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| | From:  sæskwač (Original Message) | Sent: 5/25/2004 2:15 PM |
Okay, this is going to be a short post, but I just wanted to list out some of the things I plan on writing about: * Innateness Innate "speech acts" versus learned language, as it applies to humans and non-human animals, especially non-human primates. * 3-fold Evolution Language evolves over three time spans: Biological Evolution is involved, Cultural Transmission is involved, and Individual Learning is involved. * Broca's Area and "mirror neurons" Humans and other non-human animals have sets of neurons that fire both while the agent is doing and act as well as when she is watching an act being performed by another agent. * Automatic vs. Free Will The difference between humans and non-human animals when it comes to the ability to control their actions. * Moral implications? Some of my own ideas on how some of the things listed above give humans the ability and perhaps the obligation to behave "morally". That's more than enough sub-subjects for an entire book. Please feel free to comment and/or ask questions about anything that is posted here. And I definitely welcome discussion and argument. -- Sasquatch |
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* Automatic vs. Free Will The difference between humans and non-human animals when it comes to the ability to control their actions. By this do you refer to such things as biological imperative (Automatic) versus choice? For example... the physical drive to eat in order to survive versus the choice to die by starvation. |
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| | | From: sæskwač | Sent: 5/26/2004 2:39 AM |
>>>> * Automatic vs. Free Will >> By this do you refer to such things as biological imperative (Automatic) versus
>> choice? For example... the physical drive to eat in order to survive versus the
>> choice to die by starvation. Similar, but more specific. More like the precise control that a human can exercise over their hands and limbs while eating, and the precise control that a human must learn to exercise when re-shaping their vocal tract and changing the tones generated by their vocal chords when executing speech acts. Humans and non-human animals alike posess varying degrees of conscious control over their actions, versus automatic processes, and I will be quoting a study or two that illustrates this. Of special interest is the inability of non-human primates to learn language to any great extent, and what happens when their free will clashes with their automatic systems. -- Sasquatch |
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| | | From: sæskwač | Sent: 5/26/2004 3:29 PM |
Innateness In nature and in simulations, agents evolve "built-in" systems of communication, some examples of which are facial expressions of emotions in humans: smiling when happy, frowning when sad; predator calls in certain primates; a dog wagging its tail. These behaviors are not learned, they are "innate", and each normal member of the species has them from birth. A dog's bark is not learned, dogs are born to bark (so to say), but a dog can be taught to bark at appropriate times (when told to "speak", perhaps) or to suppress it at innappropriate times (say when the doorbell rings). Predator calls in primates are not learned, they are born with the call that means "There's a panther over here, run away!" hard-wired. But, it has been demonstrated that the same primates can be taught a limited subset of sign language to communicate with their human handlers. Humans do not learn their facial expressions, they are born to smile when they are happy, to frown when they are sad, but they can learn, to some extent, to control those facial expressions, to hide their emotions. Learning a large lexicon to communicate infintely abstract ideas is a uniquely human trait, but the _ability_ to learn language is an innate human ability...in fact, the flexibility required for this could very well be the reason that humans are born with so much less "built-in knowledge" than other non-human animals. It is difficult (if not impossible) for a dog to learn not to bark when her instincts prompt her to, but comparitively easy for a human to learn to suppress a cry of pain. This flexibility in human behavior makes it impossible for much information to be pre-determined by nature...hence a human baby is just about the most helpless creature in the world. But look at how the flexibility in learning and behavior makes up for this...human beings are one of the single most adaptable species in the world. Back to language. This post is meant to define what is meant by "innate" vs. "learned" behavior, and to illustrate the difference between "innate communication" and "learned language", and to point out the uniqueness humans when it comes to a lack of innate behavior and the flexibility of humans when it comes to learning, especially learning language. Questions/comments are welcome (I know this was a little rambling)...the next post will be about the 3-fold evolution of Language and the "Iterated Learning Model". -- Sasquatch |
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Humans do not learn their facial expressions, they are born to smile when they are happy, to frown when they are sad, but they can learn, to some extent, to control those facial expressions, to hide their emotions. Early childhood development has shown that the human infant has an enormous capacity to learn the survival traits at a huge rate, but that first we are all on par with our primate cousins. The only real bonafide survival trait a human is born with corresponds to the hardwiring in an adult that an infants wail will invoke. As a non-human parent can recognize the cry of its own young... so to do we. Agitation in both infant and adult increases rapidly when the output/response trigger is denied. This is the foundation of (audio)communication amoung humans, whereas a smile or frown along with other facial expressions are learned from infancy. Your face is the first frame of reference infants use to help process communicate and environment. Study has shown that the child quickly learns to mimic this learned behavior as the basis to the next milestone in communication. Keep in mind that when considering the information and the speed it is processed at it does appear that a child is 'born to smile' but environment (learned) is a huge factor in language development in the young. ...the _ability_ to learn language is an innate human ability...in fact, the flexibility required for this could very well be the reason that humans are born with so much less "built-in knowledge" than other non-human