Three in one day?!
Well... I already told my professor I wasn't going to class (see previous post) and thus I am taking a pity day for myself to think. Plus, he said if I just kept up with the reading, I'll be fine. And thus, I am reading the book and will just go to class from now on (seeing as how there will be zero conflicts in the future).
Anyway, I wouldn't be much of a philosophy student if I didn't posit some questions every now and then.
I would like to go back to something I talk about a while ago concerning human evolution and our place on the earth, in the universe, etc. What with all that's going on with the theater fiasco it makes me think a lot about why we do these things, why I feel the way I do, and about life in general. If you think about how a lion carries out his day, he eats, sleeps, defecates, and that's pretty much the extent of it. Instinctively, lions know how to hunt and how to take care of their young. What intrigues me is how lions perceive their environment. They obviously recognize a particular patch of land as their own and recognize a certain shape of animal that they like to eat. They have some degree of learning. That brings me to an interesting quote we read in Hume about how animals do in fact have some sort of elementary reasoning abilities. Typically, when we say, "What's the difference between animals and humans?" we say, "the ability to reason." Personally, I don't think we have any rational ability to say that's true. Animals certainly reason and biological psychologists and behavioral psychologists can tell you that their behavior can certainly adapt and change.
I guess the point that I'm trying to make thus far is that animals and humans, on the most basic levels, are not so different. We have basic adaptation and reasoning skills and we have a short degree of instinctual skills, what we might otherwise call a "gut reaction." Our brains are not even so different since scientists are able to identify pleasure and pain receptors in the brains of rats, an animal far removed from the primate line. It could certainly be reasoned that humans have some sort of basic relation and similarities to all mammals. In some ways, all animals (but mostly mammals).
Where the differences in humans lie is our ability to utilize our higher brain functions. That is, our ability for abstract reasoning, to make complicated choices, and complicated emotions like love, jealously, remorse, and so on. From a purely biological perspective (which I admit I'm no expert), humans, by reason, must have SOME extra glands or synapses that cause different hormones to flow in our brains, causing these feelings of love and genuine emotion. What else could explain the reason that we can build civilizations and learn and feel complex things? Sure, you could argue that lions can't build things because they don't have thumbs. In fact, you could say that the only reason humans, at whatever point in history, ascended to greatness because of our thumbs--that is, our ability to pick things up. And maybe that's true. But then I must posit the ultimate question: Why? Why do we have thumbs? Accident? You would say "evolution" but now we're just arguing semantics. I do believe in a kind of evolution but I don't believe in astronomical chances. If I did, I would play the lottery more often since you have a better chance of winning that then evolving into a creature with thumbs.
So maybe thumbs is the reason humans evolved to having success in the primitive world and maybe that's the reason human brains have evolved to such a level such as being able to love another human unconditionally. Maybe when the first batch of humans that had thumbs conquered the non-thumbed batch, they were able to flourish and write epic poetry and worship gods. They were able to sing and to love. I suppose that's possible. But then by reason, you would say that all animals should be able to choreograph elaborate dance numbers and solve complicated ethical dilemmas. I mean, there are a lot of species on this planet that are as old as us, that have been evolving with us. If all brains develop at a constant and predictable rate (which I don't know if they do), then theoretically we shouldn't be too much farther ahead of anyone else. Unless someone's ancestor ate the only genius lion.
It can be said that from abstract thinking, all knowledge is born.
We would know nothing unless someone did some exploring or hypothesizing. No math, no reading, no engineering, no nothing. And in this vein, all knowledge started off as PHILOSOPHY.
So there.
Anyways, it still perplexes me to think about the differences between us and the rest of living creatures. Why are we designed the way we are? Through endless mistakes made by mother nature we have two eyes positioned above a nose and a mouth in front of our heads which is settled on a spinal column which runs the length of our back which holds complicated nerve systems that allows us to move our appendages. Again, I don't believe in that kind of luck. That's like throwing a bowling ball into a dark china shop and truly believing you won't break something. I'm not saying I don't think it happened, I'm just saying it stands to my reason that it was guided by someone/something that knows a lot better than we do.
And thus we have the modern human that emerges a long, long time ago. We have the Greeks who posited philosophical theories on math, astronomy, physics, and life. We have the Egyptians that made amazing and complicated structures. There's also the Mesopotamian civilization that contains the earliest recorded religion. (That obviously was NOT in chronological order.) It just amazes me how all of a sudden there is a species on the earth that is flourishing at an exponential rate and all the while developing its knowledge of the known world and most importantly, its self-awareness and even more amazingly, still developing its paradigm of its role in the universe.
Let us think for a minute about how language was born. Obviously language means nothing without more than one person. Even in the most comical fashion, how did one caveman start talking to another caveman in such a way that they both understood? Even for one to draw pictures that made sense to the other involved the first one processing in his primitive mind the idea of a picture being a symbol for something else. And in the second one, he had to associate that picture and connect the symbol and determine the meaning all on his own. Then they both agreed on a sound to make that would tie it all together? We see an apple and we immediately hear the word apple and see in our heads maybe a taste, smell, and a feeling of an apple and we associate all of these things simultaneously and at some point, that had to happen on more than just an individual level. Sure caveman #1 could associate these things in his mind by himself, but he then had to communicate those ideas to his cave-mate. Wow.
And the first lie? Once communication was established in the community, someone came up with the first lie. And this is another amazing feat. Think about it. What goes into a lie? You see a disadvantage to telling someone how something really is because in your mind, you can abstract the consequences of certain communication in your head in an instant. You then decide on a new, equally plausible story and decide to tell that instead, despite knowing its not true.
Then perhaps you feel remorse? Knowing the consequences of the lie and being able to abstract in your head the consequences of someone else believing a falsehood. Or knowing that the consequences of something you did would hurt someone.
And theater? Song? Philosophy? To be able to abstract your feelings and communicate them in a form that is pleasing as well as thoughtful is another amazing human invention. To rationalize in a systematic and convincing fashion? This furthers our understandings of things and allows us to look at things beneath the surface. The lion sees the sun setting in the west, but we can understand it to mean that this side the earth has turned away from the sun. We then associate night with different things, and even feel inspired to communicate those associations. The lion sees his dead prey and all he can think about his food. We see a dead human or something and we feel remorseful or sad. Or we feel alive and happy (if you're psychotic). We associate primal things with ourselves and in the grand scheme of things, beyond what any other creature can do.
Humans are capable of a many great and wonderful things. We are also capable of terrible things. We are the only creature that is self-reflective and able to think outside of itself. So, why us?
Now I understand that someone might read this and say, "Dylan you're retarded." That's great. Thales of Miletus posited in the 5th century BC that everything is, in some way, made of water. Obviously he was wrong but he made an observation based on what was known at the time (at least to him) and made a rational argument for it. If I am similarly at fault, I would be happy to chat. I am always happy to admit not knowing something.
And maybe I can make someone think. Or maybe these are just
Animalistic Musingings.
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