Tarantula Memory

[RugbyDave]

Originally posted by belewfripp
J

And, as Stan Schultz has mentioned, a tarantula he had with no usable legs or palps adapted its chelicerae as 'walking' organs and dragged itself around by its fangs. So, deprived of various body parts, Ts do have quite the ability to adapt.

i think you misunderstod what i said....

any animal will use what it has ON its body to get nutrition, of course... I was saying that the higher brain functions allow us to use EXTERNAL items to help us out (monkeys with sticks to get ants, dolphins with hoops, humans with tools)...

i agree, there is a wrong confusion of the definition of memory, like i said before. Not all memories are used for a purpose, which is what i love about being human... nothing like remembering that beautiful sunset or your first kiss... you know what i mean Whats the point of it? no reason... you could say "oh its for your personal well being" but is it? it could be argued 'no'....

and also, the cerebral cortex = memory isnt the same as cerebral cortex = using our hands... And to me, yes it does mean FULLY that they can't do the same things we can.. i.e - thats why they cant speak. even if they had larynxes, they still need the BRAIN SOFTWARE/FXN to be able to speak. If if they could tell us they can remember, the need the BRAIN SOFTWARE/FXN to be able to remember. Even if they had the capacity to hold ralleys and learn to be racist and have opinions, they'd still need the tools to be able to translate. They just don't have higher brain functions. And by higher brain functions i don't mean that we're HIGHER up on the ladder, its just a term.. it means things like speech, memory, coginition, etc...

hey, we can all fly, right... we just don't have the tools to do it yet.
I can prove god doesn't (or does) exist, i just can't show you

why did we not evolve flippers? well we probably don't need them so often in the world we live in. Why did ants not evolve tails? well, they don't find the use in them.. why did tarantulas not evolve bigger brains? well, the probably had no use for them..

but this brings us to the question of self-similarity -- why do we even exist in the first place? but thats a WHOOOOLE other topic on a totally different board

im off to bed too!
peace
dave

 

[RugbyDave]

by the way adrian,
patti smith and husker du freaking rock... husker du reign from the wonderful state of minnesota too, which makes them double cool..

but dancing barefoot? waves (#s)...??? astounding.

and for some nice T content, i can't remember who posted this pic -- any help anyone?

later,
dave

 

[belewfripp]

Real quick-like,

why do we remember things like a beautiful sunset? Because it gives us pleasure to do so. We enjoyed it the first time around, remembering it allows us to re-live that pleasure to some extent.

I also should clarify what I meant by a confusion of the definition of memory. You and I are defining it differently, that's all. Your definition seems to involve some form of visualising the memory in one's head. Mine does not, and simply involves remembering, even if there is no conscious awareness.

You are right about using items outside one's own body, but Ts do that, too. I have had spiders use water dishes as walls, roofs and supports in burrow-building, and there is the by-now infamous 'my spider keeps fillings its water dish with dirt'. A lot of the latter is likely accident, but I feel fairly confident that at least some of it is deliberate, perhaps for humidity purposes. It is also worth noting that by using things like water dishes as burrow parts, a t is using something it has no prior experience with in a similar way that it might use a natural object, like maybe a rock or something. It isn't a rock, but the T detects it has properties that will accomplish the same goal. Or perhaps the substrate I give is not sturdy enough on its own, so the T uses something else to lend support? It seems within the realm of possibility, then, that Ts are capable of adapting to unfamiliar things and utilising items outside of their own instinct (no tarantula has evolved with the knowledge and use of plastic as a burrow construct, and wild tarantulas don't have water sources in or near their burrows that they can leech from using soil) to accomplish a simple goal that is in line with what they might normally do with items from nature that are unavailable in captivity, or to accomplish an environment that they might obtain in other ways in the wild.


And no, Ts can't do the exact same things we can, that's why they are tarantulas and we are people, and there are many things we can do that Ts can't do at all, and vice-versa. But to define memory as only human memory is, I think, erroneous. They don't remember like we do, but they do remember.


Personally I prefer Husker du to Patti smith but both are excellent.

And apparently I lied about going to bed.

Adrian

 

[belewfripp]

Oh and that's me holding my goliath. Funny, I remember posting a link, but not the photo itself.

