Do Humans Have Instincts??

[crrider94]

Reflexes are instinct...I'm allright with that. But surely there are instincts that are not reflexes. The alternative is a blank slate model of human nature. We are the sum of our experiences and nothing more - except for reflex. Is this your proposition?

 

Well the first part of what you said was wrong. relexes are not instincts. what you said was basically, "squares are rectangles.. i'm allright with that. But surely there are rectangles that are not squares." and this would be true. but the first part is all wrong. reflexes aren't instincts at all. so substitute "square with circle". instincts and reflexes are different. and yes. i am saying that we are a result of experience. if you put a baby and dropped in in the middle of a jungle it would do nothing but sit there and cry and eventually die. a bird, on the other hand, has an instinct to build a nest.. so hypothetically, if birds flying was an instinct, which it is not, then a bird, plopped in the middle of a jungle, would build a nest. a human... would do nothing. it would die. a puppy would probably chase any moving things and try to eat it if it were small enough. a baby... cry and die.

[sman]

Well the first part of what you said was wrong. relexes are not instincts. what you said was basically, "squares are rectangles.. i'm allright with that. But surely there are rectangles that are not squares." and this would be true. but the first part is all wrong. reflexes aren't instincts at all. so substitute "square with circle". instincts and reflexes are different. and yes. i am saying that we are a result of experience. if you put a baby and dropped in in the middle of a jungle it would do nothing but sit there and cry and eventually die. a bird, on the other hand, has an instinct to build a nest.. so hypothetically, if birds flying was an instinct, which it is not, then a bird, plopped in the middle of a jungle, would build a nest. a human... would do nothing. it would die. a puppy would probably chase any moving things and try to eat it if it were small enough. a baby... cry and die.

 

This reminds me of the way Archimedes honned in on the value of pi by calculating the perimeter of polygons of ever-increasing sides. In this view a circle and a square are both in the catagory polygon, only differing in number of sides.

 

But anyway...reflexes are not instincts. I'm allright with that too. I'm just not too sure the catagory "instincts" is completely empty. That the only thing that is innate is reflex, and everything else housed in our ungainly brains is imbibed from the environment. This is testable. Are you prepared for that?

 

I like the thought experiment of placing a human baby in the jungle to test for instincts. Not really fair though. Human babies are born very prematurely, because of the huge and rapidly expanding nerve ganglion on top of them, and they are born into a society of social creatures who take care of them. How about if we take a baby jungle animal, say a chimpanzee, and place it in the environment of the human baby - compleate with parents, toys, pureed peas.... How with the chimp differ from the human alongside it?

[Boerseun]

crrider94, if you're saying that humans only have learned behaviour and reflexes, but no instincts, then you're clearly wrong.

 

The entire sex act, the whole process from mutual interest to finally the ejaculation, is entirely instinctive.

[riper]

define instinct first. yes, i believe we have them. but not like in animals. mothers for example that are very attached to their kids, can sense when they are in danger.well all have them. it is the feeling of sensing something without seeing it.

[CraigD]

humans have reflees.

one quality of an instinct is you don't have the choice to do the opposite.

if backin up was an instinct, then there would be no such thing as anyone jumping off of a roof.

it is a reflex because we have a natural fear of heights. its a reflex.

…

Ccrider, you’re using the terms reflex and instinct in an unconventional way. The linked wikipedia articles for these terms contain

A reflex action, also known as a reflex, is an involuntary and nearly instantaneous movement in response to a stimulus. In most contexts, in particular those involving humans, reflex actions are mediated via the reflex arc; this is not always true in other animals, nor does it apply to casual uses of the term 'reflex'.

and

Instinct is the inherent disposition of a living organism toward a particular behavior. The fixed action patterns are unlearned and inherited. The stimuli can be variable due to imprinting in a sensitive period or also genetically fixed. Examples of instinctual fixed action patterns can be observed in the behavior of animals, which perform various activities (sometimes complex) that are not based upon prior experience, such as reproduction, and feeding among insects. Sea turtles, hatched on a beach, automatically move toward the ocean, and honeybees communicate by dance the direction of a food source, all without formal instruction. Other examples include animal fighting, animal courtship behavior, internal escape functions, and building of nests. Another term for the same concept is innate behavior.

