Michele Pasin / Quotes

Animal memory as learned response

In contrast, most, if not all, animal memory is simply a form of learned response. Your dog remembers you in that it recognises you as its pack leader, but it is very unlikely that it fondly recalls past walks, as you do. That difference is a core part of what enables you to develop the…

Saved 23 April 2015

#memory #animals #learning

A frog's eye is not a camera

Importantly, the frog will persist with this behaviour. It will never adapt its behaviour in light of the unsuccessful attempts to capture the fly. The moral…

Introducing Artificial Intelligence (Henry Brighton and Howard Selina) #perception #representation #animals #action

Augustine divides the sign into natural signs and given signs

Augustine divides the sign into the two main classes of natural signs (signa naturalia) and given signs (signa data). “Natural signs are those which, apart…

Medieval Semiotics (meier-oeser, Stephan) #animals #fire #extent #class

Becoming one with the midges

By now it must have been more than two hours into the trip, and I was slumped against the beech looking upward into the tree canopy, idly watching the midges…

The Acid Diaries (Christopher Gray) #psychedelics #nature #animals #sympathy

Descartes denies that animals have minds

If every mind is a spiritual or mental substance, and if minds are indestructible, then it seems that if animals have minds, every animal has an immortal…

Mind: A Brief Introduction (John R. Searle) #animals #dualism #language #soul

Dragonflies fooled by polarized light

Donald Hoffman relates the following example about dragonflies to illustrate the idea that biological perception does not report the truth about the world…

Beyond Zero and One (Andrew Smart) #perception #evolution #truth #animals

Eating cows without hurting them

To ensure the unflagging progress of the ox, Kishan beat the animal fiercely and often. The stick rose and fell with a resounding smack at regular intervals…

Shantaram (gregory David Roberts) #animals #nail #fathers #expression