animals. In studying childhood development we cross many theories and discoveries. One such is the 'blank slate' idea that is proposed based on the fact that gestation and growth are slow in humans (as compared to most non-human species) which in turn allows for a longer learning experience in our young. Adaptability is a survival trait ... adapt or die. Ability is a trait that surfaces after Adaptibility has made survival possible. This flexibility in human behavior makes it impossible for much information to be pre-determined by nature...hence a human baby is just about the most helpless creature in the world Behavior is a learned response... no matter if it seems automatic or not...it is still a processed learned action. Nature may influence behavior a great deal, environment certainly does but they do not pre-determine behavior in humans ...some exceptions are newborns (pre-cognitive) birthing women (involuntary reflexes) danger (fight or flight) and dying (involuntary reflex) all of these have a biological basis the human culture elaborates on and builds into languages. Despite the impact these nature based behaviors, humans are for the most part programmed by social concepts and behavoir is the result of such programming. Sasquatch, I have some really good books on early communication in children ... if theres any particulars you are interested in please let me know. Early childhood development is really fascinating stuff :o) Red |
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| | | From: sæskwač | Sent: 5/26/2004 7:39 PM |
>> Early childhood development has shown that the human infant has an enormous
>> capacity to learn the survival traits at a huge rate, but that first we are all on par
>> with our primate cousins. The only real bonafide survival trait a human is born
>> with corresponds to the hardwiring in an adult that an infants wail will invoke. As
>> a non-human parent can recognize the cry of its own young... so to do we.
>> Agitation in both infant and adult increases rapidly when the output/response
>> trigger is denied. An interesting thing i noticed on a jet travelling from Minnesota to Iceland...there was a baby and whenever it cried the heads of most of the women on board would swivel around to look at it...but most of the men successfully ignored it. Another interesting thing was that the Icelandic staff could tell who spoke Icelandic and who needed them to switch to English, just by looking at them... >> This is the foundation of (audio)communication amoung humans, whereas a smile
>> or frown along with other facial expressions are learned from infancy. Right...one of the leading theories in the evolution of language in humans is that humans' long-term childhood contributed to language development because of the need of the infant to communicate with its mother. Another theory says that the long-term childhood is a result of the need for humans to be taught complex social skills, which is a result of the complexity of human language. A third says that they developed concurrently and that increasing complexity in language created pressure for a longer childhood while a longer childhood at the same time created pressure for increasing complexity in language. >> Your face is the first frame of reference infants use to help process communicate
>> and environment. Study has shown that the child quickly learns to mimic this
>> learned behavior as the basis to the next milestone in communication. Keep in
>> mind that when considering the information and the speed it is processed at it
>> does appear that a child is 'born to smile' but environment (learned) is a huge
>> factor in language development in the young. Can you cite the reference that this is from? I read a study that supposedly showed that smile/frown gestures were innate, but unfortunately I don't have a reference. Another interesting thing here is that it seems that the human brain is designed (presumably by evolution, biologically, from birth) to very quickly do complex statistical analyses that greatly aids in the ability to pick up language. In this way, humans are genetically "primed for language". >> In studying childhood development we cross many theories and discoveries. One
>> such is the 'blank slate' idea that is proposed based on the fact that gestation and
>> growth are slow in humans (as compared to most non-human species) which in
>> turn allows for a longer learning experience in our young. Adaptability is a survival >> trait ... adapt or die. Ability is a trait that surfaces after Adaptibility has made
>> survival possible. What is your definition of "Ability" in this context? Is it something like "expertise in a learned behavior"? Or something more like "how well someone can do something"? Just wondering because even non-adaptable traits in non-human and human animals can be exhibited in specific agents to varying degrees (i.e. one dog may have the ability to bark louder than another, but it's not because that dog "learned" to bark louder). >> Behavior is a learned response... no matter if it seems automatic or not...it is still a >> processed learned action. Nature may influence behavior a great deal,
>> environment certainly does but they do not pre-determine behavior in
>> humans ...some exceptions are newborns (pre-cognitive) birthing women
>> (involuntary reflexes) danger (fight or flight) and dying (involuntary reflex) all of
>> these have a biological basis the human culture elaborates on and builds into
>> languages. Despite the impact these nature based behaviors, humans are for the
>> most part programmed by social concepts and behavoir is the result of such
>> programming. Hold on a minute...you said "behavior is a learned response" and then went on to talk about "nature based behaviors". There are definitely behaviors exhibited by human and non-human animals alike that are not learned behaviors (right, involuntary reflexes), and many behaviors that are learned responses. It's true that most human behaviors are learned (which I think is what you're saying above, just trying to clarify), and that the amount of behavior that results from genetic programming vs. learning (or social programming?) varies from species to species. But no non-human animal that has been studied has a higher ratio of "learned" to "genetically programmed" behavior as humans, and it has been posited both that this "ability to learn" in humans contributed directly to language evolution, and conversely that the complexity of language (which was evolving for some other reason) created pressure for the kind of super-adaptability that is found in the human brain. >> Sasquatch, I have some really good books on early communication in children ...
