The Odd Tale Of The Spider And The Cat

[Aethelwulf]

And so it wasn't until I was standing in the kitchen, making something to eat no less, when my cat jumped up and ate a spider.

 

This was of course taking into consideration, I absolutely hate spiders. Being arachnophobic, I have always had an intense fear of spiders. It wasn't until I watched my cat eat this large wolf spider, but while dwelling on the incident, made me realize how much evolution exists in the mind and not so much the body itself when involving human beings.

 

Of course, most phobias are not actually irrational per se, only an unfounded statement that phobias are founded on irrational fears. There is of course, nothing wrong about having acrophobia and realizing that 12 stories up the side of a building, you could fall off to your death. Nor is arachnophobia any more less irrational, especially in countries which have seriously deadly species of arachnids.

 

But what really interested me, was the fact that animals in general, do not have sophisticated degree's of awareness concerning plantlife or even other creatures. Especially creatures which appear far smaller in size to us.

 

Watching the house cat for instance, she will indeed attack any creepy crawly which invades your livingroom and she will also defend the ranks against anything miniscule which flies the air. The dog is the same, especially when outside, it naturally wants to destroy and devour anything which crawls or flies.

 

 

 

What a breed apart we are then, when we think about the human being today in this day and age. Often due to phobia, spiders are often intolerable, it involves other common phobia's related to insects, such as snakes and even cockroaches.

 

Anything which exists in large amounts compact into a small quantity of agents is often hated by the average human. This may involve nests of insects, like ants or even a nest of baby spiders residing on the back of their mother.

 

We absolutely detest such things. So why don't animals? What is it about phobia's which seem to be part of our genetic make up. I think it is genetic because my father also had fear of spiders. But then you could get Fraudian I suppose and state that I inherited the condition psychologically from my father. But I don't believe this to be case.

 

 

 

When I was very young, barely 6 years old, I remember sitting outside and being aware of my first incident with a spider. It was a fat spider, distinguished and very hairy. I also remember the spider sitting a well-spun web, shining in the light of the sun. It terrified me. It's shape, the way it moved, the way it generally looked all just activated something inside of me, telling me to stay away from it. It was the product of fear.

 

What was telling me to stay away from it? I can only imagine it had something to do with something genetically-hidden inside of me. My ancestors may have originated from a region of the Earth, which is either now, or was, plauged with deadly spiders. Somehow, the conscious experience and physical attack are somehow combined in my make up. Somehow, my gene's remember over long periods of time that spiders in general, where something to stay clear of. What was created was a psychological phobia of the said creature.

 

It is true, the Darwinian school of thought, that creatures on Earth fight in the arena of the most fittest. But there is not only the physical case, but there is also an evolution present in the psyche. It takes control of the psyche by writing in the genetic function telling us to stay away from deadly creatures or even situations. At one time, these things where not as ''irrational'' as they may seem today. It only has to do with a rapid change in your environment as a ratio over the days you spent in such harsh climates.

 

 

 

Your body is constantly storing information about your environment but more surprisingly, it is storing this in the gene's which help maintain your neural networks.

 

Your neural network as a consequence, will understand then for your offspring, the correct psychological responses in a situation. This involves rationalization of the situation as well. However, it is hard to be rational in the face of an uncontrollable fear written into your genes. But the most important thing...

 

 

 

 

 

... what seems clear though, is that the experience manifests as a real physical signature in the function of consciousness! Somehow our experience, the functions involving consciousness itself is manifest in the gene make up of the human being. The only way for this to happen is if there is a back-reaction of the mind onto matter. We often think of the personal sphere of consciousness as an incorporeal substance, a non-physical construct of an otherwise physical system (brain).

 

 

A thought after all, does not contain matter, it is a product of matter. It is in fact, emergent from the electrical and biochemical interactions of the neural system. A thought, an experience even can be written in terms of neural networks, but when anyone asks you to find the physical nature of a thought, often those particles no longer exists. But interestingly, a subject may still remember them. The only way this could happen is if certain attributes, only semi-physical in nature is shared throughout a neural network.

