I had thought about effecting some changes in my working patterns because I don't want to be an unnecessary burden to the company with my questionable heath and there will be future times that I need to take time out for preventative treatments. With the greatest of understanding they didn't want to introduce any changes and they completely understood my situation and with sympathy and compassion they wished me good luck as they chained me to my desk. OK, I introduced a little unnecessary light heartedness on such a serious matter but seriously it's a pleasure to work for such a company that has a remarkable understanding and allowance to its employees and we reciprocate in our commitment and our loyalty to the company. We are like an extended family and that's perhaps as it should be. I will return on Monday with rejuvenation and enthusiasm.
I was very pleased that my dear old friend Terutaka came to visit too, although he stayed downstairs in the restaurant, to wish me good health. He looks like he's lost a little weight which is perhaps a good thing. I even had a phone call from my dear old friend Ayumi and we have arranged to meet again soon, which thrills me.
A lot of my friends seem to say things which infer that I have some power over my future destiny. Of course these are merely positive, ego boosting, moral increasing phrases being said to wish me well in the future but it did get me thinking again.
As a species, is man the master of his destiny?
Are we proud enough to say "yes we are?"
What about chimpanzee's? Are they masters of their collective destiny?
I'm sure you'll all say no with a lot of indignation and remind me that man has mastered the world with reason and industry and science and equate all that to mastery of a destiny.
It's faith in the phrase because I see no proof.
We are just another animal somewhere on the branches of a Darwinian map. We are not special and we are not formed in an image of some deity. We are a collection of genes that would interact randomly in varying environments. A species cannot control its fate.
As people rush to tell me all about the progress of man I tend to see it as a faith much akin to Christian ideology. Anyone who has a religion that is not Christian (and I mean them no offense) happily take Darwin's proposals and since humans and animals are related it causes no friction whatsoever! Christians though have put us humans into such an elevated position of above the animals and one step below God that Darwin's proposals created a storm of protest and that controversy is present even today.
This is not an example of progress and nor is it an example of regression, it is a stagnant hold onto something believed from 2000 years ago. A belief in progress is to accept that we have new power given us by science. Our knowledge grows daily and science advances but the human animal remains the same.
The human: A highly inventive animal but the deadliest predator and extremely destructive.
So are we just another animal or are we, as some would insist, creatures that can use our knowledge and control our environment and flourish as never before?
If you think we can flourish with such knowledge then you renew one of Christianity's dubious offerings in a new light that 'salvation is open to all' in a secular version. You in effect repeat that humans are different from other animals.
It seems funny in a way that just like my tumor, humans have grown across this planet in the same way or as a pathologic organism would and because of its nature it upsets the balance of Mother Earth. At six and a half billion we have become a plague across her. Geological ages investigations have shown periods of time when mass extinctions have occurred (if you are not limited to the garden of Eden) and the demise of the dinosaur was most probably due to a meteoric impact. Even today species are disappearing with alarming numbers but not due to the evolving nature of Earth as a natural occurrence but because of the plague of mankind.
The roll of dice in genetic randomness that gave humans their chance to be the dominant life-form has spelled disaster for so many others. I think I can say I admire the choice of some people, such as people who work for Greenpeace who fight to lessen mankind's impact on the environment and who desperately try to educate us against our seemingly uncaring ignorant attitudes to our one and only home, Mother Earth.
I further admire people like Japanese Ainu, the Inuit and the Australian Natives. These people live and always have lived in a balance with the Earth. Such gentle footsteps when the rest of us stamp out feet loudly!
I wonder how the Earth could hold a population of 8 Billion which all predictions seem to foretell that we will hit by the year 2050. Would we have to cut away all the forests to make room, make room!
A science fiction world where little of Earth remains except humans, their cities and an artificial environment with genetically modified high yield crops that supports us.
Is this perhaps a disillusioned view of things to come? A nightmare! Would Mother Earth allow it? Can the earth react against us? Could she destroy us or at least vastly reduce our number to say one billion? Or will we succeed in destroying her?
Ideally there would be a symbiosis like the natives I spoke of and a harmony - but I cannot see it. Even though every news channel tells us that we are on the verge of destruction we refuse to believe. We dismiss global warming as some regular cycle or an empty theory because we don't see the effects at once.
In a strangely perverse way, what if this global warming is the Earth's attempt at reducing our number?
The flooding of low lands and the moving of agricultural areas into the mountainous areas away from the plains.... It makes it sound like an intelligent design. (Laughs) This would also change patterns of disease. Look how more often we are seeing diseases that become of epidemic or pandemic proportions now.
Our bodies are like cities for bacterial colonies (and I wonder if we could have been designed for that purpose) and it could be reasonable to say that epidemiology and microbiology are better avenues of predicting the future of man than our hopes and dreams alone.
Such is this progress of man!
Man is unique in one way when measured against the other animals. To ensure future supplies of resources and food, we destroy surplus members of our own species. War very rarely made an impact on populations but now we have the scientific knowledge to do it better. We have Nuclear, biological and possibly coming to a secret military facility closer than you think and very soon, genetic weapons. The ultimate in ethnic cleansing!
