₦airaland Forum

vaxx:
You will have to provide where i say something of such.

That is what yours above that I quoted means, though the interpretation you agreed with is what you were trying to say.

See the comment below, which agrees completely with the interpretation you agree with, even though its about something else.

vaxx:
Like many religious people, they don’t do much to take care of their own problems, and instead wish that an outside force would intervene on their behalf. It’s fine to hope to be blessed/have good things happen, but that wishing can’t be your primary way of dealing with the problems of life.

Wishing a thing is innate can’t be your primary way of dealing with the problems of life. If you wish you knew how to swim from birth, you will drown. And if you did it with empathy, you'd be not very good at it.

One may have the potential (the ability to do a thing), and doing that thing may also have a "genetic foundation", but not doing some work to develop that potential, is "wishing" being "your primary way of dealing with the problems of life", and would probably lead to a more lousy life.

vaxx:
it is one of those budaatum fallacy.

I'm glad you agree that, "The predators were there in the early man's environment which the early man adapted to", is the more accurate interpretation of what actually happened, and that to claim "the ability to stand was already there before the need to stand arose" is a fallacy.

vaxx:
It will be ignorance to talk about emphaty without acknowledging it has a genetic foundation even if it can be learned.

"Genetic foundation"!? Even reading can be said to have a genetic foundation if one really tried to be obtuse.

I do not agree that empathy is passed through genes. It is not the same as eye colour. Both parents may lack the ability to be empathic, while all their offspring do. This would be rare however, since the offspring are more likely to learn to be unempathic from their parents.

Gggg102:
he is an atheist.

I don't understand how that relates to our discussion.

vaxx:
it was an evolutionary trait that is built in the early man to spot predators easier.

The predators were there in the early man's environment which the early man adapted to.

Though, that isn't quite what you've said here, which sounds more like, "The trait was there because predators appeared!"

Let me know how I misunderstand please.

vaxx:
Back then, there was just a lot of grassland in alot of places we now find homes and concrete.

That's closer. The environment, "was".

vaxx:
If we were quadripeds we would easily be stalked. Once upright, it is easy to see above the grass and look down from a better vantage point.

So, early quadripeds, seeing they needed to stand taller so they could "see above the grass and look down from a better vantage point" at their stalkers, started standing, and over time, their bodies, including their hips, adapted to standing better.

They, by standing, trained their body to stand.

vaxx:
Im sure there are more reasons but i believe this to be the "backbone" of it.

Yes, many more. The knowledge about it is very patchy. Besides, we are working from "the gods done it". A position of great influence that distorts the ability to observe reality, not to talk of understand what is observed.

The four leg bad two leg good idea occurs in the giraffe with its neck, the elephant's trunk, and the kangaroos marsupium, to mention a few.

vaxx:
And this was the same hypothesis I have with regards to the crawling baby, with enough evolutionary advantage, baby may stand up right one day.

That may well be. But we got way much to sort out on here so why add "hypothesis" ? Or don't you see yet that though we are speaking about "empathy", what we say may apply to anger, frustration, happiness, joy, depression, and maybe, stupidity, ignorance, and such likes?

vaxx:
ad hominem 1....am not surprised.

I wonder how you managed to miss the ad hominem in the op and your following post. Selective perception, perhaps?

MuttleyLaff:
[imghttps://s2/imges/MuttGimmeBrkLaff.gif[/img]
You're such a party pooper

Not quite
Besides, I need to have where and when I threw in the "chicken and egg question" please.
There surely will be a context and valid reason for chipping it in then

I did ask for your point at the time but you gave none. If there was one, you'd have remembered.

vaxx:
we cannot say with certainity what causes evolution of anything. That answer is mystery


The oldest species where fossils are complete enough to know the species was bipedal is Orrorin tugenensis at 6 million years ago......

Read on bro....http://efossils.org/book/step-step-evolution-bipedalism...

Yet, we know bipedalism was inextant and gradually evolved into being, right? And we can study fossils to see how the ability to walk upright, and the hips that made it easier, evolved over time, right?

Do you seriously think upright walking species were given the ability to walk upright and therefore began to walk upright?

Gggg102:
that guy is one of you.

"One of you", how?

vaxx:
The voice of the weak athiest according to the op...

And there was me thinking you were capable of reasoning!

Kindly accept my most profound apologies for the mistake.

vaxx:
Atheism totally reject all the moral value and the ethical considerations of theism.

So, the atheists you know totally reject the honouring of their parents, and they murder, steal, and lie?

Have you handed your account on here to that ape friend of yours?

MuttleyLaff:
I am so sorry bud, I dont remember the chicken and egg question posed

I'm not surprised. You threw it in as a distraction at the time and I refused the bait. But do you see how chicken eggs relate here?

vaxx:
humans have always been a upright standing and bipedal (walking on two feet) species..

even our pre-human, ape like ancestors like Australipithicus afarensis were bipedal millions of years before the first Homo species evolved.

We know this from both fossil footprints and from the anatomy of hip and foot bones.

""The pair of tracks below show an adult and child bipedal walking from three hundered thousands years ago in Eastern Africa""

So if they can, so do we as human baby.

