Re: Earliest Animal Memory?


"Glen M. Sizemore" <gmsizemore2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:dboi5p$19hq$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> PiP: Hi Theo. I am not an expert in this area, but your question strikes
> me as interesting enough that I want to throw in my two cents in the
> hope that someone more knowlegeable addresses my points too.
>
> ISTM that the answer depends on what you mean by a "memory". A fairly
> broad definition of a biological "memory" would require the following
> (at least):
> - there is a physical record of past experiences.
> - that record is consulted when determining future behaviors.
> - both the recording of the record and the consulting of the record
> are adaptations - abilities honed by natural selection because
> they enhance fitness.
>
>
>
> GS: The things you say above are exactly why the investigation of "memory"
> has been so useless. There is no reason to believe that "there is a physical
> record of past experiences"; that is "consulted." There is simply evidence
> that experience alters behavior and that messing around directly with
> physiology alters that fact. This suggests, of course, that physiology
> mediates behavioral function, but does not suggest that anything is "stored"
> and "retrieved." Are the selection pressures that alter species stored? Can
> you look into the genome and see the selection contingencies that have
> operated?

I can see that my metaphoric language of "records" and "consultation"
suggested to you that I have in mind a particularly simple-minded form
of correlation between physiology and past experience, and that I have
a "ghost-in-the-machine" stance regarding "consultation". I don't.
However, I don't see that the preferred behaviorist language for these
phenomena is completely free of unwanted connotations regarding mechanism
either.

Whatever the metaphors that they use to describe the not-yet-understood
phenomenon, I think that good scientists are capable of maintaining
an open mind as to how it works and what it is.


.

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