Adrian

 

[Phillip]

You want other peoples opinions...

Ok then here's mine. Do Ts have memory? Well that would depend on your definition of memory but I have to lean more towards reaction and conditioning than towards memory. Why do I feel this way? Simple.. If Ts could actually remember and even reason on say even the smallest level then why do they strike at a stream of water going into the water dish. For that matter when the 1st strike gets them nothing why do they continue to blindly try and grab it? I'll tell you why because they are reacting and not thinking. These animals are for the most part blind and pretty much react to any movement around them. They are also very primitive compared to jumping spiders as mentioned before so comparing the 2 is kind of pointless. The fact that you can handle even the most defensive Ts around once you get them walking should show that they really don't think much about what's going on around them or they would still want to bite you after being picked up. I also don't buy into the memory thing due to the fact that just because a T rears up at you one day does not in any way mean that it will do the same tomorrow therefore I do not feel that they remember you upsetting them. Same is true when you restrain one by the ceph ( a move they do not care for ) if there was memory present then wouldn't they try to avoid it or even get angry the next time you did it 5 minutes after the fact?

I feel that folks try to hard to put human like thinking capacity into their pets and especially Ts . You have to keep in mind that compared to most animals these guys are way down on the evolution chart and they are pretty basic creatures. An intersting test for you to see just how easily their limited brain function shuts down is this. Take a pair of large tweezers and getnly come under the ceph without touching the legs. Once there gently lift the spider off of the ground so that the only contact it has with anything is the ceph resting on the open tweezers. Once done they will spread their legs and freeze. Doesn't matter what species either as I have done it with all of mine and had the same results every time. Whay do they do this? More likely than not because their very basic brain does not know how to cope with the totalloy new situation and there simply is no programmed reaction for it as it never happens to them. The really wild thing about it is that once they're lifted you can hold them that way for as long as you want they kind of shut down like a croc on its back does. My theory in short is that they are purely reactionary creatures and that there is little more going on in their minds than eat, reproduce, and don't get eaten. That is why once you understand what makes them feel threatened it becomes easy to handle and manipulate even the worst of them.

Phil

 

[Code Monkey]

Dave, I think the problem with this discussion is you are defining memory according to some ridiculously narrow parameters. Memory by my book is any ability to form an association between stimulus and response. Trying to say that isn't memory and just conditioning is like trying to say that sky blue isn't *blue*. It is memory - just not your neuro prof's definition in relation to human beings (and you wonder why that definition seems impossible to reconcile with Ts).

No one in this thread has tried to put forth the argument that Ts remember full sensory experience of their last meal, still you basically keep saying the same things over and over again regarding the necessity of a higher cortex for such a memory system to put down anyone who says Ts do remember things when I would suggest that it is you who needs to use that higher cortex of yours a bit more in thinking about why you keep typing pages of material to argue something that is largely unrelated to whether Ts have a system for memory.

Conditioning is a form of memory and if you don't agree with that, don't bother replying again because it's not defensiveness, it's just being tired with people with just enough education to "be dangerous".

 

[RugbyDave]

interesting... i'll go this far: conditioning can be thought of as a very crude form of memory..

Thats EXACTLY why i started my first response with (and go backand check if you dont remember ) "IT DEPENDS ON WHAT DEFINITION OF MEMORY YOU'RE USING"... i thought that set the tone.. i guess it got lost in the other words..

and i can to reply, geez. everyone's got "just enough education" -- when it comes down to it, i dont think its books that give education my friend.. there's many other forms of that. This isn't one of those "well i've had X years of school, so i know it all", i mean come on -- no matter HOW much school youve had, thats not where real learning takes place(in my opinion). Thats why i said things like "i've only spent 5 years studying this, and am in no-way a Neuro- guru.. well not yet and "this is just my opinion, but and "personally, i believe they don't... i never said "well check it, Im king sh*t of brain mountain, so bow before me, and listen up kids"... nor did i say anything of the KIND.. hell even adrian gave me that....

everyone's got different views, and if you don't want someone to reply if they don't agree, than that's way out of my league!

takes all kinds, i suppose

i'll say this much, whether you mean it or not, your post still seems defensive or angry or something... like if we were talking face to face, i'd be like "lets take a break, and finish this tommorow -- you don't sound like your in a good place to have a discussion now" -- which is cool.. we all get like that sometime. hell, i got like that a couple days ago on here... Just being honest.

its a problem with communication -- sometimes what you inted for people to understand is PAINFULLY different from what they imply.. so, just letting you know. its a problem on both ends, of course.