But there is something about to reduce our number and it's not really hidden if you choose to go look.
Anyone over fifty years of age will have in their lifetime seen the world's human population double. No other creature has done that, not rabbits, or mice or insect. How can such an expansion be maintained?
It's a stressful world and in that stress, look close and you will see a massive fall in fertility. Like any other animal, humans will react to overcrowding and scarcity by slowing the urge to reproduce.
Thank my stars I'm gay!
Animals seem to have an environmental hormonal condition that powers them down into economy mode when resources are low and energy hungry reproduction is the first thing crossed from the list.
All of these factors are now present and if you ask me, that is how Mother Earth is reducing our numbers.
We see Climate change, pattern of disease, increasing our warlike tendencies over low resources and small fertility drive.
If Mother earth will reduce our number then the upward curve may well soon become a depressingly violent downward curve and 2050 wont see 8 billion but more like 1 billion, a nice number that the earth can support.
Am I thinking too much again?
Do any of you wonder such things?
I believe in the future but it has to change. We have to change and if we can't then no matter our scientific advances, the human animal may well find itself on the "in danger of extinction list"
If there is a God, then perhaps now would be a timely moment for divine interference?
If you have an opinion of your own or have issue with my thoughts then tell me what you think guys!
There are some interesting 'Humanism quotes'.
Humanism in the modern sense of the term is the view that whatever your ethical system, it derives from your best understanding of human nature and the human condition in the real world. This means that it does not, in its thinking about the good and about our responsibilities to ourselves and one another, premise putative data from astrology, fairy tales, supernatural beliefs, animism, polytheism, or any other inheritances from the ages of humankind's remote and more ignorant past.
The word 'humanism' has more than one meaning...Generally, it implies a desire to think for yourself; to 'do your own thing'; to accept the results of free inquiry, whatever they may be; and to act in accordance with those results, in the light of reason and in co-operation with others, for the promotion of human happiness.
Humanism is optimistic regarding human nature and confident in human reason and science as the best means of reaching the goal of human fulfilment in this world. Humanists affirm that humans are a product of the same evolutionary process that produced all other living organisms and that all ideas, knowledge, values, and social systems are based upon human experience. Humanists conclude that creative ability and personal responsibility are strongest when the mind is free from supernatural belief and operates in an atmosphere of freedom and democracy.
Although they sound well meaning and highly analytical of the human condition it seems I fail to understand one thing:
I see Religions and faiths on one side of me and as I'm supposed too, I see humanists on the other side. Logic may infer that they are poles apart and yet even the humanists have faith of a secular kind.
The culture they were brought up in is infused with elements from that which they deny with everything from Christianity to Socrates, the colors of which stain the thoughts of today.
I don't know anything.
I just feel that we are all so very wrong.
I thought long and hard before offering a comment on this one and I really think this topic is out of my league.
I'm sure there is the normal human greed factor and the sustainable commerce factors all come into play are part of the economic factors. For example, we have the scientific knowhow to produce light bulbs that can out-live ourselves but can we buy them? No!
Why would they be produced? They would sell you so many for your home knowing that you will never be a customer again. Poor salesmanship. We have become a disposable society - consume and throw away and we have created mountains of trash. We have perverse ideas and ideologies all fighting for a share of power and leadership. We have selfishness and greed and desire and sometimes even survival having us do things we may not normally do to the detriment of our fellow humans.
Is the human race worth saving?
When we are at our best then its okay and when we are at our worst its hell!
Faith through science is an interesting faith and as you say, humans are stuck somewhere on an evolutionary branch and we are the product of our genetic heritage.
The truth won't set us free because where on Earth is 'truth' an evolutionary advantage?
On the contrary, deceit seems to be advantageous and some humans are better at it than others.
If man is just the animal then in this modern world he will want want most other animals want: Food, success and a mate. No one wants to starve. Read success and position, money, material wealth or ambition realised and a mate can mean several if we are honest about it.
Truth does not set us free and what's true for one may be a lie for another.
Jazz thanks for a fascinating post and a head-ache. And as simple as I am, I'd like to conclude this comment with these words. "Nice Pictures Miss!"
Garth
June 06, 2009 11:30 PMSecond part: (to many characters for one comment!)
Overpopulated world is quite big problem, I think very often that in 100 years we will have to move to a Mars (laugh).
I believe that changes will come, everything changes. We can’t notice smaller ones but you know: many little steps can make something incredibly big. I know that what change will be depends on us and I have great hope that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will live in peaceful world. I think that we think too less about future, because when we hear in tv about potential dangerous in 100 years we think “oh, that does not concern me!” – how big egoists are we? Masters of the world who don’t care if our world will be destroyed in future or not. Applause!
I like the second quote – I’ve already know it. Desire to think for yourself , do our own things…Isn’t it sound like we don’t care about everything else? Learning and exploration the world –this is what we do. But what about consequences? Some of them are still don’t known! But we do it all the time and don’t care about future effect, sometimes very distanced. Co-operation with others – this is what I said: without co-operation no species would exist. Promotion of human happiness… Egoism again! Now when I read this quote it sounds like contumely (laugh)!
