The 5 monkeys experiment and normality

5 monkeys to rule them all, 5 monkeys to find them,
5 monkeys to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3itNhCQXXs

Discuss.

This implies humans also cannot communicate.

>>2
They communicate well enough to discourage each other from getting the banana.

But seriously, what do you mean? Communication is exactly what is being studied in this experiment.

The part of the experiment that is missed is that the monkeys have no structured set of chronology, while government is designed to created a trail of history regarding what happened when and what the result was.  The monkeys remember, but don't communicate beyond the beating, don't have ancillary knowledge of the water cannon (you know, written stuff?) and are incapable of asking why and why not.  Also, it focuses only the brutality of the situation leading to the self-defeating prophecy, while human interaction, even at a bureaucratic level, is never that straightforward and humans also have a higher chance of ignoring the barbs of others to accomplish something.  A lot is accomplished because people do something while deflecting massive criticism.

Cutting away to the police officer beating an individual with a war protest sign behind it was heavy handed on the presentation part.  It creates context behind a scene that, in itself, has nothing but ambiguity.  No narrative.  If we are to assume the assumed premise of the film by the juxtaposition, we are falling victim to the film's criticism of "monkey see."

Additionally there's no explanation for the water cannon, metaphorically.

>>3
The newcomers can't ask the others why they want to punish them, the chimps can't tell the newcomer why they will be punished.

>>4
I don't know man. The way I saw it, it's talking about law.

>The monkeys remember, but don't communicate beyond the beating
People don't realy communicate with government and hardly communicate with cops.

>are incapable of asking why and why not
So are citizens in most cases.

>Also, it focuses only the brutality of the situation leading to the self-defeating prophecy, while human interaction, even at a bureaucratic level, is never that straightforward and humans also have a higher chance of ignoring the barbs of others to accomplish something.

I don't disagree with this completely but how many times did you get "this is how it's always been" as a reply? I mean, even if it realy makes no sense, this is a usual reply to many important questions. After all, how much original thought is actualy going on around? The part where I disagree with you and I find the experiment correct is that most people live, shop and die as if programmed. As if they live a carbon copy life of someone else - the 'normal', average person.

>A lot is accomplished because people do something while deflecting massive criticism.
Of course mate, there are exceptions and they are there to verify the rule. These people are probably the most usefull of humans. We're talking people who actualy do the original thinking. The ones who take on a problem and start from scratch and think their way until they solve it.

>Cutting away to the police officer beating an individual with a war protest sign behind it was heavy handed on the presentation part.  It creates context behind a scene that, in itself, has nothing but ambiguity.  No narrative.  If we are to assume the assumed premise of the film by the juxtaposition, we are falling victim to the film's criticism of "monkey see."

I find it reasonable and purpuseful that it was put there. It's there to point out the connection between the experiment and real life. Here' what I understood and I'm more than happy to discuss it. The protester is the monkey going for the banana. Demonstrating for what he thinks is common sense. "There's a banana, let's go eat it" - the government is taking away our rights let's fight back (i'm not sure if that's the best example). The cop is the monkey that's doing the beating (obviously). Even though (from my bad example) the government takes away his rights too, he's beating the protestor because "it's the law" - even though there are laws the protect protestors and clearly give them the right to oppose the government. If you look further than my bad example (sorry that wa the best I could think of right now) and see the actual mechanism behind the example, you'll see there isn't much difference from the experiment.

>Additionally there's no explanation for the water cannon, metaphorically.
I think the water cannon would be the concequences from "the law". Let's not forget that laws are far from perfect. The are made humans after all, specifically politicians. People not very famous for their honesty...

>>5
The 'newcommers' in society cannot exactly judge the correctness of the law.


Bonus videos:
Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmwSC5fS40w
Milgram Experiment on obedience
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9IVSfAAHoA


PS.I'm convinced that mechanisms like this work because people like derren brown are making loads of money by abusing these mechanisms for fun. Enjoy the following: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZZLukMA2ug

Hey, I just noticed that the last video I posted has an ad in the end about learning hypnism or something like that. It's not my video and I'm not advertising anything. It was just the first version of that flick I bumped into.

PS. Sorry about the long post (>>6)

People don't realy(sic) communicate with government and hardly communicate with cops.
That's an umbrella statement.

>are incapable of asking why and why not
So are citizens in most cases.
I meant socially incapable.  As in, they lack a structured ability to query that information from each other.  As in, they can't ask or answer "Why can't I go after the banana?"  They can't even ask each other "Why can't you go for the banana?"  This crutch makes the position of the video look much more functional for the purposes of the parable.  The parable is the part of the video that actually makes it comprehensible, hence the words you hear is what you initially want to explain what is going on.  The trick is to not blindly accept it as the superior logic just because it's the only logic that is expressed.  I watched the video without sound at first and what was going on made no sense.  In fact, without the dialogue (and the said heavy-handed overlay) you can get the sense that you've been trolled at first, like watching really bad TF2 Machinima.

I find it reasonable and purpuseful that it was put there. ...
It's heavy-handed because it means the movie is using underhanded bait-and-switch tactics.  What the voice over is explaining about the experiment and what emotions the image is supposed to embody are not necessarily related at all. 
I actually give the Milgram and Stanford experiments their due credit since they use actual people to prove the point, whether or not that was an ethical choice in the first place, but I give no credit to the "five monkey" one because you remove the basic elements of unnecessary interaction that is a staple of human psychology and then say "it's the same."