CM -- what you HAVE to understand is, we all have different views on these things.. I def. see yours and adrians (they are slightly different though)! I do understand ... I am not replying anymore since, i've said my piece to adrian, and i see your point.. sometimes, you have to lay down arms and agree to disagree. Good thing to learn. i gotcha. i hear you.. loud and clear. Very interesting view point, and something i will be thinking about, actually... because, at the end of the day, no matter what words you use, what education you dont (or do) have, what real-world experience you have (or don't ), we just don't know enough yet.. I'm still waiting for some feedback on that point... cos thats the REAL part that brings us all together there =D

by the way, CM -- i've never met another actual libertarian.. i thought i was the only registered LIB. I've really never ever met one... we got the same views somewhere, i see! nice


peace
dave

 

[kellygirl]

Originally posted by RugbyDave

nd i can to reply, geez. everyone's got "just enough education" -- when it comes down to it, i dont think its books that give education my friend.. there's many other forms of that. This isn't one of those "well i've had X years of school, so i know it all", i mean come on -- no matter HOW much school youve had, thats not where real learning takes place(in my opinion). Thats why i said things like "i've only spent 5 years studying this, and am in no-way a Neuro- guru.. well not yet and "this is just my opinion, but and "personally, i believe they don't... i never said "well check it, Im king sh*t of brain mountain, so bow before me, and listen up kids"... nor did i say anything of the KIND.. hell even adrian gave me that....

I think you missed what he was saying by a long shot.......

kellygirl

 

[RugbyDave]

interesting point of view phillip...

its def. odd to see the T just go limp, or 'freeze', when their legs have no contact with the ground.. its just something that doesn't happen in nature and they just don't know what to do...

nice examples too.. i def. couldn't do that last night.

i agree with you mostly! i'd say the reason they have little going on in their minds, is because their minds have to focus on other things.. when you have a brain that small, certain things have to go ... you can't have EVERYTHING in that size.. you just can't...


pce
dave

 

[kellygirl]

Originally posted by RugbyDave
I am not replying anymore since, i've said my piece to adrian, and i see your point..

Hmm.... Dave, you make it too easy for me!! =D

kellygirl

 

[RugbyDave]

haha no, what i meant to CM was... well, because he said "If you don't agree with that then don't bother replying" -- so i said my 3 lines on that topic, then went off in a diff. direction with the rest of the reply ..

so there you go. alright....

and that again goes with what i was saying -- sometimes, you just miss what people are saying, and sometimes what they mean comes out different... i took it to mean "people with JUST enough education have a buttload of power" in the sense that people who pepper their thoughts from 2 semesters of summer-school accounting can sound like the best of them.. It doesn't mean, however, that theyre real accountants... just enough to stir things up and say the right lingo.. It also comes off slightly negative, personally, in my opinion, TO ME... I also think it means something along the lines of 'having just enough education' to kind of get the feel for what youre talking about but stillmissing the whole point...

I took it to mean that whole thing above.. and my response still stands? If thats not, then please explain it to me.. thats how i took it.. if its wrong, then...... I'm def. open to seeing the right definition of it =D

what it comes down to, i think we're all slightly missing what each other is saying... but it slowly coming together SINCE WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE REALITY OF THE SITUATION IS =D its fun and great to debate, but at the end of the day, we just simply don't know.. so all the words and knowledge and book experience and lab experience and real world experience is great and wonderful and amazing and blah blah blah.. but what we need to understand is, we just don't know... I do like the debates though!

for all this higher brain stuff we evolved with, well, it certainly comes with a price, doesn't it

what can you do kelly..sometimes you get someones point and sometimes you miss it... so if i did take it wrongly, after reading this, please exaplain it. i have no problem with learning, and saying "damn, i dont know"!


peace
dave

 

[Code Monkey]

Dave, I'm not trying to be ugly or anything, I just have a confrontational nature

One of the first things you have to do when trying to answer a question is tailor the definitions/parameters to the subject matter. This thread started off discussing the central nervous system capabilities of an invertebrate and you from the start argued your point from the point of view of higher vertebrate systems, and moreso, from the bias of human neurobiology.

