A little pre-reading...
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/242092.php
As far as I'm aware, the general consensus of the scientific community is that organisms have evolved through time to develop mechanisms meant to aid in their survival. In mammals these include the primal instincts of eating, drinking, sleeping, reproducing, and defending themselves from threats, in plants, these tendencies probably couldn't be called instincts due to the lack of brain, but they still develop habits, like leaning towards sunlight to aid photosynthesis, that are meant to aid in their survival. The same idea of an innate instinct for survival is shown in the competitive nature displayed by organisms in the living world, always locked in some sort of combat both for their lives and in order to better them.
Adding to this, are the theories put forth in many of the texts we've read so far this semester, multiple of which have referenced the idea of consciousness existing within every living creature to some degree. The reasons behind these theories vary between texts, but Teilhard's reasoning is the one that I find most plausible. Simply stated, he argues that some degree of consciousness must exist in every living thing on earth, down to the single cell bacteria. He supports this argument simply by pointing out that our human conscience didn't just magically appear due to some act of God or non-scientific event, and posits that our conscience evolved to the level it's at today because our human systems became so complex during the process of evolution that the interactions of all the millions of cells and molecules and elements etc. that form the human body, and the small degrees of consciousness each building block had, multiplied as they interacted and came to form the human experience.
So, based off these two ideas - the first a pretty much universal belief, and the second a seemingly logical and convincing argument - can someone tell me why a deer, who should have survival instincts, and might have some sort of consciousness, so chose to leap out of the forest on a collision course with my car?
I have to say, being from Los Angeles the deer crossing signs posted up in the Hollywood Hills don't have much of an impact on my life, due to the fact that a. I very rarely have a reason to go to that area and b. let's get real, there aren't really all too many deer in LA. Because of this, when I came to Bard I was under the impression that if one were to hit a deer while driving it was because the deer was already in the road and whoever was driving was not paying attention or something along the lines of that.
Apparently I was wrong. Apparently deer for some reason like to come barreling out of the forest to collide with completely visible oncoming traffic. Apparently the primal instinct for survival and Teilhard's theory of consciousness do not apply to deer. But that can't be true because I'm pretty sure it would break some kind of scientific law or something.
All I know is that if humans and animals both have brain functions used for survival, including "circuits" responsible for defense, managing energy, nutrition, fluid balance, regulating heat and reproduction, it seems reasonable to vaguely expect that animals will react to threats of danger in similar manners to the way I would as a human, i.e. do not run towards or into the threat.
And believe me, when I saw this deer first emerge from the trees at an approximately 350˚ angle (referencing in terms of a degree/radian circle illustration) from the righthand side of the car and made eye contact with it, the first thought that went through my head was "There's no way." However, that idea was quickly proven false as I saw its hind legs cross over its front ones and then its front ones begin to leave the ground again. Now see, in this situation my survival instincts kick in at full force because a. I'm not wearing a seat belt, and b. I'm actually driving my roommate's car and don't need her to kill me for totaling it. So in the space of 2 seconds at most I glance in my rearview mirror, realize I'm being tailgated, process that hitting the brakes isn't a good idea unless I want to be sandwiched between a deer and a car, decide that it's safer for me if the deer were to hit the side of the car instead of the front of it, which seemed to be its intended target, made sure there was no oncoming traffic in the other lane, and swerved into into it while stepping on the gas. The end result being the deer colliding with the front tire bumper on the righthand side, which came slightly unattached, but was otherwise fine.
Now I'll admit, I have no knowledge on the fate of this deer. I pulled over and walked back and it was nowhere in sight. But the simple fact remains that this deer, made the decision - or whatever the lesser conscious animal version of a decision would be - to attempt to place its approximately 140 lb body in the direct path of a fast moving object weighing approximately 3,500 lbs.
In what world, at a conscious or unconscious level, would that ever be helpful to any creatures survival? The article I linked above is about a study done by neuroscientist Joseph Ledoux in which he identified the "survival circuits" possessed by both man and animal, and focused in studying the indirect influence these circuits had on emotions when triggered, comparing the human results to the animals in hopes of helping to solve the question of whether animals experience emotion. His results showed that we can "respond to a danger before we even know consciously what we are responding to," which in my mind adds further support to the idea that survival instincts are strong enough to function effectively without proof of a highly functioning sense of conscious.