>> if theres any particulars you are interested in please let me know. Early childhood
>> development is really fascinating stuff :o) If you can give me some names/authors, it would be appreciated. Another interesting theory is that the control of the mouth that is required for spoken language in humans is directly adapted from the innate suckling mouth motions that humans share with a lot of non-human animals. ;o) -- Sasquatch |
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okay... lets start with ... Your face is the first frame of reference infants use to help process communicate and environment. Study has shown that the child quickly learns to mimic this learned behavior as the basis to the next milestone in communication. After digging out my old beat up copy of Child Development (fifth edition, Neil Salkind & Sueann Robinson Ambron) it suggests that we are both right in the cognitive development of infants... "the third pattern of general development is that a baby's physical responses move from a global reaction to a controlled specific reaction, a process known as differentiation. For example when babyies see an object, they express their pleasure and desire by widening their eyes, panting with excitement, wiggling all over and waving their arms madly. The older baby, who is no less pleased and excited, simply smiles and reaches for the object" ... this all takes place on a neurological level. Communication exists and is the fore-runner to language. From birth to 24 months is referred to as the "sensorimotor period" . In the sensorimotor period children can not use language or logic to organize their experiences with the world. All their knowledge is dependent on the sensorimotor skills. With the development of these skills, organized patterns of perception and behavior are formed. These patterns are called schemata by Jean Piaget and are the basic building blocks of mental organization. I think you may be interested in Piaget's Periods of Cognitive Development, its sure to be on the net. He refers to the limited innate skills of infancy. Behavior... I think I should have used a better definition of behavior since I seemed to have generated some confusion regarding response. When I listed the samples I was thinking of biological response versus external stimuli response.... forget that folks aren't mindreading. Sorry for the confusion, lol Behavior is any response to any stimulus. The main question amounts to heredity versus environment: whether behavior stems from inborn tendencies or learning and interaction with the environment. I personally stand somewhere in between because I have seen both ends of the spectrum... with tourettes syndrom the behavior is biological and involuntary with something like ADHD it is a learned behavior to the environment. I recommend looking at the various approaches, again your likely to find them on the net for more indepth work. - Freud (Id, ego, superego) Psychoanalysis of behavior is classified as Organismic: a belief that behavior is predetermined by what we have inherited.
- Piaget (Age-Stage theory) Another organismic approach that that states that the stage sequence of development is innate and unalterable. * He did however, bridge over to a contextual or environmental view in that he felt children had an inborn tendency to adapt to and learn from their outside world.
- Rogers (Client centered ... humanistic) This view stands midway between organismic and mechanistic: it sees the positive potential as inborn and recommends a positive approach to bring out or reinforce appropriate behavior. While a worthy idea its limitations become apparent when negative behavior persists in spite of positive encouragement.
- Skinner (Conditioning, stimulus-response & bevaior modification) In this approach recognition of behaviors that have inborn tendancies also states that any inborn trait can be modified in response to stimulus.