 

 

Information is somehow apart of all this physical distribution of attributes. Our bodies continuously write this knowledge in that it partakes in the whole. Our minds are not outside this influence... in fact, it is very much central in the fold of evolution.

Edited September 7, 2013 by Aethelwulf

[CraigD]

And so it wasn't until I was standing in the kitchen, making something to eat no less, when my cat jumped up and ate a spider.

To a long-time and present cat keeper like me, this is a familiar but still interesting anecdote.

 

Over my many years and generations of pet cats, I’ve seen examples of all the main classes of insectivora: cats that:

• are afraid of insects
• ignore them;
• play with (AKA torture) but only occasionally kill them;
• consistently kill but rarely or never eat them;
• consistently kill and eat them
• (like yours) pretty much devour them on site

I’ve a hypothesis that early learning mostly determines this and other hunting behavior – that is, housecats either learn or don’t learn it at an early age from their mothers – but I’ve seen one clear exception, a kitten born and raised in a practically prey-free environment that began hunting enthusiastically without any example or training at the farily mature age of 6 months. I’ve also seen many variations in what a housecat will hunt:

• bugs only;
• mice and small helpless birds;
• rats and squirrels;
• and the most accomplished house cat hunter I’ve known, a neutered male who would take down large rabbits more massive than him, often by sinking his fangs in the backs of the necks and riding them for 10s or meters!

There are also kitten-killers, in every case I’ve seen un-neutered males (tomcats), although I’ve known tomcats who showed no sign of this disturbing and well-know, natural behavior.

 

Of course, most phobias are not actually irrational per se, only an unfounded statement that phobias are founded on irrational fears. There is of course, nothing wrong about having acrophobia and realizing that 12 stories up the side of a building, you could fall off to your death. Nor is arachnophobia any more less irrational, especially in countries which have seriously deadly species of arachnids.

Before using the term “phobia” in a discussion, some psychological context is needed. I’m a professional by marriage (wife was a mental health pro, a clinical social worker), so will give my personal take on the history through present of psychiatry on the subject, rather than a properly cited scholarly piece.

 

Although much common literature includes being irrational as a defining criterion of phobias, and this trait appears in diagnostic guidelines, it’s no longer considered by experts to be a defining or necessary for a phobia diagnosis. Rather, phobias are categorized with the broad family of fear/anxiety/panic disorders, being distinct as involving easily-recognizable, specific triggers (eg: seeing a spider) where more general disorders in this category (eg: general, or “free floating” anxiety) don’t.

 

The gist of best present-day psychological theory is that phobia has less to do with the specific trigger than with a failure to normally cope with the resulting reaction to it. Normal people may experience a small fear reaction upon discovering a spider nearby, which they quickly calm enough to ignore, avoid, or kill the wee beast, but in a phobic the fear reaction grows overpoweringly. Although the most effective phobia treatments are termed “desensitization”, the analogy being that, as with allergy treatments, controlled exposure can reduce the intensity of the phobia trigger, this analogy seems inaccurate. What is actually occurring in effective phobia therapy is that the patient is improving her coping skills, conscious and unconscious.

 

Unfortunately, the popularity from the late 19th through mid 20th century of psychological theories (including Freudian ones, which Aethelwulf calls “Fraudian” – a pun? ) that involved ascribing symbolic meaning and associations to external stimuli gave rise to some weird and unproductive ideas about the phobias. For example, spiders were commonly seen as symbolizing women, especially one’s mother, or traits such as cunningness and patience. These interpretations are now pretty much completely discredited.

 

We absolutely detest such things. So why don't animals?

Some non-human animals are afraid of spiders and other common human phobia triggers. Of course, a animal with any severely debilitating psychic disorder that lacks a social support system to assure its basic needs – food, shelter, etc – are met, die, so we’re unlikely to see living adults small wild cats with bugs and mice phobias.

 

What is it about phobia's which seem to be part of our genetic make up. I think it is genetic because my father also had fear of spiders. But then you could get Fraudian I suppose and state that I inherited the condition psychologically from my father. But I don't believe this to be case.

The idea that phobias are heritable has some merit.

