What if every mental function we had beyond a primates was considered obscene?
9
Biologically speaking, there is no good and evil, no innocent and guilty, only competitors; morality mirrors or establishes dominance.
14
"[W]e inhabit a life-world that is not reducible to the world of nature, any more than the life in a painting is reducible to the lines and pigments from which it is composed."
Indeed. Our lived life is not science-described life. There is something deadening and stupid, maybe even dangerous, about science's domination of, and intrusion into, nearly every aspect of life. Dostoevsky, in "Notes from the Underground," complains about the "stone wall," his metaphor for scientific fact.
"When, for instance, it is proved to you that you are descended from a monkey, then it's no use pulling a long face about it: you just have to accept it. When they prove to you that one drop of your own fat must, as a matter of course, be dearer to you then a hundred thousand of your fellow men and that all the so-called virtues and duties and other vain fancies and prejudices are, as a result of that consideration, of no importance whatever, then you have to accept it whether you like it or not, because twice-two—mathematics. Just try to refute that. 'Good Lord,' they'll scream at you, 'you can't possibly deny that: twice two IS four.'"
Liberals like science to confirm their politics. What if Central African tribes were intellectually superior to, or had different social behavior than, West Europeans, or vice versa? Why do they get so testy when the possibility is mentioned? They want science to be a candle in the dark—so long as it illuminates an equal, liberal world. Science is not life.
Indeed. Our lived life is not science-described life. There is something deadening and stupid, maybe even dangerous, about science's domination of, and intrusion into, nearly every aspect of life. Dostoevsky, in "Notes from the Underground," complains about the "stone wall," his metaphor for scientific fact.
"When, for instance, it is proved to you that you are descended from a monkey, then it's no use pulling a long face about it: you just have to accept it. When they prove to you that one drop of your own fat must, as a matter of course, be dearer to you then a hundred thousand of your fellow men and that all the so-called virtues and duties and other vain fancies and prejudices are, as a result of that consideration, of no importance whatever, then you have to accept it whether you like it or not, because twice-two—mathematics. Just try to refute that. 'Good Lord,' they'll scream at you, 'you can't possibly deny that: twice two IS four.'"
Liberals like science to confirm their politics. What if Central African tribes were intellectually superior to, or had different social behavior than, West Europeans, or vice versa? Why do they get so testy when the possibility is mentioned? They want science to be a candle in the dark—so long as it illuminates an equal, liberal world. Science is not life.
8
Philosophy is just a pseudo science so.....
Science doesn't change, there's a fundamental truth. It can be tested and retested and the results don't change.
Philosophy is just an idea of how we generally think at a given moment. There is no fundamental truth. Outcomes can be tested over and over and different results may occur.
Science doesn't change, there's a fundamental truth. It can be tested and retested and the results don't change.
Philosophy is just an idea of how we generally think at a given moment. There is no fundamental truth. Outcomes can be tested over and over and different results may occur.
22
A quote from Nietzsche will provide more clarity to these questions:
"What distinguishes the higher human beings from the lower is that the former see and hear immeasurably more, and see and hear thoughtfully— and precisely this distinguishes human beings from animals, and the higher animals from the lower. For anyone who grows up into the heights of humanity the world becomes ever fuller; ever more fishhooks are cast in his direction to capture his interest; the number of things that stimulate him grows constantly, as does the number of different kinds of pleasure and displeasure: The higher human being always becomes at the same time happier and unhappier. But he can never shake off a delusion: He fancies that he is a spectator and listener who has been placed before the great visual and acoustic spectacle that is life; he calls his own nature contemplative and overlooks that he himself is really the poet who keeps creating this life."
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs (Kindle Locations 4023-4025). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
"What distinguishes the higher human beings from the lower is that the former see and hear immeasurably more, and see and hear thoughtfully— and precisely this distinguishes human beings from animals, and the higher animals from the lower. For anyone who grows up into the heights of humanity the world becomes ever fuller; ever more fishhooks are cast in his direction to capture his interest; the number of things that stimulate him grows constantly, as does the number of different kinds of pleasure and displeasure: The higher human being always becomes at the same time happier and unhappier. But he can never shake off a delusion: He fancies that he is a spectator and listener who has been placed before the great visual and acoustic spectacle that is life; he calls his own nature contemplative and overlooks that he himself is really the poet who keeps creating this life."
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs (Kindle Locations 4023-4025). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
7
In spite of being smart but otherwise not too remarkable primates, we're desperate to be special. Maybe that's what makes us special.
19
Such a high horse we ride! I am special because I am special; that's all the thought such vanity reveals, more silly even than "I think therefore I am." Our existential angst is no excuse for wallowing in vain-glorious delusion. Exactly like all living things, we die and we rot. That's it. Grow up. Get over it.
58
Mr. Scruton asserts a difference he cannot demonstrate. Animal science has established that most, if not all, of what humanity has seen as uniquely human is not unique to us at all. Other animals are conscious, feel emotion, display empathy, etc., as many other comments here note.
Language marks a dividing line, to be sure, but we do not know if this dividing line is or is not an insurmountable gap, rather than another marker on the continuum of beings in nature. We do not know fur sure if our language abilities are a difference in kind, rather than a difference in degree.
Such questions touch on how we are to treat those of us who are disabled, or differently abled, to an extreme degree, as well as how we treat other species we use for our purposes.
Peter Singer famously exemplifies one reaction to evidence of the continuum of all animal life, including our own. His position holds that we must not eat other animals.
The Buddha, who was apparently a meat eater, exemplifies another, that we see ourselves in the web of life and take other creatures' lives only out of necessity.
Mr. Scruton's insistence that we are in some important way not on a continuum with other animals will surely have adherents as long as there are human beings on the planet. But I suspect that the longer our species endures, the more we will accept the continuum and not deny it in order to evade tough moral decisions.
Language marks a dividing line, to be sure, but we do not know if this dividing line is or is not an insurmountable gap, rather than another marker on the continuum of beings in nature. We do not know fur sure if our language abilities are a difference in kind, rather than a difference in degree.
Such questions touch on how we are to treat those of us who are disabled, or differently abled, to an extreme degree, as well as how we treat other species we use for our purposes.
Peter Singer famously exemplifies one reaction to evidence of the continuum of all animal life, including our own. His position holds that we must not eat other animals.
The Buddha, who was apparently a meat eater, exemplifies another, that we see ourselves in the web of life and take other creatures' lives only out of necessity.
Mr. Scruton's insistence that we are in some important way not on a continuum with other animals will surely have adherents as long as there are human beings on the planet. But I suspect that the longer our species endures, the more we will accept the continuum and not deny it in order to evade tough moral decisions.
32
Evolution seems to lead to an amazing plethora of successful adaptive solutions to different, and even the same, conditions. Ecosystems undisturbed by humans tend to show amazing diversity, unlike the mono-cultures of our modern agriculture.
Evolution has led to many different social behaviors by different species. I understand the males of some species of big cats live in almost complete isolation except when breeding. This is rather the opposite of our human social impulses. And both evolved as successful solutions for their conditions.
The "cooperative" social solution that we humans evolved towards, led us to gather in larger and larger groups. This required more and more formalization and structure. Language facilitated this. Language led to historical memory and technological development from one generation to the next.
Our need for every more organized structure led us to resort to story telling as a way of communicating social norms. We began to introspect, to see ourselves in a historical context, and to try to understand how this all came about.
Religion, faith, was a step in the evolution of human understanding ... a step ... not the final step. As our knowledge increased we learned that the Earth was NOT 7000 years old and wasn't flat either. We learned these things through more effective means of analyzing our world.
Religion, an incident on the path of human evolution, is gradually becoming irrelevant as we continue to evolve.
Evolution has led to many different social behaviors by different species. I understand the males of some species of big cats live in almost complete isolation except when breeding. This is rather the opposite of our human social impulses. And both evolved as successful solutions for their conditions.
The "cooperative" social solution that we humans evolved towards, led us to gather in larger and larger groups. This required more and more formalization and structure. Language facilitated this. Language led to historical memory and technological development from one generation to the next.
Our need for every more organized structure led us to resort to story telling as a way of communicating social norms. We began to introspect, to see ourselves in a historical context, and to try to understand how this all came about.
Religion, faith, was a step in the evolution of human understanding ... a step ... not the final step. As our knowledge increased we learned that the Earth was NOT 7000 years old and wasn't flat either. We learned these things through more effective means of analyzing our world.
Religion, an incident on the path of human evolution, is gradually becoming irrelevant as we continue to evolve.
21
Me thinks the main development in our evolution is the ability to ask the question "why." Individuals have the ability to consider why they do things; most animals (to my knowledge of any research) do not have this ability. Unfortunately, most of us don't think of this ability on a day-to-day basis. Why, indeed, do we love each other, kill each other, start wars, do things to support a health society. I was raised in a household of moderately religious parents and I believe their Christian values had an influence on my life but as I grew older I saw the hypocrisy in organized religion. i looked for something else and found science, giving me better answers than I could find in church. I call myself an "atheist"; another non-essential label humans put on each other. Anyway, the question of "why" we humans do things, good or bad, needs to be explored.
I really think that future societies will regret that we slaughtered millions of cows and chickens to feed ourselves when there was another way. We need to ask ourselves "why" we do what we do. Learning tolerance, patience, and understanding is a gift we've be given through evolution. If we don't become circumspect in understanding who we are as individuals and consider the "why" in our lives, we could be doomed as a species.
I really think that future societies will regret that we slaughtered millions of cows and chickens to feed ourselves when there was another way. We need to ask ourselves "why" we do what we do. Learning tolerance, patience, and understanding is a gift we've be given through evolution. If we don't become circumspect in understanding who we are as individuals and consider the "why" in our lives, we could be doomed as a species.
9
Yes, but what does the tapeworm think?
This essay is just high blown anthropocentrisim. We're not special. It is merely in our nature to think that we are. Intelligence, consciousness and self-awareness are merely evolutionary adaptions, just like wings, scales, and claws. Before getting too carried away with our species-narcissism, it is useful - and humbling - to consider that the dinosaurs thrived for approximately 175 million years before circumstances got the better of them. Homo sapiens, in contrast, is now only about 200,000 years old.
Given our track record and the trend we seem to be following, it looks increasingly as though intelligence, as an adaptive strategy, will prove very quickly to have been a blind alley. The only thing special about human beings - and that which really seems to distinguish us from all other animals - is our stunning arrogance and self-importance.
This essay is just high blown anthropocentrisim. We're not special. It is merely in our nature to think that we are. Intelligence, consciousness and self-awareness are merely evolutionary adaptions, just like wings, scales, and claws. Before getting too carried away with our species-narcissism, it is useful - and humbling - to consider that the dinosaurs thrived for approximately 175 million years before circumstances got the better of them. Homo sapiens, in contrast, is now only about 200,000 years old.
Given our track record and the trend we seem to be following, it looks increasingly as though intelligence, as an adaptive strategy, will prove very quickly to have been a blind alley. The only thing special about human beings - and that which really seems to distinguish us from all other animals - is our stunning arrogance and self-importance.
56
We expect humans to exhibit exceptionalism, except when commenting on articles that suggest such a thing exists! At least that is what I gather from NY Times comments on many of the articles that I read each and every day.
3
I'm drawn to the idea that our morality evolved. When my son asks me why there's war and bigotry, I tell him everyone's DNA programs them both for cooperation and competition, and that sometimes the cooperation is restricted to a group and the competition directed between groups, and that has the effect of drawing a strong distinction between groups, which in turn is sometimes expressed as strong hate or violence.
But how is that categorically different from other species? maybe the bright line we draw between humans and all the other animals evolved by the same mechanism as bigotry: our cooperative genes dictate group cohesion and our competitive genes encourage distancing from outsiders.
On the "I" question, has anyone devised an experiment to test your thesis that "We...do not see one another as animals [do]"? It seems to me that when my cat goes to the door and says "OUT", he means "I want YOU to let me out". When I arrive home and he says "WOW", he means "I'M so glad to see YOU". And when we get to the kitchen and he says "NOW", he clearly means "I want YOU to feed me right away". It seems pretty clear there's a difference in degree between our intellects, but I'm not clear on the categorical difference. Many species have been subject to the same evolutionary pressures as us, so where's the evidence that our response is categorically unique, rather than just unique in degree and detail?
But how is that categorically different from other species? maybe the bright line we draw between humans and all the other animals evolved by the same mechanism as bigotry: our cooperative genes dictate group cohesion and our competitive genes encourage distancing from outsiders.
On the "I" question, has anyone devised an experiment to test your thesis that "We...do not see one another as animals [do]"? It seems to me that when my cat goes to the door and says "OUT", he means "I want YOU to let me out". When I arrive home and he says "WOW", he means "I'M so glad to see YOU". And when we get to the kitchen and he says "NOW", he clearly means "I want YOU to feed me right away". It seems pretty clear there's a difference in degree between our intellects, but I'm not clear on the categorical difference. Many species have been subject to the same evolutionary pressures as us, so where's the evidence that our response is categorically unique, rather than just unique in degree and detail?
12
When people speak of improving the human species, for example through genetic engineering, they speak in terms of making people
smarter, stronger, and faster, never kinder or more cooperative. The first thing we should do is figure out how to transcend our basic meanness.
smarter, stronger, and faster, never kinder or more cooperative. The first thing we should do is figure out how to transcend our basic meanness.
20
There is a creator god, whom I can see, hear, taste, touch and smell. She is super, but not supernatural. She is Mother Nature, herself, and she makes the rules. Thanks to giants like Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Feynman and others, we have discovered a few of her rules, but we have just scratched the surface.
I have no idea whether she regards humans in a favorable light. If so, we have done little to deserve her favor.
I have no idea whether she regards humans in a favorable light. If so, we have done little to deserve her favor.
24
Why doesn't Scruton simply say that what makes human nature different than other animal's natures in our ability as humans to meaningfully engage in both the construction, maintenance and responsibility for living within a moral framework?
Surely, no non-human animals do this. Certainly not anywhere near the extent that we as humans do.
BTW, making distinctions where needed and warranted is not racism, its smart and necessary.
Surely, no non-human animals do this. Certainly not anywhere near the extent that we as humans do.
BTW, making distinctions where needed and warranted is not racism, its smart and necessary.
5
I am my biology, for me it's that simple. I regret that I have to kill any living thing to eat, but I am my biology and so I do. I am moved to tears by the beauty of all other living things and I'm honored to be part of life. I'm humbled to be held by earth. It's that simple for me.
16
It is obvious that other large brained animals with complex social organization also conceive of "I" and "you" identities and at least some of the categories of thought and judgements described here that make more adaptive cooperation, as opposed to 'fighting all out' competition, possible in their species.
8
I believe that Homo Sapiens might differ from other animals in that we can plan for the future, and learn from it. Of course, not everyone does. Some are so ignorant that they neither avoid past mistakes or enhance past successes. nBut at the same time, some do plan for the future while others do not.
To an extent, other animals tend to be appreciative of past activities, and future needs. But that is more biological, and based on a life cycle. Some animals intuitively fear certain predators, while other animals hibernate in the winter, and gather food in the fall.
Modern man can learn much more and even reflect on the past, while building structures and planning long-term for the future.
https://thetruthoncommonsense.com
To an extent, other animals tend to be appreciative of past activities, and future needs. But that is more biological, and based on a life cycle. Some animals intuitively fear certain predators, while other animals hibernate in the winter, and gather food in the fall.
Modern man can learn much more and even reflect on the past, while building structures and planning long-term for the future.
https://thetruthoncommonsense.com
1
If it is a fundamental part of human nature and human culture to see ourselves as not just animals but as something apart and special, as in the Genesis story, why do our earliest religious records -- tribal myths -- so often (if not always?) show other animals as human-like: talking, thinking and feeling like us and as relations? Why do Native American gods/spirits take the forms of animals, and ancient Egypt embody gods as animals? Etc.
You talk philosophy, but your premise is truly the patriarchal-era religious one: that we 'have souls' & there's a 'golden barrier' between us & nature. That humans are nature's aristocrats.
This conventional insistence on the 'sacredness' of humans seems another variety of the human craving for superiority.
I mean that people live every moment longing to feel that they are 'above' others -- any others they can think off:other men, women, children, 'races', the poor, the enemy, the ugly, the short etc etc etc: you name it -- and animals are one of the oldest lower-classes in our conception.
However lowly a person is, at least he's not a dog or horse or cow. He has the 'dignity' of being a 'man', the 'superior being'.
Just look at the Scopes Money Trial: you'd have thought Scopes had set fire to the corn fields! But no, it was just an abstract idea: that they were not sacred beings invented by a god, but distant relations of their own farm animals.
A mere idea, but it shattered our narcissistic vanity.
You talk philosophy, but your premise is truly the patriarchal-era religious one: that we 'have souls' & there's a 'golden barrier' between us & nature. That humans are nature's aristocrats.
This conventional insistence on the 'sacredness' of humans seems another variety of the human craving for superiority.
I mean that people live every moment longing to feel that they are 'above' others -- any others they can think off:other men, women, children, 'races', the poor, the enemy, the ugly, the short etc etc etc: you name it -- and animals are one of the oldest lower-classes in our conception.
However lowly a person is, at least he's not a dog or horse or cow. He has the 'dignity' of being a 'man', the 'superior being'.
Just look at the Scopes Money Trial: you'd have thought Scopes had set fire to the corn fields! But no, it was just an abstract idea: that they were not sacred beings invented by a god, but distant relations of their own farm animals.
A mere idea, but it shattered our narcissistic vanity.
66
Let's flip this upside down.
Animals are not "just animals."
Anybody who's lived with or studied them knows this. We know it in our bones.
Our attempt to portray ourselves as "other than" or superior to animals is kind of like racism. It allows us to murder and mistreat our fellow creatures because they can't feel pain, they're inferior, they have no feelings, they have no souls.
The sooner we realize we're them and they are us, the better for us all.
Animals are not "just animals."
Anybody who's lived with or studied them knows this. We know it in our bones.
Our attempt to portray ourselves as "other than" or superior to animals is kind of like racism. It allows us to murder and mistreat our fellow creatures because they can't feel pain, they're inferior, they have no feelings, they have no souls.
The sooner we realize we're them and they are us, the better for us all.
13
All species sooner or later go extinct. And human extinction is within sight, mostly self-inflicted. Homo sapiens (!) is the most destructive and only SELF-destructive animal ever to have lived, and to the detriment of all other life forms. "Sapiens"? Hardly. We are truly the DUMBEST species on the planet. Not even cockroaches dirty their own nests to the point of self-destruction. A reported 30,000 plant and animal species are disappearing from the face of the earth every year, almost entirely due to human impacts, not normal evolution. Sad to say, we are a cancer on the planet. As renowned Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson wrote in his 2014 book, "The Meaning of Human Existence," we, as a species, are "innately dysfunctional." So it often seems.
9
The issue with evolutionary psychology is that while it is an explanation for how we relate to each other (and what that implies about people as individuals distinct from other animals) it provides no grounding for morality in an absolute sense. In other words, practical application of this is where things fall apart.
For the many of us who decry the practice of female genital mutilation that occurs not uncommonly in other cultures, evolutionary psychology provides no basis by which can say that this practice is fundamentally wrong, as the evolutionary undercurrents in those cultures might well be different from those in western societies. This applies to individual actions also. If a man decides to rape 10 women, maximizing the dissemination of his genetic information for generations to come, evolutionary psychology provides no basis by which we can, in absolute terms, say this is wrong. Morality is an artificial, relative construct, a means to an end driven by natural selection.
If we're ok with these consequences, then fine. But I think many are not ok with this, raising a practical problem in need of a solution.
For the many of us who decry the practice of female genital mutilation that occurs not uncommonly in other cultures, evolutionary psychology provides no basis by which can say that this practice is fundamentally wrong, as the evolutionary undercurrents in those cultures might well be different from those in western societies. This applies to individual actions also. If a man decides to rape 10 women, maximizing the dissemination of his genetic information for generations to come, evolutionary psychology provides no basis by which we can, in absolute terms, say this is wrong. Morality is an artificial, relative construct, a means to an end driven by natural selection.
If we're ok with these consequences, then fine. But I think many are not ok with this, raising a practical problem in need of a solution.
3
Curious that the photograph has no caption, and no reference emerges in the article. It was an amazing experience for those lucky enough to attend. Has everything to do with the human gaze.
Here's an excerpt from the press release for this artwork:
NEW YORK, March 6, 2010 The Museum of Modern Art presents
Marina Abramovic.
Abramović, best known for her durational works, has created a new work for this performance retrospective titled “The Artist Is Present’ (2010) that she will perform daily throughout the run of the exhibition, for a total of over 700 hours. For her longest solo piece to date, Abramović will sit insilence at a table in the Museum’s Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium
during public hours, passively inviting visitors to take the seat across from her for as long as they choose within the timeframe of the Museum’s hours of operation. Although she will not respond, participation by Museum visitors completes the piece and allows them to have a personal experience with the artist and the artwork.
Here's an excerpt from the press release for this artwork:
NEW YORK, March 6, 2010 The Museum of Modern Art presents
Marina Abramovic.
