USC Social Psychology (MWF 1:30-2:30 class)

[annaktyl]

what is the purpose of the brain according to evoutionary psychoogy?
Evolutionary psychology is a hybrid discipline that draws insights from modern evolutionary theory, biology, cognitive psychology.
Leda Cosmides and John Tooby consider five principles to be the foundation of evolutionary psychology:

1. The brain is a physical system. It functions as a computer with circuits that have evolved to generate behavior that is appropriate to environmental circumstances
2. Neural circuits were designed by natural selection to solve problems that human ancestors faced while evolving into homo sapiens
3. Consciousness is a small portion of the contents and processes of the mind; conscious experience can mislead individuals to believe their thoughts are simpler than they actually are. Most problems experienced as easy to solve are very difficult to solve and are driven and supported by very complicated neural circuitry
4. Different neural circuits are specialized for solving different adaptive problems.
5. Modern skulls house a stone age mind.

Evolutionary psychology is founded on the computational theory of mind, the theory that the mind, our "inner world," is the action of complex neural structures in the brain.

Evolutionary psychology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Eliza Imee Cajegas]

Nex question for 10 points again!

Explain in your own words the meaning of "pakikisama" as a cultural value that we inherit from our peers?

Okay, let me begin by stating that culture and values are not innate or inborn, rather they are learned by the child from his environment. "Pakikisama" (for me at least) is when a person behaves in a certain way so that his status among his peers becomes stable or "levels up". THis is learned through Operant Conditioning where if he or she does something agreeable to his or her peers, he will receive a reinforcement, therefore strengthening the person's desire to repeat the behavoir. The pressure from peers to conform especially in adolescence (where teens depend on their groups for their identity and where cliquishness and intolerance of diffence is prevalent) is great. So that, teens end up being "forced" to do things they normally wouldn't.

Example:
A girl goes out with her friends and ends up going home later than her curfew. The reason? Her friend teased her and called her "Kj" or "Kill Joy". The girl, feeling the pressure, decided to stay later than she normally would.

Also, from another point of view, "pakikisama" is also a form of adaptation that helps humans survive socially.

Source: My mind.. Hehe. .

[daniellearellano]

So, far let me stop on asking questions. Let's discuss further about evolution particularly the evolution of thought and behavior!

How many of you have read the book "The Phenomenon of Man" by: Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin? A Jesuit priest and Paleontologist.

In his book The Phenomenon of Man he talks about pre-life, life, the Alpha Point, the Omega Point, and so on. According to him the pre-life is what we call matter. In calling it ‘pre-life’, he wants to imply that there is already a direction, a tendency, an obscure sort of will in matter.

He distinguishes three things in matter: plurality, by virtue of which the substratum of the tangible Universe, dizzily numerous and minute, slopes down towards a limitless base, disintegrating as it goes. Secondly Unity, which pushes the elements towards each other so as to comprehend them together in one great whole, the Universe. And finally Energy, or capacity for interaction. The immediate consequence of this is that the world forms ‘a system by its plurality, a Totum by its energy’.
What is new here is that we can see matter under the twin categories of duration and of evolution, instead of fixity and geometry. The whole universe in fact, is found to be engaged in an immense evolution, to which astronomy claims to be able to assign an initial date – between five billion five hundred million and eight billion five hundred million. Teilhard recalls at this point that two principal laws rule matter – that of the conservation of energy and that of the degradation of energy. The more the quantum of energy in the world functions, the more it gets used up. This is the fundamental phenomenon of the world which necessarily leads to the “Phenomenon of Man”.


Teilhard de Chardin

[daniellearellano]

KUYA YU..

khbaw ka wat tym mag online si sir?

[Yu-jin]

KUYA YU..

khbaw ka wat tym mag online si sir?

I honestly don't know. While waiting try to read the Phenomenon of Man. Not using Wikipedia as your main source. Lemme quote Sir Gerry and Tyler, Wikipedia is not a valid source. Uhm you can try texting sir Reggie if you really want to know

[josheene_cavero]

WHAT IS EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY..