ANYways... I think I've gotten off track. I recommend you look into child development specifically ... I'm sure there are more up-to-date versions of my Salkind & Ambron copy. Also check out Piaget ... and maybe Theories of Development Pyschology. Red |
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| | | From: sæskwač | Sent: 11/16/2004 3:04 PM |
Well, I haven't posted on this for a while, and we never actually got past "Innateness" on the bullet list...there was some discussion of Automatic vs. Free Will, and we will definitely come back to that, but for now, let's move on to... 3-fold Evolution Language evolves over three time spans: Biological Evolution is involved, Cultural Transmission is involved, and Individual Learning is involved. These three dynamic systems work together and feed into each other. They are three separate processes that take each others' end results and process them further, ever refining and modifying both humans, their system of cognition, and their language, changing their environments and increasing their overall fitness for their environments. Biological Evolution Of the three systems mentioned above, Biological Evolution works by far the most slowly, and has by far the most complex end results. Due to selection pressures on animals from their environment, they evolve innate signalling systems (like the alarm calls of many primates) that are automatic and intimately linked to their emotions and to the immediate state of the environment. They evolve complex systems of cognition that allow them to think ahead of and outguess their predators and prey, as well as each other, and also bestows upon them the ability to recognize the mental and emotional states of others, and to some extent manipulate them. There are also pressures to evolve the physical mechanisms that in the end make it possible for humans to create and use complex language, from more intentional control of limbs leading to the ability to sign, gesture, and write, to the complex respiratory system that eventually became the human vocal tract, even to the visual and auditory systems that allow us to parse incoming acoustic and orthographic symbols and to distill semantic meaning from the arbitrary symbols. Cultural Transmission Once Biological Evolution gives us the traits necessary for cooperation, deception, and very complex social interaction, culture emerges. Culture and cultural constucts (like languages) are passed from generation to generation by children learning it from their parents, their peers, and social instutions that are put in place by society for the transmission of important cultural creations such as language. Culture evolves on a much shorter time scale than biological evolution, and many of its artifacts (like language) have pressures put on them by the method of transmission...for example, languages evolve to be more learnable by the people that must ultimately learn them. Cultural Transmission is made possible by tools that were ultimately created by biological evolution, but it is quite likely that Cultural Transmission also creates new complex pressures that affect biological evolution...once people posses a language faculty, there is biological selection pressure to evolve better mental machinery to more efficiently utilize it. Individual Learning Individual Learning operates in the shortest time frame of the three systems discussed here, and it has intimate ties with the other two. There is pressure for animals to evolve (biologically) more efficient and complex learning mechanisms...an ability to generalize, plan, and manipulate clearly bestows a fitness advantage in many environments. Individual Learning is very closely linked with cultural transmission...for cultural creations such as language and traditions to be passed from generation to generation, individuals in each generation must be able to learn them. In the course of their lives, individuals learn associations between socially constructed abstract symbols and meanings grounded in the world, as well as abstract meanings that have no clear relation to the real world, but may be useful in dealing with problems that the real world poses. Individuals generalize, using the information learned from two different experiences to discover a third, separate meaning for themselves by either combining the two experiences, or noticing similarities between the two and then extracting a discrete nugget of wisdom that neither of them may have implied on their own. I argue that the interaction between these three dynamical systems is of emminent importance to the evolution of cognitive systems in humans, the evolution of their language, and of their culture, in general. Next up...Mirror Neurons! -- sæskwač |
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| | | From: sæskwač | Sent: 1/25/2005 12:30 PM |
It's that time again...recent postings in the Discussions section have prompted me to want to work on this thread some more...so, on we go! Broca's Area and Mirror Neurons Researchers studying the brains of non-human primates directly (and the brains of humans more indirectly through brain imaging techniques) have found a subset of motor neurons that fire both when an agent is executing an act as well as when the agent sees someone else executing the same act. An exciting part of this discovery is that many of these neurons can be found in the human Broca's Area of the brain, which is strongly associated with the human language faculty, as well as the analogue of this area in non-human primates. This discovery has a wide range of implications, a few of which I will discuss briefly below: Imitation in Learning Human children can learn things quite quickly through imitation. The ease at which they do this is astounding, but much easier to understand if there is a built-in system for translating actions percieved by the child into an internal representation of what it would be for the child to actually do that action herself. If humans have evolved a mechanism for readily mapping the actions of others onto the brain activations necessary for executing the actions themselves, they would have quite an adaptive advantage over