Abramović, best known for her durational works, has created a new work for this performance retrospective titled “The Artist Is Present’ (2010) that she will perform daily throughout the run of the exhibition, for a total of over 700 hours. For her longest solo piece to date, Abramović will sit insilence at a table in the Museum’s Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium
during public hours, passively inviting visitors to take the seat across from her for as long as they choose within the timeframe of the Museum’s hours of operation. Although she will not respond, participation by Museum visitors completes the piece and allows them to have a personal experience with the artist and the artwork.
4
The many ways that human beings have to either deny or affirm their difference from the rest of the animal kingdom is something of which only human beings are capable.
5
The article is another example of a philosophy turning in circles, in contrast to the progress we have made in science. Envisioning a divine agent as male (HE) tops the chauvinism of anthroposophical ideas.
12
You ask... if we are not just animals, what are we? We may be whatever you think we are, but it is best to keep the answer to yourself, else you be accused of placing yourself above the rest of us lowly primates. Pride is a such a slow lonely death. Explain why (you seem convinced) a squirrel or a raindrop does not think? - therein lies the answer you seek.
3
What separates human beings from animals is the ability to make completely specious arguments, and then feel hurt when other human beings reject them because they are illogical.
15
From Henry Beston- naturalist & thinker__
"We patronize the animals for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older & more complete than ours, they are more finished & complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other Nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life & time."
These thoughts of Henry Beston are validated more & more by the turn of events precipitated by that political entity, man & our seeming disregard for the earth.
"We patronize the animals for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older & more complete than ours, they are more finished & complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other Nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life & time."
These thoughts of Henry Beston are validated more & more by the turn of events precipitated by that political entity, man & our seeming disregard for the earth.
16
The fact that much of philosophy concerns itself with distancing humans from the rest of creation ought to tell us something. IE Methinks you protest too much. Believing we are above nature, and that our words will save us, has led to poisonous pride. "We human beings do not see each other as other animals see each other." On what hidden knowledge does this writer of words base that statement? " We believe that people have rights, that they are sovereign over their lives, and that those who live by enslaving or abusing others are denying their own humanity. Surely there is a foundation for those beliefs, just as there is a foundation for all the moral, legal, artistic and spiritual traditions that take the distinctiveness of human life as their starting point." this is the foundation, sir philosopher--we wrote the words. While we humans gloat over our specialness, we are busy destroying our home, and the home of everything we know that is living. Oh yes we are special. My prediction: man's evil reign will soon be over.
6
Humans are animals, no more and no less. There is nothing particularly remarkable about us except our willingness to kill each other and other species on a mass basis for an idea. There is no life after death--this is all there is, so make the most of it.
8
On a recent Sunday morning a friend and I were out walking in our city in California. In an alley, a short distance from us, we saw a crow lying on the ground that was clearly dying. It didn't make any sound, but it flapped it wings listlessly. Overhead on the communication wires, several other crows were gathering. I stopped to watch as well. Clearly, the crows perched above knew what was happening. They occasionally cawed out some message, and a few others would fly in.
How can you generalize what other animals think or feel? This "I-You encounter" is probably a very common experience within a single species. It usually accompanies a territorial dispute. We are undeniably of the same stuff. We share the same DNA. Why not celebrate that?
We are also a social, cooperative species. That the whites of our eyes contrasts with our irises is evidence of evolution favoring communication and cooperation. That you understand these sentences I leave is evidence of your agreement and willingness to cooperate.
How can you generalize what other animals think or feel? This "I-You encounter" is probably a very common experience within a single species. It usually accompanies a territorial dispute. We are undeniably of the same stuff. We share the same DNA. Why not celebrate that?
We are also a social, cooperative species. That the whites of our eyes contrasts with our irises is evidence of evolution favoring communication and cooperation. That you understand these sentences I leave is evidence of your agreement and willingness to cooperate.
48
Uh, we’re real smart animals. But not smart enough to be reliably rational.
6
There is nothing special about the human animal save its ability for self-delusion.
10
We are real-time models of the world which contain models of themselves.
Humans are parts of Nature. And it's natural to do what humans do. I have never heard of a human doing something that Humans can't do.
1
Religion is a huge problem. It makes humans think they are superior than all other species (and even promotes hatred within the human species).
10
Scruton: "[the soul].....taking wing for some supernatural place when the body collapses and dies. Recent advances in genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology have all but killed off that idea."
Embarking on this search for who we are has a much better chance of arriving at an accurate conclusion if we begin with an accurate premise. That the soul resides in us only to takeoff when we die is an inaccurate premise with a life of its own.
The idea of humans possessing a soul is Plato:
"In many middle period dialogues, ...Plato advocates a belief in the immortality of the soul, and several dialogues end with long speeches imagining the afterlife." (Plato/Wikipedia)
So the error begins with none other than Plato. The concept of a spiritual 'soul' possessed by humans has been misleading and shaping doctrine in Western Christianity since Plato & Constantine. Plato himself was influenced by the early manuscripts from which Bible Canon was drawn.
And exactly how did these manuscripts speak to this mystery of the human
soul? The Genesis account is the first place 'soul' appears : Chap 2: vs 7 "...and man BECAME a living soul". Now we have a philosophical debate like Scruton's challenge, or Jung's "Answer to Job", along with the unenlightened modern 'Christian church' sending good Christians' souls to heaven and bad souls to burn forever in hellish torture. Ezekiel 18: 4 clearly states the truth about the soul - It will surely die.
Embarking on this search for who we are has a much better chance of arriving at an accurate conclusion if we begin with an accurate premise. That the soul resides in us only to takeoff when we die is an inaccurate premise with a life of its own.
The idea of humans possessing a soul is Plato:
"In many middle period dialogues, ...Plato advocates a belief in the immortality of the soul, and several dialogues end with long speeches imagining the afterlife." (Plato/Wikipedia)
So the error begins with none other than Plato. The concept of a spiritual 'soul' possessed by humans has been misleading and shaping doctrine in Western Christianity since Plato & Constantine. Plato himself was influenced by the early manuscripts from which Bible Canon was drawn.
And exactly how did these manuscripts speak to this mystery of the human
soul? The Genesis account is the first place 'soul' appears : Chap 2: vs 7 "...and man BECAME a living soul". Now we have a philosophical debate like Scruton's challenge, or Jung's "Answer to Job", along with the unenlightened modern 'Christian church' sending good Christians' souls to heaven and bad souls to burn forever in hellish torture. Ezekiel 18: 4 clearly states the truth about the soul - It will surely die.
1
Good piece. Somewhere the old testament God is smiling and sad.
At least not all of us are animals. Thank you.
1
Despite my fondness for the what is unique about humans question, and the sometimes-challenging but always interesting and unappreciated value of philosophy in pursuing it, that unquestioned status and even fundamental accuracy of humans as a category go unquestioned here.
How do we know that non-humans don’t have morality? It may not be obvious, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. It is a debate in the scientific field. See: http://www.livescience.com/24802-animals-have-morals-book.html.
And if you’re not nice to the bugs in your gut, and they’re feeling crabby, don’t expect much time for relaxed philosophy. Your intestinal bugs, other species…although…here it gets murky, arguably as much as any organ, make you-- you.
Leaving that pleasant thought aside, while I agree that individual humans are capable of, and accountable for their moral actions, several NYTs columnists see us as prisoners of our demographic. A common theme when writing about women in the workplace, and their lower status compared to men, are their lower numbers, which is the fault of that non-nuanced collective: “white men.”
See my comment on yesterday’s Public Editor column:
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/public-editor/the-declining-fortunes-o....
Coincidentally, in a rare questioning of another widely held category, race, Brent Staples today accurately calls it a social construct, not a scientific fact.
So we need to be careful with categories.
How do we know that non-humans don’t have morality? It may not be obvious, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. It is a debate in the scientific field. See: http://www.livescience.com/24802-animals-have-morals-book.html.
And if you’re not nice to the bugs in your gut, and they’re feeling crabby, don’t expect much time for relaxed philosophy. Your intestinal bugs, other species…although…here it gets murky, arguably as much as any organ, make you-- you.
Leaving that pleasant thought aside, while I agree that individual humans are capable of, and accountable for their moral actions, several NYTs columnists see us as prisoners of our demographic. A common theme when writing about women in the workplace, and their lower status compared to men, are their lower numbers, which is the fault of that non-nuanced collective: “white men.”
See my comment on yesterday’s Public Editor column:
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/public-editor/the-declining-fortunes-o....
Coincidentally, in a rare questioning of another widely held category, race, Brent Staples today accurately calls it a social construct, not a scientific fact.
So we need to be careful with categories.
We can think.
We can love.
We kill each other
and we kill for sport.
But above all else
we know how to hate.
What does that say about us?
Not much.
We can love.
We kill each other
and we kill for sport.
But above all else
we know how to hate.
What does that say about us?
Not much.
5
We are seeing a revolution in human understanding, due to science. In the course of just a few centuries, just 20 generations, it has moved us from travel by horse and carriage to flights to the moon. It has doubled the human lifespan and eliminated great sources of physical suffering. It has led to instant global communication, which in turn has opened huge pathways for the progress of peace.
And by no means the least, we are finally learning that animals are not "just" animals. The more we learn about other animals and the more we learn about our own bodies, our brains, our functions, the closer we realize is our kinship.
More and more people abhor violence to animals, to the point where many now refuse to eat them. Treatment that was routine and accepted 100 years ago must now take place hidden away inside closed warehouses shut off from the public, because if the public knew, large numbers would change their views and actions.
According to the source below, Atheism/Agnosticism is the fastest growing "belief" system, though if you ask eloquent atheists, they will explain that it has nothing to do with "belief" and that is the whole point.
Welcome to a new world of human understanding.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160422-atheism-agnostic-secul...
And by no means the least, we are finally learning that animals are not "just" animals. The more we learn about other animals and the more we learn about our own bodies, our brains, our functions, the closer we realize is our kinship.
More and more people abhor violence to animals, to the point where many now refuse to eat them. Treatment that was routine and accepted 100 years ago must now take place hidden away inside closed warehouses shut off from the public, because if the public knew, large numbers would change their views and actions.
According to the source below, Atheism/Agnosticism is the fastest growing "belief" system, though if you ask eloquent atheists, they will explain that it has nothing to do with "belief" and that is the whole point.
Welcome to a new world of human understanding.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160422-atheism-agnostic-secul...
2
I think I'm important, therefore I am. T. Rex, if it could, probably thought that too. Evolution did not end with the appearance of Homo sapiens sapiens and nature (science?) will be the arbitrator of human "moral" superiority in all of its moral and immoral forms. So, in the meantime, be happy, be nice, treat the earth well, and enjoy the ride......
23
Oy, humans are animals, eliminate the just. Who is Roger Scruton to imply that animals are less than we are. What it means to be a dog, or a cat, or a chimpanzee, might be different than what it means to be a human, but it's not less, and there is no way, no way, to justify any statement about humans having something "more" than animals.
6
The idea that morality is nothing more than a strategy of cooperation, falls extremely short. Even weaker is the idea that morality developed as a result of millenniums of conflict, which supposedly led to "life sustained on every side by bonds of mutual interest".
And this is because morality is in no way the way that people would act if they were free to do as they please. If there were no consequences for acting in immoral ways a substantial portion of the population would see acting as they please and doing what they want as synonymous as doing actions that are not morally proper. Morals are based on a sense of good and bad, right and wrong, not acting on ones self interest based on a strategy of cooperation.
In addition morals are not a general code of behavior, many things that are perceived as immoral have no relation not with each other and are certainly not related to the wellbeing of society at large. An example of this is incest or torturing another person. Even murder is viewed in degrees with worse being based on how cruel it was, and not lack of cooperation, which would be robbery/murder.
And the fact is that the reason most people believe it is wrong to commit murder is because a human has a soul. So the "recent advances in genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology" that have "killed off" the idea that a human has a soul could just as well go a step further and claim that life would be unbearable were murder allowed so society outlawed it.
And this is because morality is in no way the way that people would act if they were free to do as they please. If there were no consequences for acting in immoral ways a substantial portion of the population would see acting as they please and doing what they want as synonymous as doing actions that are not morally proper. Morals are based on a sense of good and bad, right and wrong, not acting on ones self interest based on a strategy of cooperation.
In addition morals are not a general code of behavior, many things that are perceived as immoral have no relation not with each other and are certainly not related to the wellbeing of society at large. An example of this is incest or torturing another person. Even murder is viewed in degrees with worse being based on how cruel it was, and not lack of cooperation, which would be robbery/murder.
And the fact is that the reason most people believe it is wrong to commit murder is because a human has a soul. So the "recent advances in genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology" that have "killed off" the idea that a human has a soul could just as well go a step further and claim that life would be unbearable were murder allowed so society outlawed it.
5
I for one am thrilled to be "just" an animal and feel lucky to have the awareness to appreciate just how amazing Being an animal of any kind is. Of course we humans are not just like other animals but the comparison to a tape worm is beyond ridiculous. I do not know anyone who thinks it is ok to kill an innocent dog, let alone a gorilla or chimp except for purposes of euthanasia which many of us want to see allowed for humans, too.
I do think it is well worth exploring what evolutionary change or changes happened to allow humans to be as self aware, creative and thinking as we are. The development of language is one factor that almost surely plays a role in this qualitative change. But that does not make us somehow "more" than "just" animals, just animals with highly advanced cognitive and emotional abilities that we sadly do not always put to good use.
I do think it is well worth exploring what evolutionary change or changes happened to allow humans to be as self aware, creative and thinking as we are. The development of language is one factor that almost surely plays a role in this qualitative change. But that does not make us somehow "more" than "just" animals, just animals with highly advanced cognitive and emotional abilities that we sadly do not always put to good use.
3
Old (OLD) questions. Just breathe and have a cup of tea, friend.
So "[you] cannot be wrong" yet you are certain you can be "wholly mistaken about this human being who is doing the speaking." In a word, Descartes. A variation, to be sure, but epistemic queries requiring undeniable 'Truth' miss the truth. 1) Whether, or how, you exist (BIV, etc.), it really does not matter within the context of the mundane world; 2) that "life-world" actually is reducible to the world of nature because "nature" is the actual world and that is, again, the context in which we exist, necessarily, unless you are a Bodhisattva or other enlightened being (which you are, albeit blinded by desires for preconceived truth) and realize that in fact, Humankind is just animal (don't judge by potential; judge by history: ANIMAL, baby); 3) labels, categories, the whole of philosophy -- outside of the mundane world, viz., where enlightenment/Truth doth lie -- are irrelevant...unless you step out of the mundane.
Ah, but that's what you desire! No, you desire to be above animal, to be more human than human (White Zombie - who knew!?). That's arrogance. That's presumption. Fruitless desire to escape your mind's belief that there must be more than stupid animals running amok, cage-less, packing freewill...yet ever so foolish, violent, selfish, and idiotic (re: reality TV; cell phones; Trump).
You do not escape. You transcend. And you educate others to play the game for the right reasons, not to simply "win".
So "[you] cannot be wrong" yet you are certain you can be "wholly mistaken about this human being who is doing the speaking." In a word, Descartes. A variation, to be sure, but epistemic queries requiring undeniable 'Truth' miss the truth. 1) Whether, or how, you exist (BIV, etc.), it really does not matter within the context of the mundane world; 2) that "life-world" actually is reducible to the world of nature because "nature" is the actual world and that is, again, the context in which we exist, necessarily, unless you are a Bodhisattva or other enlightened being (which you are, albeit blinded by desires for preconceived truth) and realize that in fact, Humankind is just animal (don't judge by potential; judge by history: ANIMAL, baby); 3) labels, categories, the whole of philosophy -- outside of the mundane world, viz., where enlightenment/Truth doth lie -- are irrelevant...unless you step out of the mundane.
Ah, but that's what you desire! No, you desire to be above animal, to be more human than human (White Zombie - who knew!?). That's arrogance. That's presumption. Fruitless desire to escape your mind's belief that there must be more than stupid animals running amok, cage-less, packing freewill...yet ever so foolish, violent, selfish, and idiotic (re: reality TV; cell phones; Trump).
You do not escape. You transcend. And you educate others to play the game for the right reasons, not to simply "win".
1
"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." Romans 1:22 The fool has said in his heart, there is no God." Ps.14:1 "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Gen. 1:1
It is very convenient to rule-out that there is a God. Why? Then you can rule-out the Bible. Then you can become your own god. Then you can be just like satan and decide you want to be God.
The problem is SIN, mine and yours. Each of us will deal with it. Either we can let a compassionate Saviour forgive us of our sins, or we can pay for our sins in Hell, then the Lake of Fire. Rev. 20:14-15.
Good day!
It is very convenient to rule-out that there is a God. Why? Then you can rule-out the Bible. Then you can become your own god. Then you can be just like satan and decide you want to be God.
The problem is SIN, mine and yours. Each of us will deal with it. Either we can let a compassionate Saviour forgive us of our sins, or we can pay for our sins in Hell, then the Lake of Fire. Rev. 20:14-15.
Good day!
2
"We're not animali."
- Paul Cicero, "Goodfellas"
- Paul Cicero, "Goodfellas"
Hey, we ARE just animals! Duh!
2
but you see, we are nothing but animals w a giant brain that imagines all kinds of funny things, like god and souls and all that nonsense
2
Nicely stated. Thank you.
And I name you, and you me. And some refer to experience in the third person. We name ourselves. Thinking in the third person opens the doors of hell.
1
This report would have to serve as a starter for discussion of the nature and origins of man as it adds no substance to the topic. Humans are unique in that they cry, laugh, bury their dead, have speech and language, and a soul. If just the most evolved form of life, why do humans mourn their dead any more than an ant that just got stepped on? How would any of the above qualities evolve? If you ask a person the question: "Who are you?" they typically answer "lawyer, baker, homemaker, etc." But that is what they do not WHO they are. The only answer to that question lies in family lineage: "I am my mother and father's son/daughter." Or ultimately, "I am a child of God." You can go to college to fill in the blank lawyer, doctor, author, etc. But the most educated, highest IQ person cannot reply to the question of who they are outside of the above answer.
Other animals (besides human ones) have rights also. If we are so superior, why do we remain inured to their suffering. Animals do not exist to become "hamburgers," purses, or laboratory victims; they are sentient creatures with their own rights. Why is it not ok to murder a dog or cat, but ok to kill a cow or a pig? If compassion is a human traits, let us all practice it, please!
4
The problem with these discussions is that there is no agreement among discussants on the precise meaning of the terms used.
2
Mark Twain made some observations around a hundred years ago on human "exceptionalism" in a work titled "Letters from the Earth" [available on-line]. Within this opus is a chapter, "The Descent of Man from the Higher Animals," which would be required reading in our public schools, were our texts not processed through that Great State of Ignorance, Texas. A little thought on the matter contained in this work would lead most people to the conclusion that philosophy and its exterior polish, religion, are actually nothing more than treatises on getting along in your in-group - no matter how wacky, and/or bloody, the path to belonging may be.
3
Regardless of belief, we do a disservice by assuming any deity is necessarily masculine. How about this (paragraph 5):
"If there is a God, and that we are made in God's image, then of course . . . just as God is." No gender pronoun. God is (or isn't) God, and we know not more. Is that so difficult?
"If there is a God, and that we are made in God's image, then of course . . . just as God is." No gender pronoun. God is (or isn't) God, and we know not more. Is that so difficult?
2
Until we shed our longstanding connection to those awful theories of man over nature we will always have to battle the likes Donald Trump and Steve Bannon. They are the mammals who belong stranded at the end of a beach far, far away from the main herd. Sad - those who think we have dominion over this world have chosen to let losers on the genetic wheel of, "ka," gain a footing.
Everyday we can see what happens when man interferes with mother nature's plan. If, you cannot see it ask, one of your young relatives like your kids, grandchildren or a niece or nephew to show you what's up and to explain it to you . . .
Everyday we can see what happens when man interferes with mother nature's plan. If, you cannot see it ask, one of your young relatives like your kids, grandchildren or a niece or nephew to show you what's up and to explain it to you . . .
4
Re/ My previous comment:
My apologies: Twains greatest essay on the role of man as the best and brightest of creation is to be found in "The Lowest Animal" although I would certainly still recommend "Letters from the Earth." Sorry. Age and decreased blood flow to the brain ..........
My apologies: Twains greatest essay on the role of man as the best and brightest of creation is to be found in "The Lowest Animal" although I would certainly still recommend "Letters from the Earth." Sorry. Age and decreased blood flow to the brain ..........
2
Another deep thinker who uses fancy words to ponder what makes humans so special. While scientists are constantly churning out papers informing us that we've grossly underestimated the flora and fauna we share this planet with, at such a fast rate that keeping up with the field is practically a full-time job. And it's far beyond how many words a smart poodle understands.
We don't speak their language, so how could we possibly know how deeply other species communicate with each other? How would he know whether animals (and plants) "see one another, as fellow members of a species?" Do animals truly merely objectify one another and not see each other as individual subjects? My observations beg to differ, whether watching canines in a dog park interacting, or watching National Geographic.
This week I heard a video of fish "singing" in the ocean. What are they saying to each other? While they're probably not reciting Shakespeare, it seems history could be viewed as humans constantly underestimating the intelligence of other species. Even plants communicate with each other in ways botanists are just beginning to unravel.
