 10:36 am
hm. I have a sense of doubt about this. I guess the ape thing is throwing me off. I understand a difference between conscious and not-conscious with regard to distinctions between humand and animals, but with regard to the effective handling of emotions I don't - look at wolf packs! Wouldn't this distinction apply at the level of single-celled slime dwellers? I'm ignorant about this - will go read something before saying anymore.
- sally mckay 2-05-2004 5:06 pm
At the risk of sounding silly.
The other day I thought I had a vision. Turns out I was just seeing things. So I took a picture of it. My mind is still blurry. Nothing has changed.
- Tino (guest) 2-05-2004 9:42 pm
See y'all been reading that Pinker too, fascinating stuff. When I read 'The Blank Slate' there were moments when I shared the skeptical scientific glee with which he demolishes those Behavoiral Sociological theories. & I start to share the glee with which he skewers those PoMo pretensions in art theory. Then my enthusiasm fades a bit when he goes on too much about how he just doesn't get modern art, and goes on that he thinks it is all just noise. Then I start to think that maybe is just an old fuddy-duddy. But still an entertaining writer.
- Von Bark (guest) 2-07-2004 5:33 am