other creatures, as the learning process would involve much less trial and error. Internal Representations of Speech Acts The mirror neuron set in Broca's Area of the human brain contain neurons that fire both when a person utters a sound in speech, as well as when that human hears the sound being uttered by another person (or even a speech synthesizer). This seems to point to some more or less innate representation that maps the sounds that different articulatory speech acts make onto the necessary motor neuron activations that the person would, herself, have to make, in order to produce the same sound. Such a system would definitely make learning a language much easier, as the bridge from hearing a sound and making it comes partially pre-built. Theory of Mind Theory of Mind is the ability of one agent to understand that another agent has mental states that are similar to her own. That is, when you see someone that looks sad, you percieve that they feel sad, and you attribute to them the same kind of feeling that you have when you are sad. This may seem somewhat trivial at first glance, but considering how important it is for complex human interaction, and what kinds of organisms don't have it (demonstratably few non-human animals have Theory of Mind, and those that do seem to have it to a much lesser extent) such as people with Asperger's Syndrome, its importance becomes more clear. It is arguable that the presence of mirror neurons in the brain aids Theory of Mind...that is, since part of the processes in your mind that would activate for you to execute and action also activate when you percieve someone else executing the action, it is very natural to attribute a similar pattern of neuronal activation (or mindset) to the external acting agent. I'm going to leave Mirror Neurons for now, but will refer back to them when wrapping up the thread. Automatic vs. Free Will is coming up next...there has already been some discussion of it, and hopefully there will be more to come!  |
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| | (1 recommendation so far) | Message 10 of 12 in Discussion |
| | From: sæskwač | Sent: 3/1/2005 9:06 PM |
Am feeling a mite better in my convelescent state...even did some school work today, I'm so proud of myself!  Anyway...another installment: Automatic vs. Free Will There have been shown to be some (qualitative and quantitative) differences inherent to humans and non-human animals when it comes to the ability to control their actions, although it is by no means a non-controversial subject. Some parts of our daily routine are strictly not under our control...when we sense motion from our peripheral vision, our eyes tend to move to bring the moving object into focus without us consciously willing them to, when we hear words or read them on a page, we can't choose not to interpret and understand them, if I get hot, I get sweaty...I know of no reliable means of turning off the glands. Some of these are more controllable than others...our breathing is usually automatic, but we can bring it under manual control if we want. Still some are strictly under extreme conscious control, we can control the movements of our fingers and the articulators in our vocal tracts to an amazing degree. Two interesting stories that exemplify the level of free will of a non-human primate, and how its automatic and self-controlled actions can be at odds: Number Games [From Boysen, S. T., Berntson, G. G., Hannan, M. B., Cacioppo, J. T. (1996). Quantity-Based Interference and Symbolic Representations in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 22(1), 76-86.] In this study, one chimp was given the choice between two candy dishes, where there was always more candy in one of the dishes than the other. The reward scheme was that the dish that the choosing chimp picked was given to the other chimp...in essence, the way to get the best reward was to choose the dish with the least amount of candy...but after hundreds of training sessions, the chimps failed to learn the task...they always chose the dish with the most candy, thereby earning the least reward. (Human children have a similar level of ability at this game). The task was changed so that the choosing chimp picked between two Arabic numerals (these chimps had been trained on counting to a limited extent), one always larger than the other...then candies were distributed accordingly, the number that the choosing chimp picked determining the number of candies the passive chimp got, and the other number determining the number of candies the chooing chimp got. In this case the chimps learned the task quickly and the choosing chimp always picked the smaller number, thus earning the biggest reward. When faced with the actual candy, the chimp could not override her natural inclination to immediately go for more, even though she knew she would get less candy because of it (her behavior showed this, as she would act embarassed directly after choosing the wrong dish). Shout It Out Loud [I can't find the reference for this one at the moment, but I will definiely find it if anyone's interested.] When a macaque monkey comes upon food in the wild, it invariably makes a call that alerts other macaques in the area to the presence of the food, so they can come and share it. There has been occasion when a macaque has come upon food place in its area by an observing scientist, and apparently decides he wants to keep the food for himself. He isn't able to stop the food call from coming out, though, so he clasps his hand over his mouth, instead, in an effort to muffle the call so the other macaques won't hear. These examples are meant to show some of the differences between the level of will-powered control over their actions of humans and some of their closest animal relatives. Humans seem to have a tremendous amount of free will, and conscious control of their actions, compared to other animals, but even in humans it's not complete. And non-human animals are obviously not simple stimulous-response machines, either, but have varyingly less self control over their reactions to stimuli than their human cousins. Most of the extra conscious control the humans have seems to come from the extra-developed frontal part of their brain (what I've heard termed the "neo-cortex") which seems to be the most major addition since the split from other primates. What are the implications of all this, moral or otherwise? ...well, you'll have to wait until the next installment to find, at least, my take on the matter. TTFN! |
