I suggest that we think more in terms of a physiologically appropriate
set of more general mechanisms which may subsume several other human
functions under the same principle. It seems to me that we must look for
abilities to develop generalized dexterity of use for certain kinds of
end purposes for any or all muscular outputs from the central nervous
system. If there is a task to be done, such as lifting a stone, whether
in water or air, a given animal may turn it over with his foot, with his
flipper, with his hand, with his tail, or with any other body part with
which he could obtain a purchase on the stone. The end task is turning
over the stone, to obtain food or whatever. It makes little difference
what kind of muscular equipment he uses just so he uses it
appropriately.
Let me illustrate with a more complex example seen in our own
laboratory. A baby dolphin was being nursed in a small tank
artificially. It apparently needed the constant attention of a human
attendant. Its mother had not been caught with it. After several days it
discovered that if it banged on the bottom of the tank with its flipper
in a rhythmic fashion it could bring the humans from the other room. (We
heard a loud thumping sound transmitted from a hydrophone in its tank.)
Previous to this it attempted to bring the humans from the other room by
whistling the distress call of the dolphins; unlike its mother, the
humans did not respond to the whistle. In a sense this distress call is
in his instinctual pattern for obtaining food and aid by other dolphins.
The secondary adaptation and the new effort was that of manipulating the
flipper rather than the phonation mechanism in the blowhole. Thus driven
by whatever the instinctual need is, it tried different outputs from its
brain and finally discovered one which brought the desired results. This
ability to change the output from unsuccessful ones to successful ones
seems to me to be evidence of a “higher nervous system” function. Of
course in fine gradation and small differences, the same kind of pattern
can be shown for smaller-brained animals. It is the seeking a new
output, not necessarily instinctually tied in, and the radicalness of
the change of output, plus the relating of many of the variables to one
another thus generating the new output, that seems to be the hallmark of
the large brain. These problems are not single variable ones with simple
cause and effect, but are simultaneous multiple variable ones.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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