Evolutionary psychology is the science that seeks to explain through universal mechanisms of behavior why humans act the way they do .Evolutionary psychology seeks to reconstruct problems that our ancestors faced in their primitive environments, and the problem-solving mechanisms they created to meet those particular challenges. From these reconstructed problem-solving adaptations, the science then attempts to establish the common roots of our ancestral behavior, and how those common behavioral roots are manifested today in the widely scattered cultures of the planet. The goal is to understand human behavior that is universally aimed at the passing of one's genes into the next generation

What is Evolutionary Psycholgy?

[glazzer91]

elow sir,

c baylomo, grace marie ni

[grace batisla-ong]

what is the purpose of the brain according to evoutionary psychoogy?
Brain - Mind and brain: Encyclopedia II - Brain - Mind and brain

A distinction is sometimes made in the philosophy of mind between the mind and brain. The brain is defined as the physical, biological matter contained within the head, responsible for all electrochemical neuronal processes. The mind, however, exists as something outside of the brain. The mind is sometimes thought of as consciousness, the soul, or some other non-physical center of thought. The inability to determine what consciousness is has led to the mind-body problem.
What is Evolutionary Psychology?
Evolutionary psychology is the science that seeks to explain through universal mechanisms of behavior why humans act the way they do. Evolutionary psychology seeks to reconstruct problems that our ancestors faced in their primitive environments, and the problem-solving mechanisms they created to meet those particular challenges. From these reconstructed problem-solving adaptations, the science then attempts to establish the common roots of our ancestral behavior, and how those common behavioral roots are manifested today in the widely scattered cultures of the planet. The goal is to understand human behavior that is universally aimed at the passing of one's genes into the next generation.

source:Brain: Encyclopedia II - Brain - Mind and brain
http://www.evoyage.com/Whatis.html
grace batisla-ong

[Eliza Imee Cajegas]

Ok let us go further. Please read some excerpts of the book "The Phenomenon of Man" by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ!

Your comments are graded!

Everything does not happen continuously at any one moment in the universe. Neither does everything happen everywhere in it.
There are no summits without abysses.
When the end of the world is mentioned, the idea that leaps into our minds is always one of catastrophe.
Life is born and propagates itself on the earth as a solitary pulsation. In the last analysis the best guarantee that a thing should happen is that it appears to us as vitally necessary

-The Phenomenon of Man by Pierre teilhard de chardin


Teilhard’s evolutionary theory was about the mind as well as the physical world. He believed it was not enough that we had worked out that we had evolved from the apes - our task was to reach the point where we knew why we had evolved. The evolutionary biologists of today have ample evidence that the human brain has not changed in thousands of years, but just because we have the same brain structure does not mean we are the same beings. Teilhard believed that when humankind began living in the state of reflectiveness, our progress was inevitable; we would enjoy ‘not only survival, but super-life’.
Although he saw The Phenomenon of Man as a scientific treatise, he was impatient with overspecialisation, and took the paradoxical position that science could only come of age when it went beyond seeing man only in terms of the physical body: 'The true physics is that which will, one day, achieve the inclusion of man in his wholeness in a coherent picture of the world'. Teilhard's human being was a phenomenon which had yet to be properly explained either in the sciences or the humanities, and the quests, achievements and events of human history had to be looked on as one whole movement. We are now so used to the word 'mankind' that it has almost ceased to be an idea, yet in fact it is a very young idea, based on the recognition of unity, despite all the wars, division of territories and cultural differentiation.
For Teilhard, man is not the centre of the world, but the ‘axis and leading shoot of evolution’. It is not that we will lift ourselves above nature, but in our intellectual and spiritual quests dramatically raise the complexity and intelligence of nature. The more complex and intelligent we become, the less of a hold the physical universe has on us. ‘Hominisation’ was the process of humanity becoming more human, or the fulfilment of its potential.

Source: The Phenomenon of Man (1955) Teilhard de Chardin

My Opinion/ Comment/Reaction:

Based on the excerpts and reviews, I think his book is beautiful. I'd like to read it sometime. . Anyway, what I've understood from my research on the topic is that Chardin supported the theory of evolution but also took into consideration the uniqueness of the human being. In short, he accepted that humans and apes are similar in some ways but diffrent also in the aspects of intellectual and spiritual quests which set us apart from lower form of animals. Man then, does not just behave or think like his close realtives the apes but he also has his on spaecial influences brewing within him.

[grace batisla-ong]

elow sir,

c baylomo, grace marie ni

hi grace now ra lagi ka??