Are we much different from these monkeys?

[devonwoody]

Programming the mind………..





If you start with a cage containing five monkeys and inside the
cage, hang a banana on a string from the top and then you place a set of stairs under the banana, before long a monkey will go to the stairs and climb toward the banana.

As soon as he touches the stairs, you spray all the other monkeys
with cold water.

After a while another monkey makes an attempt with same result
.. all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put the cold water away.

Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one.

The new monkey sees the banana and attempts to climb the
stairs. To his shock, all of the other monkeys beat the rubbish out of him.
After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the
stairs he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys, replacing it
with a new one.

The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous
newcomer takes part in the punishment...... with enthusiasm, because he is now part of the "team".

Then, replace a third original monkey with a new one, followed by
the fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the
stairs, he is attacked.

Now, the monkeys that are beating him up have no idea why they
were not permitted to climb the stairs. Neither do they know why they
are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

Finally, having replaced all of the original monkeys, none of the
remaining monkeys will have ever been sprayed with cold water.
Nevertheless, not one of the monkeys will try to climb the stairway for
the banana.

Why, you ask? Because in their minds...that is the way it has
always been!

This, my friends, is how Parliament operates... and this is why,
from time to time:

ALL of the monkeys need to be REPLACED AT THE SAME TIME.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

=D> =D> =D>

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

We're absolutely no different whatsoever. What that funny piece beautifully illustrates is how the rules and norms of a social culture develop (the mythos). It's just that we have so many of them now you kind of forget how they begin.

There's an isolated tribe of Indians that don't have any concept of the colour blue. They literally can't "see" blue like Europeans can because it was never "born" in their cultural norms....so it doesn't exist to them!

Philosophers have argued for millennia about whether subjects or objects are more or less "real" than each other. That tribe of Indians support the idea that "blue" doesn't actually exist until it's accepted in the minds and culture of the people observing it.

Anyway...enough talking pea's for one morning...off to the workshop to cut up a bit of tree

 

[Dangermouse]

That's a very good explanation of how a religion gets itself embedded in a society and becomes the "norm" and not even questioned, because its a tradition that has total acceptance because its been like that for centuries so it must be true.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Not just religion old son....any and all belief systems.....without exception.

 

[Graham Orm]

That's a very good explanation of how a religion gets itself embedded in a society and becomes the "norm" and not even questioned, because its a tradition that has total acceptance because its been like that for centuries so it must be true.

What he said.


Random Bob
No blue????? what about the sky?

 

[WandrinAndy]

Random Bob. No blue????? what about the sky?

Same thing applies to the Himba people of Namibia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himba_people.

Their indigenous vocabulary has no word for the colour blue because it was of no benefit to their hunter gatherer ways, and if one shows them a spectrum of colours they are unable to differentiate blue from green whereas we can as we have a word for blue. Learnt this from a fascinating doco on TV.

 

[Dangermouse]

Perhaps they are just colour blind ?

 

[John51]

I read of some researchers teaching a simple head to head strategy game to chimps. Winner got a tidbit, loser got nothing.

Then they matched the best chimp against the worst and of course the worst chimp stopped playing, no point. So the best chimp allowed the other one to win one game in four to keep it playing.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Could you teach that to my eldest son please?

 

[Billy]

Fascinating story with the monkeys... really goes to show that many things are done just because they were always done in a certain way though no one knows why they hold up until today. Like the conclusion especially: Replace all monkeys at once. Carried over to politics, however, nothing would change even if they were all replaced, since the system remains! You can exchange the persons acting but their environment and their ways of thinking will stay the same.

 

[potteringpotter]

Pavlov is sitting at a pub enjoying a pint, the phone rings and he jumps up shouting, ‘Oh s***t, I forgot to feed the dog!’

 

[CHJ]

Pavlov is sitting at a pub enjoying a pint, the phone rings and he jumps up shouting, ‘Oh s***t, I forgot to feed the dog!’

Was that response conditional upon being both in that environment and the 'phone ringing, or just the 'phone ringing ?