Cuttlefish are a marine animal with an internal shell (cuttlebone) and are considered the most intelligent invertebrate. They shift color, shape, and texture in the presence of a predator. They hunt mollusks, crabs, shrimp, etc. and they have a unique mating routine.
Consider this. Once males and females mate and lay eggs, both parents die before the offspring hatch. Yet, the new offspring know (learn) which animals are predators, how to hide from them, what to eat and where to find it, and how to mate. Average lifespan is ~1.5 years before mating and dying.
This would be a good place to start studying memes (if you prescribe to evolution), because knowledge (or ideas) appears to intrinsically pass on without environmental (parents mainly) influence. Yet I haven’t found any research here yet.
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This is kind of complicated. Instincts could explain most of this. If I were blind and deaf and had no real means of communicating I'd still have some sort of drive to have sex. Actually, I want to see that study. How does a blind/deaf person express sexuality?
ReplyDeleteAlso, this is Dawkin's meme that you're describing or ascribing to this scenario, but Daniel Dennett defines it differently. He believes prevailing thoughts and beliefs specific to humans act in some sort of evolutionary manner. Let's thinkh about this a different way. Can we think of a belief held by humans which would maot ke them more fit (not just live longer but more likely to breed)?
ReplyDeleteThis is why I keep getting caught up in memes. There is a difference between using the scientific method and calling something a science. So memes only pertain to human (as we are evolved now) culture or society? Additionaly, they pertain to belief systems? I'm trying to make a case for talking about memes, but I keep coming back to genetics and development at which point I would just call them phenotypes.
ReplyDeleteAs far as breeding fitness and the deaf/blind community scenario, I think pheromones would guide them. Sure there would be some mistakes, but eventually they would hit the right hole. This would be genetics again (Pheromones)
Dang it, I just took The God Delusion back to the library because I wasn't going to get to it very soon (A Brief History of Time is getting slower to read about halfway in, and I was thinking of a health care book next). But on that note, I know you guys don't want to do the organized book club type reading, but if you're going to recommend something to the other one, let me know, so I at least have an idea what books you'll both have read, so if it looks good, I can get a head start on it and maybe be done in time to contribute.
ReplyDeleteGiven that I haven't done any of the reading on this topic, I'm still going to write in. Feel free to ignore it if it's mistaken.
Is there more information on cuttlefish breeding? I don't see a section on that in wikipedia. Namely, how many offspring do they typically have? I'm just thinking that if a pair of cuttlefish have 100 offspring in those two years, then 90 of them don't make it, but the other ten do, then it wouldn't necessarily be an automatic knowledge. They might learn from watching their siblings get caught by predators.
Also Jarrod, you show a definite bias towards males in your last post ("eventually they would hit the right hole"). What about the females? Will they eventually hit the right pole?