We appear to be unique in certain ways. Unfortunately it seems we're also unique in destroying other species to the point of extinction while laying waste to pristine natural environments, and overpopulating to the point that our future existence, along with plenty of other species who deserve better, may be imperiled.
We don't speak their language, so how could we possibly know how deeply other species communicate with each other? How would he know whether animals (and plants) "see one another, as fellow members of a species?" Do animals truly merely objectify one another and not see each other as individual subjects? My observations beg to differ, whether watching canines in a dog park interacting, or watching National Geographic.
This week I heard a video of fish "singing" in the ocean. What are they saying to each other? While they're probably not reciting Shakespeare, it seems history could be viewed as humans constantly underestimating the intelligence of other species. Even plants communicate with each other in ways botanists are just beginning to unravel.
We appear to be unique in certain ways. Unfortunately it seems we're also unique in destroying other species to the point of extinction while laying waste to pristine natural environments, and overpopulating to the point that our future existence, along with plenty of other species who deserve better, may be imperiled.
4
We mammals (homo-so-called-sapiens as well as other mammalian species) are on a continuum, each trying to adapt to our changing environment & habitat.
Morality has multiple definitions especially for us "situation ethics" people.
I look more to Frans de Waal for thoughts about "my world" than Mr. Scruton.
Extirpation also has multiple definitions & perspectives.
Morality has multiple definitions especially for us "situation ethics" people.
I look more to Frans de Waal for thoughts about "my world" than Mr. Scruton.
Extirpation also has multiple definitions & perspectives.
2
I am glad to hear that the author (Scruton) is concerned about how well science really answers these questions, at least appears to feel a little unsatisfied. All these years of science, and it still seems a bit hollow.
Maybe it is just far more complicated and nuanced than we think and our facile explanations under the smoke screen of "science" seem unsatisfying because they really are. We like to think we know so much because of our big data (the latest rage) and our technology, but the Romans probably thought much the same thing in their time. When we read Cicero or St Augustine, we probably forget that they felt the same passions as we do -- shaped as they might be around a different cultural fog. We understand more things better than at that time, yet always behind that view that it has been largely solved are the waves of that vast ocean of unknown whose tide barely touches the beach where we stand.
I realize that appeals to the future are not a lot of help either, but it is also true that there is nothing new under the sun to find a generation thinking that _they_ are the ones who have arrived. What I have found as a scientist is that every question I answer only brings on at least a dozen new questions that are more fascinating and perplexing than the one I answered. Why should I think we should just stop because we don't have any better answers?
Maybe it is just far more complicated and nuanced than we think and our facile explanations under the smoke screen of "science" seem unsatisfying because they really are. We like to think we know so much because of our big data (the latest rage) and our technology, but the Romans probably thought much the same thing in their time. When we read Cicero or St Augustine, we probably forget that they felt the same passions as we do -- shaped as they might be around a different cultural fog. We understand more things better than at that time, yet always behind that view that it has been largely solved are the waves of that vast ocean of unknown whose tide barely touches the beach where we stand.
I realize that appeals to the future are not a lot of help either, but it is also true that there is nothing new under the sun to find a generation thinking that _they_ are the ones who have arrived. What I have found as a scientist is that every question I answer only brings on at least a dozen new questions that are more fascinating and perplexing than the one I answered. Why should I think we should just stop because we don't have any better answers?
21
"All these years of science, and it still seems a bit hollow."
Science is still in its infancy. It's only been a few hundred years since its use enabled us to discover the world is round. Human beings have been around for several hundred THOUSAND years.
The civilization of Ancient Egypt managed to last for 3000 years with hardly no change to language or technological development. The 400 years since Galileo is just a blink of an eye. And yet, look how our world, our knowledge and our understanding has transformed!
Science is still in its infancy. It's only been a few hundred years since its use enabled us to discover the world is round. Human beings have been around for several hundred THOUSAND years.
The civilization of Ancient Egypt managed to last for 3000 years with hardly no change to language or technological development. The 400 years since Galileo is just a blink of an eye. And yet, look how our world, our knowledge and our understanding has transformed!
2
Philosophy has nothing to do with deciding who we are. Rather, we are who we are based upon empirical facts, aka science. Every thinking adult understands this obvious reality. As for animals, there are many varieties, each unique, to be valued. So it it is with humans, many distinct ethnic groups, races, varieties. All are special, worth preserving to ensure continued separateness, diversity between the very different groups. The avoidance of diluting each special group of people is paramount. Genetic suicide or racial mixing remains taboo, to be avoided, especially for the sake of the denied unborn..
1
Of course we are animals and we share a common ancestor with every life form that has ever existed on earth. The concept of a supernatural creator is pure humbug and has zero evidential support.
Religion is a cruel hoax and been the greatest source of human misery. What can be more ridiculous than deadly combat over which fairy tale is the best?
Religion is a cruel hoax and been the greatest source of human misery. What can be more ridiculous than deadly combat over which fairy tale is the best?
12
I see and I agree, but I continue to struggle with the question: Where did all come from and why are we uniquely positioned to question this?
4
The evidential support is all around us. You can use your God given senses to recognize that support. That God exists is clearly evident in every assembledge of material existence throughout the entire universe. The existence of God is entirely reasonable.
4
I am reminded of bicameralism; Our Bicameral mind, which responds to our thinking. I am convinced our special place among animals is only achieved by our increasing mastery of language. If evolution involves "hardware upgrades," our ability to use language that extends beyond communicating for hunting, mating, danger etc, is our software advantage.
Our ability to process language, internally, externally, for sharing, communicating and for our awareness or consciousness is what determines our position unique among all creation, with perhaps the exception of Nature itself.
Our language software and its constant updates, is what will continue to make us unique and elevate our ourselves further.
I however, do regret that there cannot be something as elegant and easy as God for an explanation of "us" humans, and that is what I wrestle with daily.
Our ability to process language, internally, externally, for sharing, communicating and for our awareness or consciousness is what determines our position unique among all creation, with perhaps the exception of Nature itself.
Our language software and its constant updates, is what will continue to make us unique and elevate our ourselves further.
I however, do regret that there cannot be something as elegant and easy as God for an explanation of "us" humans, and that is what I wrestle with daily.
1
I believe that the human species/culture has been in an evolutionary struggle between cooperators and competitors. If we can ever evolve to human cooperation we can celebrate our ascendance to a similar stature as bees and ants. Up until now, it is clear that we have been an inferior species.
3
call it humanity....a bond that, like the wiring beneath a shelf of connected electronics, unites and empowers us, regardless of our differences...but, though the wiring may not require much in the way of maintenance, it cannot be stressed without limits...which is what we're testing these days in the widening chaos of factional self-interest and disrespect for (if not actual repression) of opposing views...one is reminded of those mid 20th century experiments with mice and the increasingly hostile behavior observed when population (and competition for resources) increased.
we may be he only animal species to become prey for its own discontents.
we may be he only animal species to become prey for its own discontents.
2
I do not accept any difference between humans and animals. The human race is just another species of mammal whose brain has unfortunately evolved into a level of dangerous instability. In general we have become just intelligent enough to invent countless thoughts and ideas, but not intelligent enough to realize that many of these ideas are pure nonsense.
The most telling example of this paradox is religion. The majority of human animals believe that human invented mythology is actual reality. This is understandable considering how religion gives meaning to the lives of so many people. It helps to ease their fear of death in a world they have little control over. Therefore, even in the 21st century, even in this age of supposed scientific enlightenment, religion holds an abnormally strong influence over most of us.
Religion is real, but this doesn't mean that it's true. The universe is far too vast and mysterious for human animals to unequivocally have all of the answers they seek. Of course, for the true believer, none of this matters. Now if only we could at least somehow stop killing ourselves over which is the one true religion...
The most telling example of this paradox is religion. The majority of human animals believe that human invented mythology is actual reality. This is understandable considering how religion gives meaning to the lives of so many people. It helps to ease their fear of death in a world they have little control over. Therefore, even in the 21st century, even in this age of supposed scientific enlightenment, religion holds an abnormally strong influence over most of us.
Religion is real, but this doesn't mean that it's true. The universe is far too vast and mysterious for human animals to unequivocally have all of the answers they seek. Of course, for the true believer, none of this matters. Now if only we could at least somehow stop killing ourselves over which is the one true religion...
9
Philosophers say: "we are the only creature that knows it will die." No, we are the only creature that denies it will die. . . .
2
OMG, what a pompous and myopic exercise! The 'job' of defining what separates the lofty human condition from that of other sentient species cannot be left to Cartesian philosophers who live in their heads and clearly have no real experience of the natural world or animal behavior. So only humans are endowed with the "moral equipment" he describes? Only we perceive one another in terms of "I and Thou?" Leave it to our indigenous cultures, our pastoralists, foresters, or almost anyone with a dog - to reveal the wonders of animal and even plant awareness. Our understanding is expanding in quantum leaps. Its a magical thing to make a deep personal connection with another species (which other species also do, consciously). It also makes the world an infinitely less lonely place.
11
Quick reaction to a couple of sentences: morality isn't so much "a field of flowers covering layers of corpses" but more a field of corpses and flowers, piled on layers of flowers and corpses, going down quite a ways - how far? That's the question.
That's the thing: rather than talk about the nature of humanity, including the nature of morality, we should talk about how humanity and morality are changing. I wish it was a case of progress, as Steven Pinker suggests in his book about our better angels - but I'm afraid we might be getting better in some ways, and worse in others. That's how evolution works.
That's the thing: rather than talk about the nature of humanity, including the nature of morality, we should talk about how humanity and morality are changing. I wish it was a case of progress, as Steven Pinker suggests in his book about our better angels - but I'm afraid we might be getting better in some ways, and worse in others. That's how evolution works.
4
"Recent advances in genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology have all but killed off that idea."
I am unaware of any such recent advances, nor is it likely there would be any. Do we have souls is the wrong question? We are souls, we have bodies
I am unaware of any such recent advances, nor is it likely there would be any. Do we have souls is the wrong question? We are souls, we have bodies
3
Something very interesting is happening in science. Panpsychism is a very old philosophy—goes back as far as Plato—that is being dusted off and reapplied because it has much to say about one of the most basic of all our conundrums: What is consciousness and who has it? Some scientists are arguing that not just humans and dogs and monkeys, but even bacteria and subatomic particles, often act as if they have some kind of consciousness. Panpsychism says that all self organizing entities have an awareness of their own existence. Consciousness is perhaps much more than we think—perhaps the stuff the universe is made of. If it warrants discussion in the pages of Scientific American, the idea has some heft.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-consciousness-universal/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-consciousness-universal/
6
Thank you, Jagadeesan. Especially interesting article given that it was written by Christof Koch, a 'reformed' fundamaterialist!
Physicist Freeman Dyson, who worked on the Manhattan Project, has written, "Atoms are weird stuff, behaving like active agents rather than inert substances... it appears that mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent inherent in every atom."
Biology professor Anthony Trewavas notes that "plants have senses and can detect a wide variety of external variables, such as light, water, temperature, chemicals, vibrations, grave and sounds... When attacked by herbivores, some plants signal for help, releasing chemicals that attract their assailants' predators.... They can detect distress signals let off by other plant species and take preventive measures."
Another biology professor, Dr. Nakagaki, notes similar signs of intelligence in the "true slime mold,"a creature formed by the merging together of thousands of amoebae into a single cell.
And so on, with the waggle dance of the bees, and the crows who place nuts at busy Tokyo intersections, waiting for the cars to crack the nuts and then swooping in for their feast.
But the questions here will not be solved by theology, philosophy or science.
It is so utterly simple:
1. Imagine a candle flame.
2. Note the flame and the awareness of the flame.
3. Erase the flame and remain as Awareness.
Sustain this as long as possible.
www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.htm
Physicist Freeman Dyson, who worked on the Manhattan Project, has written, "Atoms are weird stuff, behaving like active agents rather than inert substances... it appears that mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent inherent in every atom."
Biology professor Anthony Trewavas notes that "plants have senses and can detect a wide variety of external variables, such as light, water, temperature, chemicals, vibrations, grave and sounds... When attacked by herbivores, some plants signal for help, releasing chemicals that attract their assailants' predators.... They can detect distress signals let off by other plant species and take preventive measures."
Another biology professor, Dr. Nakagaki, notes similar signs of intelligence in the "true slime mold,"a creature formed by the merging together of thousands of amoebae into a single cell.
And so on, with the waggle dance of the bees, and the crows who place nuts at busy Tokyo intersections, waiting for the cars to crack the nuts and then swooping in for their feast.
But the questions here will not be solved by theology, philosophy or science.
It is so utterly simple:
1. Imagine a candle flame.
2. Note the flame and the awareness of the flame.
3. Erase the flame and remain as Awareness.
Sustain this as long as possible.
www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.htm
6
The British Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead developed a whole metaphysical theory in the 1920's, somewhat based on this idea. He described it in his book: "Process and Reality" Which is considered by some to be the most difficult work of philosophy written in the English language. You can read it for yourself, but personally I think he took philosophy down a blind alley.
1
All life is sacred, and humans are just another life form. And not a very successful one at that, because the true measure of success in life is the ability of a species to survive. Humans are one of the most recent life forms on the planet, yet look at how we are destroying that which sustains us -- Mother Earth!
We are not superior to other life forms at all. They have been on earth much longer than us and at the rate we're going, some of them will outlast us, unless we destroy the planet for all life forms.
We are not superior to other life forms at all. They have been on earth much longer than us and at the rate we're going, some of them will outlast us, unless we destroy the planet for all life forms.
8
By your measure, bacteria are the most successful species. They've been here more than four billion years. Compared to those species, at two million, we are in our infancy. Hopefully we will get a bit more time to try out our "experiment."
1
Scruton's piece is barely better than the comments it elicited. The cognitive gap between humans and other animals is indeed enormous and mysterious (though, as Scruton surmises, deeply connected to, though distinct from, the possession of language). The reason it's mysterious is pretty obvious, though most people overlook it: we cannot understand the gap until we fully understand cognition in non-human animals, of which ours is a souped-up version.
The most useful, least empty, analogy is perhaps a biological one: sex soups up Darwinian evolution and makes a qualitative, not merely quantitative, difference, by standardizing protocols for the exchange of (genetic) information. Unfortunately it will remain an analogy until we better understand the roles of sex in evolution and of language in cognition - but these are both well-defined scientific problems where progress is being made, though one would not know this from reading Scruton.
The most useful, least empty, analogy is perhaps a biological one: sex soups up Darwinian evolution and makes a qualitative, not merely quantitative, difference, by standardizing protocols for the exchange of (genetic) information. Unfortunately it will remain an analogy until we better understand the roles of sex in evolution and of language in cognition - but these are both well-defined scientific problems where progress is being made, though one would not know this from reading Scruton.
It is a wonderful thing, this massive knot of neurons we have within our skulls. It has the ability to engage in introspection and create all kinds of conundrums. But really, those are all of our own creation and do not signify anything objectively special about humans. We should get off our high horses; it only seems to be used to justify the horrible way we treat other life forms on this planet.
11
that wonderful thing has also created hitlers and ted bundys
oh, and its the source of fear, care, anxiety worry remorse and regret, the plagues unique to humanity
oh, and it also informs of us of our inevitable death, another unique aspect of human existence
wonderful ?
not so much
oh, and its the source of fear, care, anxiety worry remorse and regret, the plagues unique to humanity
oh, and it also informs of us of our inevitable death, another unique aspect of human existence
wonderful ?
not so much
2
Anyone who has lived with a dog knows that the other animals are just like us, but with a less sophisticated way of communicating.
The biggest difference between humans and the other animals is our extreme cruelty. Anyone who eats animal products is torturing innocent, defenseless individuals for the entire lives. Simply for fleeting moments of taste entertainment. No other animal runs factory-farm torture prisons.
The biggest difference between humans and the other animals is our extreme cruelty. Anyone who eats animal products is torturing innocent, defenseless individuals for the entire lives. Simply for fleeting moments of taste entertainment. No other animal runs factory-farm torture prisons.
14
Philosophy's task is to seek to understand and describe everything, not just the human condition, and not just the world as science understands it. Why is it that ..."When you and I both speak sincerely, what we say is trustworthy"? Science is not quite able to explain it because it shows a real difference between humans and nature. But to suggest that it is somehow not understandable, that it can, "bypass all the normal methods of discovery", is a cop out.
To understand humankind, look at our childhood. We have the longest childhood of any animal. Childhood is a period of learning, a period of behavioural flexibility, an extended period of neuroplasticity. In order to have longer childhoods, the first humans had to create a niche, like a nest, that afforded protection and nurturance. That niche was morality.
What Science cannot master is human history. We are animals, but we are more than animals because we have a history. To be able to speak sincerely, we first had to collectively agree to a moral system. Once we had agreed we could then trust others and "speak our minds."
Humans, unlike any other animals, have rules that we collectively agree to. By agreeing to rules we create a social reality, a life-world that exists by virtue of our agreement. This agreement is living and ongoing. John Searle calls this "collective intentionality". I call it "normativity" Normativity is the niche that allowed us to have longer childhoods and become human.
To understand humankind, look at our childhood. We have the longest childhood of any animal. Childhood is a period of learning, a period of behavioural flexibility, an extended period of neuroplasticity. In order to have longer childhoods, the first humans had to create a niche, like a nest, that afforded protection and nurturance. That niche was morality.
What Science cannot master is human history. We are animals, but we are more than animals because we have a history. To be able to speak sincerely, we first had to collectively agree to a moral system. Once we had agreed we could then trust others and "speak our minds."
Humans, unlike any other animals, have rules that we collectively agree to. By agreeing to rules we create a social reality, a life-world that exists by virtue of our agreement. This agreement is living and ongoing. John Searle calls this "collective intentionality". I call it "normativity" Normativity is the niche that allowed us to have longer childhoods and become human.
2
I'm astonished that in a mere 225 years our ability to have tasks performed by energy sources tens of thousands time greater than prevailed at the beginning of the 18th Century. Humans up until then relied upon their own strength, animal strength, wind or water for their primary types of harnessing energy. What happened to humans 200 years ago that propelled us so far in such a short period on he human scale?
7
Sid, take a look at some Roman aqueduct or Grecian temple, or the pyramids and it is amazing what could be accomplished thousands of years ago.
I think what jump started the modern age were the discoveries of Galileo and Newton plus the enhanced mathematics produced by giants like Newton and Gauss. And the trend seems to be accelerating. 35 years ago I was a software engineer writing computer programs for the B-1B bomber whose compute power was provided by 8 IBM computers, each having 128 or 256 K of memory and about the size of an apple crate. K stands for one thousand. As I type this, my shirt pocket holds an Apple iPhone with 128 Gigs of memory. Gig stands for one billion. Digital cameras use memory cards about the size of a postage stamp that contain hundreds of gigs of memory. I think it is credible that in the not too distant future that robots may only tolerate us as pets.
Brave New World, indeed.
I think what jump started the modern age were the discoveries of Galileo and Newton plus the enhanced mathematics produced by giants like Newton and Gauss. And the trend seems to be accelerating. 35 years ago I was a software engineer writing computer programs for the B-1B bomber whose compute power was provided by 8 IBM computers, each having 128 or 256 K of memory and about the size of an apple crate. K stands for one thousand. As I type this, my shirt pocket holds an Apple iPhone with 128 Gigs of memory. Gig stands for one billion. Digital cameras use memory cards about the size of a postage stamp that contain hundreds of gigs of memory. I think it is credible that in the not too distant future that robots may only tolerate us as pets.
Brave New World, indeed.
3
Humans or even primates in general are not the most successful creatures on earth. The most successful are probably beatles. It is estimated that one-third of the species on earth are beatles. Then consider all the other orders of insects! Unfortunately our brains and language make us think we are superior, and entitled too kill each other in wars, and pollute the earth. We may pollute ourselves out of existance, but the beatles will probably survive.
5
The Beatles were not beetles.
How many species of bacteria and protozoa are there?
What is the biomass of the ants or plankton or fungi?
The goal of evolution is to leave the most best adapted offspring over time. By any means necessary.
How many species of bacteria and protozoa are there?
What is the biomass of the ants or plankton or fungi?
The goal of evolution is to leave the most best adapted offspring over time. By any means necessary.
6
yes the "beatles" will survive forever! long live john, paul, george and ringo!
2
Along with the Stones, I suppose.
2
Dear Mr. Scruton,
We are a minor chord in the symphony of creation. No need to anthropomorphize the Creator, no need to distinguish ourselves from other living things, and no need to agonize over our collective destiny.
Each of us is a flash of light bracketed by eternity, and so it is enough for each of us to try to make that moment mean something.
Cordially,
S.A. Traina
We are a minor chord in the symphony of creation. No need to anthropomorphize the Creator, no need to distinguish ourselves from other living things, and no need to agonize over our collective destiny.
Each of us is a flash of light bracketed by eternity, and so it is enough for each of us to try to make that moment mean something.
