Do Humans Have Instincts??

[Racoon]

Originally Posted by TheFaithfulStone

Throwing up your hand to protect your face. Pulling your foot back when you stub your toe.

Instincts. You can't even STOP yourself from doing them, because they happen before the signal gets all the way to the brain.

Or do you just call those auto-motor responses?

And suckling.

TFS

Learned responses and Negative feed-back loops.
If you don't put your hands up, you get smacked, and you quickly learn from Pain Response.

so yes TFS, auto-motor responses.
It hurts when I do "this"- then you stop doing "this"

I would attribute instinct more to Bio-chemical responses/reaction.
ie, the pheremone match response.
there are hardwired inclinations I believe.(language, sexual orientation, etc.)
but you can choose not to communicate or have sex
Psychology and Evolution are fascinating!
Good job guys!

Needing more Thumps and Lumps on my head,
Racoon

[Racoon]

Just read the big B's post,
and as usual, it doesn't disappoint.

I don't really see how a baby googling and placatory smiling is Instinct.
perhaps its just comfortable muscle postures with developing motor neuron connections
Perhaps I am a knuckle-head,


Instinctually returning to the stream I was spawned from,
Racoon

[Jay-qu]

I dont know - I have heard many accounts of people that say they had instincts of things going wrong but they where able to prevent it in one way or another, I am not sure about this though
Statistically speaking numbers is on their side, bad things happen everyday, by chance some people may luck out of it - Also its not like you can hear a dead persons story of how they had an instinct, went with it and ended up dead because of it... It could happen

[Eclogite]

This link seems relevant:
http://spartan.ac.brocku.ca/~lward/A...ll_1906_p.html

we find the generally recognised instincts in man to be as follows: Fear, anger, shyness, curiosity, affection, sexual love, jealousy and envy, rivalry, sociability, sympathy, modesty ( ?), play, imitation, constructiveness, secretiveness, and acquisitiveness.

These are then considered in a little more depth.

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Jay-qu

I dont know - I have heard many accounts of people that say they had instincts of things going wrong but they where able to prevent it in one way or another…

In this thread, I think it’s important to distinguish between the several different things to which the word “instinct” commonly refers.

Racoon defined it for this thread as

instinct: (n.) - an Inborn tendency to to act or respond in a particular way

Jay-qu is using it with a different meaning – its most common meaning, I think – roughly synonymous with “hunch” or “intuition”.

While these 2 definitions may overlap – we and other animals likely have inborn, “hardwired” aptitudes for forming and following hunches – in the context of this thread, they’re entirely different ideas.

[InfiniteNow]

Agreed. I will pivot back to my first post in that the problem seems to be more with your definition of "instinct" Racoon, rather than whether or not we have them. You seem to want to limit it to so many things, and you are causing your own headache. Tell your friend he's wrong, that if he's arguing that humans are somehow seperate and distinct from all other life on this planet that he's a moron, and go play some hoops. See if he has an instinct to win or not...

[Jay-qu]

Originally Posted by CraigD

Jay-qu is using it with a different meaning – its most common meaning, I think – roughly synonymous with “hunch” or “intuition”.

Yeah that was the first thing that came to mind when i read 'gut-feeling' that racoon refered to in the first post..

but sure we have other solid instincts like if you put 2 people in a room (girl and guy) and they never knew about sex - I reakon that they would instinctivly 'do it' anyway.

[ingannilo]

If we're going to look at this realistically we must acknowledge that all things are one, instinct no more separated from emotion than my tea kettle from a rainstorm that may happen later this spring.

All individuals, including infants lacking any learned behavior do not lack emotions, evoked by the same stimuli as developed individuals. Example. Here is a scared human that obviously has no preconceived notion of what to do with facial muscles when scared:



And here is a human that does know how to act scared, doing so:



That's enough to convince me that there's at least some hardwiring upstairs.

The article that Eclogite linked to states that instinct and emotions are not the same, but closeley related (not unlike my tea kettle).
There are reasons for all of our instinctive reactions, and while the article only mentions a few, I think it's safe to presume that the others are simply still illuding us.

the blood vessels in anger, the secretion of tears in grief, the laughter in response to wit and humour, have been held to assist in relieving the abnormal circulatory conditions in the brain

whew. (So sorry Eclogite)

[Eclogite]

Originally Posted by ingannilo

I'm going to extensively reference a lengthy read I turned up

Thank you so much for your fulsome acknowledgement of my presentation of this link in post #28. It is always so satisfying to know that ones efforts have not only been helpful, but are recognised as such.

[ingannilo]

Originally Posted by Eclogite

Thank you so much for your fulsome acknowledgement of my presentation of this link in post #28. It is always so satisfying to know that ones efforts have not only been helpful, but are recognised as such.

ACK!

There I go getting excited and not thinking again.
I'm a fool.

I'll edit down the post to just include my thoughts on the matter, then.