I have great hope that human race with all her skills and abilities will not drag down our world and will never forget that we are not a masters of Mather Earth, because everythin we have we have it thanks to her so we should be more thankful and humble.
Religion is something very very different. Every religion rely on belief, on axiomatics – things we just believe in without no logical explanation. And which one says the truth? We don’t know and I guess we will never know that – it is just faith, nothing more, like hope. We just need something like that. And this another things I can tell the difference between man and animal. Animals don’t need God, faith, nothing like that.
Thank you for great post Momo, it really made me think about it.
Ania
June 09, 2009 5:02 PMThe more I think about this post the more confused I am. Let’s talk about it in logical way… Inside me I have two girls: one wants absolutely disagree with everything you wrote but the second one see that you are right. I’ll try discuss about it from two points of view.
Is man the master of his destiny? I believe that I am the creator of my future and that my life is in my hands. But very often it finds out that man imprison himself – in civilization cages he built. We are on the top of food chain and we can much more than animals. Thanks to other brain and intelligence we are able to educate many skills and thanks to them we can create world in endless process.
Are we animals as well as for example ants?
1) We need to eat as well as all creatures in this world.
2) We have instinct to reproduction to let last humanity – animals have the same instinct.
3) We communicate with other people and also animals do it to survive.
As I said thanks to evolution we are something much more than other animals:
1) We can hunt every animal we want, we can raise them to make “hunting” easier.
2) Ok, the instinct to reproduction is exactly the same as in animal example :P This is one of things we can’t control at all, I guess probably due to that everyone like sex and we also can control reproduction thanks to birth control, abortion, in vitro, etc. Thanks to evolution we make this much more pleasant for us than for animal, isn’t it?
3) Communication. We invent language long, long time ago. This is our main power we built everything we have nowadays. Animals can let out only sounds – of course it has meaning for them, but it is limited to “watch out, predator is coming closer” or “I found a food”. Human communication, language bring evolution we are talking about. Without words, writing would be never any of scientific discovery by which we created everything. We collaborate on very advanced level, not like animals.
I can agree that we are animal. But we are something more: we don’t care only about instinct needs, we have some other goals and fact that we still develop our humanity is a fact that we are different. Why only we was able create ourselves from chimpanzees? Why other species stayed much more behind us? Errors in communication? Deep instinct limit them?
But I see that animal and a man are much more alike that we as a human would say and agree with it – we don’t like compare ourselves to animals, do we? We like think about us as a masters of the world, because we give it a shape, we are designers and we can build and destroy everything.
Ania
June 09, 2009 5:02 PMAgreement Garth.
Economics is a science that in theoretical mode has many ideals and smooth working practices. Unfortunately in the applied version we introduce 'man', an element with a high degree of friction. Even the simple addition of adding little greed into the profitability margins starts to create an imbalance. The whole history of runaway inflations and recessions is a catalog of our failures.
Love your rendition of the 'truth' - very interesting thanks.
Your truth set me free! (laughs)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ania - i will also have to make two parts
Comments can be 4,096 characters only!
I should make my answering comment as a post (Laughs)
Jazz
June 09, 2009 8:43 PMPART 2
Technology is seen as a gift and of course the technology of the animal with the over-sized brain (us) will be far in advance of the technology insects employ (but theirs meets their needs) Technology is also a curse. In our self annihilating, bickering squabbles for (insert own word to mean Food/power/territory/resources)we invent more ways to kill ourselves. Just because your country and my country sign agreements to not produce deadliest germ warfare items, Clone soldiers (humans without compassion or pity), it does not mean someone somewhere they won't do it. Some scientist will do it for money and beautiful women or to protect his family from desperate government rebels... etc
Without technology (railway, telegraph, poison gas) there would have been no holocaust. Stalin and Mao would not have been able to build gulags! Our technology (the internet for example) can change us in many ways. If our over-sized brain was more intelligent or more moral we could utilize technology more benignly.
This is our nature defined and you can disagree all you like. We see it in others and think ourselves immune because we are 'nice'.
You are the same animal as me and as them.
There is an ("Uchi-Soto") Us and Them.
We co-operate in groups like some other animals because it benefits us as individuals or family units.But what is the dark side of that? War!
Example The purebred Aryans who attacked the Semites and the Slavs because they were deemed a lower order or impure and were targeted as the bringer of ills to mankind. We have seen the horrors of 'ethnic cleansing' or religious wars based on ideas that threaten the powerful position a religious ideology holds.
Even ideas threatened the 'status quo'.
You know about Galileo and of course Darwin who dared to say man has a place on the chart of animal classifications. This idea was abhorrent to the Church who has declared man to be a work of God, created in his own image and therefore special and above everything else.
Had Darwin brought his theories into the Hindu world or the Buddhist world, no such controversy would have existed. His theories would simply have been inserted into our other established 'humans on equal terms with animals' mythos.