It's a foregone conclusion that if you argue your side from that standpoint, no, Ts don't have a memory (I realise you tried to qualify your answers in that context, my beef was with taking that context in the first place).

As an analogy to see why I got a bit uppity, let's say someone asks if Ts have a circulatory system and you start in saying, "no, they don't have a circulatory system - they lack a chambered heart and an organised blood vessel system." That's a similarly incorrect standpoint because they do have a heart, and a mixture of open and closed haemolymph pathways for the purpose of transporting substances and oxygen.

You talk about the perils of anthopomorphising, but then you went and stepped in the pit full of pungee sticks of antropocentrism. Intellect, cognitive abilities, memory, concept of self, emotional capacity, etc. are not discrete entities. They are a gradient that exist in varying quantities throughout the animal kingdom. At the most basal level we get the pure stimulus-response of bacteria or protozoa, and at the other extreme you have fully sentient organisms capable of sitting around and arguing abstract concepts in relation to other organisms, but it's not just a sudden astronomical leap from stimulus-response to full sentience. The animal kingdom is an amazing mosaic of different and often wildly different approaches to cognitive processing of their environment.

As food for thought I leave you with this account from Darrin Vernier:

Posted by Darrin Vernier in the ATS_enthusiast list:
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2003 03:08:18 -0700
From: "gphx" <gphx@email.msn.com>
Subject: Re: Amazing observation in the wild/thinking tarantulas

>What's everyone's opinion of this???? I'd love to hear more
>hypothesis on this one. Has anyone else noted something
>similar?

How about captive ts that train their humans?

A couple of years ago I acquired a male T. blondi with an unusual habit. When his water dish became empty he would pickit up, lift it over his head, and bang it loudly on the side of his enclosure. One might presume that he was attempting to discard it and was too stupid to know that there was clear plastic in the way, but for what follows.

When I would hear the banging, I'd inevitably come running to see what the ruckus was about. I'd see him banging that empty dish and I'd fill it. That went on for a few months and to tell you the truth I thought it was not only cool but handy. A tarantula that was its own water level indicator. So I kept refilling the dish whenever I heard the banging. In a couple months a Brachypelma smithi picked up the same habit. And then an A. geniculata. Slowly, the habit starting spreading through my tarantula room until more days than not were punctuated by the percussion of a small deli cup drum against plastic. By no means all species or even all members of a given species picked up the habit, but a surprising number of them did. Most of these were Theraphosa, Brachypelma, or Acanthoscurria species. Oddly, these happened to be species that I had already put into a distinct mental category for extremely biased reasons.

After a while, it began to become annoying. I take good care of my tarantulas and rare is the t that is short on water for more than a day anyway. In addition, the banging was sometimes waking me up from needed sleep. What to do? Finally, I got smart and resolved that when I heard a tarantula banging its dish, I would restrain myself and wait to refill its water until the next day when it might be less associable with the trigger behavior of the tarantula. I have not beckoned
to the call of any of my tarantulas (at least on an immediate, easily associable basis) in probably close to a year.
Guess what?

They don't bang their empty water dishes anymore.

Are tarantulas trainable? I still don't know, but I know one keeper who can be, at least until he catches on to what the tarantulas are up to.

 

[RugbyDave]

thats a mighty interesting post man! I feel like i've read that before.

and its cool, i don't mind confrontation in this sense, as long as people aren't SO uppity that they can't even see what the other person is saying..

but that isn't so.

I've gone ahead and emailed everyone i know in the entomology-neuro field to try to get a more subjective answer... in other words to see what the current research is showing... not that it means anything, but i'm generally interested in what the current facts are youknow!

i'm also calling Dr.Breene right now to see if he knows anyone that can point me in the right direction!

