Wednesday, May 04, 2005
some words from Konrad Lorenz
I realised that an overpowering increase in the drives of feeding as well as of copulation and a waning of more differentiated social instincts is characteristic of very many domestic animals. I was frightened - as I still am - by the thought that analogous genetical processes of deterioration may be at work with civilized humanity.
.... The elemental neural organisation underlying behaviour does not consist
of a receptor, an afferent neuron stimulating a motor cell and of an
effector activated by the latter. Holst's hypothesis which we confidently
can make our own, says that the basic central nervous organisation
consists of a cell permanently producing endogenous stimulation, but
prevented from activating its effector by another cell which, also
producing endogenous stimulation, exerts an inhibiting effect. It is this
inhibiting cell which is influenced by the receptor and ceases its
inhibitory activity at the biologically "right" moment.
I realised that an overpowering increase in the drives of feeding as well as of copulation and a waning of more differentiated social instincts is characteristic of very many domestic animals. I was frightened - as I still am - by the thought that analogous genetical processes of deterioration may be at work with civilized humanity.
.... The elemental neural organisation underlying behaviour does not consist
of a receptor, an afferent neuron stimulating a motor cell and of an
effector activated by the latter. Holst's hypothesis which we confidently
can make our own, says that the basic central nervous organisation
consists of a cell permanently producing endogenous stimulation, but
prevented from activating its effector by another cell which, also
producing endogenous stimulation, exerts an inhibiting effect. It is this
inhibiting cell which is influenced by the receptor and ceases its
inhibitory activity at the biologically "right" moment.
