Are learned and innate the only types of behaviors?

I guess it is on topic now.We don't have a clear definition of "learn" just as we don't have a clear definition of "know". Much of the discussion has been tossing the terms around without being clear on what is meant. IMO this has been particularly true of sinequanon's posts, which seem to be attempting to make points with allusions and hints but with rarely a clear statement.I take "innate behavior" to be behavior that is present at birth or is a developmental consequence of what is present at birth. It isn't always easy to tell whether a particular behavior should count as innate.I take "learned behavior" as any acquired non-innate behavior.As for the effect of drugs - I would tend to say that behavior under drugs is just behavior that manifests itself differently in the presence of drugs. That is, it is still the same behavior, and could still be innate or learned behavior, merely manifesting itself in a different way.It seems to me that beyond learned and innate, we can only have ad hoc behavior (with which I would include random behavior). And any behavior that is systematic enough to be measured (as with the crows behavior previously discussed), would not be counted as ad hoc.Now it is up to sinequanon to tell us what he means by words such as "learned" and "innate".Finally, a comment on sinequanon. I find him (or her) a bit of a mystery. After many postings and several threads, I am still uncertain as to whether he/she is closer to the creo or evo positions. I'm not sure what is his/her purpose in posting at this site. Perhaps he/she views this as a social forum, suitable for undirectional chit-chat. If there is a point to his/her various topics, then I still do not "get it" in the sense that I haven't been able to tell what is that point.

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Well observed. Wiki's article on ethology is a good starting place I think.

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Lorenz popularized FAPs as instinctive responses that would occur reliably in the presence of identifiable stimuli

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as for learning

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The learning process may take place in many ways, one of the most elementary is assuefaction. This process consists in ignoring a persistent or useless stimuli...Another common way of learning is by association, where a stimuli is, based on the experience, linked to another one which may not have anything to do with the first one.

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And it goes on to discuss a few other types or learning (imprinting and imitation).There is a good diagram at an associated article - Tinbergen's four questions. It has three important environments that should be considered. The developmental environment which combines with genes to determine ontogeny. The immediate environment which combines with proximate mechanisms (hormones and presumably drugs) and taking into account the ontogeny leads to behaviour. There is also the ancestral environment which is what lead to the evolution of the present population and thus the genes which then partially determine ontogeny.

Hi; I agree, but I'm not sure that that is helpful. Every behaviour can be said to be at least partially consequent to, and so partially dependent upon, "what is present at birth". Just as all that is, is dependent upon what was-- unless you believe in 'creatio ex nihilo'.
In the evolutionary sense, therefore, every 'inherent' behaviour was an 'acquired' [learned] behaviour at some point in the past.Therefore a stronger line of demarcation is needed to divide behaviour into two-- [or more, if there are more]-- distinct kinds
of behaviour. I would start with 'inherent'[inherited] behavior and 'acquired'[learned] behaviour. I would also divide behaviour into those which are functional and productive, contra those that are disfunctional, and counterproductive, wrt the organism itself. And then I would divide behaviour into mechanical chemical/molecular reactions contrasted with motivated systemic responses. I suppose another distinction might be that 'acquired' [learned] behaviours can be either 'taught' or 'self-taught'.A behaviour could be specified, for example, as 'an inherent, functional, productive, motivated systemic response'[eg., nest building], or, say, an acquired, disfunctional, mechanical chemical/molecular reaction [eg., drunken boorishness, or even alcoholism], or, say, an inherent, functional, productive, mechanical/chemical reaction [eg., sun-tan, seasonal colour change, etc.].I believe that as far as evolution is concerned, that accidental, anomalous, irregular, and inconsequential behaviours, be they 'inherent' or 'acquired', 'molecular' or 'systemic', are irrelevent. This is either redundant, or I'm not following you. Every behaviour is just as it manifests itself--that is all that it can be. It simply is what it is. Only its causes vary. Don't follow. I'm not sure how an 'ad hoc' behaviour can be a 'random' behaviour, since all 'ad hoc' behaviours are intentional, however limited in time and place, whereas 'random' events are always 'unintentional'. A heuristic, 'trial-and-error' response to a particular circumstance may be 'ad hoc', but it is not accidental, random, or stochastic. By systematic I take you to mean, 'purposefully regular', 'procedure-governed', 'methodical'. That is, a complex process consisting of a sequence of distinct but 'step-by-step' interlocking behaviours. Am I wrong? Now we have a distinction between simple behaviours and complexes of behaviors that are interdependent. It is impossible for me to invisage such complex, taken as a whole, being 'random', 'i.e., non-purposeful, accidental, unintentional, and random. A simple behaviour might be strictly molecular/mechanical, but the notion of a complex series of molecular/chemical behaviours acting toward an end requires a 'governor' that molecules do not seem to 'inherently' possess within themselves that which would enable them to configure themselves into a 'systematic' complex of reactions. Nor would an organism possess such a thing in order to either develop or 'acquire' such complex processes, if all that organisms were is a 'complex of chemicals/molecules', and aught else.