Cordially,
S.A. Traina
26
We are intelligent animals capable of self-awareness. This is what distinguishes us from our evolutionary relatives - not morality, which is culturally contingent. Intelligence and self-awareness are not unique to humans, of course, but undoubtedly our species has both to a greater degree than other mammals. Intelligence is what makes us unique and gives special value to a human life as opposed to the life of a cow. But this is a matter of degree, not of kind. I don't eat mammals but I eat fish because their brains are more primitive and in all probability don't have the capacity for sentience. In my personal value-system, everything that promotes acquisition of knowledge, human creativity and science, is moral. Everything that hinders them is immoral. Innocence is not a value I hold in high regard because in so many cases it is indistinguishable from ignorance. So yes, I believe that the life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a fully developed adult - which does not mean that I approve of infanticide. I just don't think that there is anything sacred about human biological existence as opposed to the human intellect.
5
What is more moral than a mother grizzly bear defending her cubs to the death?
2
Americans in particular are fairly clueless and cruel about nature, happy to smash small ants and flies out of irrational cruelty and super-bake their Earthly home out of cultured cluelessness while happily eating orange-dyed, puffed cornmeal pieces while slurping up the irrational incoherence of their Cheeto-In-Chief.
A big part of the problem is organized religion, the ultimate exercise in megalomaniacal conceit and control that allows man to think he's special while subjecting himself to the control of a pure hallucination.
All the greatest philosophers were quite clear how much of a wretched animal man is:
“It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man.”
― Thomas Paine
“People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.”
― Arthur Schopenhaue
“He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.”
― Immanuel Kant
“Man is the cruelest animal.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
There is no family dog in the Trump White House.
A big part of the problem is organized religion, the ultimate exercise in megalomaniacal conceit and control that allows man to think he's special while subjecting himself to the control of a pure hallucination.
All the greatest philosophers were quite clear how much of a wretched animal man is:
“It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man.”
― Thomas Paine
“People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.”
― Arthur Schopenhaue
“He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.”
― Immanuel Kant
“Man is the cruelest animal.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
There is no family dog in the Trump White House.
133
It is popular in these times to blame organized religion for all our ills, but that is not so. The cause is the human ego. The wordis not used here in the Freudian sense, but in the way the great yogis use it, and the way most people use it, actually, when they call someone egotistical or egomaniacal—looking out for number one before everything else. Religion, and also politics, are not good are evil in themselves. They are great organizing frameworks for like-minded people. They have done much good, but when ego is strong in them, when “my way is the only way” is the controlling principle, the results can be terrible.
3
No dog, thank god. Seriously.
1
Socrates in Verona, excellent (intentional?) evocation of the dualistic view I just wrote about!
Sometimes it seems that the philosopher's only desire is to torture language in a concerted effort to hide the nature of physical reality behind a florid smokescreen of human imaginings. There seems no other purpose to this effort beyond obscurantism in service of human hubris.
A burning psychological need to feel that humans are 'special' beings standing apart from the rest of the natural world seems to be the motivation. It is a project doomed to failure however, except as a insubstantial belief system floating beyond reality in the boundless twilight zone of the human imagination.
Humans are a product of physical reality not separate from it. Human imagination is also a product of physical reality and human logic is derived from natural logic which is nothing more or less than the behavior of physical reality. When philosophers attempt to elevate human logic over natural logic their pronouncements become vacuous.
A burning psychological need to feel that humans are 'special' beings standing apart from the rest of the natural world seems to be the motivation. It is a project doomed to failure however, except as a insubstantial belief system floating beyond reality in the boundless twilight zone of the human imagination.
Humans are a product of physical reality not separate from it. Human imagination is also a product of physical reality and human logic is derived from natural logic which is nothing more or less than the behavior of physical reality. When philosophers attempt to elevate human logic over natural logic their pronouncements become vacuous.
22
I'm pretty sure this submission will be dismissed in pretty much the same tone of voice I'm about to use, but here goes...
Scruton's analysis, though including scientific aspects as support, is all about wishful thinking. "Yeah, we're animals, but we're SPECIAL animals."
The 'I' is not unique. Lots of other animals have personal identity and probably shared theory of mind, affording their own level of conciousness to their peers. Arguably, we're at the "top of the charts" by the accidental confluence of adequate cognition, the physical ability to use and share language, living in an environment that allows us to exploit mechanical and chemical technology, and that darned opposable thumb.
Animals exist along continua of all these aspects. Even bacteria can sense a toxic (to them) environment and take evasive action. Corals recognize kind and not-kind and wage war on the latter. Look at last week's Times' science video and note that even bees can learn and TEACH how to execute a novel task to achieve a reward.
For decades I've watched the nature shows that hand-wave the contention that momma-bear teaches her cubs to search for food. Last week on NatGeo I saw a lion documentary that shows HOW the "play" that lion cubs engage in at the direction of their siblings and parents teaches the fundamentals of hunting and kiling.
We can explain to one another why we have the ten commandments and the golden rule, but the rest of the animals live by their own versions of those, too.
Scruton's analysis, though including scientific aspects as support, is all about wishful thinking. "Yeah, we're animals, but we're SPECIAL animals."
The 'I' is not unique. Lots of other animals have personal identity and probably shared theory of mind, affording their own level of conciousness to their peers. Arguably, we're at the "top of the charts" by the accidental confluence of adequate cognition, the physical ability to use and share language, living in an environment that allows us to exploit mechanical and chemical technology, and that darned opposable thumb.
Animals exist along continua of all these aspects. Even bacteria can sense a toxic (to them) environment and take evasive action. Corals recognize kind and not-kind and wage war on the latter. Look at last week's Times' science video and note that even bees can learn and TEACH how to execute a novel task to achieve a reward.
For decades I've watched the nature shows that hand-wave the contention that momma-bear teaches her cubs to search for food. Last week on NatGeo I saw a lion documentary that shows HOW the "play" that lion cubs engage in at the direction of their siblings and parents teaches the fundamentals of hunting and kiling.
We can explain to one another why we have the ten commandments and the golden rule, but the rest of the animals live by their own versions of those, too.
16
The chimpanzee is our closest living relative. There are similarities in our DNA, but also differences. It seems likely that we had a common creator, but the end product is obviously different. We still can't say with confidence why that is.
3
How entertaining this discussion is. (I looked high and low for a comment by a dog or a tapeworm, but nary a one, but some from their spokespersons). One thing is obvious--there is little unanimity on just what it is that sets us atop the animal kingdom, but these expressions of thought confirm that we are uniquely different from all other animals. I am disappointed by the strong negativity that flowed through the comments. No mention of of charity in helping others, caring for the sick, or possibly the most important ability to love others. No question that there is a constant struggle between our animal nature and our rational nature, but I hope there is some recognition that our rational nature has elevated our standard for living in this world. I will point out just one example, world poverty has gone down by almost 50% over the last ten years. Yes, we have a long way to go to and the battle of our two natures may never produce paradise on earth, but striving for that goal is better than living under the law of the jungle, which governs animal world.
4
Seems to me that most likely we humans happen to have made it to the top of an evolutionary continuum and somewhat arrogantly assume that we have been imbued with a special nature by a god. Though there are endless explanations of what constitutes God. Humans have learned, to our benefit, that we can learn, communicate, form political systems and pass those things on to future generations for the advancement of all. Unfortunatlly, the philosophical systems we need to use all our technical knowledge for universal good have lagged significantly. Accordingly, we continue to kill each other and seek to disadvantage the many to the advantage of the few who control money and power. We do not seem to be doing well in overcoming the negative aspects of our nature. Hopefully we will be able to overcome before we mange to destroy the planet as a place fit for habitation by our current life forms.
5
Bill - the basis of the 'fraternity" i just wrote of is the underlying Awareness which is expressed as charity, caring for the sick, compassion and love.
"but I hope there is some recognition that our rational nature has elevated our standard for living in this world."
At the expense of all other life forms on planet earth! How egocentric!!
At the expense of all other life forms on planet earth! How egocentric!!
The comments here fall broadly into two categories – the dualistic view of human vs animal, and the pseudo-dualist/materialist view that flattens all differences into a nihilistic sameness. The dualist view has plagued the West since Plato, and infected the essentially Asian teaching of Jesus and other prophets of his time.
Both views are breaking down. We see this in popular culture with films like the Matrix, and among our wiser seers, including Blake and Nietzsche.
Similarly, the old political distinctions of “Right” and “Left” have lost their meaning; the place of the nation-state in the global world is falling apart (hence the fanaticism of those like President Bannon and his pet endothermic vertebrate, Tweetie Pie).
The unimaginably simple solution:
1. Imagine a candle flame.
2. Note two aspects of the experience – the flame, and the awareness of the flame.
3. Erase the flame and remain as Awareness.
Noted contemplative scientist Alan Wallace has stated that if one can stabilize one’s attention to remain as Awareness for at least 4 hours without interruption, a radical “turning about in the deepest seat of consciousness” (see the Lankavatara Sutra) will take place.
Then, the third and most neglected member of the French Revolutionary triad, fraternity, may emerge and provide the integration of liberty and equality which has yet eluded the modern age, leading to the emergence of the Integral age.
www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.htm
Both views are breaking down. We see this in popular culture with films like the Matrix, and among our wiser seers, including Blake and Nietzsche.
Similarly, the old political distinctions of “Right” and “Left” have lost their meaning; the place of the nation-state in the global world is falling apart (hence the fanaticism of those like President Bannon and his pet endothermic vertebrate, Tweetie Pie).
The unimaginably simple solution:
1. Imagine a candle flame.
2. Note two aspects of the experience – the flame, and the awareness of the flame.
3. Erase the flame and remain as Awareness.
Noted contemplative scientist Alan Wallace has stated that if one can stabilize one’s attention to remain as Awareness for at least 4 hours without interruption, a radical “turning about in the deepest seat of consciousness” (see the Lankavatara Sutra) will take place.
Then, the third and most neglected member of the French Revolutionary triad, fraternity, may emerge and provide the integration of liberty and equality which has yet eluded the modern age, leading to the emergence of the Integral age.
www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.htm
2
Similarly, the old political distinctions of “Right” and “Left” have lost their meaning; the place of the nation-state in the global world is falling apart (hence the fanaticism of those like President Bannon and his pet endothermic vertebrate, Tweetie Pie).
Nation-state is not falling apart. It's only becoming deeper everywhere outside the rich world. What is falling apart is our Western World thanks to delusional, "Pilates", coast-downtown people like you who are bravely destroying our identity.
Nation-state is not falling apart. It's only becoming deeper everywhere outside the rich world. What is falling apart is our Western World thanks to delusional, "Pilates", coast-downtown people like you who are bravely destroying our identity.
1
woo woo
1
Plants and fungi and bacteria and extremophiles resent your ignorance and bigotry.
1
If you could place every bit of human knowledge--books, essays, art, movies, diagrams, schematics, songs, sermons, etc.--on a single computer disk, the disk would not (in theory, anyway) be one bit heavier than when it was empty. And yet it now holds a universe of information that was not there before.
I see this as an analogy to humanity. We cannot measure nor fully discern the key difference between humans and animals, but it seems almost self-evident that the difference is indeed there.
I see this as an analogy to humanity. We cannot measure nor fully discern the key difference between humans and animals, but it seems almost self-evident that the difference is indeed there.
2
I thought your analogy would be to the brain right before and after death. Same physical structure and yet, the "I" is gone.
1
There may be a very large difference between two human beings, in the sense of their development of their knowledge and understanding. If that be the case, then it might also be true that a great deal of development is necessary before this topic can be approached. And it might be rather premature to approach this topic before then. It might be better to work on our development first. If so, then the question turns into "how to we develop ourselves in such a way that we can approach this topic?"
Since much of religious thought has been termed fantasy by scientists,
it would seem that we could begin by taking a scientific approach towards observing our thinking, or beliefs, in order to distinguish fantasy from reality.
This might go a long way towards the kine of development that might be needed for approaching this topic.
Since much of religious thought has been termed fantasy by scientists,
it would seem that we could begin by taking a scientific approach towards observing our thinking, or beliefs, in order to distinguish fantasy from reality.
This might go a long way towards the kine of development that might be needed for approaching this topic.
1
Sorry Rodger, but we inhabit a world of nature. All the I - Thou encounters are simply our evolved theory of mind which by the way may not even be unique to Homo Sapiens now or in the past (when other homo species walked the earth). Rather than focus on what makes us different, perhaps it is time to focus on what binds us to the world of nature. Maybe then we can survive the next 1,000 years.
9
With 7.5 billion of us and shrinking resources it is time we actually began to limit human population which requires that we acknowledge this as the main problem humanuty faces.
However before this we must acknowledge other more basic truths about our existence.
So long as there is a question regarding anything "supernatural" we must understand and respect the nature from which we sprang and thusfar no one has shown anything in natiure to be "supernatural" except our ability to invent.
While confusion regarding our origin exists in some minds, beyond fear of death as the actual termination of everything an individual knows, there is actual harm in following superstitious beliefs. Granted it is a difficult step to accept mortality as final, but beyond the fiction of an afterlife, there is no option.
For the sake of those who will hopefully follow us the only chance we have is to follow the truth as we discover it, not the "truth" we invented.
However before this we must acknowledge other more basic truths about our existence.
So long as there is a question regarding anything "supernatural" we must understand and respect the nature from which we sprang and thusfar no one has shown anything in natiure to be "supernatural" except our ability to invent.
While confusion regarding our origin exists in some minds, beyond fear of death as the actual termination of everything an individual knows, there is actual harm in following superstitious beliefs. Granted it is a difficult step to accept mortality as final, but beyond the fiction of an afterlife, there is no option.
For the sake of those who will hopefully follow us the only chance we have is to follow the truth as we discover it, not the "truth" we invented.
4
What are we?
In the Asian tradition, we are spiritual beings having a physical existence.
As are all living beings.
Everything is One.
And our purpose is to maximize our existence, however we define it. Then share it in our spiritual existence.
Hey, they are all belief systems. There is no proof.
In the Asian tradition, we are spiritual beings having a physical existence.
As are all living beings.
Everything is One.
And our purpose is to maximize our existence, however we define it. Then share it in our spiritual existence.
Hey, they are all belief systems. There is no proof.
1
Sorry, but the picture painted by evolutionary psychology is unquestionably UNTRUE. The entire field is mere assertion, backed up evidence of the flimsiest kind.
If human behavior is fundamentally Darwinian, then show us the genes involved and tell us how they work.
Plus there is an irrefutable prediction of Darwinism, namely that maximizing reproductive success is the primary driver of animal behavior. Do you know ANYbody whose main goal in life is to leave as many children as possible ? In fact the opposite is true--those with more resources to have and provide for children have smaller families and fewer children.
Evolutionary psychology has as much credibility as phrenology or astrology.
If human behavior is fundamentally Darwinian, then show us the genes involved and tell us how they work.
Plus there is an irrefutable prediction of Darwinism, namely that maximizing reproductive success is the primary driver of animal behavior. Do you know ANYbody whose main goal in life is to leave as many children as possible ? In fact the opposite is true--those with more resources to have and provide for children have smaller families and fewer children.
Evolutionary psychology has as much credibility as phrenology or astrology.
But FredO, the thing about Darwinism is that it goes behind or below conscious intentions - the driver of behavior may be to maximize reproduction, but animals reacting to each other never have the intention of maximizing reproduction (well, maybe some people do, but they are weird). It's all feelings of attraction and affection and protectiveness and so on, and the result is, when you put it all together with some unconscious biology, lo and behold, the reproduction of the species. Amazing.
That said, I agree that most of what we hear as "evolutionary psychology" is a bunch of ridiculous just-so stories, and I wish they would just stop.
That said, I agree that most of what we hear as "evolutionary psychology" is a bunch of ridiculous just-so stories, and I wish they would just stop.
@FredO - You state "Do you know ANYbody whose main goal in life is to leave as many children as possible ? In fact the opposite is true--those with more resources to have and provide for children have smaller families and fewer children."
However, isn't it true that the lesser-developed countries tend to have higher birth rates, but also higher infant mortality rates, because parents need to be looked after in their old age and they want to assure themselves sufficient surviving children for that to happen. The developed world has better social safety nets for old age and so does not need the large families to be able to guarantee care in old age.
However, isn't it true that the lesser-developed countries tend to have higher birth rates, but also higher infant mortality rates, because parents need to be looked after in their old age and they want to assure themselves sufficient surviving children for that to happen. The developed world has better social safety nets for old age and so does not need the large families to be able to guarantee care in old age.
1
We're animals who have, for some reason, developed higher-level cognitive capacities. That does not place us above any other species any more than the higher-level arial capacities of birds should give them dominance.
When we have finally destroyed each other, hopefully the natural world will continue to thrive, as it did for billions of years before we developed. We will then be seen for what we were - a greedy, violent aberration.
When we have finally destroyed each other, hopefully the natural world will continue to thrive, as it did for billions of years before we developed. We will then be seen for what we were - a greedy, violent aberration.
5
Many philosophical questions are chimera, they are pure constructs in our mind to facilitate large scale cooperation and to justify our own existence. The larger the scale of cooperation, the more outlandish the constructs: e.g. religion, trump will make you great, etc..
Tapeworms r us. Parasites that can damage or kill their hosts. Our host is the entire planet, and we've evolved to be recently capable of using it up. This is just another illustration that evolution has no program built in, any more than thermodynamics has intelligence. The recent, very recent, 'ascent' of man is likely just one of millions of dead ends enabled by random mutation. That we vaguely understand the condition of seven billions of our kind does not guarantee that we can do much about it.
Philosophical inquiry, as it might be understood today, could be justifiable, but is no more cogent than, say, one's wackoid new religion.
But for the intervention of a meteor strike some 60 million years ago, the things we associate with self-awareness and language might have, and probably would have, characterized some really big reptiles. And they could have taken a bad branch into extinction just as easily.
Philosophical inquiry, as it might be understood today, could be justifiable, but is no more cogent than, say, one's wackoid new religion.
But for the intervention of a meteor strike some 60 million years ago, the things we associate with self-awareness and language might have, and probably would have, characterized some really big reptiles. And they could have taken a bad branch into extinction just as easily.
6
Science is trapped by, limited to, subject-object dualism. Much of Eastern thought is not so limited. Phenomenology also attempts to get back to basics deeper and more primary than this dualism, back to what a person experiences right now in the first person and not just the third person, back to the qualitative aspects of life, including art, literature, music, humor. Science's limitations are perhaps most obvious in considering humor. Trying to explain a joke, to break it down objectively, kills the joke.
Our ability to speak in the first, second and third person also shows some of science's limitations in understanding us in our daily lived complexity.
Our ability to speak in the first, second and third person also shows some of science's limitations in understanding us in our daily lived complexity.
2
Stupidity, ignorance, fiction, myth and superstition are the antithesis of science.
Science is the best current natural explanation based upon the best currently available natural information for oberved repeatable natural phenomenon. Science is always provisional and subject to repudiation, refinement and reform.
Bull feces goes beyond the first, second and third person into the myth of science in anything social, political or economic.
Science is the best current natural explanation based upon the best currently available natural information for oberved repeatable natural phenomenon. Science is always provisional and subject to repudiation, refinement and reform.
Bull feces goes beyond the first, second and third person into the myth of science in anything social, political or economic.
1
Unfortunately this piece is faulty as so much philosophical and much other thoughtful discussion, by the looming epistemological murkiness in the room.
At least scientific method, if not science as a whole, is explicit, with more clarity than anything else to date, about its methods and therefore its goals; and those goals (what a relief, after all the dogmatism) are conditional.
At least scientific method, if not science as a whole, is explicit, with more clarity than anything else to date, about its methods and therefore its goals; and those goals (what a relief, after all the dogmatism) are conditional.
8
Each time I click on one of The Stone articles I'm hopeful that I might find thinking that _isn't_ based on the notion that the Judeo-Christian/Western history of thought contains all we need to know about human beings.
But I never do, and this essay is no exception. Such a limited perspective! Such misplaced certainty!
Year ago, Desmond Morris maintained that if you wanted to talk about human beings from a biological standpoint, the adult male of European origin was a fine example. You didn't need anybody else.
What we're seeing in this article is not very different.
There's nothing wrong with exploring the western tradition -- of course not. But there's a great deal wrong with a seemingly unexamined assumption that the western tradition stands as an example of the entire world's thinking.
Anyone who took Anthro 101 and paid attention know that's false.
But I never do, and this essay is no exception. Such a limited perspective! Such misplaced certainty!
Year ago, Desmond Morris maintained that if you wanted to talk about human beings from a biological standpoint, the adult male of European origin was a fine example. You didn't need anybody else.
What we're seeing in this article is not very different.
There's nothing wrong with exploring the western tradition -- of course not. But there's a great deal wrong with a seemingly unexamined assumption that the western tradition stands as an example of the entire world's thinking.
Anyone who took Anthro 101 and paid attention know that's false.
32
Can any being, human/animal, truly and objectively examine itself. I posit that it is impossible to do so...subjective bias will intrude somewhere, simply because of its definition. We are all beholden to bias in my belief, unless proven otherwise; for instance, how can anyone state, "That is wrong" without expressing their OPINION as to why it is so. And opinion is biased.
1
Well written, but utterly and completely wrong.
