Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cca!mirror!rayssd!brunix!nancy!chs
From: chs@nancy (Craig Hansen-Sturm)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Hardwired Behavior
Message-ID: <24726@brunix.UUCP>
Date: 8 Apr 88 01:13:51 GMT
Sender: root@brunix.UUCP
Reply-To: chs@brunix.UUCP (Craig Hansen-Sturm)
Organization: Brown University Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 41


In article <231@ttidca.TTI.COM> hollombe@ttidcb.tti.com (Jerry Hollombe)
writes:

>There's some question whether _any_ behavior is hard-wired in any creature
>above the level of insect.  The following example is from one of my psych.
>courses:

>New-born chicks will begin to scratch for food almost as soon as they are
>able to stand.  This looks to be a classic example of instinct -- a
>behavior hard-wired into the organism.  However, if you take a chick and
>fit it with a harness that prevents it from pecking at the ground for
>food, then spoon feed it, the chick will _never_ scratch for food.  It
>will starve to death while standing on a pile of grain if not spoon fed.

>So much for _that_ hard-wired behavior.

This argument is falacious, for it does not rule out the possibility that
an initial `hard-wired' configuration may eventually be overidden through
learning.  In fact, if my laymen's knowledge of psychology is correct,
there is evidence supporting the view that the human brain physically
rearranges its own structure between years 0-4.  Pathways between neurons
are established, in fact, a child of age 2 has more than twice the number 
of synapses than an adult.  By age 12 or so, the number of synapses levels 
off to the adult number. The physical structure of the human brain changes 
through time.

It is unlikely that things are so drastically different in a newborn chick.

Are you suggesting that the newborn mind is a blank slate?  I thought that
most people have rejected that empiricist dogma long ago.  

Craig Hansen-Sturm


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| Craig A. Hansen-Sturm              {decvax,ihnp4,allegra}!brunix!chs.UUCP |
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