I did agree that it isn't always easy to tell what is innate and what is learned.The context of this is a claim, earlier in the thread, that there are behaviors that are neither innate nor learned. We don't need to be able to exactly identify which is innate and which is learned, in order to discuss what else there is.I was trying to make the point that what else there is consists of random and ad hoc behavior, and I wanted to lump those together into the same category for simplicity. I wasn't really trying to say that random is necessarily ad hoc, merely that I wanted to put it into the same category as ad hoc. Some people might argue that walking is acquired behavior, since it is not present at birth. However, it would usually be considered to be acquired developmentally rather than via learning, since everybody acquires that behavior. And I'll grant that there could be said to be a learned component.If you want to consider it redundant, fine. I was just trying to make sure that I hadn't left anything out. If I slur my speech when drunk, I'm saying that I don't want that speech slurring to be considered a separate and distinct behavior. Rather, it is my ordinary speech behavior but implemented more poorly. That's about the idea. But if we are talking about crow behavior (as was part of the earlier discussion), then we can't really measure purpose, procedure or method in the crows, so we will have to make do with "regular."The whole point I was trying to make is that, based on what we usually mean by "innate" and "learned", any left over behavior that is neither innate nor learned is rarely of much interest. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

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Let's end the political smears

Hi nwr;You say; No, but no-one has as yet provided an example of any behaviour that is NOT either 'innate' [inherent, genetic] or 'learned'[acquired,epigenetic], and since that issue seemed to have been resolved to the effect that there are no other 'kinds' of behaviours, [the implied, 'miraculous' behaviours, being now removed from the question], I decikded to join the debate. Behaviour, like morphology, being an important issue in evolutionary biology. The two together being the issue of physiology, the functioning of biosystems and their respective components. That is central to 'adaptation', and adaptation is, [for all but the 'anti-adaptationist', 'it's all random, happenstance, coincidence, serendipity', 'it just happens for no real reason', crowd], the first principle of evolution. And evolution is supposed to be the core debate in this forum, I thought. If you had not said, "Now that learning vs. innate is the topic" [wrt to inherited and acquired behaviours in the context of evolution, I assumed], I would not have posted my opinion. And I showed that 'random' and 'ad hoc' are not, "what else there is", since both are still a part of either 'acquired' or 'inherent' behaviours, and are not distinct from them, i.e., a third category. I further showed that 'ad hoc' behaviour has no connection with, nor correlation to, random behaviour, since 'ad hoc' behaviour is always teleological, i.e., goal-directed, whereas random behaviour is always accidental and unintentional, even when basically mechanical. Only in human beings. You cannot argue to a general principle, of 'behaviour' or anything else, from an anomalous case. An exception does not make a rule, it violates it. Not actually the case. IIRC, some empirical evidence exists of cases where maltreated infants who were not 'taught' to walk on two feet, never learned to do anything but crawl. Further to that, beyond a certain age, they could not be so taught. And the same goes, in other cases, for the ability to 'talk', where infants are not exposed to other humans speaking to each other on a regular basis. Which leads to such questions [grotesque as they are], as, "If an entire human generation had their tongues cut out, would the next generation be able to 're-invent' speech and language?" I wonder. But it is a "separate and distinct behaviour", whether you want it to be considered as such, or not. If you wish to set two very different kinds of behaviour into one all-inclusive set, or category, you must find some criterion within which a certain 'sameness' is established. Other than the fact that drunken speech and sober speech are both 'noise-making', what criterion of 'sameness' exists that enables you to lump them together? I only belabour this point because 'speech', like most aspects of organismic behaviour, is dependent upon 'function'--i.e., what is, is defined upon upon the basis of what it does, the purpose it serves [unless, as above, you are an anti-adaptationist] within and for the biosystem as a whole. From that POV, drunken speech and sober speech have no relation to each other, since the function of speech is the communication of meaningful thought. Just as the movement of a broken wing and a healthy wing are not the same wrt function, i.e., flying. We can't "measure" a lot of perfectly observable natural phenomena, but unless you are a materialist/positivist, that does not mean that they do not exist. I think that if a behaviour conforms to the definition of 'methodical', then it is 'methodical', whether or not there is some kind existing device for measuring 'methodicalness' or not. Same goes for intelligent, volitional, and a lot of other criteria for behavior that cannot be 'measured', [i.e., quantified], in the same way that 'stuff' is measured. They are still 'real'. No need to apologise. I'm just trying to clarify, if I can, a complicated and murky [but quite fascinating] subject. That is, dynamic organismic behaviours, and how they evolved. I have my opinions, and I'd like to express them,and every bodyelse is entitled to do the same. There are bound to be instances of communication-breakdown for all of us. And I would agree with you that, even if there were instances of organismic behaviour that were "neither innate nor learned", which I cannot imagine, then they would at best be irrelevent to evolution.