I'm a Public Defender, and deal with abused children and dysfunctional families. We are, in fact and undeniably, animals just like all other life on this planet. "Human beings live in mutual accountability, each answerable to the other and each the object of judgment..." made me shake my head, when considering the real human beings I represent. Humans have no higher purpose than any other life. Humans are not superior to a tapeworm or a gorilla, we're all just a combination of molecules spinning in infinity, forming and reforming. We need to stop searching for some deeper, transcendent meaning that does not exist and get to the actual living of our lives, as long as we have them.
I'm a Public Defender, and deal with abused children and dysfunctional families. We are, in fact and undeniably, animals just like all other life on this planet. "Human beings live in mutual accountability, each answerable to the other and each the object of judgment..." made me shake my head, when considering the real human beings I represent. Humans have no higher purpose than any other life. Humans are not superior to a tapeworm or a gorilla, we're all just a combination of molecules spinning in infinity, forming and reforming. We need to stop searching for some deeper, transcendent meaning that does not exist and get to the actual living of our lives, as long as we have them.
76
Remind me not to use you as my PD if ever I need. (;
1
Say what you will, but I find most DOGS to be better people, than some humans. Bigly.
21
"If We Are Not Just Animals, What Are We?"-----------
We are both very smart, and very dumb apes.
We are both very smart, and very dumb apes.
9
Talk about talking in circles? If you're really interested in who you are, where you came from and where you're going, let me suggest you read The Urantia Book. You may be amazed how it puts God, Man & The Universe all together. You can download it for free. What do you have to lose?
Required reading: Yuval Noah Harari, "Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind." Then prepare yourselves for the philosophical debate that will begin just after the last chimpanzees and bonobos are killed for food and as trophies. If you have no time to read, watch Harari's videos on TED and YouTube. God help us if you don't consider these things!
5
Ah, the human animal, Clearly, it is our arrogance that makes us superior.
26
Nietzsche, after noting that we killed God, came to the conclusion that most people are mere extensions of the primate family. The path to getting from primate to human is in the attempting to overcome ones animal self through art and philosophy to develop character. Looking for humanity in nature, in some yet to be found physical distinction is not the path. If a distinction was found, it would only make a merely human distinction and his idea of overcoming, attempting to overcome, would still apply.
Zoosphere? The writer seems to be dragging Teilhard de Chardin down a notch (or consonant), as well as humanity.
2
"...We human beings do not see one another as animals see one another, as fellow members of a species. We relate to one another not as objects but as subjects,..."
How do you know how other animals see each other? The above statement is a perfect example of the subjective-minded nonsense that will assist us in our drive to destroy our environment.
How do you know how other animals see each other? The above statement is a perfect example of the subjective-minded nonsense that will assist us in our drive to destroy our environment.
9
"We believe that ... those who live by enslaving or abusing others are denying their own humanity."
We believe this? If so, it's a rather recent change of heart.
We believe this? If so, it's a rather recent change of heart.
11
Exactly! It's a developing thing. I don't see it as inevitable progress, but I think we are seeing a kind of development, maybe in the last couple of hundred years. A recent change of heart.
It feels fragile - all too easy to imagine a distopian future where the historians will say:"There was a time in the 19th and 20th centuries when some societies moved away from public executions, and slavery and torture and many other features of civilization. We trace this largely to the influence of John Keats and the "unacknowledged legislators" " Or something.
It feels fragile - all too easy to imagine a distopian future where the historians will say:"There was a time in the 19th and 20th centuries when some societies moved away from public executions, and slavery and torture and many other features of civilization. We trace this largely to the influence of John Keats and the "unacknowledged legislators" " Or something.
Selfish genes explain most of it.
2
Before there were genes there were forces, masses, particles, atoms and molecules after a beginning that begat space-time and light.
1
A philosopher can spot a false dichotomy. Here is one.
"Hence as persons we inhabit a life-world that is not reducible to the world of nature, any more than the life in a painting is reducible to the lines and pigments from which it is composed. If that is true, then there is something left for philosophy to do, by way of making sense of the human condition. Philosophy has the task of describing the world in which we live — not the world as science describes it, but the world as it is represented in our mutual dealings, a world organized by language, in which we meet one another I to I."
Two words for those who are hard of thinking: cognitive psychology. It has not all answers but it sure blows apart that silly false dichotomy. as do s many disciplines. Don't get me started on the children of Chomsky and their opponents. Or Hegelians. Ah. Conservatives. Same old wine every time. Such a lovely and perfect cave they dwell in while outside the case is this wonderful world--that Scruton would make philosophy's jurisdiction to spec out from its cave studies--speeds by.
"Hence as persons we inhabit a life-world that is not reducible to the world of nature, any more than the life in a painting is reducible to the lines and pigments from which it is composed. If that is true, then there is something left for philosophy to do, by way of making sense of the human condition. Philosophy has the task of describing the world in which we live — not the world as science describes it, but the world as it is represented in our mutual dealings, a world organized by language, in which we meet one another I to I."
Two words for those who are hard of thinking: cognitive psychology. It has not all answers but it sure blows apart that silly false dichotomy. as do s many disciplines. Don't get me started on the children of Chomsky and their opponents. Or Hegelians. Ah. Conservatives. Same old wine every time. Such a lovely and perfect cave they dwell in while outside the case is this wonderful world--that Scruton would make philosophy's jurisdiction to spec out from its cave studies--speeds by.
"When I talk about myself in the first person, I utter propositions that I assert on no basis and about which, in a vast number of cases, I cannot be wrong."
You apparently have never heard Trump talk about himself.
You apparently have never heard Trump talk about himself.
8
I once had the following discussion with my physics professor at a cocktail event.
Q: Why is it alright for me, an ethical person, to eat this living oyster?
A: Because the oyster can't tell you why you shouldn't.
So is that what's different about us? Well, the "has language" argument doesn't extend very well to pre-verbal humans. (But it does seem to be applied when discussing abortion.)
Q: Why is it alright for me, an ethical person, to eat this living oyster?
A: Because the oyster can't tell you why you shouldn't.
So is that what's different about us? Well, the "has language" argument doesn't extend very well to pre-verbal humans. (But it does seem to be applied when discussing abortion.)
3
Animals with dangerous weapons and over-inflated egos. Hence - religion.
6
How do we know that animals don't have a Divine Spark? Or for that matter a soul. We are unable to communicate with them in terms of language and a soul is really a matter of faith. It isn't an organ like a heart or a liver
7
Humans are unique in their ability to relentlessly develop theories to prove they are somehow special and separate from the other animals.
21
Have to wonder if the whole piece was just a shaggy dog story: a setup up for the final line. I 4 1 think so (ergo est)
1
You may know a lot about humans, and have thought a lot about them, but you are remarkably ignorant of animals' capacities. Especially egregious is your statement that humans, unlike other animals, treat each other as a thing apart, that we are individuals and other animals only know themselves as species. Many animals know and recognize each other as individuals — dogs, cats, elephants, apes, chickens — I could go on.
12
There is an element of the mind that remains uncorrupted... an open, empty, clear, spacious and luminous clarity of mind... That is beyond concept, ideas and sensations.
It does not come and go because it never enters the stream of time and is beyond both experience and intellectualism.
It does not come and go because it never enters the stream of time and is beyond both experience and intellectualism.
1
It is the false distinction between homo sapiens and all other species, this illusion of "exceptionalism", that leads us into temptation (to coin a phrase). We are not "the right kind of thing" any more than any other living thing is "the wrong kind of thing". It is precisely this narcissism writ as "philosophy" that has this planet in the toxic soup of global warming and endless war in which Trump and every other tinfoil hatted dictator and crackpot float like flies. And given this outcome, I would argue precisely the opposite.
As for the crime of murdering a tapeworm, let's get this straight: it is a crime - just one for which our laws imposes no liability - where the requisite mens rea is present. Offer up your rationalizations, cast as philosophy, but rest assured, that is all they are. Once you slide down the slippery slope of narcissism there is no climbing up.
For those of you who believe in an afterlife, heads up and beg your personal savior for forgiveness and guidance. For those of you who believe that this life is all there is, beg the forgiveness of the next generations and turn this mess around. There is no other way out, and there is no other way back.
As for the crime of murdering a tapeworm, let's get this straight: it is a crime - just one for which our laws imposes no liability - where the requisite mens rea is present. Offer up your rationalizations, cast as philosophy, but rest assured, that is all they are. Once you slide down the slippery slope of narcissism there is no climbing up.
For those of you who believe in an afterlife, heads up and beg your personal savior for forgiveness and guidance. For those of you who believe that this life is all there is, beg the forgiveness of the next generations and turn this mess around. There is no other way out, and there is no other way back.
7
"We believe that people have rights, that they are sovereign over their lives, and that those who live by enslaving or abusing others are denying their own humanity. Surely there is a foundation for those beliefs..." Can there really be a 'foundation' to build upon when that's all there is to it: a belief system?
1
Language is like genes turned inside out. We are still evolving and languages including math are doing the work of genes, continually experimenting. Examples of mutations are Christianity and Islam emerging from Judaism, as well as the political parties and the Boy Scouts, but group cohesion is still an animal trait. As the philosopher and language theorist Kenneth Burke says, "...man is the talking animal."
2
The only thing you can know is "I am." The rest is beliefs. There is only consciousness - only awareness. Animals seem plenty conscious. Anything living is conscious to an extent from trees to tapeworms. And what's more, the separateness of "I" - of "self" - is an illusion. In short, humans are not separate from one another, or anything else for that matter.
3
"There is only awareness." Agree wholeheartedly, as well as with that everything is conscious. However, the "I" in the statement, "I am," is likely a stupendous illusion in that we believe it to exist objectively. Our claim of exceptionalism may very well be the outcome of this misapprehension. Likely, it is closer to the truth to say, "Am'ing," (leaving off the "I") to language consciousness without falling into the trap of illusion. Yet, "I" is fundamental to our experience. But not to our experience of "being," as some might conclude, but to the experience of the self as a stand-alone. If so, then the perceived "I", or "self," as separate, is the illusion that forces the separation that forces the requirement to distinguish the self from "being." Imagine "I am" to mean "I stand, separately and alone, against the backdrop of life." Obviously this is gobbledygook. And yet, "I" seems perfectly reasonable. So many things seem so--but by habit of thought, rather than because of their accuracy. Of course, this line of thinking contributes nothing toward an explanation of who/what is writing this post, nor to the why and how of it.
2
People have very different feelings about insects, larger animals, etc. and if they will tolerate them. Seems to be the same for people: some (as in gangs) will not tolerate others.
What makes us "human"is the ability to care not just about other humans but all life. It is the awareness of how small we actually are, which we try to understand through religion, philosophy, and/or science.
5
Such hubris by humans. We are special? How so? Because we say so? Because we have a self-referential "I" that we think is unique? HA! Such inbred circular logic. We are clueless to the simple fact that we are animal. Each and every one of us. Primates. Hominids Define us as you will, but regardless we are but one life form among the web of life on this planet.
We are only special to the extent that all (complex) life is special. You have only to look at the greater Universe, or at least our solar system, to see that it takes a rare alignment of forces to give rise to (complex) life on Earth. Every living thing on this planet is aware, the distinction comes only in degree. I cannot look at a dog, or dolphin, for instance, and not clearly see its self awareness, even though we call them "animal. Their reactivity, their emotional signals, tells me this is the case.
Here's an irony. We understood this instinctively when we lived as hunter-gathers newly down from the trees. We knew we were but a part of a larger whole. Modern Man's psychosis is based on the loss of that connection, severed by attempting to live in a civilization replete with artifice. Hence we think we are different; separate. We think we are special. As I said at the beginning I will say again now. We are only different by degree. No more special than that. A theart we are still....animal. And we die just like all the rest.
So it goes.
John~
American Net'Zen
We are only special to the extent that all (complex) life is special. You have only to look at the greater Universe, or at least our solar system, to see that it takes a rare alignment of forces to give rise to (complex) life on Earth. Every living thing on this planet is aware, the distinction comes only in degree. I cannot look at a dog, or dolphin, for instance, and not clearly see its self awareness, even though we call them "animal. Their reactivity, their emotional signals, tells me this is the case.
Here's an irony. We understood this instinctively when we lived as hunter-gathers newly down from the trees. We knew we were but a part of a larger whole. Modern Man's psychosis is based on the loss of that connection, severed by attempting to live in a civilization replete with artifice. Hence we think we are different; separate. We think we are special. As I said at the beginning I will say again now. We are only different by degree. No more special than that. A theart we are still....animal. And we die just like all the rest.
So it goes.
John~
American Net'Zen
3
We are just animals, although animals with more self-awareness than most species. All animals have souls, which is why we should treat them with respect, and not eat them.
4
Saying that all animals have “souls” is like saying that all life is sacred. One of the editors (who I cannot recall) in a book of poetry, The Rag and Boneyard of the Soul, wrote an essay on the sacredness of life. In that essay, he noted that the great irony concerning the sacredness of life is that life must feed upon itself in order to survive -- food for thought,
Excellent article, and I think it got at the core issue, which is that science, for all its power, doesn't tell us everything. That there are some things we need to think about without sops to a quasi objective filing system
We are the product of millenia of evolution. So is religion, a creation of our minds to explain that which we cannot otherwise explain. "God" is the "answer" for those who have tired of looking for an answer, and who find the world too complicated and difficult to figure out. And it is far easier to believe scripts written by "holy men" many hundreds or thousands of years ago than it is to think for oneself. What are you incapable of understanding? "God" is your answer. But that, too, is how we have evolved. It's understandable.
And when "i" or "we" have contact with beings elsewhere in the universe, contact of consciousness with little need of language, and "we" are given slight regard by the other, then "we" might continue on as just another of many living things inhabiting Earth.
Bet "we" come to understand only one word from the encounter: impatient.
Bet "we" come to understand only one word from the encounter: impatient.
1
Mr. Scruton embraces the same ideas that Miguel de Unamuno addressed in his "Tragic Sense of Life,' i.e., the despair in knowing that we will all die and life is finite. Alas, in the end, we ARE all animals and subject to the same pains and pleasures of nature as are our fellow creatures. One can ask rationally, why look for something that doesn't exist in a quest for justification for living? Why not accept our humanity, celebrate and enjoy it while we still have it? Roger Scruton would do well to reread Wittgenstein, Meleau-Ponty and Steven Pinker on how the mind works. Like any animal, when our brain quits, we're dead and that's simple biology.
3
listened to a nice podcast "philosophy bites" yesterday that touched on this subject. the capacity for conscious thought (human), which is different from conscious awareness (human + animals), separates us. conscious thought is the ability to think, imagine, plan ideas and a course of action that is not immediate to our surroundings. i simplified it a little, of course, but animals don't do that. but we may be biologically "animals" we also have such capacity that animals don't have.
“. . . conscious thought is the ability to think, imagine, plan ideas and a course of action that is not immediate to our surroundings. i simplified it a little, of course, but animals don’t do that.”
Are you sure about that. I have seen other animals observe and make decisions. They are not always the same decisions. If you hav a dog or cat, just watch how they behave as a couple of examples.
Are you sure about that. I have seen other animals observe and make decisions. They are not always the same decisions. If you hav a dog or cat, just watch how they behave as a couple of examples.
If humans feel obligated to ask "why?", from where does this obligation come? If some members of the human species do not have this responsibility, why not? How ( not whether) do humans know that other species do not have this obligation? Evolutionary biologists will have to answer these questions. Philosophers have to pose the questions properly.
"we treat the human being as a thing apart, a thing protected by a sacred aura — in short, not a thing at all, but a person." Would that this were always true. But the Holocaust, the mass graves in Syria, etc. say otherwise. Not only are we capable of treating people as things, we have the intelligence to do it on a wide scale, and with a cruelty that, so far as I know, is unique to us. That capacity is part of being human too.
8
It is easy to distinguish humans: humans are the vicious animal that kills for sport, eats meat (and kills animals) even though we could easily survive with a vegetarian diet, kills innocent women and children, commits genocide, engages in warfare and so on.
2
"It is easy to distinguish humans: humans are the vicious animal that kills for sport, eats meat (and kills animals) even though we could easily survive with a vegetarian diet, kills innocent women and children, commits genocide, engages in warfare and so on."
Sort of like some ants and wasps.
Sort of like some ants and wasps.
Identity is an illusion, a construct that allows us to function in society. The Universe is consciousness and humans have evolved the ability to focus consciousness. Consciousness cannot exist outside itself. There is a lot more evolution needed to become fully aware.
1
It is precisely the incapacity of monotheistic religions to recognize the kinship of all living things that disproves human exceptionalism. Unique animals we are, but animals nonetheless.
V. S. Ramachandran has some fascinating insights into the workings of our neurology and our perceptions of "Phantoms in the Brain". Highly recommended reading into and beyond this topic.
V. S. Ramachandran has some fascinating insights into the workings of our neurology and our perceptions of "Phantoms in the Brain". Highly recommended reading into and beyond this topic.
3
We share genes with plants, bacteria, viruses and of course very close similarities to other primates.
Among the other living things it seems our superior capacity to think distinguishes us from the rest.
I think therefore I am could actually have been stated I am therefore I think.
Among the other living things it seems our superior capacity to think distinguishes us from the rest.
I think therefore I am could actually have been stated I am therefore I think.
Addressing ourselves in the first person is where we went wrong. By separating ourselves from the world around us we were cut loose to pursue the gratuitous endeavors that will destroy our speciies, if not the world we inhabit.
2
Long ago, Leibniz noted the special sense of the word "I," and Kant celebrated the power of "die Verhaeltniswoertchen ich," the small word of relation "I." In our age, when not only evolutionary psychology is overvalued but also the history of philosophy is largely denigrated by a tradition (the dominate analytic one) that overvalues formal logic, this piece is welcome encouragement for those of us who continue to learn from the past.
I think you ascribe too much to science and what it actually does. While there are theoretical scientists who ponder how the world, as a physical object works, most of what science does is reveal how we can control our environment. Science does not reveal Truth because it relies on divorcing the physical from the spiritual.
1
We are vertebrate mammalian primate apes. Driven by our biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit nature to crave fat, sugar, salt, water, habitat, sex and kin by any means necessary including conflict and cooperation.
Neither the universe nor the galaxy nor the Earth revolves around us.
" God created man in own image. And man returned the favor." George B. Shaw
"That he had an inordinate fondness for beetles" J.B. S. Haldane in response to a question about what the study of biology taught him about the mind of God.
Some argue that the social insects are the primary intelligent life forms on Earth. See E.O. Wilson.
Neither the universe nor the galaxy nor the Earth revolves around us.
" God created man in own image. And man returned the favor." George B. Shaw
"That he had an inordinate fondness for beetles" J.B. S. Haldane in response to a question about what the study of biology taught him about the mind of God.
Some argue that the social insects are the primary intelligent life forms on Earth. See E.O. Wilson.
8
We human animals are capable of extremely extraordinary thoughts, abilities, and actions when compared with the non-human animal kingdom. However, these are run the gamut from extraordinarily heinous to beautiful.
When we explore the world of other animals we see similar behaviors. I would like to think there is a God, but wonder how so much bad is happening in the world. If the cause is free will, then how can people who have so much be indifferent when they are surrounded by people with so little?
This seems to indicate that we may be better at many things than other animals, but superior? I am not so sure.
When we explore the world of other animals we see similar behaviors. I would like to think there is a God, but wonder how so much bad is happening in the world. If the cause is free will, then how can people who have so much be indifferent when they are surrounded by people with so little?
This seems to indicate that we may be better at many things than other animals, but superior? I am not so sure.
1
We human beings are unique.
So are bears, birds, elephants, whales and every other species on this planet.
Like every other species, we must eventually die.
So, we are just another life form on a planet filled with a diversity of life.
So are bears, birds, elephants, whales and every other species on this planet.
Like every other species, we must eventually die.
So, we are just another life form on a planet filled with a diversity of life.
8
The "witness" within us, that point of consciousness that has no characteristics of its own but simply sees the life of our bodies and personas in the world, may one day show up in the equations of physics. Some comfort could be taken from realizing the Cosmos itself as God.
1
Friend, just becauseyou speak the American English quite well does not in any way qualify your words as Gospel. While it is heretical to act like and demand to be treated as God, it is expected that we may accept the teachings that there is a Holy Spirit whose main blessing may be the even handedness of grace to prepare the soul for eternity.
And it is, IMHO, less than intelligent to deny that our forefathers and mothers were able to acquire those "unique" characteristics which allowed the wolf, so to speak, to take his and her places by the warmth of the cave or wickiup and most likely participate in the success of life, our and their life. The philosopher who forgets / denies from where we arose is choosing when and not if our bones will lie disregarded in the Death Valley.
And it is, IMHO, less than intelligent to deny that our forefathers and mothers were able to acquire those "unique" characteristics which allowed the wolf, so to speak, to take his and her places by the warmth of the cave or wickiup and most likely participate in the success of life, our and their life. The philosopher who forgets / denies from where we arose is choosing when and not if our bones will lie disregarded in the Death Valley.
1
Humans are physical beings, thinking beings, and moral/spiritual beings.
We have science to inform us about the physical, philosophy to inform us as to the best way of thinking, and theology as to the best way of taking responsibility for our lives.
