How to bother a pigeon
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- Nicola Knight
- Tuesday, 09 June 2009
- Blog Nicola's blog
Let me give an illustration of the kind of behaviour I am thinking of. At the bottom of the garden is a large tree. Among the species that occasionally rest on their branches are wood pigeons (similar the common city pigeon, but displaying fewer deformities thanks to a diet that does not entirely consist of cigarette ends). I talk about pigeons not because they are interesting in some relevant respect, but simply because they are fairly heavy birds. The relevance of this fact will become apparent soon.
I have repeatedly observed the following behaviour. One individual, 'A' in the (rather crude - sorry) picture below, is resting on a branch.
After a while, another individual, 'B', lands on the same branch but further away from the trunk. I don't know whether pigeons' folk physics include principles of leverage, but what inevitably happens is that upon B's landing the branch flexes and A loses balance and starts wildly flapping its wings in an attempt to regain it. Pigeon B does not appear to have chosen the branch in order to interact with A. On no occasion have I seen A expressing its displeasure to B through aggressive displays, although I am no expert in this field and may be missing important behavioural cues; for argument's sake, let us assume that A does not remonstrate.
My question is: what does A make of B's behaviour?
"You work in WHAT field?"
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- Nicola Knight
- Monday, 17 November 2008
- Blog Nicola's blog
I've been thinking for a while about the relevance of cognition and culture to the wider world. This problem is of course not restricted to our field , but we may have to overcome some special obstacles. During the US campaign, Palin and McCain raised (what they perceived to be) objections to the government spending money on, respectively, research in the genetics of fruit flies and education about the cosmos. If these are presented (and, one imagines, perceived by at least some) as clear cases of unreasonable or frivolous spending, how do we go about making cognition and culture -- if not relevant -- at least acceptable as a way of using funds in the public eye?
I feel part of the issue is that we have a branding problem...
Crime without Punishment?
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- Nicola Knight
- Thursday, 28 August 2008
- Blog Nicola's blog
One of the purposes of criminal law in many countries is to protect individuals, or society at large, from harmful individuals, by means of either punishment (which usually takes the form of jail sentences) or deterrence.
Duff, in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, says that "Crimes are, at least, socially proscribed wrongs—kinds of conduct which are condemned as wrong by some purportedly authoritative social norm. That is to say that they are wrongs which are not merely ‘private’ affairs, which properly concern only those directly involved in them: the community as a whole—in this case the political community speaking through the law—claims the right to declare them to be wrongs."
In light of this, I would ask you to watch some or all of the following video shot at an anti-abortion demonstration that took place in Libertyville, USA.
Another possible alternative explanation for IFT
What's wrong with "intentional stance"?
Possible alternative explanation for IFT
Crushing a dispute with a smile (ahem, a bared-teeth display)
Impartial intervention, or pragmatic intervention?
Not fairness, not mutual interest ... cognitive dissonance maybe
A couple of references
Emotions as regulators of social behavior
Women are not allowed by social group to own their bodies
"Rigtheous" women and "promiscuous" men