Science Forums 2

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by coberst

There are four levels of reactivity of an organism to its environment: 1) Simplest response wherein the organism responds directly to stimuli, 2) Conditioned response is best represented by the “Pavalovian Response” wherein there is a response by association, 3) Indirect association takes place when a tool is used to acquire desired object (an ape knocking a banana from a tree with a stick), and 4) Symbolic response wherein a symbol becomes the object causing response, which entails the creation of a symbol representative of an object.

These four different responses are evolutionary but are different in kind. Only humans are capable of all four levels of reactivity. Only humans have the capacity for creating a relationship such as “home” with an object made of sticks of lumber. We might appropriately state that the evolutionary development of mind is a “progressive freedom of reactivity”. “Mind culminates in the organism’s ability to choose what it will react to.”

Delayed reactivity is the birth of freedom; this ability, plus the mammalian evolution of long prolonged development of new born growing up into a society that demanded ever increasing norms of behavior, led to the further development of mind.

I'm not sure I am on the same page as you, freedom is indeed a state of mind rather than a physical state but I don't agree that only humans are capable of all four levels of reactivity. many animals construct homes and do indeed occupy these homes in the same manner we do. We cannot say they think of them as "home" but our inability to know what they think or even if they do indeed articulate the idea of home in some manner we are unaware of doesn't mean they do not have the concept.

Do you mean planning ahead by "delayed reactivity" I do think that some animals can plan ahead to get what they want by doing things they do not want to do. I think that the difference between animals and humans are differences of degree rather than kind.