Masters of the world?
It is not unnatural that a successful animal will dominate its own ecosystem. Since the human animal is very adaptable and can inhabit arctic to equator, mountains, plains and valleys, we have come to dominate this planet. But this animal can question its own behavior and has the social brain chemistry to ask if we're doing the right thing?
Jazz
June 09, 2009 8:44 PMPART 1
Ania
I love the two girls or the two sides. The one side is in agreement and the other is in appearance, questioning and trying to find understanding. From how you write I imagine she is trying to find reason in something that goes against her basic understanding of the world?
You better correct me if I'm wrong because that's how you appear to write - or at least it is how I see the stance of the 'second girl'.
Let's go!
First of all, I know you have grown past the Adam and Eve myth and you accept the Darwin view that we evolved - however it seems you haven't quite grasped it when you ask such question as "Why other species stayed much more behind us?"
When you think of your cell phone and compare it to the first telephone by Mr Bell, the improvements are obvious and you each year, a design element was introduced, a modification, an improvement.
Evolution is not like that at all. It's random mutations and if the subject with the mutation is successful - it will breed those characteristics into the next generation.
CASE IN POINT: A group of moths with wings nearly same color as tree bark on which they slept. Man builds factory close by: Soot from chimneys discolors the tree bark. Birds see light colored moth wings and eat them: They cannot now breed into next generation! The ones with slightly darker wings still remain hidden on tree. Birds don't see and therefore don't eat: These moths breed their characteristics into next generation!
Us:
We humans are Hominids - a classification of upright walking ape within the primate group.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominidae
This is where on Darwin's chart stands proud man!
Our fingernails are not the claws that some Primates have. Our canine teeth are not capable of biting an animals leg off like a Chimpanzee. Our strength is nowhere near that of a Gorilla and yet all these weakness that became the trait of a mutated branch of primates from a 4 million year old rift valley in Africa (and possibly earlier elsewhere), survived until today? How?
It is exactly as you say Ania, an over-sized brain! This singular mutation is not only what gives us an advantage for a unique ability for self-reflection and insight, a skill unmatched elsewhere in the animal kingdom. This also gives us an disadvantage in that we can believe false things and incorrect reasoning and we make life choices based on those things.
Language:
A simple yip noise can let other dogs know the size, color, direction, speed and more of an animal that may be approaching, and one that it may never have seen before. You take that yip and stretch it out, they're able to identify little sub-notes which show the animal is encoding a huge amount of information.
Human equivalent "Run, something is coming!"
We haven't evolved out of our primal urges but we've simply adapted them to our modern world: We've always reduced conflict by making it clear where my territory ends and yours begins.
In cities and towns outside of our doors and other territory markers we need to cross into other territories to meet our needs. So we carry a sense of territory with us as we travel through jointly held territories and the result of this can be seen in road rage. If someone challenges our right to hold that place on the road, our instincts to control that piece of territory ignite.
Jazz
June 09, 2009 8:44 PMPART 4
Religious fundamentalists see science as the source of todays disenchantment and they know it has supplanted them as a source of authority.
They wish to overthrow science and re-establish faith. Perhaps they can pray for it to be overthrown as an act of will? Perhaps with a Koran in one hand and an AK47 (gun - gift of technology) in the other, they can force a change? Religious fundamentalists see themselves having the ability to to cure the ills of this modern world yet I see them as the cause of most of the ills. They want to return to the old traditions (where they held the power) but we cannot undo the view of the world we live in today. People who know that the sun is a dense cloud of gas undergoing fusion reaction cannot see it another day as the God of the sky that brings us life (even if it is a good description).
Scientific fundamentalists say science is a unbiased pursuit of truth but doesn't that view disregard the humans it is suppose to serve?
Science is the new thing that gives us hope. It supports the myth of progress and we hold it close to our hearts because humans need hope (religious or scientific).
Political systems come and fail but science always comes up with new gadgets or new drugs and they, like the church in the past, have the power to marginalize independent thinkers who have ideas too far removed from the present 'orthodoxy'
Science is our present comfort zone from an uncertain world, it gives us freedom from thought as churches and temples give us sanctuaries of doubt.
Scientific authority comes from the power it gives us over our environment even if its origins come from faith, magic and trickery!
Karl Popper said that a theory is only scientific as long as it is falsifiable. It should be thrown away as soon as it is proved false. By that standard, Darwin's and Einsteins theories should not have accepted because it was only much later did evidence come to support them. When they were first offered for consumption they were against the present evidence!
Religion has some horrible inhumane tales from the past and so has science! Reason: Both are created by man and as such were born into this world with the base (debased?) nature of man.
Oh yes we like to consider higher thinking. But the highest office floors are built on top of the lowest ones and our reasonable logic and abstracts are all built on the instinctive desires of an animal with an over sized brain.
Thanks Ania
I love our conversation.
Jazz
June 09, 2009 8:46 PMPART 3
I too have hope that our inventiveness will allow us to succeed in the future but I am not egotistical enough to think we are more than we really are.