 

At its neurological heart, fear/anxiety/panic triggered by visual and other long-distance sense appear to strongly involve key structures in the brain, especially the amygdale and its connections to other brain structures. The development of many, possible all or nearly all, neuroanatomical features are controlled by genes, which are heritable

 

However, as with any complicated behavior, especially in humans, genetics only predisposes, does not determine. More likely, I think, is that a phobic parent may teach a child to have phobic reactions to their specific triggers.

 

I’m not aware of any study that has attempted to distinguish phobias acquired via learning from “innate” ones, but imagine such a study would be interesting, and would enjoy reading some, if anyone knows of and can give us some links.

 

It was a fat spider, distinguished and very hairy. I also remember the spider sitting a well-spun web, shining in the light of the sun. It terrified me. It's shape, the way it moved, the way it generally looked all just activated something inside of me, telling me to stay away from it. It was the product of fear.

 

What was telling me to stay away from it? I can only imagine it had something to do with something genetically-hidden inside of me.

The hypothesis that fear of big spiders is inherited and innate, vs. the alternative that it is learned, can be tested by studying children. If it is innate, we would expect young children to exhibit it, if learned, we would expect the behavior to appear only as children age and learn.

 

To the best of my knowledge, such experiments support the conclusion that phobic behaviors are learned, not innate. However, there appears to be an innate predisposition – exhibited as early age 7 months - for phobia triggers such as spiders and snakes, vs. flowers and pretty stones.

 

Interestingly, this predisposition appears sex-linked, both in young children and adults. Evidence for this appears both in child studies, and from clinical data showing snake and spider phobias are roughly 4 times more common in adult women than adult men, although social gender norms (ie: showing fear is less socially acceptable for men than for women) likely skew these statistics.

 

My ancestors may have originated from a region of the Earth, which is either now, or was, plauged with deadly spiders. Somehow, the conscious experience and physical attack are somehow combined in my make up. Somehow, my gene's remember over long periods of time that spiders in general, where something to stay clear of. What was created was a psychological phobia of the said creature.

 

Your body is constantly storing information about your environment but more surprisingly, it is storing this in the gene's which help maintain your neural networks.

...

... what seems clear though, is that the experience manifests as a real physical signature in the function of consciousness! Somehow our experience, the functions involving consciousness itself is manifest in the gene make up of the human being. The only way for this to happen is if there is a back-reaction of the mind onto matter.

Aethelwulf, what you’re stating here is essentially neo-Lamarckism – 19th century DNA Lamarckism modernized with modern genetic ideas – an almost completely discredited theory.

 

To be valid as a theory, a microbiological mechanism for the neo-Lamarckist idea of experiences being coded into the genome would have to be described hypothetically, and experimentally tested. Though a staple of some of my favorite softSF, I’m aware of many experimental refutations of such hypotheses, and none supporting one. Epigenetic inheritance has occasionally been treated to a neo-Lamarckian interpretation, but with no legitimate suggestion of storing information in genes, epigenetics by definition not involving the coding of genes.

[Aethelwulf]

Thanks for your input. I have never heard of Lamarckian school of thought, this sure tally's as more reading material for me.

[C1ay]

I personally think you are only born with 2 fears, the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises, all other fears are learned. I suspect your mother and/or father were afraid of spiders and they taught you to be as well. In support, it has been my personal experience in handling spiders of many kinds and sizes that a majority of children want to pet them when they see me handle them and a majority of adults want to leave the area.

[Moontanman]

The cat eating a wolf spider is not surprising it's motivation is of course unknown to us but I have a dog that eats bumble bees. He used to chase flies but one day he got hold of a bumble bee, he yelped and squalled like a puppy but evidently it pissed him off so now he chases and eats every bumble bee he sees. He still yelps but he seems determined to kill every bumble bee he sees...

 

I knew a guy who had a dog that hunted and killed snakes, he was bitten by copperheads several times but continued to hunt and kill them, his head would swell up and he was in obvious pain for days after his "kill" eventually he was killed by a snake of unknown species but the pain and suffering never kept him from killing snakes...

[CraigD]

I personally think you are only born with 2 fears, the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises, all other fears are learned.