As a general, but not absolute rule, wikipedia articles are good sources of the conventional meaning of terms.

 

You appear to have swapped the usual meaning of reflex – involuntary reactions to stimuli, about which the subject has no choice – with instinct – behaviors that are not learned.

 

As described above, instincts are behaviors, complex phenomena involving thought- though that though may be rational, irrational, or even unconscious.

us breathing.. reflex

we have the choice to stop it.

we have the choice to not eat or breath...

What a strange claim!

 

While it’s possible to consciously chose not to engage in the complicated act of eating, which will lead eventually (within on the order of 100 days) to starvation and death, I’ve encountered no credible account of any human or other animal consciously choosing not to breath, which would lead to death under normal conditions within 10 minutes.

 

Ccrider, can you show examples of others using the terms instinct and reflex the way you have, and back up your claim about us having the choice not to breath? I recommend you search for some, as I think you’ll realize you’ve confused the terms, and have a misconception about the physiology and neurology of breathing.

[Turtle]

As is often the case, our instinct is to react to the most recent stimulus. :blink: Which is to say, I get the impression that recent respondents have not read the entire thread. :clue:

 

Racoon defined instinct in post #6:

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

 

My preferred online dictionary has a similar definition: instinct - definition of instinct by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

1. An inborn pattern of behavior that is characteristic of a species and is often a response to specific environmental stimuli.

 

In post #24, Eclogite provided an authoritive source and a list of human instincts.

 

This link seems relevant:

Robert Throop and Lloyd Gordon Ward: Mead Project 2.0

 

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.

 

Seems to me that if we want to quibble, we ought to start with this list and its authors' reasoning. :confused:

[crrider94]

As is often the case, our instinct is to react to the most recent stimulus. :) Which is to say, I get the impression that recent respondents have not read the entire thread. :doh: :lol:

 

Racoon defined instinct in post #6:

 

 

My preferred online dictionary has a similar definition instinct - definition of instinct by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia

1. An inborn pattern of behavior that is characteristic of a species and is often a response to specific environmental stimuli.

 

In post #24, Eclogite provided an authoritive source and a list of human instincts.

 

 

 

Seems to me that if we want to quibble, we ought to start with this list and its authors' reasoning. :hihi:

 

Oh please, my dear fellow, you can not go to the dictionary to find what the technical meaning of an instinct is. I always wanted to know the difference between road, avenue and street. I thought one was bigger but then i had a one way avenue in my neighborhood. but to move on, i went to the dictionary.. it told me for all three basically the exact. same. thing... that they were asphalt paved road ways for cars usually sided with tress and in some cities lined with side walks. you cannot go to the dictionary for a definition. and a fear and all the other nonsense you put on there.. they are reflexes. if i scared you, you will be afraid. fear, right? well you being scared is a result of me scaring you.. so it is a reflex and same goes for the rest of this nonsense that some idiot wrote on some webpage and made it sound believable with some synonyms for words that he found in his thesaurus.

[crrider94]

This reminds me of the way Archimedes honned in on the value of pi by calculating the perimeter of polygons of ever-increasing sides. In this view a circle and a square are both in the catagory polygon, only differing in number of sides.

 

But anyway...reflexes are not instincts. I'm allright with that too. I'm just not too sure the catagory "instincts" is completely empty. That the only thing that is innate is reflex, and everything else housed in our ungainly brains is imbibed from the environment. This is testable. Are you prepared for that?