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Hi Sæskwač Been meaning to share this with you... heres an interesting tidbit from the world of special education... recently I worked with a 4 year old child who is almost blind, has no communication/verbal skills but still tries to interact with his environment ... (doctors are still trying to determine if there is a hearing problem, he is DD (developmentally delayed) ... I was literally handed the assignment without prep or instruction and told to 'teach' him things. I spent roughly 90 minutes in observation mode and came to the conclusion that his main strength was learning through tactile and kenetic awareness, okay that I could do... but what surprised me was this consistant use of his mouth for exploring his environment... now it wasn't the normal hand to mouth of a toddler... he would literally flick the air with his tongue (mouth half open) then close it (it actually looks like he is tasting something) or he would lean in and put his mouth close to (but not touching) an object and breath it in, then turn his head with his mouth closed. I watched this all day, it was a deliberate thing... although the only thing that actually touched his mouth was a small stuffed frog he clutched, and even then it was the briefest brush across his lips or across his chin. We covered a lot of learning channels, and taste was one of them, but he never actually put anything in his mouth. This was the first time I had seen this kind of behavior although I fully understand the toddler developmental stage of environmental exploration. ~ Red |
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| | | From: sæskwač | Sent: 3/26/2005 10:48 AM |
Alright...time for the last planned installment in this series...thought it might be a bit of an anitclimax. Moral Implications The main points of this thread (from my point of view, if yours differs, let me know), in bullet-list form: - Organisms (and in this post, organisms means humans, non-human animals, plants, etc.) have varying degrees of conscious control over their behaviours (and, indeed varying degrees of consciousness, period)
- Conscious organisms have varying abilities to model the mind-states of others, covering a spectrum from not realizing other organisms are conscious to believing other conscious organisms have the same (or same kinds of) thoughts, feelings, and goals as them (this is called the obverter property and is considered a fundamental step toward a sophisticated Theory of Mind), to the extreme that they understand that other conscious organisms may have different (or different kinds of) thoughts, feelings, and goals as them, which may lead to quite sophisticated strategies for modelling the mind-states of others to determing their thoughts/feelings/goals/etc.
These two points, in my opinion, interact in such a way that some moral strategies and/or responsibilities, and guidelines, perhaps for judging others, fall out...I will discuss these below, with a bulleted list, and then add a disclaimer. Possible Moral Implications of Free Will, Consciousness, and Theory of Mind - An organism has moral obligations to other organims if and only if it has a suffieciently developed consciousness to be aware of the existence of other agents (i.e. it is likely the case that plants and perhaps viruses and bacteria...maybe even insects cannot be considered as moral actors)
- A conscious organism has moral obligations to other organisms if and only if they recognise that the other organism is a conscious being (i.e. I cannot be held morally culpabale for eating broccoli, because I do not recognise it as a conscious agent)
- A conscious organism has the obligation to determine, as best as they can, the consciousness of any other organism that they might have a moral obligation toward (i.e. it is our responsibility to at least try to determine if a cow in a slaughterhouse knows what is going on)
- An organism that has reached the simple obverter state of Theory of Mind has the obligation to follow the maxim of the Simple Golden Rule when interacting with other agents that they recognise as conscious agents (i.e. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you)
- An organism that has attained a more sophisticated Theory of Mind has the obligation to follow the maxim of the Extended Golden Rule when interacting with other agents, and to do their best to determine the mind states of others to a sufficient extend to apply the Rule (i.e. Do unto others as they would have you do unto them)
- You can never know for certain the mind-states of others, that is, their thoughts, feelings, goals, intentions, and motivations
- Without complete knowledge of the mind-states of others, you are not in a position to judge the moral dealings of another (this is perhaps the most difficult, because it means that we are not justified in saying something like "Bush is Evil", because there is always the possibility that our Theory of Mind strategy is flawed and that we do not have a complete understanding of his thoughts, feelings, goals, intentions, and motivations)
Disclaimer
The last two points, that together mean we are in no position to be moral judges, does not mean that discipline should be thrown out the window, because we must still behave in a way that we feel fulfills our moral obligations to the fullest extent possible, but it does require that a) We be more temperate in our judgments of others, especially others that we have had no sustained personal dealings with, and b) that when disciplinary acts are being carried out, that they be carried out with pity and with the full knowledge that the disciplined may not be as conscious of the reason of the discipline as we are. Any questions/comments? 
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