BadgerJelly » July 17th, 2017, 12:37 am wrote:I do wonder if the finch in some way "rationalizes" its want for constructing these things? Is it too engaged with the task and improving its ability to be "concerned" with the WHY?
I very much doubt
any other animal is cursed with that problem. From all I've been able to observe, animals and birds do things for reasons that seem obvious and self-evident to them: "I need a tree to call my own. This one.
Mine." (This spring, I had to bag the rear view mirrors on our car, because a robin kept trying to beat them up. There was no other robin to fight.) "It's time to find a mate." "I itch. Where is a puddle?" "I want to be on the other side of this door. Neeooowwww!"
Human children tend to do likewise. They don't start justifying, rationalizing and excusing their actions until adults force them to: "What were you thinking?" And then their answers are mostly bogus - they'll watch the adult's face (is she buying this? does he approve?) while constructing a rationale. The truth is something like: "The baby was bawling. I heard you say he can yell till he's blue in the face. I wanted him to stop. So I painted him blue. " But it becomes obvious very quickly that the adult doesn't want to hear anything with "you said" in it, so the kid has to come up with another story. Autistic children tell the truth, because they can't read other people. (Then the same adults turn around and prevericate to their gods; seems gods can't handle the truth, either.)
That's how social behaviour is learned.
I have a clear recollection of the first time I told a deliberate lie (c. age 3). I have a hazy recollection of the first time I codified my own belief-system (18, of course). But I have no recollection at all of when the urge to self-justification went from external to internal.
It would be very interesting to know when, in our evolution, humans came up with the idea of explaining their own motivations. I would put that as the transition, the point of no return: The Apple Moment.
Since then, we examine and question and justify everything, and have only a vague, nagging suspicion in the back of our minds as to how much of what we do is driven by instinct or animal desire.