thisisnotpsychology: “Like most living creatures, the pigeon quickly associates the pressing of a lever with reward. But when a timer releases the seal automatically every 20 seconds,  the pigeon wonders, “What did I do to deserve this?” If it was flapping it’s wings at the time, it’ll continue to flap, convinced that it’s actions have a decisive influence on what happens. We call this Pigeon superstition.” Mr. Nobody (2009) But clearly, animals can’t be self conscious and intelligent. This particular phenomenon is simply a creature blindly associating cause with consequence, by trial and error, paired with survival logic (and wing-flapping, apparently), whereas humans have attained (and attuned) self-awareness and brain power by blindly associating cause with consequence, by trial and error, paired with survival logic and opposable thumbs (and bipedalism, too, that’s mighty important). Also, God gave us the earth, it’s written in the books. You don’t see anywhere, “God gave the earth to humans and pigeons and other stupid creatures without opposable thumbs”, right? There clearly is a difference. Case closed. NB : In all seriousness, however, if you put this article on par with other similar behaviourist (?) discoveries of how we work, we might be able to theorize that our acute self-awareness and brain power might very well be the result of a confrontation between survival logic (if A often causes B and B leads to feeding time, then by repeating/refining action A, I get to survive some more) and guilt when logic fails to work (A didn’t cause B this time, what did I do wrong?) Which would certainly explain why we are so crippled by guilt through mythic narratives like ‘the original sin’…
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thisisnotpsychology:

“Like most living creatures, the pigeon quickly associates the pressing of a lever with reward. But when a timer releases the seal automatically every 20 seconds,  the pigeon wonders, “What did I do to deserve this?” If it was flapping it’s wings at the time, it’ll continue to flap, convinced that it’s actions have a decisive influence on what happens. We call this Pigeon superstition.”

Mr. Nobody (2009)

But clearly, animals can’t be self conscious and intelligent. This particular phenomenon is simply a creature blindly associating cause with consequence, by trial and error, paired with survival logic (and wing-flapping, apparently), whereas humans have attained (and attuned) self-awareness and brain power by blindly associating cause with consequence, by trial and error, paired with survival logic and opposable thumbs (and bipedalism, too, that’s mighty important).

Also, God gave us the earth, it’s written in the books. You don’t see anywhere, “God gave the earth to humans and pigeons and other stupid creatures without opposable thumbs”, right? There clearly is a difference.

Case closed.

NB : In all seriousness, however, if you put this article on par with other similar behaviourist (?) discoveries of how we work, we might be able to theorize that our acute self-awareness and brain power might very well be the result of a confrontation between survival logic (if A often causes B and B leads to feeding time, then by repeating/refining action A, I get to survive some more) and guilt when logic fails to work (A didn’t cause B this time, what did I do wrong?)

Which would certainly explain why we are so crippled by guilt through mythic narratives like ‘the original sin’…

(via asdavy)

Source : thisisnotpsychology

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    I made a new blog dedicated to Mr. Nobody and Mr. Van Dormael’s other creations. It’s called “Pigeon Superstition”, you...
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    But clearly, animals can’t be self conscious and intelligent. This particular phenomenon is simply a creature blindly...
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