Should legal repayments be limited to humans?

It's been a long haul since the Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, releasing million of barrels of crude oil into the sea above.  BP has promised to pay the fishermen and residents affected by the spill, but what about the "other residents" who didn't get to voice their concerns at town hall?

An article from the ABA Journal voices this point, emphasizing the need to revise environmental law to include reparations for wildlife disturbed by man-made messes (including oil spills).  I don't necessarily agree with this notion in the same way in which PETA does (who, from my understanding, wants to file suit for suffering), but rather I think we need the government to measure environmental ruin in a tangible way to create precedent for future disasters.  Unfortunately, no amount of money can undo all of the suffering, but instead of BP "pledging" to throw money at the situation in the long-run, why not reevaluate the regulatory means that prohibit companies from setting up camp in the first place?  Maybe higher taxes or potential fines for companies working in close proximity to wildlife?

I'll admit: I'm no expert on this topic, but I do know that something productive needs to come out of this oil spill -- why can't more stringent federal protection for the environment and wildlife be it?

Extended Mind

I'm taking a fascinating course called "Biology of Mind," taught by UW-Madison paleo-superstar John Hawks. Our musings are posted on a class blog, and I thought I may as well combine my efforts for a few of my posts.

This week, I reviewed a paper on a researcher's analysis of consciousness and Extended Mind. EM is the idea that portions of the environment can be viewed as extensions of the mind; our minds aren't limited to neural activity in our brain and include interactions with the outside world. A classmate pointed out that Clark, the author of the review and co-author of one of the first papers on the topic, doesn't necessarily disagree with EM, but rather other researchers' tendencies to claim EM constitutes consciousness as well.

Photo by laimagendelmundo

So here's an abridged version of my post:

The article I'm reviewing, "Spreading the Joy? Why the Machinery of Consciousness is (Probably) Still in the Head" by Andy Clark, addresses research concerning the "extended conscious mind," or the ability to view one's "embodied and situated brain" as the physical origin of the mind -- rather than the brain alone (Clark, 2009, p. 964). Let's start this analysis with a few definitions:

• The extended mind: The idea that "cognition and mental states" may depend on physical mechanisms outside of the Central Nervous System and the brain (p. 965).
• The embodied and situated brain: the brain plus other "physical stuff," Clark notes (p. 964). I interpret this to include the entire body, specifically other areas that relay sensory data of the outside world. Some researchers consider material structures (defined below) as representative as well. This concept is vital to the EM theory.
• Extra-neural material structures: Physical objects that serve to store mental data and can present them to the mind. For example, a notebook is a "material vehicle" that can store abstract beliefs (e.g., dispositional or standing) (p. 966). Though this is slightly different (and off topic), I can't help but think of the soul-splitting Harry Potter Horcruxes that immortalize people in physical objects...
• Enactivism: Personal perspective is not received, but rather physically enacted through sensorimotor behavior (p. 969). Choosing what you do with your body shapes your perspective, and thus, consciousness.

Essentially, Clark looks at previous literature, including a paper he authored, and reevaluates previous claims about EM and the possibility of EM creating consciousness. He comes to the conclusion that the existence of consciousness from EM is not supported. He challenges that if this theory gained acceptance, efforts would still be futile in determining where the mind stops and the rest of the world begins. After all, his colleagues are striving to delineate the mind/world boundary, not muddle it further.

I found the original concept of EM using "extra neural material structures" (e.g., material objects) particularly interesting because I had never thought of the mind this way before.

Concerning notebooks, cameras, computers, and so on, it's a tempting idea to accept these vectors as environmental parts of the mind. I think science journalist Carl Zimmer summarizes this concept quite well in an article in Discover. 

In Clark's original work on EM (1998), he contrasts someone who stores mental information internally with someone who is mentally crippled by Alzheimer's disease and uses a notepad to remind himself of information.  The person with Alzheimer's actively uses a physical object to serve as the memory his mind lacks. 

This brings me to the intersection of our minds and digital presences.  Though I don't think what we do online serve as real extensions of our minds, I do think these activities serve a greater purpose for memory storage and expression.  Is the Google calendar you rely so heavily on an extension of your mind?  Personally, I don't think so; but, it does condition your mind to depend on it.  I honestly wonder what such digital extensions do to the brain.  Are those of us dependent on technology less likely to remember things without its aid?

Photo by Spinstah

In this light, I think components of EM are worth exploring further.

What do you think? Is EM a legitimate possibility?

Bonobo Moms Know Best

Mom always knows what's best -- or you eventually realize after the emotional throes of high school.

But for bonobos (which are one of my favorite primate groups, by the way), mothers seem to know what's best for their offspring -- especially their sons -- on hierarchical and reproductive levels, according to a new study.

Photo by tim ellis

Male bonobos are philopatric, meaning they stay in their family group upon reaching reproductive maturity; reversely, once females reach their reproductive prime, they leave to find a new group. Since the males stay, their social statuses are largely determined by the ranking of their mothers (who had to establish their dominance on their own). It's no surprise that these higher ranking males -- with higher ranking mommies -- enjoy the perks of having access to more resources and mates.

The study, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found a positive correlation between the dominance status of a son (which is usually determined by his mother) and his mating success.  They also found that when mom is around, she'll try to give her son a leg up on the competition by blocking or intervening in conflicts when her son and a higher-ranking male are vying for the same female.

Can you say "mother's boy?" Anthropomorphize much?

But one downfall is that the researchers didn't determine whether mothers' efforts actually affected the paternity of any new offspring (they did not genetically test each offspring to see who fathered it). The moms probably increased the likelihood of their sons fathering offspring, but it's not exactly proven yet. I imagine the genetic facet might be dovetailed into a new study -- after all, finding this correlation in paternity would confirm that mum's help mattered in the grand, Darwinian scheme of things.

In a nutshell, I think this study is important for two reasons:

1.  Understanding the group dynamics of bonobos, particularly at the reproductive level, will provide researchers and conservationists with the information to create more effective conservation programs.  Since bonobos are endangered, a greater understanding of their reproductive and social behavior will benefit the study and management of both wild and captive groups.  I suspect the bonobo AZA Species Survival Plan committee will take a look at this research sometime in the near future, especially if the work can be replicated and reported elsewhere.

2.  Bonobo matriarchy is intriguing because it's possible that early humans may have behaved similarly. I've always been fascinated with life history theories.  The Grandmothering Hypothesis is one of my favorites and suggests that menopause in women may have been evolutionarily advantageous because it allowed older women to make larger investments in their offspring and grand-offspring. It's the idea that reproductive senescence, or the stopping of reproductive cycles, could not only reduce injury or death during birth for older woman and their babies, but also allow the women to ensure their genes survive. Female bonobos, on the other hand, do not experience menopause; in fact, they continue to reproduce until death. And since female bonobos leave the group upon reaching sexual maturity, I'd imagine there's no grandmothering behavior at all. But there's something familiar about this mother advantage in bonobos.

Menopause aside, what if these reproductive strategies employed by bonobo mothers were also used by early humans to bolster the reproductive success of their offspring? What if they still are? Aren't grandmothers and mothers the most outspoken and pushy matchmakers in their children's/grandchildren's lives?

Depends who you ask, I suppose.

The Internet may have filled that niche recently.

What do you think?