How did the first bipedals become bipedal. Did bipedalism not evolve into being? Did it not involve the gradual adaptation of the hip to improve bipedal efficiency?

tintingz:
Maybe I should ask you, why did Abraham Lincoln showed empathy to the slaves and majority Americans didn't?

Abraham Lincoln was against slavery because free labour distorted the free market, amongst I am certain, numerous other reasons, being the highly knowledgeable individual he was.

vaxx:
It is fact that the human hips were made for walking upright.

No they werent! The hip adapted to humans walking upright and got better adapted over time.

Muttley, remember that chicken and egg question you once posed? This is a clear example. Its like saying the course of a river made the water in the river flow along the course it flows along. When in actual fact, the water in the river creates its own course.

tintingz:
You mean having sad feelings, emotional towards an innocent victim is not inborn?

Yes, that is exactly what I have said all along. Not everyone has "sad feelings, emotional towards an innocent victim". Some people would even stand there screaming " crucify the fuqer"! If its innate, it is selectively innate, and one should ask why it is not innate in those in whom it is missing.

The capability to have emotions at all is innate, just as it's innate to feel pain if hit on the thumb with an hammer. But to have empathy towards animals or the innocent requires cognitive activity. You and your siblings would not feel empathy towards a stone!

vaxx:
In a developmental psychology class, your thought might not be consider .

Seriously?

Empathy is a broad concept that refers to the cognitive and emotional reactions of an individual to the observed experiences of another.
The Psychology of Emotional and Cognitive Empathy

When empathy relies on emotions alone, it functions as the equivalent of just kicking a ball, or a baby swimming.

vaxx:
therefore with enough evolutionary advantage, primate with two leg (human ) will walk without having the drive to do so

Would you agree that 'evolution', is a form of learning? It is at the very least an adaptation that fits an organism to its environment. If empathy were useless in an organisms environment, would it necessarily be empathic, which would be the case if it were innate?

vaxx:
Innate don't disappear when not in used, it is part of what make you. In fact researchers has proven innate behaviour can be turn on by itself .the researchers found that the innate behavior is initiated by a "command" hormone that orchestrates activities in discrete groups of peptide neurons in the brain...

Like birds flying without prior education, as mentioned in link. However, I am saying that empathy, is way more complex than that, and birds flying still requires some learning, even if it were only the flapping of wings to remain steady in a nest. And one would have to ignore the possible learning from watching mother bird flying!

A more suitable example would be the ability of spiders to spin webs and catch food. This may be an evolutionary adaptation, but it can safely be assumed that some web spinning spiders may not know how or where to spin webs. And since we can't actually observe spiders that need to spin webs but don't, we would naturally assume an innate ability in spiders to spin webs. But we do so by disregarding very many more spiders that should spin webs but didn't, and died.

Martinez19:
lol. A question for budaatum. If a given set of animals(A) learnt empathy from other animals(B), where the B learn there morality from? We can keep on tracing to a given set of animals for whom empathy is inherently either genetic or invented. The only thing that comes close to learned empathy is pretence. That FEELING of sadness towards a perceived innocent victim is inborn but to direct that empathy/compassion towards the victim depends on if we reason them to be innocent and worthy of empathy.

Tintingz said he had empathy for eran ileya. I assume he might not have learnt this empathy from those around him who were looking forward to eating meat, but would we say his empathy, and not his ability to be empathic, is innate? If so, why is it only innate to him? Is it genetic? Tintingz should let us know how many of his family members felt like he did.

Daniel Goleman identified five key elements of empathy as

Understanding Others
Developing Others
Having a Service Orientation
Leveraging Diversity
Political Awareness

Would you say these elements are innate, and passed on genetically, or learned?

"That FEELING of sadness towards a perceived innocent victim" is NOT inborn! Many can reason not to have a feeling of sadness towards even an innocent victim. The tyre petrol thief on Lagos streets is an example of this. So too is the lack of empathy that made some put chains around other people's necks and call them slaves, and the demonising of others in order to justify blowing them up. If those perpetrating these acts were empathic towards their victims they might have considered alternative ways to achieve their ends, or chosen different and more empathic ends.

The current arguments about the rights of homosexuals is illustrative. Nations where individuals know of homosexuals (as family members, neighbours, on tv etc), tend to be more empathic towards homosexuals, on the whole, than nations that want to kill homosexuals. And history shows that those nations where empathy is now shown to homosexuals used to be unempathic towards homosexuals in the past.

Yes, humans may have an 'innate' ability to be empathic, but just like they have the ability to swim, walk, be doctors, or astronauts, they still have to learn how to swim, walk, be astronauts or doctors, or they would be no better at it than mere "kicking a ball", like a two year old would, and nowhere Messi like.

Anyone relying on prelearned innate abilities would not be very competent in exercising the skill that ability is capable of engendering. If that skill were Messi, one would just be a ball kicker, if it were swimming one will simply drown, and if it were empathy, I see a lot of unempathic prejudice all around to make me wish it was innate, but the evidence - just the amount of effort to teach it alone - does not suggest it is innate and that one is born with it.