I quote Shakespeare: Hamlet:
"What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet,
to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—
nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so."
Even that passage is open to interpretation but since I use it here you can know that I am saying before Darwin, Shakespeare implies the belief system then and as it is today after Darwin, that man is a work of God.
We cannot progress further until we resolve this extremely egotist and 'false' declaration.
Religion.
I am Buddhist and of course it seems to make sense to me (that's the idea of any successful religion). I was brought up in a culture that embraces it and its influence spreads into many aspects of my life. You are in a Catholic country and therefore, believe in it or not, many aspects of its foundations are placed into your cultural heritage (the belief that man is above animals for instance). If you were born in Iraq rather than Poland, the chances are that your belief system would be very different from how it is today.
Nearly every person, no matter their religion, will say his way is the right way and everyone else is wrong. Each takes comfort in the number of who believe the same as he/she believes. They love converts because it suggests that their old renounced way was wrong and in coming into your religion it somehow offers merit.
Our generation:
If 1 billion are Christian and 1 billion are Islamic (forget the various fractures and sub categories of these two for a moment) and each claim they are right and others are wrong. that means upon the death of our generation, 5 Billion people were wrong and will not have the after death reward!
It is the biggest reward imaginable because since we are the only animal that realizes its own mortality. our 'special place as a piece of God's work' ensures we have life after death and special us won't suffer the fate of all other animals.
This thought alone is responsible for hanging on to those old belief systems.
Jazz
June 09, 2009 8:46 PMUm... OK 5 parts!
Our science encourages us to believe that we can understand the natural world and therefore from the distant impartiality of that point of view, we can manipulate it and bend it to our will!
Although I'd like to meet people who understand the science of Schrodinger and Heisenberg.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Schr%C3%B6dinger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heisenberg
With Chaos reigning supreme despite humans best efforts at finding order. They say that casualty and logic are not a part of the nature of things and so even every day we experience may be delusive. (What is reality?)
Logic dictates that "Yes" and "No" cannot exist for the same event and yet that is what happens on the quantum levels as a matter of normalcy.
Science, like technology, evolves to meet our needs but it has opened a door to show us things we cannot possibly understand (God's playground?) and certainly one we Cannot Control! Icarus and Prometheus dared to be Godlike and even as we view some of todays science, we ethically declare, "who are we to play God?" Science then teeters on the edge and perhaps can no longer support our conceit that we understand this universe?
Of course I can only speak of the science we know, not the one of fifty years hence.
Science is the modern religion, the evolution of past relics of human belief systems.
Socrates to Plato to Christianity
Socrates said an examined life is a good an true life, (interchangeable terms)we seek pleasure and run from pain (transient things). An unexamined life is one that embraces illusion. An examined one leads to eternity!
Seems a common thread from his past and his future religions. Socrates instilled goodness as a truth (as Garth mentioned in his comment).
Ideas are like genes in that the most successful ones survive and are transmitted to our offspring. These don't have to be true ideas, look at other cultural ideas alien to your own as proof of that, but they just have to be popular and easy for the masses to accept (oh the power of persuasion!)
Catholic ideas prevailed over those of the Cathars (because the catholics exterminated them). If Hitlers final solution was a success, our ideas today may have been that Hebrew ideas were wrong, impure.
The winning ideas come from those with the power and often with our own folly.
Again Garth mentioned truth having no real place outside of our "socially accepted nicety" since many animals employ tricks and deceits to give themselves a survival advantage.
The best lie we have is one that we believe ourselves! Truth in the natural world is luxury or possibly a disability.
Is science a search for truth beyond its own definition? The users of this knowledge suffer the same deceits and self centered desire for power as all other animals (especially those with over sized brains). We struggle to profit and protect ourselves, our offspring and our group and revenge against our enemies (real or perceived). Is this a human failing, a flaw or just our nature?
Can science make humans more rational?
Faith seems to be necessary for hope at least and yet it is irrational. History is our record of unreason. The remedy is simple. We must become reasonable and without a faith in something, future enlightenment seems to be doomed to Despair!
Jazz
June 09, 2009 9:53 PMWhen I was thinking about human and humanity I recall some facts from past. Let's back to Second World War (one of the worse human "achievments"). Please don't think that I want be rude, I know something about history of Japan, but we've already talked about it and I hope you understand that I don't want say nothing wrong.
When I was finishing secondary school, for oral exam from polish lanuage students have to prepare 15-minutes speech about any topic and I choose a topic about polish literature about concentration camps. Polish writer Zofia NaĆkowska wrote a book incuding short stories about prisoners, doctors who experimented on prisoners and other people who saw death every day. Remember that I told you today that we can not back to primitive times and act more like animal than humans. I recall my work from seconday school, Zofia's book and I would like to present you some situations that we actually can become primitive again.