I will, of course, post all UNCENSORED emails i get back I'm not shifty!

and when all is said and done, i just don't think they have the neuronal capacity to have memory in clear terms?

can they be conditioned? yes, like i stated.

just my opinion.

and,i really am interested in other peoples opinions. I hate having a debate when people are just too focused on their own points to listen to the other people. I really am going to be pondering this in my own brain...

because, CM, Sean, KG, Adrian, Phillip, whoever, we just really don't know.

theres a difference between the circulatory system and the neural system -- we can't really prove whats what.

And hell, i even go THIS far anduse my OWN side -- say we CAN prove that T's are opening their ion channels and using potassium in the same way (lets just say), i'll be honest (as i've said before), who knows if thats even memory.. could just be some evolutionary thing.

i'm not trying to qualify anything! Im more trying to show where i'm coming from in my opinions! I don't think anyone reading this would say "oh that dave is really trying to prove the fact that T's cant remember" -- i think theres a subtle difference in what im doing -- i'm trying to show MY BELIEFS on T memory.. in other words, my responses are more focused more on WHY i don't believe it... you know what im saying? I keep saying who knows if they can remember or not, in ANY sense.. my whole thing is showing where im coming from in my BELIEFS..

make better sense? sometimes you can't get the words out right,and it takes a good (well, semi-good) night of sleep to work it all out!

i find most libertarians are confrontational.. with our beliefs, we have to be ready at to pounce at any moment.. I hate to say it, but if you find it differently, i'd love to live in your town!! Cos where i live, its always "oh what, so youre, like, a hippy or something? why do you want all that crap legalised. just for fun???" -- and what they don't understand is, its the bigger picture we're worried about, right? =D

you're good in my book CM

peace
again, what a good thread
Dave

 

[kellygirl]

Originally posted by belewfripp
I also find it difficult to believe that spiders with such great eyesight wouldn't visually recall other details.

How much do jumping spiders actually see? If I remember correctly tarantulas have horrible eyesight...

kellygirl

 

[kellygirl]

Re: You want other peoples opinions...

Originally posted by Phillip
If Ts could actually remember and even reason on say even the smallest level then why do they strike at a stream of water going into the water dish. For that matter when the 1st strike gets them nothing why do they continue to blindly try and grab it? I'll tell you why because they are reacting and not thinking. These animals are for the most part blind and pretty much react to any movement around them.

Funny, I've had completely different experiences with my spiders. Mine often strike the first time but never strike a second time at the water--during a single watering, that is. Perhaps in the wild, tarantulas don't come across food as often when in their burrows so if the prospect of something edible is there, they will strike. Maybe it's programmed into their system to strike quickly in case the opportunity doesn't come again in the near future.

Sometimes my little ones will strike at a paintbrush as I am trying to urge a cricket into the enclosure, they won't do it again during that same feeding. They are much more cautious before a second strike. I see this as AT LEAST short term memory because they realize that the paintbrush is not food (or in the earlier example of water, that it is not the food they were looking for either) and do not strike at it again.

Tarantulas, if I remember correctly, do not have good eyesight at all. They only see shapes and shadows. Well then how would they know NOT to strike at water before it hits their web? It's not a large object indicating a possible predator. It's quick and often sprays into droplets so it could be easily be mistaken for small insects. Once the water hits their webbing, they should be able to quickly tell whether said object is prey, predator, or neither via their more heightened sense of touch.

I really don't know enough about tarantulas to determine whether or not they possess or utilize the capacity for memory--and I don't have any factual knowledge beyond what I myself have seen. In regards to the idea of tarantulas using tools, I do know that several of my tarantulas use soil in their webs--for what purpose, I do not know. Decoration? Insulation? Protection? Stabilization? But certain species do this consistently. I don't think this has anything to do with memory and I don't know if it is instinct or creativity on the part of the individual.

kellygirl

 

[Code Monkey]

Originally posted by kellygirl
How much do jumping spiders actually see?

Jumping spiders have very good visual accuity. A male jumper will react to a video of another male as though it was a competitor their eyesight is so good.

 

[RugbyDave]

Alright

I just gone done having a great conversation with Dr.Robert Breene, and I've just emailed Fred Punzo (the "big-man" in this area of the science) and George Uetz.