We need all three to be good responsible human beings and avoid the dead end of Western dualism.
We have science to inform us about the physical, philosophy to inform us as to the best way of thinking, and theology as to the best way of taking responsibility for our lives.
We need all three to be good responsible human beings and avoid the dead end of Western dualism.
There are emotions associated with justice, like we should hold a trial before stringing up a person but not a wolf and these feelings are the first aspect of what tells US that we are not just animals. The more important aspect, of course, are the social dynamics of justice. Most people know there is a double standard with respect to justice and people get to sign on to, or get wrapped up in, the great social contract. Other than this and our outstanding list of autapomorphies, which once formed a long catalog that shrinks with each decade of studying behavior, we can treat ourselves as animals but less well-behaved at times.
"There is something in the human condition that suggests the need for special treatment."
WHY? Because we're such intellectual or moral exemplars? Or such excellent stewards of the planet?
It's the arrogant and ascientific notion that humans should be set apart from the other species, and the natural world in general, that is responsible for much of misery on this planet.
WHY? Because we're such intellectual or moral exemplars? Or such excellent stewards of the planet?
It's the arrogant and ascientific notion that humans should be set apart from the other species, and the natural world in general, that is responsible for much of misery on this planet.
3
Yes, you always do philosophy based upon the science you know. This doesn't put science at odds with philosophy (as Scutton suggests), but rather serves as its base. Therefore, "Dare to know".
It must otherwise be mentioned that frequently 'professional' philosophers begin uninformed, with with false science as a premise. An excellent case in point is "Evolutionary Psychology". The result, as seen here, is junk based upon junk.
It must otherwise be mentioned that frequently 'professional' philosophers begin uninformed, with with false science as a premise. An excellent case in point is "Evolutionary Psychology". The result, as seen here, is junk based upon junk.
The very existence of the word "natural" implies that there is something that is "not natural." That word distinguishes human beings and their works from nature, and defines us as something different. A termite mound is natural but a skyscraper is not natural. A tree is natural but a 2x4 made from that tree and framed inside a house is not natural.
This doesn't answer the question, but it does provide a way of looking at. Our language frames us as being different. Do elephants or dolphins have a unique word or sound for "elephant" or "dolphin", and do they see it as being separate from the rest of the "natural" world? Of course I don't know. I'm just asking.
This doesn't answer the question, but it does provide a way of looking at. Our language frames us as being different. Do elephants or dolphins have a unique word or sound for "elephant" or "dolphin", and do they see it as being separate from the rest of the "natural" world? Of course I don't know. I'm just asking.
1
The only thing special about humans is their ability to make themselves seem special to begin with. It is mind-numbingly boring that this we-are-special story continues as something important. Over-population has led us to over-think our position in reality.
1
Thank you. So interesting for me. Asian philosophies offer such a different point of view, that everything is One. I enjoy comparing and contrasting these great traditions, but my beliefs lean toward the East, as I find the Western thought so dependent of this "exceptional god and beings" idea.
4
Dear Mr. Scruton,
As the 1st episode of "Spy in the Wild" (2017) clearly shows, animals "are not just animals". They exhibit a range of behavior and abilities what were previously considered exclusive to humans. These traits include empathy, tool building, problem solving, deduction, creativity, verbal communications with evolved vocabulary to name a few. As animals humans just happen to have evolved further in their intelectual abilities, nothing more.
You should really watch "Spy in the Wild" (2017, a BBC production several years in the making). It is an eye opener.
Luc B.
As the 1st episode of "Spy in the Wild" (2017) clearly shows, animals "are not just animals". They exhibit a range of behavior and abilities what were previously considered exclusive to humans. These traits include empathy, tool building, problem solving, deduction, creativity, verbal communications with evolved vocabulary to name a few. As animals humans just happen to have evolved further in their intelectual abilities, nothing more.
You should really watch "Spy in the Wild" (2017, a BBC production several years in the making). It is an eye opener.
Luc B.
1
If we are just animals, however, we are special animals indeed. Among countless varieties of life in the taxonomy, we are primates. Among so many primates we are apes. Among a number of apes, we are homo sapiens. We are the one species to conceptualize, create and destroy on a scale that seems to make all other species less than...divine. So even if you are a science-raised secular humanist, an atheist maybe (like myself), you have to marvel at how different we are even as you see the evolutionary continuum. Still, let's stay open to the possibility that some other animals, other great apes or cetaceans, for example, inhabit their version of a life-world with its own I to I.
1
Mr. Scruton states that " many people believe there is a God and that God made us in His own image " but in an earlier paragraph, speaking of the soul which takes wing for some supernatural place when the body collapses and dies, he says that " recent advances in genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology have all but killed off that idea."I think that the writer is confused and needs to spend some time studying theology and the Bible.
"There is something in the human condition that suggests the need for special treatment."
...and that "something" is hubris.
The hubris to casually kill each other.
The hubris to casually destroy thousands of other species.
The hubris to refuse to believe that other animals experience joy and loss
The hubris to view other humans who don't look like ourselves as something less than human.
...and that "something" is hubris.
The hubris to casually kill each other.
The hubris to casually destroy thousands of other species.
The hubris to refuse to believe that other animals experience joy and loss
The hubris to view other humans who don't look like ourselves as something less than human.
2
The key starting point is that we were made in the "image of God". We seek justice. If you want to divorce the idea of God from human, however, justify your existence through the thought of self-preservation. In our humanity, we seek to preserve our own lives. This leads us to preserve the life of others, those who will help you. And on the broader level, the human race is a multiplication of one or two organisms. Killing another is like killing our own flesh and blood. But another question that arises, along that train of thought, has to do with a rather nonsensical phenomenon; that is, that those who think they are "superhuman" seek to destroy themselves. We may be the only organism that is suicidal.
"Philosophy has the task of describing the world in which we live — not the world as science describes it"
There is no difference between describing the world we live in and science. Both are purely based on empiricism. There is no room in either for fantasy tales about tooth fairies, gods, souls or other delusions. True philosophy is not about supernatural speculation.
There is no difference between describing the world we live in and science. Both are purely based on empiricism. There is no room in either for fantasy tales about tooth fairies, gods, souls or other delusions. True philosophy is not about supernatural speculation.
2
There is a significant body of phenomena that thusfar is not amenable to empirical study. Roughly, I would label this category human activities, at least beyond the reflex level. For example we have a subcategory called political activities. There is not yet an algorithm for Supreme court doings. Nor Shakespeare activity, Mozart equations or Newton patterns. We may say that activities like these are rarely found in muskrats. I have no problem with seeing our kind as just animals, but a kind with special abilities.
Many of us love animals, but none of us “fall in love” with an animal. “Falling in love” requires falling out of the self into another self, where the terms of selfhood are renegotiated. We fall out of and back into ourselves, strengthened and remade in the process, reaffirmed in our sense of self. Falling in love is a risky venture barred to animals, who have no self to fall out of. As Rilke says, they are too “open” to being—or as Heidegger puts it, “poor in world.” The risk and the adventure, of course, are explained by evolutionary psychologists as an adaptation to given conditions. The evolutionary psychologist can explain anything this way: just start with any present behavior and declare the world its “conditions.” The evolutionary psychologist sleeps well having solved all riddles.
Well, perhaps we have just test to understand animal language.
I think that animals do exchange information and have identities that are perceivable to themselves and others of their species. Especially having recently seen elephants in the wild looking at our much as we were looking at them. !
A argument still searching for a foundation. And why does it matter? It's highly likely that we share more w elephants than any aliens we come across.
I think that animals do exchange information and have identities that are perceivable to themselves and others of their species. Especially having recently seen elephants in the wild looking at our much as we were looking at them. !
A argument still searching for a foundation. And why does it matter? It's highly likely that we share more w elephants than any aliens we come across.
So when people communicate they create this thing, this life-world, this human condition, which has all kinds of properties and dimensions and unfoldings and whatnot, which can be studied and taught and even written about for money? Okay. Philosophers have to eat, too, I suppose. But in practical terms, the more our life-world fills with garbage, the more destruction we visit on species not eligible for the human condition, and the more we learn about our brains and theirs, the less value there seems to any notion of human uniqueness. Let the life-world go the way of the divine spark, and we all might live a bit longer.
Why do debates about animals and souls always seem so drone-y and peremptory? It's almost as if we were in danger of endowing animals with something they don't deserve.
When I write about animals, my computer always attempts to correct my grammar when I say "An animal who" instead of "An animal that.." Other animal philosophers (pace Mr. Scruton) have some experience with the reductive process that turns them almost into an insensate being before endowing them with their full capacity.
Next time, ask a woman.
When I write about animals, my computer always attempts to correct my grammar when I say "An animal who" instead of "An animal that.." Other animal philosophers (pace Mr. Scruton) have some experience with the reductive process that turns them almost into an insensate being before endowing them with their full capacity.
Next time, ask a woman.
"If that is true, then there is something left for philosophy to do, by way of making sense of the human condition."
I think with this sentence, the philosopher is getting close to the real truth: that humans are not special; that we happen to be evolved a little beyond the animals with whom we share 99% of our DNA; and that when we die, we disappear into the ether just like the family dog, a whale, cow or lion. This isn't cause for despair or anguish; quite the opposite, it opens our lives to the possibility of living freely and joyfully, without fear of the eternal repercussions of making mistakes in life we wish we could take back, as well as not wasting so much of our limited and precious time sitting in church on beautiful Sunday mornings or stopping whatever you're doing to pray 5 times a day.
I think with this sentence, the philosopher is getting close to the real truth: that humans are not special; that we happen to be evolved a little beyond the animals with whom we share 99% of our DNA; and that when we die, we disappear into the ether just like the family dog, a whale, cow or lion. This isn't cause for despair or anguish; quite the opposite, it opens our lives to the possibility of living freely and joyfully, without fear of the eternal repercussions of making mistakes in life we wish we could take back, as well as not wasting so much of our limited and precious time sitting in church on beautiful Sunday mornings or stopping whatever you're doing to pray 5 times a day.
2
"...Recent advances in genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology have all but killed off that idea. But they have raised the question of what to put in its place. ..."
Why do we need to put anything in its place? Replace old nonsense with new nonsense? What's the point?
Intelligence isn't so black and white. Humans are not the only toolmakers or communicators. And could argue that the human species is the only species that commits murder.
Humans could improve their condition if they ditch all religion, all of the silly hocus-pocus mysticism. The Golden Rule" and the Beatitudes is all that is needed, ditch the rest.
Why do we need to put anything in its place? Replace old nonsense with new nonsense? What's the point?
Intelligence isn't so black and white. Humans are not the only toolmakers or communicators. And could argue that the human species is the only species that commits murder.
Humans could improve their condition if they ditch all religion, all of the silly hocus-pocus mysticism. The Golden Rule" and the Beatitudes is all that is needed, ditch the rest.
I have always felt that there are two types of belief systems. Not science and religion. Those are not mutually exclusive. I ponder the split in the belief that society is for the weak and the belief that it makes us stronger.
There are those that believe that if you cannot survive in the wilds of the cutthroat world without the help of those around them, then you should not survive. There are Christians that believe this. Then there are those that believe in societal systems that support and guarantee rights and opportunities for all. There are many pragmatists and scientists who believe in this.
There are those that believe that if you cannot survive in the wilds of the cutthroat world without the help of those around them, then you should not survive. There are Christians that believe this. Then there are those that believe in societal systems that support and guarantee rights and opportunities for all. There are many pragmatists and scientists who believe in this.
Try turning the question around and it becomes clearer. If we are not just persons, what are we? We are persons who happen to be animals. As Homo sapiens, we have an animal embodiment that, at least in our case, provides the capacity to engage in the actions that typify "Persons". That's to say, at times we engage in deliberate action in a meaningful manner. But unlike most other animals, we've not only hedonic and prudential concerns but occasionally consider the ethical and aesthetic dimension of things. We've a lot to say about this. Still, as just another primate, there's all that monkey business we have to manage.
'Bringing humans back in' is a phenomenon appearing in a number of contemporary disciplines. For example, the economic historian Deirdre McCloskey unapologetically uses the term "humanomics" (coined by Bart Wilson) to refer to an economics suffused with human value, integral to economic calculation. Even contemporary cosmology, where time technically does not exist (it has no direction, there is no arrow of time, time is reduced to space) has Lee Smolin, among several others, attempting to 'bring time back in,' time being the supremely human experience. Contrary to those comments suggesting that Scruton is somewhat antiquarian, attempting to resurrect a discredited God and religion, his is only one among other cutting-edge efforts to better understand what knowledge is about. This is a phenomenon we should applaud.
How comforting to fall back on the hubris of the western creation myth that Man was made in His own image. As mammals we share all the herd instincts of the so-called "lesser" mammals; i.e., from banding together, protecting young, making trails and alpha male proclivities. Our animal origins include the reptilian order- of-the-peck, fight or flight instinct and self-preservation. The separation between we Homo sapiens and the rest of the animal kingdom is the nuance of neuronal chemical interaction between axons and synapses of our brains. Evolution has given us this temporal superiority. We have no right to subdue the earth as called for in your grand myths. Would that our intellect wins out over instinct.
1
The arrogance of the western mind continues to astound. All of the 'answers' you are supposedly looking for lies within the much more evolved philosophies of the east. They came to know and understand thousands of years ago the nature of the mind, the purpose of humanity, and how our evolution within nature has brought us to the collective consciousness that we now share. Yet it has never ended and will never end, nor can it ever be static. That collective consciousness has brought us the individual transcendent consciousnesses of the great beings of history. And our evolution will continue, try as we might to reduce it to written philosophies, it is impossible.
There is an unattractive arrogance in assuming that somehow humans are superior to other creatures as XY, NYC said:
"People who look for differences between humans and non-humans remind me of the racists who look for differences between blacks and whites, so as to justify oppression."
There is also an unattractive arrogance in assuming that according to the author: "Recent advances in genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology have all but killed off the idea [of the soul]."
In light of the obvious limits of human intelligence I would suggest that humility should be the hallmark of any philosophic discussion of the nature of humankind.
"People who look for differences between humans and non-humans remind me of the racists who look for differences between blacks and whites, so as to justify oppression."
There is also an unattractive arrogance in assuming that according to the author: "Recent advances in genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology have all but killed off the idea [of the soul]."
In light of the obvious limits of human intelligence I would suggest that humility should be the hallmark of any philosophic discussion of the nature of humankind.
1
Another piece of baloney parading as philosophy. Despite all protests we are indeed just animals. That is not pejorative.
And like other animals we have a particular set of talents. One of them is the ability for teamwork: pooling of talent. Bees, ants, chimps, wolves, lions also have this ability, but they don't have libraries and the Internet.
Unfortunately, the close connection between individual thought and the individual's culture is very poorly understood. There is where some focus is needed - religion is only part of this relation, and also a very poorly understood part, one easily melded with superstition and rigidity.
And like other animals we have a particular set of talents. One of them is the ability for teamwork: pooling of talent. Bees, ants, chimps, wolves, lions also have this ability, but they don't have libraries and the Internet.
Unfortunately, the close connection between individual thought and the individual's culture is very poorly understood. There is where some focus is needed - religion is only part of this relation, and also a very poorly understood part, one easily melded with superstition and rigidity.
3
Copernicus showed us that our Earth is not the center of our universe. Darwin showed us that humans are not a special creation nor the apex of the tree of life, but one twig on that tree, descendants with modifications from primordial life forms. Science is now showing us that non-human animals have consciousness, intelligence, empathy, and moral behavior. Occam's razor tells us that life is a continuum with no qualitatively special attributes like "souls" in humans. For philosophers and the religious, this is unsatisfying, but that does not make it untrue. For the rational, this is a beautiful truth that binds us to all of life.
Elephant gods probably look like elephants.
Elephant gods probably look like elephants.
3
Unless Mr. Scruton has found a way to enter the subjectivity of animals, I don't know how he can claim that we look at one another differently than animals do. Decades of research into animal behavior has shown that many animals are capable of - and indeed express - complex emotional lives with other members of their species just as we do.
The question of why we care for another person more than a tapeworm is straightforward - evolution has caused us to care more about organisms that are more likely to share our genetic sequences, and a human does more than a tapeworm. In addition, as conscious beings we worry more about suffering, and we don't have any reason to worry about the suffering of a tapeworm which has a very simple nervous system.
Scruton is still stuck in the Christian way of thinking - that human beings do something special that other animals do not. Perhaps he is approaching this the wrong way. It seems more likely that animals DO feel and think and have relationships with other animals. That fits with what we observe about them, and is a much simpler - in the Occam's Razor sense - solution than the idea that a God put something intangible into us during an act of special creation that we know almost for certain did not occur.
The question of why we care for another person more than a tapeworm is straightforward - evolution has caused us to care more about organisms that are more likely to share our genetic sequences, and a human does more than a tapeworm. In addition, as conscious beings we worry more about suffering, and we don't have any reason to worry about the suffering of a tapeworm which has a very simple nervous system.
Scruton is still stuck in the Christian way of thinking - that human beings do something special that other animals do not. Perhaps he is approaching this the wrong way. It seems more likely that animals DO feel and think and have relationships with other animals. That fits with what we observe about them, and is a much simpler - in the Occam's Razor sense - solution than the idea that a God put something intangible into us during an act of special creation that we know almost for certain did not occur.
3
Addressing the concept of a divine spark (a soul), David Cameron [Mr. Scruton's delusional alter ego] wrote, "Recent advances in genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology have all but killed off that idea."
Now, I'm as much of an atheist as the next guy (if the next guy is Christopher Hitchens) but I am totally unaware that genetics, neuroscience, or evolutionary psychology have "killed off" the idea of a soul. Evidence of absence? After this unsubstantiated claim the remainder of the essay was just gibberish.
If Mr. Cameron were my student, I'd suggest a thorough re-reading of Lucretius.
Now, I'm as much of an atheist as the next guy (if the next guy is Christopher Hitchens) but I am totally unaware that genetics, neuroscience, or evolutionary psychology have "killed off" the idea of a soul. Evidence of absence? After this unsubstantiated claim the remainder of the essay was just gibberish.
If Mr. Cameron were my student, I'd suggest a thorough re-reading of Lucretius.
2
I teach biology, aware of taxonomical organizational schemes so I'm always uncomfortable with discussions about animals and humans, as if they are separate entities. I also teach about the cycle of lilfe on Earth - we all contribute. I teach about the importance of diversity for survival and flourishing of any species. There is no inherent validity for the designationn that a human life is in some way more than that of a nonhuman. Our treatment of nonhuman lives is simply demonstrationn of the reality 'might makes right'. In some countries dogs are bred as food...in most of America they're part of the family. What's 'right'?
2
We are "just" animals, but by our own standards, highly evolved. The problem with philosophers is that they are always philosophizing in the absence of all the relevant data. Thus, we got the dualism that still inflicts and haunts our theology. The notion of a separate divine spark begs the obvious question: "When is that spark introduced." And arriving at an answer recalls the problem of how many angels can dance on a pin-point.
IMHO, to demand that a divine intervention is needed for the creation of every human individual is to reject the handiwork of the creator who, if existing, created the long ladder of evolution. But we can also hope, in these grim times, that evolution is not over. Now, where has that dodo gone?
IMHO, to demand that a divine intervention is needed for the creation of every human individual is to reject the handiwork of the creator who, if existing, created the long ladder of evolution. But we can also hope, in these grim times, that evolution is not over. Now, where has that dodo gone?
1
I see nothing in genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology that proves that we do not have a soul.
The advances prove that we know more and more how things work.
A good thing, but not a basis for denying the spirit.
I think there is a false issue here: that we are either only physical or also non-physical (have a soul).
These are ways of describing us.
We are more, and also less.
The less is what Buddhism goes for: when you eliminate the restricted sense of self and then become aware of a broader sphere, you gain freedom.
You no longer have to defend yourself and can give.
You experience the infinite character that we attribute to the higher power. Often called love.
So there is schooling in the idea of nothing, no-thing or emptiness in Buddhism. To get an experience of the whole. The hole leads to the whole.
I am aslo proposing that this is not an intellectual question to be decided by big brains, but something every person can do: practice wisdom (which is not only Buddhist!) and get meaning, sometimes ineffable meaning.
But poo-hooing the soul from a scientific standpoint -- notwithstanding its increaaing sophistication and accuracy -- is never going to give a 'definitive answer'.
There will always be some fool to write a poem or sing a song or say a prayer or feel he is travelling among the stars or see the universe in her baby's eyes. And believe.
The advances prove that we know more and more how things work.
A good thing, but not a basis for denying the spirit.
I think there is a false issue here: that we are either only physical or also non-physical (have a soul).
These are ways of describing us.
We are more, and also less.
The less is what Buddhism goes for: when you eliminate the restricted sense of self and then become aware of a broader sphere, you gain freedom.
You no longer have to defend yourself and can give.
You experience the infinite character that we attribute to the higher power. Often called love.
So there is schooling in the idea of nothing, no-thing or emptiness in Buddhism. To get an experience of the whole. The hole leads to the whole.
I am aslo proposing that this is not an intellectual question to be decided by big brains, but something every person can do: practice wisdom (which is not only Buddhist!) and get meaning, sometimes ineffable meaning.
