- 24 Oct 2017 21:49
#14855842
If hugging, smiling and kissing is not innate, why do they bother at all?
Let’s ask is any behaviour innate? The majority of animals have flight/fight response to stress. Then there is hunger, sex drive, and similar. This behaviour is innate.
Mammals have mother/infant bond at the core of their distinctive sociality. This too is innate. Mammals tend to groom too. And play. Again innate.
Apes have a common suit of behaviours such as kissing, hugging, smiling, singing. These are also innate.
Now we can find similar behaviours in more closely related groups. This is not unexpected. Evolution doesn’t create de nova. It builds on what is already there and modifies it for new purposes. So there is a fish, a lizard, a mammal and a monkey in each human. Note that we can find anologous behaviour between less closely related groups also. None the less there is clear association of behaviour traits with cladistic groups as there is with other traits.
I think at the heart of resistance to acknowledging our monkey nature is a certain anthrocentrism. This is the idea we are exceptional and not really animals. Well we are animals, moneys what’s more, and every species is exceptional in its own way.
In time anthrocentrism will go the way of ideas like ‘flat earth’ and ‘the world being the centre of the solar system’.
OK, you say we aren’t monkeys because it is more complicated than that. How so?
Sivad wrote:Most animals express/communicate nonverbally and bond through physical contact. The specific forms of physical contact and noverbal expression could be determined by simple morphology(primates hug because they have arms and can stand upright) rather than being hardwired or innate behavior. If body structure does have a role in determining the forms of contact then universality isn't conclusive proof of innateness.
Not really, it's way more complicated than that.
If hugging, smiling and kissing is not innate, why do they bother at all?
Let’s ask is any behaviour innate? The majority of animals have flight/fight response to stress. Then there is hunger, sex drive, and similar. This behaviour is innate.
Mammals have mother/infant bond at the core of their distinctive sociality. This too is innate. Mammals tend to groom too. And play. Again innate.
Apes have a common suit of behaviours such as kissing, hugging, smiling, singing. These are also innate.
Now we can find similar behaviours in more closely related groups. This is not unexpected. Evolution doesn’t create de nova. It builds on what is already there and modifies it for new purposes. So there is a fish, a lizard, a mammal and a monkey in each human. Note that we can find anologous behaviour between less closely related groups also. None the less there is clear association of behaviour traits with cladistic groups as there is with other traits.
I think at the heart of resistance to acknowledging our monkey nature is a certain anthrocentrism. This is the idea we are exceptional and not really animals. Well we are animals, moneys what’s more, and every species is exceptional in its own way.
In time anthrocentrism will go the way of ideas like ‘flat earth’ and ‘the world being the centre of the solar system’.
OK, you say we aren’t monkeys because it is more complicated than that. How so?