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Acorn Woodpeckers Have Multi-Day Wars, and Birds Come from All Around to Watch

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Re: Acorn Woodpeckers Have Multi-Day Wars, and Birds Come from All Around to Watch

#51

Post by watwut »

dalbasal wrote: post #42
clairity wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

while you make an interesting point at the end, that framing seems to be jumping the gun (something you rightfully warned against in relation to deterministic vs random, downthread). political conflict is much more complex and has many more gradations than just peace or war. on the "elephant queen" documentary, the narrator noted that the bulls rarely ever fight, but rather, upon meeting have a quick "discussion" whe…

What's the frame you find premature?

Not him but:

> the ways that we rationalize our warfare, tribalism and such cannot actually be the reason for war

It can. War is just using violence to get what you want or need. It is not something special. Animals being violent do not prove anything about our reasons for war.

Re: Acorn Woodpeckers Have Multi-Day Wars, and Birds Come from All Around to Watch

#52

Post by watwut »

yetihehe wrote: post #32
air7 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always feel like the gloomy conclusion that we humans have no free will is always just two logical jumps away and we just prefer not to take them.

I like the idea of hitting people who say we have no free will. I tried it once, but it's counter-productive for discussion. Subject was more occupied with the fact of hitting him than with continuing discusussion if my action should have consequences or not (no free will = I didn't do it out of my own will, so why should I suffer consequences).

Possibly the subject war preprogrammed to seek punishment after being hit?

Re: Acorn Woodpeckers Have Multi-Day Wars, and Birds Come from All Around to Watch

#53

Post by dalbasal »

watwut wrote: post #51
dalbasal wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the frame you find premature?

Not him but: > the ways that we rationalize our warfare, tribalism and such cannot actually be the reason for war It can. War is just using violence to get what you want or need. It is not something special. Animals being violent do not prove anything about our reasons for war.

War is a specific behaviour, more complex than just violence. It has all sorts of characteristics.

Re: Acorn Woodpeckers Have Multi-Day Wars, and Birds Come from All Around to Watch

#54

Post by ses1984 »

dalbasal wrote: post #15
nitrogen wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free will is itself still just an electrochemical process running in a physical brain. It's subjectively real, but the inputs that drive that subjective feeling are still either deterministic or random.

" either deterministic or random " is a possibly dangerous dichotomy. Some things are neither determined nor random, in the "arbitrary" sense of the term. A child that grows up in a musical household is more likely to become a musician. That's neither random nor determined. In populations, or over repeated instances, these can resolve to near deterministic results. At the individual level, they are more random seemin…

In populations, children who grow up in musical households are more likely to become musicians. That is neither random nor determined.

A particular child growing up to be a musician, is either random or determined.

Maybe each child in a population is determined, or random, but at least you can analyze things at the population level.

Re: Acorn Woodpeckers Have Multi-Day Wars, and Birds Come from All Around to Watch

#55

Post by watwut »

dalbasal wrote: post #53
watwut wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not him but: > the ways that we rationalize our warfare, tribalism and such cannot actually be the reason for war It can. War is just using violence to get what you want or need. It is not something special. Animals being violent do not prove anything about our reasons for war.

War is a specific behaviour, more complex than just violence. It has all sorts of characteristics.

Like coordination to commit that violence and large scale. But the whole point is to use violence to get what you want.

Re: Acorn Woodpeckers Have Multi-Day Wars, and Birds Come from All Around to Watch

#56

Post by dnautics »

ManBlanket wrote: post #35

Two days ago I heard a loud, "SQUEE! Bock bock bock bock." from our back yard. Two (Flicker) woodpeckers were fighting in the branches of a maple, our chickens standing around foot of the tree seemingly captivated by the spectacle. I assume the cause of the commotion was the tussle finding its way to the ground, startling the chickens. When I realized what was going on my daughter and I crept outside to watch. The wo…

I was hoping the parent article would talk about other species of bird as onlookers, but that wasn't the case. Got my fix from your story. Thank you!

Re: Acorn Woodpeckers Have Multi-Day Wars, and Birds Come from All Around to Watch

#57

Post by s1artibartfast »

dalbasal wrote: post #6

I find these animal behavioural studies fascinating. There is always the risk of personification clouding our understanding, when we observe similarities to human behaviour. But another angle is de-personification of our own behaviour. That seems insightful in all sorts of way. Certain behaviours, like "war," almost certainly predate cognitive modernity... modern human consciousness. Gwynne Dyer, a historian of war,…

The warfare predates even our ability to formulate such rationalizations. This has a lot of applicability in our personal lives. Is the reason I did X really Y, or is Y a post fact rationalization

A hypothesis that I find very fascinating is that all consciousness is a post fact process, and that free will and control are illusory.

Re: Acorn Woodpeckers Have Multi-Day Wars, and Birds Come from All Around to Watch

#58

Post by s1artibartfast »

dalbasal wrote: post #37
_0ffh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know about the danger in there, but what else would you want to add to the mix besides determinism and randomness? I don't know of anything else that could possibly have any influence, unless you want to go supernatural.

Is evolution by natural selection deterministic or random?

Both. Evolution by natural selection is composed of several processes and events, some of which are random, some of which are deterministic.

Re: Acorn Woodpeckers Have Multi-Day Wars, and Birds Come from All Around to Watch

#59

Post by s1artibartfast »

yetihehe wrote: post #32
air7 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always feel like the gloomy conclusion that we humans have no free will is always just two logical jumps away and we just prefer not to take them.

I like the idea of hitting people who say we have no free will. I tried it once, but it's counter-productive for discussion. Subject was more occupied with the fact of hitting him than with continuing discusussion if my action should have consequences or not (no free will = I didn't do it out of my own will, so why should I suffer consequences).

I think your problem is that you assume free will is a prerequisite for accountability, consequences, or justice.

When my computer breaks, I either fix it or replace it. I don't ask if the computer actively chose to break.

Assume there is a robot programmed to walk around punching people, do you ignore it because it isn't making choices?

Similarly, if a person is walking around punching people due to a combination of random and deterministic factors (no free will), do you ignore them?

Re: Acorn Woodpeckers Have Multi-Day Wars, and Birds Come from All Around to Watch

#60

Post by s1artibartfast »

dmoy wrote: post #46
hirundo wrote: post #44

Around twenty years ago my dearly departed father had a multi-year war with an acorn woodpecker. The little pecker liked to hide its nuts under my dad's roof shingles. Those birds are outstandingly persistent and after a while and enough nuts they would pry up the shingles. Maybe a quarter of the shingles on one side were affected at most. About once a year my dad would go out on the steep roof and repair it. After a…

> He may have broken state or federal law though. Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, yes It was probably federally illegal

Unlikely. AS I understand it, most woodpeckers are not migratory.
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