Imagine a concentration camp, I guess you know how it looked like so I will not describe it to long. Prisoners were people whith no right, completely no rights: to dignity, to being respected, to live, to eat, to say something. They care only about eating and survive next morning during meeting with watchmans who could do with you everything he want: take away your food even if you are starving, hit you, shoot you, torture you. After war times, situation it camps started to be interesting for psychologists, psychiatrists and scientists.
Prisoners acted like animals: survive is all they wanted. This is complicated, but "behaviourism" describe their behaviour the best and I guess I wouldn't do it better:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behaviorism
When I was reading about it during making my exam project I thoutht that this is imposible to make people act like animals.
Are we able to back totally to being primitive, that we are nothing much more than more intelligent animals? Probably behaviourism prove that and I also deny everything I wrote above, but I can still find some differences. But it is still thanks to our brains, so seriously now I started be concerned a little bit and I don't know what more I could say. Animal imprisoned in cages and let out after some time is still an animal: in cage and outside. Human in cage is like animal but when he get out then he started act like a human again. Animals are prisoners of their own slower evolution. People can cross out what we achieve just like that, we can back to times we cogitated how hunt a nice animals arround us in forest...
Thanks for you amazing reply Momo :)
Hugs
Ania
June 10, 2009 4:24 AMWow, I would lie if I said I am not smitten by your long and interesting reply :) I read everything with great pleasure. Here you are much better player in this discussion, but let it be, I can try argue this time as well as the first time.
Ok, my turn.
Let's back to two girls... Two girls means that I try understand your point of view but I also have my own mind and my opinions but I will not try force you to get my point of view, because it doesn't make any sense. I want also leanr something from this discussion so I am not going to be agresive or I will not act like a little immature child who thing that something has sense only if I have total right.
Adam and Eve - this is something I know very good, because I live in catholic country and I know many many people who truly believe in God, but I am not one of them and I am sure that religion even if I am officialy part of it, doesn't perturb different points of view of other people. I wonder how they act in front of scientific discoveries because it deny all their faith. I don't believe in God but I respect all people who do it. I just want say that my religion is not an obstacle in our discussion.
Everything you wrote above really does make a sense, sounds logically and I would agree with it, but I can't agree with taking away some characteristics which only people have.
So who we are? Animals with over-larged brains, with amazing intelligence and thanks to that we can be who we are? And this is it?
Let's compare us to animals. We have many similarities but all of them are in different advance levels. Our needs: food, reproduction, sleeping, breathing and everything what living creatures do. Look at predator: a lion want eat, so he hunt a gazelle. Next time he will hunt in a few days when he feel hunter again. What will he do till that moment? Nothing. Excepting reproduction, but he does nothing more than that. From time to time a fight with other lions, hunting, sleeping, sex, sleeping, eating... And so on, and so on. Lions, the same as other animals don't have other needs.
We also need eat, sex, sleep, etc. We do it in different way, because we have civilisation we built and still improve that. I said that we are something more than simple animals. We needs more, we have desire to improve our life, we have great need to non stop changing, progresing.
Dreams, hope, faith - this is what define us as humans. It is spiritual thing and it may be like that it depends on our brains. Thanks to brains we can think out something like goasts, souls, gods and more. That's what scientiscts say, but tell my why we have need to do it? why we don't lie on the grass with fresh gazelle meat in our stomaches? We can't deny that we desire something more, can we?
Remember that science is a science: everything what sciencists say today, tommorow can have no value.
Ania
June 10, 2009 4:24 AMSweetie Lions don't need to do the sudoku problems in between hunting - their brains are not over-sized. The nearest other animals to us would be better for you to look at. The Primates get bored in between feeding and sleeping and patrolling their territory and watching the ever changing rank systems of the immediate social environment. They make toys from whatever is around they. They attempt to solve problems. What about dolphins? These are another animal with a slightly larger brain. They too have social groups and co operate to hunt and protect themselves from sharks and they also play!
As you say, we need more because the over size brain demands stimulus. You are just confirming what I say - the only thing you have a problem with is that we are an animal.
If you want to define humans by "Dreams, hope, faith", it does in no way divorce us from the animal kingdom. You may define fish by gills or birds by wings. You simply mention the result of the over size brain.
And Dolphins don't lie in the grass because they are different kinds of animals just as WE HUMANS are different kind of animals and require different stimulation. You cannot separate us just because of our values. You are hanging on to the Christian ethos that Man is in a special place above all animals and one step below God (which you don't believe in)
But if I say there are 2 life forms on Earth: Vegetable and Animal (and there are classes of algae which fall in between the two) Which are we Ania?
Do we have a place on the classification of animals? There are five classes and one is mammal.
http://babykiki.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/animal-classifications2.gif
Homo Sapiens(us) is apparently the only surviving descendant of our branching of the Hominids line. Many became extinct and we can loosely classify that as being that they were unsuccessful for what ever reason.
Primitive is not any measure of animal value. It is a measure of their cultural or technological progress as measured against ours.
But to say we "act like an animal" if for me to tell you that we are not acting, merely being ourselves.
Thank you for the stimulation (wink)
Jazz
June 10, 2009 5:07 AMWow.