 

I like the thought experiment of placing a human baby in the jungle to test for instincts. Not really fair though. Human babies are born very prematurely, because of the huge and rapidly expanding nerve ganglion on top of them, and they are born into a society of social creatures who take care of them. How about if we take a baby jungle animal, say a chimpanzee, and place it in the environment of the human baby - compleate with parents, toys, pureed peas.... How with the chimp differ from the human alongside it?

 

Well to start, my reason that i say that we have no instincts is because we are completely intelligent. Oraganisms have been getting more intelligent and losing physical ability since the beginning of life. but we, and even the Catholic church teaches it but forget them, they are idiots. say that we are intelligent and have free will. instincts would contradict this. i also think that a chimp has similar qualities. i think that the modern chimp is about 95% intelligent. but i do think that the chimp, once he was able to, would go try to overtake an animal that walked past him or a leaf so he could eat. not hunt or find food, that is taught, but whatever was near him. but i think a human, lets say was in a coma for 15 years and is 15 now and is realised into a jungle.. i say he dies, this is debatable and i bet will never be tested. ever becuase of all these human rights activists. psht.. who needs em?

[crrider94]

As is often the case, our instinct is to react to the most recent stimulus. :) Which is to say, I get the impression that recent respondents have not read the entire thread. :doh: :lol:

 

Racoon defined instinct in post #6:

 

 

My preferred online dictionary has a similar definition:wwwDOTthefreedictionaryDOTcom/instinct instinct - definition of instinct by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia

1. An inborn pattern of behavior that is characteristic of a species and is often a response to specific environmental stimuli.

 

In post #24, Eclogite provided an authoritive source and a list of human instincts.

 

 

 

Seems to me that if we want to quibble, we ought to start with this list and its authors' reasoning. :hihi:

 

These cannot be. not every human has these. symphathy is not one first off, that is taught. the levels of sympathy vary greatly because it is taught. rivalry, i can name 3 people, that i know personally, that have no disorders and could nevre be anything competative becuase they wouldnt have any motivation to win. rivalry, taught. sympathy, taught. fear, reflex. affection, taught. sexual love, impulse/reflex. constructiveness, taught. sociability, taught.. some people would rather be alone. play, taught/reflex. shyness, i don't know, i think this is more of a feeling than a behavior... jealousy/envy, taught/reflex.. but again, i think these are feelings besides play, sexual love, and fear, they are feelings to but they can be acted on more than any of these. i think that sociability would be the most likely to be an instinct.

[sman]

These is a very intelligent proposal, but our intelligence is very limited, and very targeted, and must be checked against the real world. "How can I test this?" is the question to ask ourselves - about any contention we might have.

 

For example:

The world is a flat disc surrounded by a firmament which the sun traverses once daily. I mean, it seems that way to me! And this should be the last word on the matter, accept only that it is testable.

 

We can measure shadows at different lattitudes on the same day to deduce, like Eratosthenes did, that the earth must be at lease concave, if not spherical.

We can make metuculous notes on the positions of other celestial bodies and choose the most parsimonious model that accords with the data, which is that the earth and other planets revolve arount a much larger sun against a background of stars. Something like what Copernicus did.

We can drive or sail in one direction until we fall off the edge of the world...or something else happens. Something like what Magellen did.

Of corse, in the modern world, we actually have hi-resolution photographs of the earth taken from space with wich we can observe directly the shape of our world and its position in the immediate cosmos.

 

The centuries-old Nature/Nurture debate has, in our time, reached a level of sophistication that we have the equivilant of photographs from space as a guide to human nature. The human genome (among others) has been entirely sequenced. Different alleles of certain genes correlate with specific behavior. Regardless of environment. Even the most extreme anti-innateness proponents today concede to a wide variety of innate structures, namely the machinery to do the learning.

 

Another way to test for innateness in humans is to compare identical twins who have been separated at birth. Some very good data has come out of twin studies.

 

Another way is to compare isolated human cultures and list the commonalities.

