From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Sat Nov 18 2006 - 14:14:20 EST
> Quoting Rakesh Bhandari <bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU>: > > Yet we *know* when we act intentionally; the portia spider does not. We >> also know what it means to lose the capacity for action; the portia >> spider >> does not. >> > Rakesh, I agree that this seems plausible, but we should not be too > sure. The discovery of planning and intentionality in spiders is very > recent, and came as a great surprise to neurologists who has assumed > that such a small organism could not have such an elaborate behaviour. > > It is perhaps unsafe to generalise and assume that knowing when we lose > the capacity for action is specifically human. I think a caged > animal knows that it is caged, and will try and escape. > > My general point though, is that we can not seem the specificity > of human labour in intentionality. > Can a non human animal distinguish between a movement which is also an action and one which is not? If not, then how would a non human animal know it has lost the capacity for action? Are these even empirical questions? If not, should we move them on positivist grounds? I wish I knew more about the philosophy of action and Donald Davidson's writings. I have also tried a couple of times to understand Husserl's and Merleau Ponty's ideas about the special intentionality of human consciousness but have never felt satisfied. Just marking these ideas/questions which I just can't pursue now.But I read you, Dogan, Ian and Howard with interest Rakesh >> > >> > So Bees and Spiders too, have goals for their labour, which goals >> > they must presumably store in their heads. >> >> Are our goals stored in our head; is that where the self is, simply >> localized as a neural object? I thought the integrative biologists had >> provided good reasons for skepticism. See for example Denis Noble, The >> Music of Life: Biology beyond the Genome. >> > Whether the intentions are stored in the head is not vital, the issue > is whether they are internal to the organism or can be externalised > in the form of spoken or written instructions. Internal intentions > are commonplace among animals, written instructions, are as far as I > know unique to civilised humanity. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. >
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