/sci/ - Science & Math

>>2641991
I see.
I'd stay and argue with you all, but i'm going to bed.


I'll leave with this

In the days of John Bowlby, this was considered as characteristics of instinctive behaviour:
a. it follows a recognisably similar and predictable pattern in almost all members of a species (or all members of one sex)
b. it is not a simple response to a single stimulus but a sequence of behavior that usually runs a predictable cource
c. certain of its usual consequences are of obvious value in contributing to the perservation of an individual or the continuity of a species
d. many examples of it develop even when all the ordinary opportunities for learning it are exiguous or absent
-Bowlby (1969)

a. says for it to be an instinct, it must be universal, i.e. independent of social context.
b. says that it is not a simple reflex, but a more complex chain of events, triggered by some stimuli
c. says that instincts must have some evolutionary benefit, obvious or obfuscated, and must follow evolutionary logic.
d. says that instincts must present themselves even if there have been no prior stimuli

Ethologist sometimes use the term "fixed behavioural patterns", and Bowlby later differentiate what he calls instinctive behaviour, from what he calls goal-corrected behaviour.

Today, this is a bit dated as, as >>2641997 says, there is semantic drift over time, but still, the core remains. Very little of what we can call instincts are present after the earliest phases of childhood. Our nervous system reorganizes several times through ontogeny, and even after, building layers of complexity. In the end most of our behaviour that once were instinctual, is complex and goal-corrected.
However, some basic, things remain; fight or flight, fear of the unknown, spiders, darkness, heights, the need for social interactions with other human beings, etc.