Re: the liver and the brain

From: Lester Zick (lesterDELzick_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 09/04/04 

Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 18:20:33 GMT

On 4 Sep 2004 09:35:30 -0700, feedbackdroids@yahoo.com (dan michaels)
in comp.ai.philosophy wrote:

>"John Hasenkam" <johnh@faraway.> wrote in message news:<41392480@dnews.tpgi.com.au>...
>> "dan michaels" <feedbackdroids@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> news:8d8494cf.0409030853.7911b8bf@posting.google.com...
>> > > >In contrast, since ungulates pop out into the world being able to walk
>> > > >and run within hours, I was also wondering that their visual systems
>> > > >might also be similarly advanced, as compard to humans and other
>> > > >animals like you mentioned. Do they have to "learn" what a lion looks,
>> > > >or might their visual systems already have some hard-coding regards
>> > > >this?
>>
>> To come at this from a tangent, it is interesting to recall studies showing
>> how axons for varous senses, after injury, can end up projecting to regions
>> other than their "programmed" targets. Auditory axons will project to visual
>> areas, perhaps explaining the echo location noted in some blind individuals.
>> Not many studies on this but the few are surprising in their results.
>> Results such as these suggest a top down guidance of axonal projections, but
>> I'll freely admit I find that very spooky.
>>
>> John.
>
>
>You might be referring to studies in amphibians and ferrets, but this
>doesn't address my question regards the level of development of
>perceptual systems at the time of birth in precocial ungulates either,
>does it.
>
>It's a fairly interesting problem in its own right, since a baby zebra
>has to be ready to flee from a lion shortly after birth, if it ever
>wants to get to be an adult zebra. To flee from a lion, it might help
>to be able to distinquish one from a parent zebra, so upon seeing its
>own parent, it doesn't go running off into the jaws of the nearest
>lion. I guess it's conceivable the adult zebra would be able to
>"teach" its baby what a lion is in the first hour or so, or that the
>baby learns on its own the first time a lion comes to eat it. Operant
>conditioning rules, so long as the organism makes it through the first
>day against something 10X its size and power, not to mention the big
>teeth.

The baby zebra wouldn't have to learn to discriminate lions. It would
just have to learn to stay with its mother, a much easier task for
which it is presumably born pretty much ready.

Regards - Lester

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