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That's a lot of bison-burgers on the move!

Your video, Bison Stampede Yellowstone, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

"Crossing through the jungle is very scary. Sometimes we get attacked by bison or elephants."

Yeah, someone give that guy a medal. Or a tank.

This just in...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/08/03/man-who-taunted-yellowstone-bison-arrested-glacier-national-park/902170002/

There is a generally held belief that consciousness is a mystery of science or a miracle of faith; that consciousness was attained instantly (or granted by god), and that one has either attained self awareness or has not.

I don't believe any of that. I believe like all things in biology, consciousness evolved to maximise a benefit, and occurred gradually, without any magic or mystery. The closest exurb1a gets to that is when he says at 6:28:

"Maybe evolution accidentally made some higher mammals on Earth self-aware because it's better for problem solving or something"

We need to know what other people are thinking and this is the problem that consciousness solves. If a neighbouring tribe enters your territory then predicting whether they come to trade, mate, steal or attack is beneficial to survival.

Initially this may be done through simulation - imagining the future based on past experience. A flood approaching your cave is bad news. Being surrounded by lions is not good. Surrounding a lone bison is dinner. Being charged by a screaming tribe is an upcoming fight.

We could only simulate another person's actions, but we had no experience that allows us to simulate another person's thoughts. You may predict that giving your hungry neighbour a meal may suppress their urge to raid your supplies but you still can't simply open their head and see what they are thinking.

Then for the benefit of cooperation and coordination, we started to talk, and everything changed.

Communication not only allows us to speak our mind, but allows us to model the minds of others. We can gain an understanding of another person's motivations long before they act upon them. The need to simulate another person's thoughts becomes more nuanced and complex. Do they want to trade, or do they want to cheat?

Yet still we cannot look into the minds of others and verify our models of them. If we had access to an actual working brain we could gradually strengthen that model with reference to how an actual brain works, and we happen to have access to such a brain, our own!

If we monitored ourselves then we could validate a general model of thought against real urges, real experiences, real problem solving and real motivations. Once we apply our own selves to a model of thought we become much better at modelling the thoughts of others.

And what better way to render that model than with speech itself? To use all of our existing cognitive skills and simply simulate others sharing their thoughts with us.

At 3:15 exurb1a referenced a famous experiment that showed that we make decisions before we become aware of them. This lends evidence to suppose that our consciousness is not the driver of our thoughts, but a monitor - an interpretation of our subconscious that feeds our model of how people think.

Not everybody is the same. We all have different temperaments. Some of us are less predictable than others, and we tend to avoid such people. Some are more amenable to co-operation, others are stubborn. To understand the temperament of one we must compare them to another. If we are to compare the model of another's mind to our own, and we simulate their mind as speech, then we must also simulate our own mind as speech. Then not only are we conscious, we are self-aware.

Add in a feedback loop of social norms, etiquette, acceptable behaviour, expected behaviour, cooperation and co-dependence, game theory and sustainable societies and this conscious model eventually becomes a lot more nuanced than it first started - allowing for abstract concepts such as empathy, shame, guilt, remorse, resentment, contempt, kinship, friendship, nurture, pride, and love.

Consciousness is magical, but not magic.

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Baby bison doing Trump speech impression for the win!

Being a filmmaker, I am fully aware how far from reality they can be. I was attempting to make a lame joke, so I apologize as well. I just assumed bears are aggressive, and walking up to one may not be the best idea. I think I would have a heart attack having to stand ground against a bear, or at least have wetter pants afterwards. Have you ever seen or heard about anyone trying to approach or pet/hug one? I have seen a few folks attempt to get close to elk and bison, and the look of complete shock on their faces after the animal has launched them a few feet in the air gets me every time. I love the title of your blog by the way, a bit bummed I cannot read it.

The American buffalo (Bison bison) is also commonly known as the American buffalo. Same for the European bison (Bison bonasus). From wikipedia:

The term "buffalo" is sometimes considered to be a misnomer for this animal, and could be confused with two "true buffalo", the Asian water buffalo and the African buffalo. However, "bison" is a Greek word meaning ox-like animal, while "buffalo" originated with the French fur trappers who called these massive beasts bœufs, meaning ox or bullock—so both names, "bison" and "buffalo", have a similar meaning. The name "buffalo" is listed in many dictionaries as an acceptable name for American buffalo or bison.

I'm surprised at Grey. There are no buffalo in America (the continent). Those are Bison.

Buffalo live in Africa and Asia.

Bison!

Nice...and thanks to the shooter for not shooting this in vertical mode!
I feel sorry for the wolves. Not that they would have likely gotten a bison/buffalo (whichever these are), but if they were desperate enough to attack a whole herd like that, they must be hungry. It was hard to see, but it didn't look like they had the baby separated at all, and that's the only way the wolves would win this contest.
I don't know about you, but this kind of stuff always makes me *happy (even though I'm also sad for the wolves)

My taste buds tell my brain that the various flavors of meats are akin in complexity to that of cheeses, yeasts, glandular excretions, etc. that the world's variety of free-range edibles have to provide...for sustenance per availability and desire.

I will not go out of my way to shoot game or foul unless the net return will be me not having to do it again for a long time, i.e. freezer handy, prey is assured. Don't enjoy the kill. Would rather buy it processed having been culled, sometimes got it from food pantries in mountainous regions through road-kill-clearing by the highway department.
Ducks ok, love dove, rabbit, deer and elk, bison and buffalo (thank you white man for killing-off a perfectly good food source)...just don't like pluggin' em even though it's fast, easy...hate the cleaning and dressing mostly, and not fond of killing things I don't wanna eat....oh, and @ Michaldaruk & carnivorous...I'd eat long-pig, but only if I absolutely had to and could slow-smoke it...Oh, and better if I'd known them while alive..I'd probably eat a vegetarian first...

Did you know the four "bosses" had their names switched? The boxer was actually M. Bison, as in Mike Bison (Mike Tyson)