Human Universals

This is a list of this sort compiled by Donald E. Brown and supplemented by other anthropologists over the years. The sheer enormity of human universals pretty much zeros the chances that they are all accidents of culture.

 

I could go on, but this really is standard science today and I don't have to defend it. Rather, is is up to those with contentions that, if true, would founder major scientific edifices, like evolutionary psychology, who must produce the evidence. Evidence, not just rhetoric.

 

A debate like this can feel like a battle. We instinctively construe it this way, and automatically assign victor and vanquished. This instinct was adaptive for social primates on an east African tree savanna. But it is not adaptive here. Being wrong is not losing. We often find ourselves in the (intuitively)uncomfortable situation of admitting that the world is not comforming to our expectations, but there is much to be gained from this. It's actually a unique opportunity, to find out about how we are wrong, compared to the banality of finding out that we were right all along.:hihi:

[Turtle]

Oh please, my dear fellow, you can not go to the dictionary to find what the technical meaning of an instinct is. I always wanted to know the difference between road, avenue and street. I thought one was bigger but then i had a one way avenue in my neighborhood. but to move on, i went to the dictionary.. it told me for all three basically the exact. same. thing... that they were asphalt paved road ways for cars usually sided with tress and in some cities lined with side walks. you cannot go to the dictionary for a definition. and a fear and all the other nonsense you put on there.. they are reflexes. if i scared you, you will be afraid. fear, right? well you being scared is a result of me scaring you.. so it is a reflex and same goes for the rest of this nonsense that some idiot wrote on some webpage and made it sound believable with some synonyms for words that he found in his thesaurus.

 

:) I stand corrected. :hihi:

[freeztar]

i think that sociability would be the most likely to be an instinct.

 

Why?

 

Sex seems like the most easily recognizable example of instinct, imo. I don't see any way to define sex as a reflex. Can you elaborate on this crrider?

 

FWIW, in science, it is very important to define your terms so that everyone is sure they are talking about the same things. Dictionary definitions are thus useful in such a discussion. If we are all discussing whether humans have instincts or not and we are all using a different definition for instinct, then it's a pointless discussion and can lead to confusion and/or hostility. I've seen it happen many times.

 

So, crrider, if you are using a definition different than the one posted by Turtle, then please tell us what your definition is. Otherwise, I don't see why you are objecting to agreement on a standard definition.

[CraigD]

Oh please, my dear fellow, you can not go to the dictionary to find what the technical meaning of an instinct is.

As I noted in post #89, crrider, you’re using the words “reflex” and “instinct” in a way that disagrees with every common and technical meaning of them with which I’m acquainted. You appear to have assigned you own, personal meaning to these words, and in so doing, nearly exactly exchanged their conventional meanings. You appear to be either uninformed or poorly informed, or confused.

 

Hypography’s site rules require that, when you make claims, including claims about the meaning of words, that you back them up with links or references to some source ) other than you own writing). Please don’t attempt to support you claim this way, other than by arguing. If you don’t you posting privileges may be suspended.

I always wanted to know the difference between road, avenue and street. I thought one was bigger but then i had a one way avenue in my neighborhood. but to move on, i went to the dictionary.. it told me for all three basically the exact. same. thing...

I recommend you try better dictionaries.

 

These definitions and word origins summaries are from dictionary.reference.com, a popular online dictionary amalgamator:

• Road:
  A long, narrow stretch with a smoothed or paved surface, made for traveling by motor vehicle, carriage, etc., between two or more points.
  From “ride” from Old English “ridan” from Latin “raeda” = 4-wheeled carriage
  
• Avenue:
  a wide street or main thoroughfare;
  A means of access or attainment.
  From French “venir” = “to come” from Latin “vicinus” = “neighboring”
  
• Street:
  A public thoroughfare, usually paved, in a village, town, or city, including the sidewalk or sidewalks;
  Such a thoroughfare together with adjacent buildings, lots, etc.:
  From Latin “stratum” = “cover”, as in a layer of pavement.
  

