Hi, Bobber90,
I tell you what, before we discuss it being plausible, we need to get some other items in order…
What evidence do you have to support the statement that, “…higher mammals do have concepts of the world…”.
And, to this we really need to make at least one distinction: every insect, reptile and animal I am aware of will flee from fire before getting burned or suffer impairment from smoke inhalation. I believe this universal flight from preceived danger would be called instinct. Humans have a responses from the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. And, while seeing humans, primates, other mammals, birds, reptiles and insects fleeing from a forest fire - we are probably seeing evidence of instinct at work (for the human, he has additional abilities he can call on.) So, instinct can play a role in some human behaviors.
I am only aware of humans being able to fully conceptualize. We can work with matematics and astronomy and climatology to calculate the planting of crops - back when the ancient Egyptians were doing this, it was the annual flooding of the Nile. There have been demonstrations in the wild of primates poking a stick into a termite mound and eating the termites on the stick - and then resticking the mound to get more termites. In short, the use of a tool! There have also been studies of primates in captivity that are given fruit that is out of their reach, but boxes that they can move are also in the room. The primates were frustrated at not getting the fruit but did move the boxes around and appear to have stacked them so that the fruit was now obtainable. In both cases, researchers noted that the behaviors (using a stick to get food, stacking boxes to get food) was demonstrated to other primates and they too were able to replicate the behaviors (teaching/learning?).
Now, it could be argued that this purposeful behavior is evidence of conceptualization. And, if this is what you would like, fine…
But, it should be noted that there is a lot of empirical activity going on - and there are no ‘lists’ or plans of behavior. The concept has to be right in front of the primates - so, at its very best, it is a limited or primative form of ‘conceptualization’. There are differences between this primate and the ancient Egyptians crop planting activities.
From the records (by the way, primates have left no records…) knowing where the flooding goes is important so one does not build their homes directly in the way of a flood (something we have not fully mastered in the US!) The domestication of cattle and making metal implements for plowing are all part of the process. Here is an interesting link:
oi.uchicago.edu/OI/MUS/ED/TRC/EGYPT/farming.html And, while seeing the king’s tombs as conceptualized resurrection machines to get them from this world to the next - the common farmer was demonstrating practical aspects of multi-tasking as he conceptualized farming in the Nile valley.
Take any example you like - the outcome, I think , will be essentially the same: as we move up from bacteria to man we see the growing complexity of behaviors unfold before our eyes. But, to abstract concepts that are not immediately in front of you takes a pre-frontal cortex devoted to planning and organizing not smelling - although we had all better be able to smell smoke!
(
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefrontal_cortex)
So, let’s see some evidence for higher life forms having concepts of the world.
God bless
Haha! Sorry I think my post was misunderstood - I’m joking about snails in anticipation of making the argument properly that higher mammals do have concepts of the world. If we accept that chimps have schemas and concepts of the world, then it is likely that other animals do too… even snails, perhaps. I don’t think all of these are conscious concepts, either.
Anyhow, if we look at spiders/snails/birds and the like from a behaviourist point of view, then they are just machines working on totally unthinking instinct. But humans could be reduced to this view too - if we equally deny that patterns of behaviour, reaction, perception etc etc are related to cognition.
Going from bacteria to humans (with a few things in between), I think many living things do have concepts of reality which may be more or less true. It stretches the idea of truth, but I think it is still a meaningful interpretation, at least for evolutionary biology. These concepts may be nothing more than the successful or faulty predictive molecular code for bacteria, right up to the conscious thought of humans. A bat has a concept of the surfaces around it; a snake has a concept of the heat signature of its prey; a dog has a concept of the smells of its acquaintances; and so on. If the concepts correspond with reality, they are true - the bat won’t fly into a wall, for example.
Plausible, no?