So far, we're talking conditioned responses. Dr.Breene was talking about a P.formosa who conditioned herself to being held... However, these T's still attacked and reared up.

He also said that there hasn't been too much research done in this area, but there HAS been 2 or 3 books written on the subject, which im going to check out right now. He also said the University of Minnesota is a great place to check inter-library journals (our library has about 4.5 million books and journals). I'll be going over there to peruse around and see what i can nose up.

I should be getting emails back from the arachnologist/entomologists pretty soon.
i'll post exact emails when i get them.

My first book to check out today:
"the biology of spiders" with a focus on neuro-bio in Ts.

apaprently there's not been too much done in this field of research, and i'm looking for a field to go into with a degree in entomology,so maybe I could be one of the first Arachno-neuro-biologists =D (we must fail to disprove... )

at any rate, nothing yet. But i'm hobbling up to the university to go nose around and see what i can dig up!

what it comes down to is that apparently there's been a bit of pavlovian work done with T's, but nothing really in memory, he said.

doctoral thesis, here i come

peace
hope everyones having a nice sunday,
dave

 

[kellygirl]

Dang it Dave, you are just one of those people who pushes my buttons. I missed this thread for awhile but I just finished reading it all... How many freakin times do you have to bring up "racism" as an example of higher functioning cognition? To me, if racism is 'human nature' then all those other creatures have a one-up on us. Racism is a 180 degree regression and irrational misuse of the small percentage of our brain capacity that we actually do use.

But, as usual, you contradict yourself several times--probably making sure you don't offend anyone so you cover your tracks--saying first racism is a "human nature" and "higher brain function" and then, oh wait! You cover your tracks by saying the KKK is negative. Good one, then nobody can say you didn't say racism was bad, right? Then, hang on, you say that humans have the unique capacity for racism--but wait, we're not special. Let me be clear on that. And THEN you say that humans can "learn to be racist"--it's a higher brain function. But, of course, that doesn't make us "higher on the ladder."

Good job, cover those tracks so no one can have anything against you. And if that doesn't work, you could always chalk it up to diversity of opinion or people misunderstanding your intentions/words. It's all about semantics, right? Toss in a few side comments about being "doctor school" for X amount of years, contrasted with a few but-we-can-never-REALLY-knows and you've made for a great argument for your egocentrism on top of all that.

If there is one thing I've learned on this site it's that you can't base your argument on your beliefs or opinions. Good ol Code Monkey taught me that lesson the hard way a few times before I caught on. I know you like hearing other people's opinions, even if they are differing--you continue to tell us that in nearly every post you make--but hey, I'm just a "lay" person, no where near the future neurological guru you are--so you can toss this post out with an "oh well, we're all different, that's what makes this world so great, am I right?!" Now let's get back to talking about those sexy bugs of ours!

kellygirl

Originally posted by RugbyDave
Without these bundles of myelinated axons and specialized nerves, none of our "human" natures would exist (speech, memory, cognition, racism, ideals and opinions and thoughts.....). This is a known fact. Chalk it up to pure evolution, a god, or whatever, but either way its fact
.....
remember, we gave up instinct to get higher brain functions. T's retain instinct, but don't get the same brain as us

Originally posted by RugbyDave
They don't need to realise the negativity about the KKK.

Originally posted by RugbyDave

and if theres one thing i thought i made painfully clear its that i never humans are SPECIAL.. i said they were unique in certain capacities like speech and idealisng and racism and hatred

Originally posted by RugbyDave
Even if they had the capacity to hold ralleys and learn to be racist and have opinions, they'd still need the tools to be able to translate. They just don't have higher brain functions. And by higher brain functions i don't mean that we're HIGHER up on the ladder, its just a term.. it means things like speech, memory, coginition, etc...

Originally posted by RugbyDave

thats the whole point -- everyone's got opinions.. thats why i peppered my posts with ("personally" and "i think") -- man, calm down!