In short, interpreting and paraphrasing, roads connect cities, avenues connect neighborhoods within cities, and streets are within neighborhoods.

 

Although somewhat synonymous in common use, each word has its own history and present day meaning.

[Boerseun]

Well to start, my reason that i say that we have no instincts is because we are completely intelligent.

Now that's a bit of a leap.

 

Our brainstem is surrounded by the R-complex, which we share with the reptiles. That's the oldest part of our brain. This ancient part regulates such humdrum stuff as heartbeat and breathing, as well as anger, sex and rage. Very reptilian.

Overlying the R-complex, is the lymbic system, which is more recent, which we share with the mammals. This is where "higher" functions like caring for our offspring lies.

And right on top of this lot lies the cerebral cortex, which makes humans human. This is where advanced human-like behaviour like organization and planning lies. Critical thinking, analysis, and the "intelligence" we refer to, lies here, and would be impossible without the cerebral cortex.

 

Although the cerebral cortex might constitute more than two thirds of the brain mass, it by no means makes humans "completely intelligent", like you claim in your above post. Everyday happenings like "road rage" and "crimes of passion" points to the R-complex taking over, albeit temporarily, in an entirely instinctive fashion.

[lemit]

I've been looking at the title of this thread and being reminded, in language I've been asked to avoid here, that the question here is the equivalent of asking if the Pope is Catholic or if bears **** in the woods.

 

I guess my answer is that where I grew up, people shat in the woods. That instinct was very strong. In fact, my grandfather was so opposed to indoor plumbing that when he visited urban relatives, more than one unfortunate incident resulted when the man went to the detached garage on his way to work the next day.

 

--lemit

 

p.s. Is the bear really Catholic?

[HydrogenBond]

One way to answer this question, is to look back into natural history. Instincts can be traced to the DNA, while changes in the DNA are very slow. Theoretically, we don't have to go back very far to find natural human instincts, maybe just before civilization. If DNA changes slow, we would expect that these natural human instincts should still exist, unless the DNA can change quickly in 10,000 years. The fact we are less conscious of natural instincts (we are asking if they exist) implies the natural instincts within the DNA may be unconscious in modern times. If natural human instincts are not there, and the DNA is responsible for instincts, that means civilization has altered the DNA using mind over matter. But this is not the way genetics is suppose to work. The compromise is they are unconscious, but still there in the DNA. .

 

One way to look at natural instinct, is with an analogy. For example, consider hunger, looking for food and eating. This very basic schema is the same for all animals. They get a feeling of hunger. They get into motion to seek food. They then chew and digest. Beyond that basic schema, there are variations depending on the species.

 

This basic schema is analogous to a genetic river that flows for all animals. As animals get more progressed and/or evolved, this river branches into tributaries increasing the cerebral variability and complexity for the basic schema. By the time it reached the pre-humans, the complexity or river branching was at a maximum, due to the potential of the human mind. This final genetic state would be natural human instincts. It is not exactly correct to compare humans to apes since the river branched again.

 

With the onset of civilization, the effect added to the blend was analogous to adding canals to the river and tributaries. These are not instinctive or based on DNA, but are more or less synthetic, man made. These canals are transferred more by education and less by DNA, but may still use the water or potential within the genetic river and tributaries. This is where instinct appears to be relative. The potential is from the DNA but the water that is conscious is in the canals, which can be invented left and right.

 

The question is, how do you separate the canals from the river and tributaries so we can differentiate genetic instinct for humans?

[Turtle]

..This basic schema is analogous to a genetic river that flows for all animals. As animals get more progressed and/or evolved, this river branches into tributaries increasing the cerebral variability and complexity for the basic schema.

 

My instinct is to make pertinent corrections; to whit, the flow of a river system is not into tributaries, it is from tributaries. :)