I'm not sure if I should have lost faith in the idea of the primal instinct of survival, or Teilhard's seemingly logical explanation of the evolution of the human consciousness, or if I should just write the entire incident off with the explanation that winter is coming and the deer here are obviously not willing to live through it.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/242092.php
As far as I'm aware, the general consensus of the scientific community is that organisms have evolved through time to develop mechanisms meant to aid in their survival. In mammals these include the primal instincts of eating, drinking, sleeping, reproducing, and defending themselves from threats, in plants, these tendencies probably couldn't be called instincts due to the lack of brain, but they still develop habits, like leaning towards sunlight to aid photosynthesis, that are meant to aid in their survival. The same idea of an innate instinct for survival is shown in the competitive nature displayed by organisms in the living world, always locked in some sort of combat both for their lives and in order to better them.
Adding to this, are the theories put forth in many of the texts we've read so far this semester, multiple of which have referenced the idea of consciousness existing within every living creature to some degree. The reasons behind these theories vary between texts, but Teilhard's reasoning is the one that I find most plausible. Simply stated, he argues that some degree of consciousness must exist in every living thing on earth, down to the single cell bacteria. He supports this argument simply by pointing out that our human conscience didn't just magically appear due to some act of God or non-scientific event, and posits that our conscience evolved to the level it's at today because our human systems became so complex during the process of evolution that the interactions of all the millions of cells and molecules and elements etc. that form the human body, and the small degrees of consciousness each building block had, multiplied as they interacted and came to form the human experience.
So, based off these two ideas - the first a pretty much universal belief, and the second a seemingly logical and convincing argument - can someone tell me why a deer, who should have survival instincts, and might have some sort of consciousness, so chose to leap out of the forest on a collision course with my car?
I have to say, being from Los Angeles the deer crossing signs posted up in the Hollywood Hills don't have much of an impact on my life, due to the fact that a. I very rarely have a reason to go to that area and b. let's get real, there aren't really all too many deer in LA. Because of this, when I came to Bard I was under the impression that if one were to hit a deer while driving it was because the deer was already in the road and whoever was driving was not paying attention or something along the lines of that.
Apparently I was wrong. Apparently deer for some reason like to come barreling out of the forest to collide with completely visible oncoming traffic. Apparently the primal instinct for survival and Teilhard's theory of consciousness do not apply to deer. But that can't be true because I'm pretty sure it would break some kind of scientific law or something.
All I know is that if humans and animals both have brain functions used for survival, including "circuits" responsible for defense, managing energy, nutrition, fluid balance, regulating heat and reproduction, it seems reasonable to vaguely expect that animals will react to threats of danger in similar manners to the way I would as a human, i.e. do not run towards or into the threat.
And believe me, when I saw this deer first emerge from the trees at an approximately 350˚ angle (referencing in terms of a degree/radian circle illustration) from the righthand side of the car and made eye contact with it, the first thought that went through my head was "There's no way." However, that idea was quickly proven false as I saw its hind legs cross over its front ones and then its front ones begin to leave the ground again. Now see, in this situation my survival instincts kick in at full force because a. I'm not wearing a seat belt, and b. I'm actually driving my roommate's car and don't need her to kill me for totaling it. So in the space of 2 seconds at most I glance in my rearview mirror, realize I'm being tailgated, process that hitting the brakes isn't a good idea unless I want to be sandwiched between a deer and a car, decide that it's safer for me if the deer were to hit the side of the car instead of the front of it, which seemed to be its intended target, made sure there was no oncoming traffic in the other lane, and swerved into into it while stepping on the gas. The end result being the deer colliding with the front tire bumper on the righthand side, which came slightly unattached, but was otherwise fine.
Now I'll admit, I have no knowledge on the fate of this deer. I pulled over and walked back and it was nowhere in sight. But the simple fact remains that this deer, made the decision - or whatever the lesser conscious animal version of a decision would be - to attempt to place its approximately 140 lb body in the direct path of a fast moving object weighing approximately 3,500 lbs.
In what world, at a conscious or unconscious level, would that ever be helpful to any creatures survival? The article I linked above is about a study done by neuroscientist Joseph Ledoux in which he identified the "survival circuits" possessed by both man and animal, and focused in studying the indirect influence these circuits had on emotions when triggered, comparing the human results to the animals in hopes of helping to solve the question of whether animals experience emotion. His results showed that we can "respond to a danger before we even know consciously what we are responding to," which in my mind adds further support to the idea that survival instincts are strong enough to function effectively without proof of a highly functioning sense of conscious.
I'm not sure if I should have lost faith in the idea of the primal instinct of survival, or Teilhard's seemingly logical explanation of the evolution of the human consciousness, or if I should just write the entire incident off with the explanation that winter is coming and the deer here are obviously not willing to live through it.
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