And I still dislike the image because it lacks connected narrative: the sign is the only proof of identity and there isn't even proof that the person being beaten up was holding it.  Also it lacks "real" altogether.  It's a Photoshopped propaganda piece, dumped randomly onto the end of the movie much like the poster's comments on the video conclude by turning into a word salad of conspiracy buzz words.

What's the official name of this experiment?  I'm interested in looking up how many times it was run, with what variation (what was the stated control situation?), and how many times it ended up becoming like this.

I was born under the sign of the monkey.

monkeys are very fucking smart.

people who abuse animals are very fucking dumb.

why don't you stop them instead of discussing this shit on a boring old thread in cyberspace?

What are you afraid of?

Nothing?

Well then grow some fucking balls and change the world.

>>8
Right. I've been looking into it after I read your post and it looks like you're right. I can't find any references to the original experiment. It looks like it was used as an example or something initial and it gained a lot momentum from there to finally become something like an urban legend. So, well spotted there.

Here's a good article I found on it:
http://blog.stsaint.com/philosophy/2010/05/5-monkeys-experiment/

A good comment on it says:"I have searched for this off and on since 2006. The “Five” monkey’s is likely a parable or story which is based on some real experiments. Most likely:
Stephenson, G. R. (1967). Cultural acquisition of a specific learned response among rhesus monkeys. In: Starek, D., Schneider, R., and Kuhn, H. J. (eds.), Progress in Primatology, Stuttgart: Fischer, pp. 279-288
“Unfortunately, training and testing were not carried out using a discrimination procedure so the nature of the transmitted information cannot be determined, but the data are of considerable interest.”

In the light of Stanley Milgrams and Martin Seligman’s work ethical standards would now make the “five monkey’s” experiment impossible to replicate. Certainly people in the 1960′s were conducting experiments like this, and it is believeable that non-human species could and would teach one another to avoid unpleasant consequences.

I concur that it did not happen as described, but disagree that it rises to the level of a hoax. Likely it is an embellished synthesis of research which is at it’s root has a yet to be disproven hypothesis, and was orginally created for the purpose of humor"

Good thread bump

It goes to show how cultural memory is formed and persists. This is why there should always be a monkey to ask "why am I scared of a fucking bannana?" that would be the liberal monkey.

>>12
Given that the liberal monkey never succeeds, I'm all for this.

>>13 of what? being afraid of a bannana for no reason?

>>6
You totally misinterpret these experiments, they are just a few factors that only become noticeable under such tightly controlled conditions and may in fact be negligible outside the laboratory.

>>14
Haha, yes, because conservatives THRIVE on fear. That's how they keep control.
If the liberal monkey ever succeeds, and the other monkeys realize bananas are not the problem, why then the whole power structure topples, and that's bad for the economy.

>>16
An economy of what? on banana?

>>17
lol, no, I just added that 'cause everyone knows that if something is bad for the economy, then it is REALLY BAD.
Like:
A:"Shall we tell people what levels of deadly radiation they're being exposed to?" B:"Well, if we did, they might stop buying milk, and might leave the contaminated areas..."
A:"That would be good for them, so what's the problem?"
B: "It would be terrible for the economy!"
A: "Oh, RIGHT! Shit! Don't let's tell them, then"

>>18
You could easily reverse that with welfare and so-dubbed entitlement programs from the perspective of the conservatives, where the it's the liberals who don't want the forbidden banana touched.  Or even socialists and capitalists.  The metaphor is maintained.

>>19
so?
The point is: humans behave that way, as do monkey.
and I wasn't aware that radiation was a liberal/ conservative thing.

The state is a myth, just like Christianity. I laugh at atheists who are ardent statists. They think they've figured the game out.

>>1
You think far too highly of the human race.
Usually all it takes is one single politician, or one single person starting a media campaign, for people to follow suit.

If people thought rationally, we wouldn't have moral concepts to begin with. Morals is something that we've been told. If we do "evil" we are told that the police will hurt us, while if we do "good" we are told that the police will let us be. There is no real reason behind this. Some politician just decided that some people are okay to hurt while others are not okay to hurt. Still we follow this, often not because we fear getting hurt, often not even because we want to do like everybody else, but because our narrow minds religiously believe that these moral concepts ("innocent", "guilty", "crime", "morally good", "morally bad", "evil") are true and real. They're not. They are systematically brainwashing us to obey them from our very birth, so that they may rape their own and grow fat.

and I wasn't aware that radiation was a liberal/ conservative thing
I was ignoring that because it was unrelated to the conversation, at least as far as being a specific issue (at least the banana was there from the beginning and holds the status of metaphorical placeholder).
You, at least >>16, brought up the consideration of the experiment being how this experiment is an exercise in conservatism holding things back, up, or whatnot, whereas my comment postulated that the basic metaphor of the experiment could easily represent a liberal mindset if the banana is merely something else with the same role.  What we're both trying to reach, in the middle, is the same point (as by >>20): the experiment is not intended to represent a polarizing or fractional mindset, but an anthropological commentary.  The human judgment system is more or less based on the existence of the "unseen consequences" juggled against the utility of "doing something" ...

>>21
... and it doesn't take theology to create that.

Bump for quality