Radiolab

In this segment, Ramachandran seems to be claiming that animals do not have the ability to comprehend and remember abstract concepts like the color Red and apply those concepts to new situations. However, this supposition has been shown false by Brandeis University animal psychologist Irene Pepperberg, who assisted her grey parrot Alex in learning abstract concepts like colors and shapes. Pepperberg's work and the work of animal behaviorist Temple Grandin show that animals cannot learn abstract concepts using operant conditioning, which has traditionally been the methods scientists have used to teach animals to push levers, etc. Operant conditioning (stimulus- response conditioning) is an unnatural form of learning that does not exist in the wild. However, Social Modeling Theory shows us that by performing a behavior as a demonstration for an animal, we can easily teach it all sorts of complex concepts like, in the case of Alex, concepts of color and shape and how to utilize these concepts in unfamiliar, unrehearsed situations. Using Social Modeling Theory to teach abstract concepts has been demonstrated to work on birds and humans, and probably by now, been demonstrated on non-human primates also.

This idea of multiplicty echos ideas by the philosophers Deleuze and Guittari (the paradox of oneness in spite of multiplicity captures it best). I believe these guys' ideas hooked into a conception of the self as multiple- in an interesting way that I do not know how to elloborate, per say. But I do wonder about the connections between the research/thought and whether philosophy (it seems to do this often!) has anticipated discoveries in science.