 

[RugbyDave]

i have some Ts that attack the water sometimes and some that don't do it at all.... I can't wait to get back the info from the researchers!!

jumping spiders have the best sight of all spiders, because they have eyes that focus on the peripheral and eyes that focus on the main... also, the muscle to move each eye are very well defined, more so than any other species.

it is also said that they can react to a few different colours

And, as would seem so, their brains differ in that way than other spiders...

like i said, you'd be hard pressed to find a T using a tool to get a cricket out of a funny place..maybe its legs,maybe its pedipalp, but i highly doubt you'd find it turning over its water dish to trap the cricket..

though i have a feeling someone may write in "well,i've seen my T turning the half bark over to crush the cricket i think" =D

the thing is, again, we simply don't know enough at this point to do anything more than debate and make conjectures... its an interesting thing to think about though!

Our brains and theirs are different in a couple ways, but they are alot alike. They use the SAME mechanism to move their muscles and start complex muscle movements. They use the same mechanisms as humans do while eating and foraging for food. But thats about it. Their brains just dont have the neural capacity to do so.

If someone thinks differently, i'd tell them to go into research with it! They could make some big waves in the T world and start a whole new sub-science of entomology.

because right now, as it stands, what little we've done with the neural strutcure of T's, they just don't have the capacity to retain information that's not relevant to them. In neurology, if you don't have the space to keep it and its not important to you, why remember it..

they don't need to take up space in their brains with extraneous info, neither do we.. there is limited space in smaller brains. They need to focus on eating, breeding, defecating, reproduction and homeostasis. They don't need to focus on remembering what it was like in the eggsac, of how their breeding mother "smelled" -- they just didnt evolve with a cerebral cortex that does that.

And, i agree with you kg, i don't know if its memory or just something else (re: soil in the web). Some of mine do that to. I think again, thats just them doing what they'd do in the wild -- build a burrow that is "comfortable" for them to live in. Im using "comfort" very loosely. you know what i mean,right? Its like when i see my T's cover their water dish with dirt, over and over. Is it to lower the humidity? Is it by accident? They're smart, i def know that. But do the retain information? To me, NO, because they just dont have the brain structure to do that!

peace
dave

 

[RugbyDave]

i def don't push buttons on purpose,kg...its always crazy to realisehow much words have power..


Kelly, i learned something early on.. its a good thing to know: You can take anyting out of context and make it apply to what your saying.. You can make ANYTHING out to say what you want it to...

And i think you didnt get it: im using racism, along with love and hate and idealism as examples higher brain functions. -- keep it in its context... do we find racism in nature? To me, no.

and yes, i view the KKK as a bad part of higher brain functions. No track-covering there?

you have to realise that higher-brain-functions can be bad -- rape , abuse, racism, ... to me, those are NEGATIVE side effects of POSTIVE higher brain functions -- look closer...

although i did read a very interesting research paper on rape in the animal kingdom.. dunno if its trueor not..

and i have to keep repeating things liek "MY OPINION" and "PERSONALLY" because people tend to rip into words and not even view the context..

my, what im learning more and more is that people tend to be SO focused on their own view points that they don't even care to learn or listen. Its always interesting to me to see how people react (including myself)...

come down from up there, and join me down here KG.. read my words, don't pick out context -- its very clear to see that you do that just by your responses...

but tomato, tomahto, right? hardly...

at the end of the day, I don't care who "likes"me or who "doesn't" -- you view it as covering my tracks, and you'rewelcome to view it like that. All i really care about is answering questions. i don't care if people agree with me! I don't care if people enjoy my posts! I talk to the people I talk to and that's fine with me.

if people rip my posts apart, thats great! Hell, i could probably use some criticism. Its sad to me though, because i don't think alot of people can. Sometimes you gotta look in the mirror, no matter how great you think you are, or how much you think you have this world figured out, and say "do i really???"

it doesnt bother me if people view me as an @ss or a egotistical? I know you guys don't really know me, you just know my words (which do speak alot about us, but they really aren't encapsulating who we are). I just really want to help people who are new to this whole deal.

If, when all is said and done, people dislike me for my words, well it just speaks miles about them. I don't care. I sleep well. I have my friends. No matter what you say to respond or what you think, i'm telling you the truth. You either go with what you think in your head, or listen to me telling you how it is: It doesnt matter what people think about me, kelly It really really doesn't. I'll stillpost answers and little T-quips i find on the TV and pictures... ya know!

we all come from different places my friend.

your posts are always welcomed at any rate.
peace
dave