LordReed:
On false accusations? That would be counterproductive.

Remember Obama's birth certificate and Buhari's school certificate?

Some would believe whatever they want regardless of the facts and evidence.

LordReed:
That's true. Nobody would touch him if it turns out to be a false accusation.

Except that women would picket every building he works in till he dies, or resigns.

vaxx:
Your man "'Daniel Goleman"" said empathy has nothing to do with intelligence.

Human/animal by nature has genetic capacity for empathy to develops as we grow. However, it is also a characteristic that can be and is learned thru our environment. Therefore empathy is both genetic and environmental.

I've dealt with this 'trick' explaining that a "capacity" to do a thing may well be genetic, or innate, but if the "capacity" (like your capacity for swimming in infants) is not developed, that baby will not swim, but drown. If the baby drowns, would you say it swam?

A "capacity" to do a thing is not the ability to do that thing. A baby has the genetic capacity to walk, one might say. One may look at the baby moving its legs while laid on its back and say "reflex". One could claim that capacity is innate. But baby still has to develop the ability before it takes it's first independent step, and parents invest heavily in ensuring it fulfils the capacity which may be genetic, and innate but still has to be learnt.

Do note that the acquisition of intelligence is not the only product of learning. There are many who have been taught, and have learnt, to be unintelligent!

tintingz:
What interest does a specie of animal want from another specie?

I don't get, you mean animals in the jungle actually observe and learn what other animals do, there's nothing innate about thier emotions?

Animals may want protection, so mother animal is submissive to papa animal just so it does not kill her baby animals and protects them from others. That's self interest within species. A colony of fleas or other blood sucking parasites would migrate to another host so their current host is not killed by excessive sucking, that too is self interest between different species.

Animals do learn. Lions are taught by their mothers to hunt. Chimpanzees have to learn warning calls and social etiquette. Crows have learnt to use tools. Ants and bees are not prewired to be soldiers or food gatherers, they are assigned roles and copy other ants and bees.

tintingz:
How do animals learn it?

By observing it in other animals. Realising it furthers their interest. They might be in love, especially with their offspring.

Could be anyway. Same as its anyway humans too learn it I suppose. Some humans have empathy beaten into them!

tintingz:
Is it innate or learned?

I'd say learned. Not all animals of the same species are empathic, and it is found in groups of animals indicating its cultural. Just like in humans, it seems, taught, and learned.

itchie:
It has happened! He has been cleared! Prophet CNN is indeed a fake prophet!

Budaatum come o, Prophet CNN has failed woefully

Yeah, I heard. I'm not happy! One and a half more hoops for him to jump through though. I'm working on having his legs broken.

tintingz:
Do animals have empathy?

I thought this was satisfactorily answered!

Animals appear to have empathy.

tintingz:
You didn't answer my question.

I'm sorry. Remind me please.

Share my Sai Bubu please.

Those pdp are slipping!

vaxx:
A car thus....even artificial intelligence car had perfected the skills without the need of an operator.


A computerised car that can drive on its own is available even without operator

Hmm! Wiggle!

Martinez19:
Though the analogy may not be perfect but I was trying to say that a professional level of play is not inborn or else we would be talking of talent. Like wise, what we show empathy towards is not inborn but depend on reasoning.

I think showing empathy, and being compassionate, are higher skill sets, as in abilities that have developed over very long periods of time. Yes, neanderthal was empathic, and compassionate, but no where near as professional as we are capable of being today. And I bet you the older people become, the more empathic and compassionate they become. Or don't you meet some 'think of themselves' out there.

If at all empathy and compassion were inborn, I doubt it could be any better than just "kicking a ball". Throw vaxx's able to swim baby in the river and I honestly believe it will drown. To be Messi, or empathic, or compassionate, or swim, to a competent degree, one needs more than innateness.

As to evidence of my claim? Come back in a few months and let's see how just discussing it makes us better at being compassionate and empathic.

vaxx:
There is already an ability for the car to drive already.
Already the car has the ability to drive but will not drive unless it is operated.

A car, does not "have the ability to drive", vaxx!

Martinez19:
as I implied anger isn't a perfect analogy when you consider those that have anger issues. Let's consider only this case of anger to get my point on empathy and compassion: "I can be angry at someone but when I upgrade my reasoning and find out that there is no objective reason to be angry at that person then I stop being angry eg. I was angry when I was convinced that my neighbour molested and raped my daughter but I stopped being angry when I discovered it wasn't true". In this case, anger is inborn even though what I am angry at depends and is dictated by my reasoning.

I see your point. You are pointing out reason and how it influences anger. But I am referring to how the individual is influenced. So consider: "I was sad that my neighbour had done what he did".

As opposed to you, influenced by thinking of your neighbour, I was thinking about my daughter and the damage done to her and the effect it would have upon her, and it has made me sad, and not angry. How come what is inborn here is compassion, for my daughter, and not anger at my neighbour?

Basic "get angry", is what I'd call a general tendency of the human nature. Not so inborn, but how we are. Everytime I return from the more aggressive Nigeria, I find that I have to volume down when I get back to uk. Individuals can learn to control their anger, and even if they get angry at all.