I actually agree with this. But I wanted to see what sinequanon would do with it, if he chose to resume the debate. It's looking as if he intends to stay out. As a parent, I can assure you that children do not need to be taught how to walk. They pick it up for themselves. To prevent them learning it, they would need to be kept in a constraining environment.Personally, I would agree that walking involves learning. But I don't object to saying that it is developmental. In some sense, these two can overlap. When one talks of development, one is talking of development in an environment, so it is not surprising that a sufficiently deprived environment can prevent a child "developing" the ability to walk. I think the answer to this is known from natural experiments. If deaf children are placed in a community, they will spontaneously invent a sign language. Twins who are raised together have a tendency to invent a private language (usually as an extension of the parent's language).

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Let's end the political smears

Feral child - Wikipedia

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Children with some human experience before isolation are more easily rehabilitated after discovery. Children who learn an alternative, animal culture, especially during the first 5 or 6 years of life, find it almost impossible to learn human language, to walk or engage meaningfully with other humans - even after intensive and loving care for years - see Amala and Kamala - which demonstrates what many child developmental experts and psychologists have been arguing: that early years in child development are absolutely crucial.

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Legendary and fictional feral children are often depicted as growing up with relatively normal human intelligence and skills and an innate sense of culture or civilization, coupled with a healthy dose of survival instincts; their integration into human society is made to seem relatively easy. In reality, feral children lack the basic social skills which are normally learned in the process of enculturation. For example, they may be unable to learn to use a toilet, have trouble learning to walk upright and display a complete lack of interest in the human activity around them. They often seem mentally impaired and have almost insurmountable trouble learning a human language. The subject is treated with a certain amount of realism in Franois Truffaut's 1970 film L'Enfant Sauvage (UK: The Wild Boy, US: The Wild Child), where a scientist's efforts in trying to rehabilitate a feral boy meet with great difficulty.

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Quite a list of documented cases.Growing up in an environment where people walk and talk is different from growing up in an environment where animals commonly use 4 limbs, have limited vocal ability and few necessary social skills.Wonder if there are any examples of wild mixing of species that don't involve humans (like we see with dogs & cats brought up together, and llamas brought up with sheep, etc), and how much that affects their development.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : .Edited by RAZD, : ..Edited by RAZD, : ...

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Hi;You say; No doubt from observation and imitation of the bi-pedal folks surrounding them. Without someone to model their behaviour upon [and I'm certainly not advocating any experiment to find out!!], I wonder how long, if ever they would take to get up on their feet. No matter, bi-pedal locomotion is a developmental behaviour, self-taught or assisted externally. I suppose the real question is, how much of it is innate, instinctive, genetically/chemically directed, in the behaviourist, evolutionary psychology sense? As a matter of fact, that is what I was refering to--atrocious cases where infants, until their rescue, were confined in cages or closets or attics or whatever, for several years. Apart from the horrifying inhumanity of it all, in some instances the freed children never learned to walk upright. Whether this was due to muscle, sinew, or bone damage, or something neurological, I cannot remember. But if this developmental loss was not mechanical, but neurological, it would suggest, I think, that there is no direct and immediate genetic component, but rather only an epigenetic developmental mechanism involved. I do not know this, and [hopefully] we will never find out, since behaviourist experiments, on animals let alone human children, are not in much favour with the public these days. Here we again part ways. IMO, everything, all behaviours, that involve "learning", be that 'learning', [meaning, 'knowledge acquisition'], be they internally generated [self-taught] [eg., facial recognition, ball-throwing, etc.] or externally sourced, [eg. dog training, toilet training, reading, etc.], are always developmental. They do more than merely, 'overlap'. Where'learned' means 'acquired', then it is not innate or inherent. If it does not, then we are blurring the distinction between 'learned', that is, 'acquired', and 'innate', i.e., 'inherent', until it no longer exists. Many behaviourists/socio-biologists/evolutionary psychologists, [i.e., materialist/positivists], would insist on doing exactly that. Of course. My point was that, in some cases, even following rescue, with all the help in the world, the children did not 'catch-up'; that is, they never learned to walk. Something that should not have been the case IF walking were 'inherent' [genetic], and there had been no egregious morphological damage [which would seem, to my uneducated self, to be unlikely in young children]. The question was not whether or not they would devise a formal comminication mechanism, but only whether or not they would re-invent spoken language. In verified cases of 'wild boys', children who did not _hear_ human speech before a certain age were never able to learn to speak. This suggests that without hearing others speak before we arrive at a certain developmental stage, we cannot and will not learn to speak ourselves. The 'wild boy' cases did learn to communicate via hand signs, IIRC. Should look them up. I have never heard of a case where a child invented a fantasy language prior to learning to speak a [real] 'mother tongue'.Anyway, this is all just an aside, and is, after, only a hypothetical far removed from the actual norm.

I agree with you here, the evidence of feral children (see Message 172) shows that this is a real concern for children up to ~6 years of age, for proper development to what we would recognize as human behavior. Curiously this also appears to be near the horizon for easy learning of foreign languages.This means that there is some nerve\brain\sensory development that is not fully complete in humans until this age barrier is passed, and that it needs some minimal level of stimulation to develop "normally" for humans.Another criteria I have seen is that it takes until about 11 years old for a child to be able to be independent enough to develop on their own into a "normal" adult human (what we recognize as human).Enjoy.

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