But poo-hooing the soul from a scientific standpoint -- notwithstanding its increaaing sophistication and accuracy -- is never going to give a 'definitive answer'.
There will always be some fool to write a poem or sing a song or say a prayer or feel he is travelling among the stars or see the universe in her baby's eyes. And believe.
2
If philosophers and theologians in the Christian tradition accept, in the absence of any evidence, that human beings possess within them some supernatural essence, a soul, which “can never be grasped from outside”, and that this renders us “detached from the natural order”, if they accept without any evidence that “there is a God, and that God made us in his own image” so that “of course we are distinct from nature” simply because many people choose to believe it, then there is no limit to the fantastic propositions that they can accept as true, no way that they can distinguish those that are true from those that are false, because making such a distinction requires evidence. If such questions whose answers are divorced from evidence “lie at the center of philosophical inquiry today”, it can only be because philosophers either fail to understand or choose to ignore the distinction between belief and evidence, and that ignorance is what renders philosophical inquiry completely irrelevant in today’s world.
1
Philosophy and law demand binary choices, and that is where trouble lies. Guilty or innocent? Human or non-human? Deserving of the application of moral rights that we demand for ourselves or not?
The truth is much more complex than a binary choice. If consciousness determines moral rights, then what about individual members of our own species that are either not conscious yet or have been rendered unconscious? What about animals that exhibit signs of consciousness without the language to express it in a way that we can comprehend? If we give rights to a dog, cat, or horse, then what about other species?
The only moral imperative we have is to reduce the suffering and increase the happiness of our fellow organisms on this planet. It is up to each individual to decide which organisms are capable of suffering or happiness, gauge the effect of each action, and act. We can never know for sure if we have made moral choices, but we have to keep trying because the alternative is to never act and therefore cease to be alive.
The truth is much more complex than a binary choice. If consciousness determines moral rights, then what about individual members of our own species that are either not conscious yet or have been rendered unconscious? What about animals that exhibit signs of consciousness without the language to express it in a way that we can comprehend? If we give rights to a dog, cat, or horse, then what about other species?
The only moral imperative we have is to reduce the suffering and increase the happiness of our fellow organisms on this planet. It is up to each individual to decide which organisms are capable of suffering or happiness, gauge the effect of each action, and act. We can never know for sure if we have made moral choices, but we have to keep trying because the alternative is to never act and therefore cease to be alive.
4
Sorry to say folks, we are so special that we are causing another mass extinction of life on planet Earth. And since it seems that after every mass extinction more complicated life forms develop, we may well be the engine of further evolution with our self destruction. Just a thought.
I have decided that everything that I have accumulated in the way of what seems factual knowledge, indicates that life is because it can be. It seems that the more we look into the origins of life it appears to be a spontaneous combustion from the evolution of the planet from space dust to rock, simply because it could, and most probably has occurred many times before, or will occur again in the future, on similar astronomical bodies. You can look for a deity in this process, but I don't find the need for one myself.
I have decided that everything that I have accumulated in the way of what seems factual knowledge, indicates that life is because it can be. It seems that the more we look into the origins of life it appears to be a spontaneous combustion from the evolution of the planet from space dust to rock, simply because it could, and most probably has occurred many times before, or will occur again in the future, on similar astronomical bodies. You can look for a deity in this process, but I don't find the need for one myself.
1
Standard failed attempt to justify magic. There certainly is a place for philosophy if it can take science for what it is and use it as a starting point for its arguments. But instead for the most part it remains ignorant of science and appeals to magic to attempt to set itself ahead of science. It is like the pathetic attempt by many evangelical Christians who claim creation science explains the living world but it is simply an appeal for ignorance and the belief it is too important to know. Dogs have elaborate rituals to determine who is an enemy and who can be left alone. All animals have significant rituals to determine their social and inter-species reactions and just as with humans they don't always follow them. So philosophers get off your collective backsides and learn the scientific facts and project from there. Throw magic in the trashcan of history with astrology and alchemy.
2
It is significant that Roger Scruton has identified the "I" as making us different from all other animals, as it is this "I" that makes possible the reproduction of the human thought process in a computer. The computer program of the human mind, which will be built in the near future, will feature a "survival" program that seeks the highest expected value of a seeded "I exist" statement from data and information stored in memory.
All that is necessary for artificial Intelligence scientists to build the model brain is for them to understand that the human mind is driven by four (4) programs (pleasure, pain, sex, and survival - with survival, which is not linked to feelings, being the only program that can be built in a machine that can't feel.
All that is necessary for artificial Intelligence scientists to build the model brain is for them to understand that the human mind is driven by four (4) programs (pleasure, pain, sex, and survival - with survival, which is not linked to feelings, being the only program that can be built in a machine that can't feel.
Your stress upon the individual brain ignores the interconnectedness of minds, what Pierre Teilhard de Chardin calls the noosphere. At a mechanical level the analog is the "Internet of things", or possibly some aspects of the "cloud".
Each mind resides in a culture and "the eye sees only what the mind is prepared to perceive". without a cultural model to supplement the "blue brain" the individual mind cannot be understood.
Each mind resides in a culture and "the eye sees only what the mind is prepared to perceive". without a cultural model to supplement the "blue brain" the individual mind cannot be understood.
1
Sounds like the teachings of the late Marvin Minsky at MIT, who wrote "Society of Mind" in which he proclaimed that there could be no survival program in humans as this would contradict evolution. Minsky was wrong too.
Biology teaches us all creatures are as perfectly evolved for their place in the natural world as we are for ours. Animals such as elephants and monkeys seem to experience grief when a member of the group is lost. Memories influence their behavior, some make crude tools. The one thing we know with certainty is our combination of social interaction, manual dexterity and intelligence has allowed us to substantially change how we live on this planet compared to our fellow species, and is often at odds with the planet's health. We might be flattering ourselves if we conclude this is what it means to be made in the image of God.
If being made in God's image is based on a more nebulous claim that we are creatures capable of basing our behavior on some understanding of moral precepts, we arrive back at the basic problems of not being able to clearly define what those moral precepts are and how to classify perfectly intelligent people who do not agree with us.
If being made in God's image is based on a supernatural claim that we are different from animals in some way that cannot be defined scientifically, I am not sure what philosophy has to offer. People's decisions to believe a supernatural claim are not influenced by logic or reason as much as emotion and culture.
If being made in God's image is based on a more nebulous claim that we are creatures capable of basing our behavior on some understanding of moral precepts, we arrive back at the basic problems of not being able to clearly define what those moral precepts are and how to classify perfectly intelligent people who do not agree with us.
If being made in God's image is based on a supernatural claim that we are different from animals in some way that cannot be defined scientifically, I am not sure what philosophy has to offer. People's decisions to believe a supernatural claim are not influenced by logic or reason as much as emotion and culture.
1
"Philosophy has the task of describing the world in which we live"
No, philosophy is a conversation among Western, mostly male, intellectual elites about their lives. I have never read any philosophy that engaged with purple outside of the philosopher's study.
This is borne out with the writer's embrace of the cooperation hypothesis in evolutionary psychology, an example of the presentist fallacy masquerading as empiricism. Cooperation is certainly an important dynamic in social organization, as is coercion, repression, resistance, and refusal. Why privilege cooperation as the first principle in the evolution of society, if not to justify the liberalism?
Current anthropological debates center on the idea that a single Nature is an uncommon and relatively recent development. What that means is that the boundary between the human experience and the experiences of other animal and plants in our world shifts from one place to another and one time to another, sometimes embracing other entities as having human qualities and sometimes excluding them. We are currently in an exclusionary phase that began in the late eighteen hundreds with the growth of empirical science directed at the non human world.
The article demonstrates how isolated philosophy is from those sciences that engage and document how humans and their living neighbors actually relate to each other.
No, philosophy is a conversation among Western, mostly male, intellectual elites about their lives. I have never read any philosophy that engaged with purple outside of the philosopher's study.
This is borne out with the writer's embrace of the cooperation hypothesis in evolutionary psychology, an example of the presentist fallacy masquerading as empiricism. Cooperation is certainly an important dynamic in social organization, as is coercion, repression, resistance, and refusal. Why privilege cooperation as the first principle in the evolution of society, if not to justify the liberalism?
Current anthropological debates center on the idea that a single Nature is an uncommon and relatively recent development. What that means is that the boundary between the human experience and the experiences of other animal and plants in our world shifts from one place to another and one time to another, sometimes embracing other entities as having human qualities and sometimes excluding them. We are currently in an exclusionary phase that began in the late eighteen hundreds with the growth of empirical science directed at the non human world.
The article demonstrates how isolated philosophy is from those sciences that engage and document how humans and their living neighbors actually relate to each other.
4
Dear Aging Prof: I'm sorry you haven't read Julian of Norwich, a sprightly young mystic philosopher whose words of wisdom wear well through the ages.
2
"Just" animals? Animals and plants and other life forms are astonishingly complex, quasi-miraculous nexuses of infinities of facts. The molecular biology that provides downy feathers to a sparrow or hairs on a person's head is mind boggling in its structural and functional reality.
Wittgenstein: "The world is made of facts, not of things".
Facts are infinite. There are infinite tangents to any curve. We bear real, factual temporal and spatial relations to stars that exploded billions of years ago and provided the chemical constituents of our planet, our neurons and our neighbors. Objective things and subjective experiences are selections of limited sets of facts chosen from unlimited sets.
Facts are eternal. Once a fact, always a fact. The factual history of a nation or of a person or of a tapeworm is a permanent part of the furniture of universal reality.
Given that we get infinity and eternity everyday as people awakened to the facts by science and philosophy, it seems superfluous to demand that, apart from the continuum of the zoosphere and our real places in the vastness of the observable universe, we are infused with a "divine spark". It seems frankly narcissistic and counterfactual.
We see too much narcissism on display these days. We would do well to root it out of our philosophy of personal identity.
Wittgenstein: "The world is made of facts, not of things".
Facts are infinite. There are infinite tangents to any curve. We bear real, factual temporal and spatial relations to stars that exploded billions of years ago and provided the chemical constituents of our planet, our neurons and our neighbors. Objective things and subjective experiences are selections of limited sets of facts chosen from unlimited sets.
Facts are eternal. Once a fact, always a fact. The factual history of a nation or of a person or of a tapeworm is a permanent part of the furniture of universal reality.
Given that we get infinity and eternity everyday as people awakened to the facts by science and philosophy, it seems superfluous to demand that, apart from the continuum of the zoosphere and our real places in the vastness of the observable universe, we are infused with a "divine spark". It seems frankly narcissistic and counterfactual.
We see too much narcissism on display these days. We would do well to root it out of our philosophy of personal identity.
1
“Recent advances in genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology have all but killed off that idea.” That statement makes no sense. Given that the soul, or divine spark as Mr. Scruton puts it, is by definition outside the natural world, scientists would have no way (or interest) in proving or disproving its existence.
I believe that many of the most pressing moral and ethical dilemmas facing the world today arise from the seemingly unquestioned agreement that humans – alone - are entitled to “special treatment.” Mr. Scruton suggests that because of our unique, as far as we know it, nature as self-aware beings, we inhabit “a life-world that is not reducible to the world of nature, any more than the life in a painting is reducible to the lines and pigments from which it is composed.” His use of the word reducible betrays a posture of otherness. Whatever we are, however we seek to differentiate ourselves from the rest of nature, we are indisputably part of nature. And it may be time to consider that all of nature is entitled to “special treatment”.
For a wonderful meditation on the human’s place in the world, I recommend Henry Beston’s “The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod.”
I believe that many of the most pressing moral and ethical dilemmas facing the world today arise from the seemingly unquestioned agreement that humans – alone - are entitled to “special treatment.” Mr. Scruton suggests that because of our unique, as far as we know it, nature as self-aware beings, we inhabit “a life-world that is not reducible to the world of nature, any more than the life in a painting is reducible to the lines and pigments from which it is composed.” His use of the word reducible betrays a posture of otherness. Whatever we are, however we seek to differentiate ourselves from the rest of nature, we are indisputably part of nature. And it may be time to consider that all of nature is entitled to “special treatment”.
For a wonderful meditation on the human’s place in the world, I recommend Henry Beston’s “The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod.”
1
"We believe that people have rights, that they are sovereign over their lives, and that those who live by enslaving or abusing others are denying their own humanity."
There was a time that we did not believe each of those things. Human rights are a relatively new idea. Slavery was an old standard idea, not just race based slavery as in the US, but a much wider slavery that caught up some of every race, many of some groups that were losers of wars or internal politics. "Abusing" others was also "normal" as see the criminal justice systems of Europe including Britain until very recently.
Yet back then was also when we most believed in the divine spark idea. Everyone had a soul, even those enslaved and abused, and the Church tended to that soul even on the scaffold or under the Inquisitor's torture. God's gift of a special soul is what made Kings with their divine right to rule.
The question of how to treat our fellows has never been aligned with our idea of a soul. Changing of one is disconnected from changing of the other.
Perhaps it ought not to be so, but it has been so for thousands of years of known history. To ignore that is to take flight into fantasy thinking.
There was a time that we did not believe each of those things. Human rights are a relatively new idea. Slavery was an old standard idea, not just race based slavery as in the US, but a much wider slavery that caught up some of every race, many of some groups that were losers of wars or internal politics. "Abusing" others was also "normal" as see the criminal justice systems of Europe including Britain until very recently.
Yet back then was also when we most believed in the divine spark idea. Everyone had a soul, even those enslaved and abused, and the Church tended to that soul even on the scaffold or under the Inquisitor's torture. God's gift of a special soul is what made Kings with their divine right to rule.
The question of how to treat our fellows has never been aligned with our idea of a soul. Changing of one is disconnected from changing of the other.
Perhaps it ought not to be so, but it has been so for thousands of years of known history. To ignore that is to take flight into fantasy thinking.
2
Why does evolutionary science disprove the idea that an eternal human soul exists? And why, if moral codes are also successful evolutionary adaptations, why would that say anything bout their divine origin?
Seems to me such things as the Ten Commandments as moral codes are also blueprints for how to structure a successful human society. For instance, what stable society can exist where theft, envy, and murder are acceptable?
Science and faith do not necessarily contradict each other. They each seek to explain that which the other cannot. True faith cannot be in violation of clearly true science, as the latter measures that which we can know with surety. But neither can science disprove faith absent ironclad proof to the contrary.
Seems to me such things as the Ten Commandments as moral codes are also blueprints for how to structure a successful human society. For instance, what stable society can exist where theft, envy, and murder are acceptable?
Science and faith do not necessarily contradict each other. They each seek to explain that which the other cannot. True faith cannot be in violation of clearly true science, as the latter measures that which we can know with surety. But neither can science disprove faith absent ironclad proof to the contrary.
22
Six of the Ten Commandments should be followed by all 'Human Beings'. But god, aw, c'mon!
Successful Societies need to adapt to constant change. There is no blueprint for that. Humans are fallible, and therefore always open to improvement. Anything considered infallible cannot be improved, cannot be open to improvement. Therefore, the ten commandments can only be a kind of starting point, and never an answer.
1
Science cannot disprove the hypothesis that a 3 headed unicorn once wandered the planet. Neither can science disprove the existence of God.
Physical evidence, in the form of a 3 headed unicorn fossil could prove its existence. So far proof has not been found.
Physical evidence, in the form of a 3 headed unicorn fossil could prove its existence. So far proof has not been found.
1
This is another attempt to argue human exceptionalism that, at the end of the day, does little to prove that there is anything truly exceptional about humans other than our impressive brain capacity.
86
And our willingness to slaughter other species (as well as our own) en masse.
Actually, my dog is much smarter and kinder than most people I know. He's forever teaching me about right and wrong, good and evil, which admittedly I have a hard time grasping. He's currently composing a symphony—he barks the tune and tempo and I write the musical notation. I'm not sure, but I think he's frustrated because often I don't understand his barking. Hopefully he's picking up English as we go along, and soon we'll be communicating famously. It'll just take a little evolutionary time.
58
"We human beings do not see one another as animals see one another, as fellow members of a species."
I wonder, if there is actually any distinction, if what distinguishes us from other animals is our too-apparent need to distinguish ourselves form other animals.
In fact, we have no idea how other animals see one another, or whether when they communicate they do so in a way that is trustworthy, or whether they experience their own existence - their own "life-world" - as "not reducible to the world of nature."
It does seem true that "There is something in the human condition that suggests the need for special treatment." (Though, I wonder if this is cultural.) But our claims to distinctiveness keep getting destroyed. Often by crows. Who have dropped the hard nut of "man the tool-maker" from altitude and, cracking it against the rocks of reality, have shown it to be empty.
I wonder, if there is actually any distinction, if what distinguishes us from other animals is our too-apparent need to distinguish ourselves form other animals.
In fact, we have no idea how other animals see one another, or whether when they communicate they do so in a way that is trustworthy, or whether they experience their own existence - their own "life-world" - as "not reducible to the world of nature."
It does seem true that "There is something in the human condition that suggests the need for special treatment." (Though, I wonder if this is cultural.) But our claims to distinctiveness keep getting destroyed. Often by crows. Who have dropped the hard nut of "man the tool-maker" from altitude and, cracking it against the rocks of reality, have shown it to be empty.
41
There is an "invisible hand of the collective" that appears to some as morality, to others as evolution and the selfish gene, and to others as God, I suppose. Every class of living things has one as without it there can be no "stable equilibrium", no persistence and only diffusion and decay. Seems pretty obvious to me.
2
Woody Allen's film "Irrational Man" is a pretty good take down of philosophy as a legitimate scholarly exercise. Its an antiquated intellectual activity mostly akin to religion and does nothing to advance knowledge or discover truth. In Allen's view its marginally poetic and sometimes dangerous. And who says that we don't often treat each other like animals. My vote is for Science.
12
Funny. Sounds like a philosophy to me. Perhaps you missed Woody Allen's irony.
So this is your philosophy?
Bulletin: We are just animals!
73
agree. except for the "just". animals with a brain that has the ability to think in abstract concepts (such as god), which give the impression of being separate and special.
2
Question: Why does this answer never satisfy us?
Philosophy that tries to explain "the world as it is represented in our mutual dealings, a world organized by language, in which we meet one another I to I" generally falls apart as soon as "I meets Them/Those/Other". Suddenly our cherished humanity and sense of uniqueness vanishes right back into the morass of evolutionary sameness.
9
Mr. Scruton writes: "I am fairly confident that the picture painted by the evolutionary psychologists is true."
And you've come to this conclusion the same way, I suppose, that psychologist Paul Bloom, based on his psychological "research," concludes that empathy is a bad thing?
A Tibetan Buddhist monk once asked a psychologist if he meditated. Upon hearing the negative reply, he inquired, "But isn't that an ethical violation?"
Gemli, based on?, asserts that "we have no idea what it's like to be a non-human animal.'
Yet - in response to Bloom, Scruton and Gemli - there is over 100 years of research (as good as that in any branch of science, according to pseudo-skeptic Richard Wiseman) that in fact, consciousness (human and non-human) is not dependent on the brain (thus refuting evolutionary psychology) and has the capacity to "know" Itself throughout Time and Space (thus refuting both Bloom and Gemli).
The problem is, if you keep looking for your glasses everywhere but on your nose, you'll never find it.
That which is looking is that which you are looking for. As the Buddha told the Gods who were chasing him to the far corners of the universe, but could never catch him, "I am here. Stop running and you will find me."
www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.htm
And you've come to this conclusion the same way, I suppose, that psychologist Paul Bloom, based on his psychological "research," concludes that empathy is a bad thing?
A Tibetan Buddhist monk once asked a psychologist if he meditated. Upon hearing the negative reply, he inquired, "But isn't that an ethical violation?"
Gemli, based on?, asserts that "we have no idea what it's like to be a non-human animal.'
Yet - in response to Bloom, Scruton and Gemli - there is over 100 years of research (as good as that in any branch of science, according to pseudo-skeptic Richard Wiseman) that in fact, consciousness (human and non-human) is not dependent on the brain (thus refuting evolutionary psychology) and has the capacity to "know" Itself throughout Time and Space (thus refuting both Bloom and Gemli).
The problem is, if you keep looking for your glasses everywhere but on your nose, you'll never find it.
That which is looking is that which you are looking for. As the Buddha told the Gods who were chasing him to the far corners of the universe, but could never catch him, "I am here. Stop running and you will find me."
www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.htm
14
"Recent advances in genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology have all but killed off that idea."
What do these things have to do with the soul? It isn't in the physical realm at all, and it is also something that transcends psychology. And furthermore, it isn't something that can be killed off. It can only be accepted or denied.
What do these things have to do with the soul? It isn't in the physical realm at all, and it is also something that transcends psychology. And furthermore, it isn't something that can be killed off. It can only be accepted or denied.
7
To David from Monticello: Such elegant simplicity.
It's amazing, after seeing the extent to which Stone "philosophers" and "scientists' (aka Enlightenment era technicians and mechanists) tie themselves into mind numbing knots of pseudo-complexity when Truth is right in front of us for all to see - "let those who have eyes to see.... Him in whom we live and move and have our Being."
