I have spent two days solid following four others recently listening to eight lectures, reading about fifteen papers and a good chunk of a multi authored book and another single authored one on radical shifts understanding of and our reinterpretation of old data and the integration of new concepts supported by data compiled by top researchers in various sub disciplines of neuroscience, cognitive and affective psychology, and ethology that constitute the relatively new field of trans species psychology. It is not rocket science but illustrate how, up until the turn of this century, we have been violating the fundamental principles of science in terms of ignoring new data and maintaining old theory resulting in a scientifically shameful mismatch that was swept under the carpet for political reasons as much as anything else. It made for some exhausting but enlightening reading. Gone are the old concepts that separate man from many animals de facto, including bears, apes, whales, elephants and even some invertebrates, reptiles, birds and fish with respect to the notion of self awareness, conscious experience, pain perception and notions of selfhood. Areas between science and philosophy, ethics and , potentially, law are changing incredibly fast as our self-pedestaling blinkers come off. Think Copernicus and Galileo, the church this time being the old guard from the mid to late 20 th Century, mostly neuroscientists, neuropsychologists, veterinarians and animal behaviourists. I am exhausted but thrilled that these articles are from Science and Nature and other prestigious peer reviewed journals with top scientists from UCLA, Stanford, Duke and Harvard throwing in some heavyweight concepts with hard data support debunking the reflex and instinct laden theories of non human brain function of old. Furthermore, affective ( emotion) based neuroscience is revealing that cognition plays a much smaller part than previously thought and that the two are well integrated on a neurobiological level across many, many species. This RADICALLY changes the ball game removing humans as the apex of the evolutionary tree putting us in with the others. Comparability rather than sameness is an important difference to grasp. Last, communication and language, self awareness and consciousness is extended to many non human animals as well as to the humanimal, and this is freaking out the old guard. I love it. Cambridge university scientists in 2012, including physicist Stephen Hawking signed an important declaration about this worth reading. Next up is the application of such a singing paradigm that includes anal PTSD and its treatment.
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 06:39:32 +0000
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