Population. Science. Offspring. Truth. Religion. Science as religion. The context of Cultural Tradition. Environment. Individuality. Economy. The value of humanity. The validity of sexuality. Destiny.
These posts are a theory of everything. Where’s old JohnnyNick when I need him?
With so many thoughts and points, I want to respond…but am struggling to do so simply.
I’ll try to grab several ideas and their threads, unravel them, and weave them back together into a single comment.
IDEA 1
We are, most of the time, quite powerless in the current of events. We are tiny and insignificant – and, almost always, we don’t matter one damn bit - but that’s “almost.” Each and every one of us has two powers with limitless potential: the power to decide and the power to care.
Because of these abilites, we all have at least the theoretical ability to seize our own destinies. Of course, in a rushing river, simply having the power to decide to swim and to care about swimming doesn’t mean we’ll escape the falls…but we always have a choice and a chance.
We can choose, and we can act. Often, there’s nothing we can immediately do. I can oppose an onrushing train, but all that will happen is “squish!” This is a great excuse for quitting. I don’t accept it. The trick is to oppose the train without the “squish.” Quite the puzzle, no?
My favorite Syracusan, Archimedes, said all we need is a lever and a place to stand. With these, we have godlike power. Godlike.
IDEA 2
Cycles and revolutions. EVERYTHING is in motion, from subatomic particles to galaxies. Our lives, our days, our histories. Everything always is in flux…but it also is constantly repeating. Each day, month, year, life is different…but it’s not wholly unique.
But what we WANT is linearity. We want “progress” – conclusions, happy endings, answers…TRUTH. But we really don’t want truth – we just want an answer to make us feel okay. ACCEPTABLE answers are more believable than answers that are likely and based on evidence. We choose our truths.
That’s why I love Nietzche. He begins to posit the idea that love of science neglects the fundamental need for humans to face down not just ANSWERS…but CYCLES. It doesn’t ever END. But it changes.
Everyone freaks out when economies boom and bust. That’s ridiculous. Economies ALWAYS do. It’s as natural as waves on an ocean…it’s not abnormal. What’s abnormal is what we WANT…stability and constant growth. It’s all about entropy and conservation of energy.
Things will always swing, and actions will always have reactions.
IDEA 3
Humanity and global change.
Of course we change our world. We are instinctually driven to manipulate our environments. Will we destroy “nature?” Well, we’ve already altered it so much, one could argue that we already have! Think about this: No one regularly worries about being killed and eaten. Slight injuries are not death sentences. Disease is not a rampant, murderous debilitator.
That’s what most organisms deal with most of the time. We’ve probably done more damage with our development of agriculture and civilization than we’ll ever do by having 2 billion more kids. Would it be good to limit population growth? I won’t say – I’m not that prescient.
Statistically, we are more than 95% likely to be extinct in 6 million years or less, so who really cares if we add or subtract a few. Even if this happens, life will probably continue on our planet afterwards. Might we escape this planet and spread life to others…maybe. Might we take it to other stars…probably not.
Does it matter? I only hope we can minimize suffering, and maximize the fulfillment of those who do end up existing.
Phasmus
June 10, 2009 6:09 AMSYNTHESIS
Maybe none of this matter. I think it DOES matter, though.
All of this matters for only one reason. Because we CHOOSE to have it matter. We choose to care. Some of us choose to discuss and to act. We oppose trends and take action and, once in a while, we find a place to stand and a lever to pull. And then we move the world.
None of this matters unless we decide that it does. Most of us want a linear answer and a palatable TRUTH. I’ve made a living crafting these truths…I never lie…I just tell parts of the truth that help people believe what will make them content, and will urge them to do what I want. Did you catch some figure doing a bad thing? …maybe we’ll tell a story that gives you a nice neat answer. Is somebody not as influential as they want to be? …let’s tell an exciting story about them in just the right way to make people care…or let’s reveal nasty secrets about their rivals. That’s a lever I figured how to pull.
TRUTH is a game. That’s all. Nobody likes the messy, answerless reality of all the evidence that ought to be considered…because it’s not linear…it’s a whirling dervish.
I, for one, hope to raise children and share my small perspective of the world – my truth – with them. Perhaps I’m a criminal and am perpetrating a crime against nature… Maybe I’m contributing to the inevitable collapse of our planet. I don’t think so, but I also really don’t care.
I may not have the “right” to do most things, but I certainly have the power and ability – and so I do what makes me content in myself. I choose that which matters to me, and I act. I hope the people around me, and who talk with me have the opportunities:
- to engage in conversations like these
- to find a partner as wonderful as I’ve found in my wife
- to care for and nurture and raise children or animals
- to pursue interest and endeavors where they can find excellence, pride and fulfillment
I think if even I and some of those I care about get to do this then that’s all that matters.
Phasmus
June 10, 2009 6:12 AMSometimes it's like that we are not able to understand everything in spite of our quarry aspirations because something is not obvious, clear and easy to apprehend. I don't believe completely in science in this matter we talk about, because like I said before, tommorow can bring new discoveries, new results of research of human brain and it can find out that everything we are sure now is simple misunderstanding.