Ramana Maharshi put it perhaps in the simplest words imaginable:
"I am that I am." That is the whole truth.
"Be still and know that I am." That is the whole practice.
Now, do it.
www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.htm
It's amazing, after seeing the extent to which Stone "philosophers" and "scientists' (aka Enlightenment era technicians and mechanists) tie themselves into mind numbing knots of pseudo-complexity when Truth is right in front of us for all to see - "let those who have eyes to see.... Him in whom we live and move and have our Being."
Ramana Maharshi put it perhaps in the simplest words imaginable:
"I am that I am." That is the whole truth.
"Be still and know that I am." That is the whole practice.
Now, do it.
www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.htm
2
We are reducible to a state of nature after all.
The article posits ,"the face as the soul of the body".
As highly social beings, our brains and facial expressions have been in a sort of arms race for a very long time. The results are that infinitely complex emotional information can be projected both intentionally and unintentionally to another.
We don't have a greater right to live than any other living thing. On the other hand it's not wrong because we must take living things into our bodies to survive.
The article posits ,"the face as the soul of the body".
As highly social beings, our brains and facial expressions have been in a sort of arms race for a very long time. The results are that infinitely complex emotional information can be projected both intentionally and unintentionally to another.
We don't have a greater right to live than any other living thing. On the other hand it's not wrong because we must take living things into our bodies to survive.
3
So I must assume that To Be or Not To Be is not the question.
5
Are humans to be classed as animals? Are humans special in some way (consciousness, etc.)? What to make of human morality?
I would say it is not implausible that humans are not of the earth, that we are a seed which falls on planets, viciously exploits them, then does all possible to develop means to leave planet and exploit others. Humans are clearly an anomaly on "our" planet. Study human history--read the Romans to see that for all morality, cooperation between humans arguably the people best fitted for society were psychopathically violent and bent on sheer exploitation. Methods of morality between humans have only been slightly better than pure pain affliction they have been so oppressive (history of religion).
In modern times for all freedom, democracy, morality, we seem mostly obsessed with technological advancement and sheer method of control of humans what with administration, bureaucracy, law after law; we are at the point now that a human can go through society not at all aware of being watched in every move by sophisticated surveillance. We are apparently for all humanity a being which viciously preys on planet, preys on ourselves, and seemingly is bent on a submission of planet and ourselves to one overriding mission: Leave the planet and exploit others.
The only morality I recognize myself as having is that of pity. If I am a member of a predatory, alien species on earth I am a contemptible member: One who pities what I am and the ruined world left behind.
I would say it is not implausible that humans are not of the earth, that we are a seed which falls on planets, viciously exploits them, then does all possible to develop means to leave planet and exploit others. Humans are clearly an anomaly on "our" planet. Study human history--read the Romans to see that for all morality, cooperation between humans arguably the people best fitted for society were psychopathically violent and bent on sheer exploitation. Methods of morality between humans have only been slightly better than pure pain affliction they have been so oppressive (history of religion).
In modern times for all freedom, democracy, morality, we seem mostly obsessed with technological advancement and sheer method of control of humans what with administration, bureaucracy, law after law; we are at the point now that a human can go through society not at all aware of being watched in every move by sophisticated surveillance. We are apparently for all humanity a being which viciously preys on planet, preys on ourselves, and seemingly is bent on a submission of planet and ourselves to one overriding mission: Leave the planet and exploit others.
The only morality I recognize myself as having is that of pity. If I am a member of a predatory, alien species on earth I am a contemptible member: One who pities what I am and the ruined world left behind.
9
Tapeworms are hardly innocent! They are parasites living in the intestines of some animals from grazing in pastures or drinking contaminated water. Eating under-cooked meat from infected animals can cause tapeworm infection in human animals.
I talk to my dogs all the time and they in their own way talk back with body language as well as various barking sounds; other animals like apes do the same as well as some birds.
Talk to the animals and we can discover things about ourselves.
I talk to my dogs all the time and they in their own way talk back with body language as well as various barking sounds; other animals like apes do the same as well as some birds.
Talk to the animals and we can discover things about ourselves.
6
You open saying, "Philosophers and theologians in the Christian tradition have regarded human beings as distinguished from the other animals by the presence within them of a divine spark." but then go on to claim that recent scientific advances "have all but killed off that idea. Well, maybe for philosophers, but it is preposterous to suggest that Christian theologians would agree.
Good theologians, many faithful Christians, and a fair number of scientists who are people of faith, have no problem understanding the sciences of genetics etc., but maintaining a belief in a human-divine connection. Likewise, many of us, at least on the Christian left and middle, have no problem integrating belief in evolution with belief in a Creator God.
That said, I do not distinguish human beings merely based upon a belief in the divine. Our capacity for language alone sets us apart. Yes, chimps & other animals communicate, but humans are the only ones with the brain capacity for complex spoken language. And, yes, as you point out, self-awareness, self-reflection, and the capacity to recognize others as equally self-aware individuals is unique to human beings. An interesting question is whether human beings have reached the height of their evolutionary trajectory. We continue to learn about our world, to invent, and to grow in knowledge, but are we still evolving?
Good theologians, many faithful Christians, and a fair number of scientists who are people of faith, have no problem understanding the sciences of genetics etc., but maintaining a belief in a human-divine connection. Likewise, many of us, at least on the Christian left and middle, have no problem integrating belief in evolution with belief in a Creator God.
That said, I do not distinguish human beings merely based upon a belief in the divine. Our capacity for language alone sets us apart. Yes, chimps & other animals communicate, but humans are the only ones with the brain capacity for complex spoken language. And, yes, as you point out, self-awareness, self-reflection, and the capacity to recognize others as equally self-aware individuals is unique to human beings. An interesting question is whether human beings have reached the height of their evolutionary trajectory. We continue to learn about our world, to invent, and to grow in knowledge, but are we still evolving?
41
"humans are the only ones with the brain capacity for complex spoken language"
Actually most higher apes have the same brain complexity, just lack the communicative organs (mouth, tongue, teeth, etc) to be able to communicate the way we do. We've successfully taught several ape species how to use sign language and it's clear their brains are complex enough to grasp complex concepts.
In addition, you are completely neglecting other animals which do have complex spoken languages. How about dolphins? Just because we don't understand what they are saying doesn't in any way change the fact that it's clear they use language. Their vocalizations are highly complex and are clearly a form of speech. Elephants, bats, birds, lots of other species have complex spoken languages.
Actually most higher apes have the same brain complexity, just lack the communicative organs (mouth, tongue, teeth, etc) to be able to communicate the way we do. We've successfully taught several ape species how to use sign language and it's clear their brains are complex enough to grasp complex concepts.
In addition, you are completely neglecting other animals which do have complex spoken languages. How about dolphins? Just because we don't understand what they are saying doesn't in any way change the fact that it's clear they use language. Their vocalizations are highly complex and are clearly a form of speech. Elephants, bats, birds, lots of other species have complex spoken languages.
6
If one accepts the standard empirical tests for self-awareness, that trait is most certainly not "unique to human beings". Numerous other animals pass these standard tests. There is, as well, good evidence that some non-human animals have a "theory of mind'--that they recognize and model the thinking of other beings. This might well constitute recognizing others as equally self-aware. (And, of course, whether complex language is *spoken* is irrelevant and reflects a species bias. Speech is not what's significant about the capacity for complex linguistic ability.)
3
We struggle to find distinctions between humankind and the animal kingdom. Opposable thumb and use of tools and even language have fallen along the way. But there is one capability that, apparently, only humans are capable of: the ability to discern the cause of things as other than mere association (sorry, Mr. Hume.) After great effort and difficulty some of us have found the cause---necessary and sufficient condition---for malaria, nutrition, mutation. tides, etc., etc. There alone we, or the brightest among us, stand.
1
On the other hand, it may be that humans have an extraordinary lack of empathy, so that they project on other humans the transcendent abilities that they all share while utterly failing to appreciate the great complexities in the interactions of other species.
91
If I read it correctly, the last paragraph asserts the old dichotomy between mind and matter; the body belongs to the natural world but the mind is something apart from it. I suspect this is a delusion which arises from our failure to understand consciousness. If and when we grasp the conscious mind, maybe we will see it as a part of nature.
91
I treat philosophy as an act of juggling all the ''data'' that we know about.
We can weigh the outcomes versus the reasons for the outcomes. We can judge without having the judgement levied against ourselves. We can subject whatever whims we wish against moral equivalency, because we may be at the top of the food chain.
And there is the rub.
If we are to follow any modicum of science or mathematics, then the probability is that we are not alone. Further still, we may not be the highest in the food chain. One last further step, is that reality might not be what we think it is, nor may we ever comprehend.
Discuss.
We can weigh the outcomes versus the reasons for the outcomes. We can judge without having the judgement levied against ourselves. We can subject whatever whims we wish against moral equivalency, because we may be at the top of the food chain.
And there is the rub.
If we are to follow any modicum of science or mathematics, then the probability is that we are not alone. Further still, we may not be the highest in the food chain. One last further step, is that reality might not be what we think it is, nor may we ever comprehend.
Discuss.
28
"One last further step, is that reality might not be what we think it is, nor may we ever comprehend."
I'm fine with that. It would be an amazing coincidence that the bag of wet neurons that we have inside our heads, would, being merely the current result of constraints of evolution and nature's randomness, be the right item to actually comprehend the universe, or "reality", or "purpose", or if those last two even exist.
I'm fine with that. It would be an amazing coincidence that the bag of wet neurons that we have inside our heads, would, being merely the current result of constraints of evolution and nature's randomness, be the right item to actually comprehend the universe, or "reality", or "purpose", or if those last two even exist.
1
Are we even high on the list of the food chain? All this hierarchical ranking may just be part of our delusion that we are apart. Perhaps we are just a really fancy ride for bacteria. Or, to follow Dawkins, we are just the slaves of genes. We are a byproduct.
5
I wonder quite often what human beings will do as a collective if we ever do find out that we are not the only ones, much less the most intelligent. Looking around our world at our inability to keep our only home clean and capable of sustaining life suggests that our present design is flawed. We have learned how to sustain more people than the world is naturally able to accommodate. We seem incapable of using our knowledge to consider some of the old paradigms that keep us using everything in sight for our own gains. Apparently, we hope that natural limitations will force each family to have less children. Unfortunately, we are still fighting over birth control as a moral issue.
I suspect we will eventually come to an existential impasse and smart decisions will have to be made about how to order our earthly existence. I am fairly certain it is not out of the realm of reason that we will extinct ourselves. Add to that the certainty that God did not just make one species in his own imagine, I expect mass insanity for some groups. Let's hope that all this talk of us being not just animals comes to our rescue. This possibility does not look good considering our recent year of experience in this country.
I suspect we will eventually come to an existential impasse and smart decisions will have to be made about how to order our earthly existence. I am fairly certain it is not out of the realm of reason that we will extinct ourselves. Add to that the certainty that God did not just make one species in his own imagine, I expect mass insanity for some groups. Let's hope that all this talk of us being not just animals comes to our rescue. This possibility does not look good considering our recent year of experience in this country.
1
If you go deeply inside yourself, and focus there, you will find the answer to your question. You are not going to find the answer in the places that you are currently looking. And if you do not focus while inside, you also will not find the answer.
"Recent advances in genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology have all but killed off that idea."
What nonsense. They have done no such thing. (Speaking as a neuroscientist.)
"Recent advances in genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology have all but killed off that idea."
What nonsense. They have done no such thing. (Speaking as a neuroscientist.)
77
"Recent advances in genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology have all but killed off that idea."
Only if by recent you mean "since the 16th century." At least from that time there have been thinkers who more and more came to the realization that there was zero evidence for "divine spark."
Only if by recent you mean "since the 16th century." At least from that time there have been thinkers who more and more came to the realization that there was zero evidence for "divine spark."
1
Rick: I'm deeply impressed. Really, so there are wise neuroscientists?
Unfortunately, when you tell someone who is incorrigibly materialist to "look inside yourself," he will either start analyzing his thoughts and feelings, or worse, look at the image we call the brain.
As William Blake once put it, the body (and the brain, as it were) is that portion of the soul perceived by the 5 senses - and this is the crucial part - "in this age."
That shouldn't need any translation, but in case it does, there have been other eras in which the kind of thing Rick wrote was so transparently obvious it would be inconceivable that there could ever be a human living who would not understand it.
yet, here we are.
www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.htm
Unfortunately, when you tell someone who is incorrigibly materialist to "look inside yourself," he will either start analyzing his thoughts and feelings, or worse, look at the image we call the brain.
As William Blake once put it, the body (and the brain, as it were) is that portion of the soul perceived by the 5 senses - and this is the crucial part - "in this age."
That shouldn't need any translation, but in case it does, there have been other eras in which the kind of thing Rick wrote was so transparently obvious it would be inconceivable that there could ever be a human living who would not understand it.
yet, here we are.
www.remember-to-breathe.org/Breathing-Videos.htm
You seem to have missed the "all but" in the quotation, even though you accurately reproduced that phrase in your post. (A cynic could accuse you of being prone to believing in what you can't see and ignoring what is right in front of you.)
Yes, I'm sure there are a few people who have made room in their belief system for science and divinity, but that group would seem to be covered by the author's "all but" qualification. It's not nonsense. Talk about seeing things from an "I" perspective.
Yes, I'm sure there are a few people who have made room in their belief system for science and divinity, but that group would seem to be covered by the author's "all but" qualification. It's not nonsense. Talk about seeing things from an "I" perspective.
1
People who look for differences between humans and non-humans remind me of the racists who look for differences between blacks and whites, so as to justify oppression.
193
Me too, XY, me too.
Wow! Talk about political correctness gone amuk. Are we supposed to be ashamed of who we are? If we feel different, are we supposed to hide that fact? You're approach is no difference from the religiously motivated suppression of inquiry into human nature.
1
Some animals once adult live alone, meeting with their kind only to mate. Others are social, living in groups. And others are like ants and bees; an anthill or beehive is really a single organism with many detachable parts. The individual ant or bee (except perhaps for the queen) is completely unable to live by herself, since her individual life is deprived of meaning or structure as soon as she is separated from the hive or hill.
We are like ants or bees. Our awareness of our souls depends on language; without language we might have souls but would have no way to be aware of them as such. Our identity is formed by being part of a language community that teaches us our language and thereby makes us able to be aware of what we are (an essential part of being what we are and what distinguishes us from other animals). We like to think of ourselves as individuals, but if we lose language we lose abstract thought and any hope of knowing about souls and corporations and solemn oaths and such.
We are parts of a special animal, one of the animals where the cosmos's understanding of itself exists and hopefully grows. The human race does not yet, and may never, constitute one animal, but it is trying to get there rather than destroying itself. We do not generally think of ourselves in this way, but we should. "Cogito ergo sum" exists only because Descartes learned French and then Latin from his parents and his community.
We are like ants or bees. Our awareness of our souls depends on language; without language we might have souls but would have no way to be aware of them as such. Our identity is formed by being part of a language community that teaches us our language and thereby makes us able to be aware of what we are (an essential part of being what we are and what distinguishes us from other animals). We like to think of ourselves as individuals, but if we lose language we lose abstract thought and any hope of knowing about souls and corporations and solemn oaths and such.
We are parts of a special animal, one of the animals where the cosmos's understanding of itself exists and hopefully grows. The human race does not yet, and may never, constitute one animal, but it is trying to get there rather than destroying itself. We do not generally think of ourselves in this way, but we should. "Cogito ergo sum" exists only because Descartes learned French and then Latin from his parents and his community.
16
Thanks for this,
I find in this collective interpretation a much better space for definition and thinking.
If we wonder not about the meaning of I, neither the meaning of our life but rather the meaning of us all, and if we then append to this effort the meaning of evolution (-and therefore a much greater time scale-), then one can start to entertain more fulfilling and practical reflections of meaning like the meaning of humanity and intelligence.
We tend to live our lives trapped in the interpretation of the self, tied to small time units too. I believe that by thinking in terms of that "special animal" we might come to a realisation of truth.
Thanks for this comment, felt like finding life somewhere else in the universe ;)
I find in this collective interpretation a much better space for definition and thinking.
If we wonder not about the meaning of I, neither the meaning of our life but rather the meaning of us all, and if we then append to this effort the meaning of evolution (-and therefore a much greater time scale-), then one can start to entertain more fulfilling and practical reflections of meaning like the meaning of humanity and intelligence.
We tend to live our lives trapped in the interpretation of the self, tied to small time units too. I believe that by thinking in terms of that "special animal" we might come to a realisation of truth.
Thanks for this comment, felt like finding life somewhere else in the universe ;)
You might find it worth while to read what Temple Grandin has to say on consciousness and conceptual processing without language in "Animals in Translation".
1
Art has no language, yet a picture can scream a million words to whomever depicts the picture as meaningful.
2
We have no idea what it's like to be a non-human animal, so it seems like special pleading to imagine that we're all that special. We're apes that developed language, and ever since that momentous event we've never shut up.
Words are place holders in the mind that stand for things in the real world, and that opened a floodgate of communication and leveraged our intelligence up a few notches. The great thing about words is that they aren't constrained by reality. We can tell others about a boulder that's blocking the path, but the boulder can also float up in the air and vanish in a shower of blue sparks. Language rules!
Language was soon followed by lying, and almost immediately after that, religion.
We've got to realize that our intellect is recent development which is awkwardly bolted on to a much older brain. It's provided us with an astounding increase in our ability to understanding the world, but mainly it has allowed us to justify doing horrible things to our fellow creatures that would make most other creatures blanch.
Since language and symbolic thought have such power for understanding, compassion and cruelty, it's interesting to imagine where artificial intelligence may lead. A super-intelligent automaton may be able to ask "why?" but I'd be afraid that it might ask, "why not?"
Words are place holders in the mind that stand for things in the real world, and that opened a floodgate of communication and leveraged our intelligence up a few notches. The great thing about words is that they aren't constrained by reality. We can tell others about a boulder that's blocking the path, but the boulder can also float up in the air and vanish in a shower of blue sparks. Language rules!
Language was soon followed by lying, and almost immediately after that, religion.
We've got to realize that our intellect is recent development which is awkwardly bolted on to a much older brain. It's provided us with an astounding increase in our ability to understanding the world, but mainly it has allowed us to justify doing horrible things to our fellow creatures that would make most other creatures blanch.
Since language and symbolic thought have such power for understanding, compassion and cruelty, it's interesting to imagine where artificial intelligence may lead. A super-intelligent automaton may be able to ask "why?" but I'd be afraid that it might ask, "why not?"
160
Yeah, but I'd still like to see some of our more popular and articulate commenters take on that question of why it's OK to kill an innocent tapeworm, but not OK to kill an innocent human.
Or why, if given the choice of rescuing a human toddler or a Labrador retriever from a burning building (no fudging; you can't save both), most of us (nearly all of us? all of us?) would rescue the toddler of our own species.
Or why, if given the choice of rescuing a human toddler or a Labrador retriever from a burning building (no fudging; you can't save both), most of us (nearly all of us? all of us?) would rescue the toddler of our own species.
2
Question for Mr. Scruton: Since we are animals who have simply evolved a bit, and since we simply have a larger frontal lobe, and since free will is a myth that has been replaced by genes and environment as shown by science, how can we be sure that we are so important that we are superior to those "animals" referred to in this essay?
Since those "animals" referred to are still largely unknown in many ways, how can we be sure that we humans are superior?
These are questions only science can answer while philosophers argue about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Since those "animals" referred to are still largely unknown in many ways, how can we be sure that we humans are superior?
These are questions only science can answer while philosophers argue about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
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If science/scientists were to ANSWER questions, they'd simply move into the tasks of religion. In fact, science never ANSWERS questions; it simply states hypotheses, which are, in the scientific dialog, either corroborated progressively or challenged so as to be restated in altered format to account for the newly understood facts. Even animals can imagine prefigured, different universes and then work toward one of them that they desire. No wills are "free"; all wills are "conditioned by what is possible" and "conditioned by what is imaginably desirable." So, methinks that neither philosophers nor scientists need worry about how "free" wills are or how spiritual stuff (angels)interacts with physical stuff (pins). The puzzle why I am uniquely me and thus alone in the universe while sensing a mirror-neuron conditioned connection to other such subjective universe-experiences--animal or human--cannot be relegated to one discipline; it's a question all of us ponder to varying degrees, no?
4
No, Reinhold.
2
Pray tell when was the last time a philosopher took on the pin-head-dancing-angel quandary? I believe it was when science [natural philosophy] was working out epicycles, equants, and eccentrics.
Science and philosophy work best when they work together. Mr. Scruton's essay may be flawed, but it inspires thought. It gets us thinking. All, and I mean all, the most interesting scientists have been reasonably well versed in philosophy. E.g. Einstein, Bohr, Feynman, Galileo, Newton, Leibniz, Laplace, Ptolemy, Galen,... etc.
Science and philosophy work best when they work together. Mr. Scruton's essay may be flawed, but it inspires thought. It gets us thinking. All, and I mean all, the most interesting scientists have been reasonably well versed in philosophy. E.g. Einstein, Bohr, Feynman, Galileo, Newton, Leibniz, Laplace, Ptolemy, Galen,... etc.
1