I find the idea that fear of falling can be considered an innate-at-birth (for normal, full-term human and non-human primate babies) fear, because it can be thought of as a higher cognitive level outgrowth of the Moro reflex, the well known “grabbing for branches” response normal newborns show when their vestibular (balance) system detect falling.

 

I’d add fear of heights to the innate fears list, as there’s also good evidence that it is, from visual cliff experiments.

 

I don’t think fear of loud noises makes the list. Normal infant’s startle, and typically cry, at unexpected noises, but I wouldn’t describe this as being the same as fearing them, because unlike falling and being at precarious heights, which infants will take action to avoid (such as splaying and grasping, or retreating from perceived cliff edges ), I don’t think they do for noises.

 

While I proposes above that a predisposition to fear of animals like spiders and snakes rather than some others, such as bunnies and puppies, is innate, I’ll qualify that it isn’t strongly innate, because infants aren’t consistently afraid of them. Newborns aren’t, to the best of my understanding of developmental psychology, cognitively capable of the objective existence of potentially hurtful animals, and when they do develop the necessary mental facilities to be, can be taught to fear or not fear specific ones. For example, a child conditioned to associate contact with spiders (obviously, harmless ones) with pleasant activities is almost certain not to be afraid of them later in life.

[C1ay]

For example, a child conditioned to associate contact with spiders (obviously, harmless ones) with pleasant activities is almost certain not to be afraid of them later in life.

This is something I find myself having to be particularly careful of. There are a number of harmful species, like black widows and bark scorpions, that I will handle and I have to be careful to not give the impression that anyone can handle these animals because someone that it is unaware of the triggers that make these animals bite or sting will inadvertently set off one of those triggers.

[Celestia]

I personally think you are only born with 2 fears, the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises, all other fears are learned. I suspect your mother and/or father were afraid of spiders and they taught you to be as well. In support, it has been my personal experience in handling spiders of many kinds and sizes that a majority of children want to pet them when they see me handle them and a majority of adults want to leave the area.

 

Really interesting thought C1ay, what's your basis for thinking that we are born with only 2 basic fears? I would be very interested in hearing where that comes from. I would think that evolutionary fears such as extinction (why our heart rate increases when our babies cry) would make the lists of fears we're "born" with...

[ErlyRisa]

C1 is right...

 

I would like to see (However cruel an experiment)

 

...if:

 

innate, and instinct can be debunked.

 

My Theory has always been that neither exist without the existor (the womb, the egg shell, the previous cell)

 

Although today you can now "replace code" in a cell, and watch it reproduce...that "newly" coded cell still needs "the new advantageous environment" in order for its "abilities" for it too now be "innate" abilities... ineffect the environment is also doctored in order for that cell to survive/react according to its new "instinct".

 

Much like we state that humans for example "instinctively" hold their breath and even waddle/swim when in a body of water.

...Note that this is not entirely proven (babies do drown in bath tubs - yes the experiment is slightly different - floatation not induced)

,Anyway: Stating that it is solely instinct, is jumping the gun... As a Mammal, instinctively it was already holding it's breath in the womb - which may actually be a reared trait.

Too instinctively take your first breath, or to crack your shell open? Again - they seem like "base algorithms" ... this innate ability too "change" abruptly doesn't seem like its "coded as innate ability", but rather it is THE ONLY REQUIRED ability.

 

Imagine being - a newborn: The mind is suple and does not do much: It should change according to the needs of the body "almost on a whim"

 

---The Cruel Experiment...

birth into a watery environment (Well apparently its a new craze, and makes no real difference - well maybe the Chlorine ain't such a good idea, but a baby born into water don't drown - the Adult is the one that lures it into the new Gaseous environment...I would like to know what is going on in the mind at these oppurtune moments...is it really instinct to breath?)

 

---Cruel Experiment 2...

A Cubic Egg Shell: Hmm what would happen?

A Zero G Hatchling?

A High G Hatchling?

An Infinit Egg - eg. Doughnut shaped, just big enough to walk around in.

An egg in zero light conditions.

 

...all boring anyway, it has been found what triggers there are for a bird/reptile to escape...

 

,but maybe try it out on butterfly?