I don't make out that everything is a lie or you are wrong, I understand everything you wrote and I am pretty confused due to our conversation (you make me doubt a little bit in everything I think about human and animal as something different!) but I still don't believe that everything spiritual we have (dreams, faith, hope - everything what animals don't need) is an result of oversize brain.
Let's leave this topic and give some time scientists to do more researches because human brain is still very misterious matter and we still don't know everything.
By writing about prisoners in concentration camps I wanted show you that I tried unerstand what you wrote and that I truly respect it.
I am very glad due to our conversation here because it makes me think more about human life ;) I am glad I am not an animal (laugh) or even I am, then I am glad to have over-ized brain ;)
Hug dear Momo
Ania
June 10, 2009 4:43 PM#
Hi Phasmus.
I do admire your input, thank you. After such a blog post I think it became an attempt at defining man. I like your Idea 1 - the power of choice and caring. Both of these abilities come from reasoning, the power of intelligent and dispassionate thought. A product of our brain which at times (not always) is a definite advantage over instinct. I believe most animals have a basic choice function. Flea or fight for example. My puzzle is falling over and missing the ground (flight). I'm sure I could overlook gravity as much as the train stopper may overlook mass and momentum and Newton's third law.
Idea 2 I agree with and I've said as much above - either in post or comments. I too love Nietzsche. Where you state what we want, I have described as 'Faith or a desire to hold on to something or hope'
"ACCEPTABLE answers are more believable than answers that are likely and based on evidence. "Is the crux of the comments - Is man an animal or not?" For many people in the world, the thought is too indignant as so true or not, it is PREFERRED not to be believed. Faith that we are somehow more than this.
Idea 3: I have said we change the world in as much as the dominant and successful animal will dominate its ecosystem. We have changed it but I say we won't master it and nor are we the masters of our own destiny. This was my proposal and I believe your 6 million years to human extinction estimate as pretty generous but it it were so, isn't this enough time to have one or more changes in our evolutionary journey? Perhaps Homo Superior will succeed us!
Disease is again a point of view: In USA or here in Japan diarrhea is a nuisance but in SW Asia and Africa it's a killer. Thankfully we don't get eaten by many sharks or crocodiles.
Economy I agree - WANT = GREED. The desire for continual profit can be (pun) quite consuming!
I understand you emphasis and de-emphasis on truths, it is quite the fashion in political and legal circles and of course it spreads into other parts of our lives until it reaches the newspapers (my favorite scapegoat) where it can simply devolve into Lies, damn lies, and statistics! Truth can also be what you want it to be. I'm sure you believe the right thing and hope to pass those right things onto your children. I'm sure the Syrian man placing the gun in the hands of his child believes he too does the right thing, fight for their freedom.
I like your closing statement beginning with "I think..." Descartes may have uttered those immortal words but does a wood lice think, yet still it is! I think we are the animal with an over sized brain and I'm sorry if others find that indignant and an insult to their position in life.
Thanks Phasmus
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ania offering you doubt is a good thing because it means I make you think. I'm not asking you to believe what I believe, I have no right to do that. All I do is argue my point with yours and if I make you doubt or make you think then accept that as YOU thinking and reasoning and finding YOUR version of the truth, one YOU can accept and ONE you are happy with.
Some people choose to believe Earth is flat, some say Man never walked on the moon, some say the planet Earth is only around 6000 years old.
It doesn't really matter and nothing we say will make them change their minds because they are HAPPY with THEIR TRUTH.
I love your animal over sized brain too.
Love
Momo
Let me end with Nietzsche:
"All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth."
Jazz
June 10, 2009 7:59 PMYes, you made me think about and I agree it is very good and I am happy because of that - even if we have two different points of view, different arguments and we are arguing here, both of us know that we can force other side of discusion to change opinions about very complicated topics just like that. It is good that we respect our positions in this argumentation, respect it and we can learn from each others. It doesn't matter who is wrong, who is right and which arguments sounds better - discusion should be a way to exploring world, ourselves and expand our horizonts. This is the reason I wanted discuse here and I am glad it makes you happy ;) You have to know that I am pretty bad partner in discussion, because I get tired very quicly when I have to prove my opinions, again and again, because for me it doesn't matter I am right in your eyes or not. I don't really care if other have totally different points of views: if someone agree with me I am glad, but if not, it is not big deal for me and I let other have their opinions. This is one of the most wonderful thing: everyone is unique, has unique point of view, differently respond to some thing than me and I love exploring all these differences.
Two quotes for you:
1)Oscar Wilde:
"The more one analyses people, the more all reasons for analysis disappear. Sooner or later one comes to that dreadful universal thing called human nature."
2)Bernard Edmonds:
“To dream anything that you want to dream. That's the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do. That is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself to test your limits. That is the courage to succeed.”
Being human is wonderful thanks to over-sized brain, isn't it?
kisses
Ania
Ania
June 11, 2009 1:13 AM