Animal morality: are humans merely animals?

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Eärniel

It may have been our [human] ancesters that wiped out the mammoth. But we still remember and care. If it had been the other way around, the mammoth wouldn't have been sorry for us.

That's a good thought, Eärniel. I like that. I think humans have a capacity to treasure good things, and mourn their loss, that animals don't have.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

That's a good thought, Eärniel. I like that. I think humans have a capacity to treasure good things, and mourn their loss, that animals don't have.

When I think of individual elephants, I'm not sure whether we're the only ones with the capacity to treasure memories or mourn losses. An elephant never forgets, right? And I've seen elephants remembering and mourning kin. But they can't pass the memory or the mourning on to others. I think that humans, as a species, are the only ones that can remember, can mourn accross the boundaries of an individual life. Does that makes sense? An elephant matriarch can teach a calve where to find water but she has to show the pools and springs to the calve. A cheetah can teach her cub to hunt, but the cub also has to see its mother chase antilopes. And some of it will undoubtedly be buried in the instict of the calve or cub but most of it has to be 'woken' by watching. We can pick up a book and learn, and yes, some things we do have to see for ourselves too. And yet some we don't. We can still know about the victims of WWII and regret their death. An elephant calve will not remember or mourn the death of its great-great-great-grandmother.

[Rían]

Yes, that makes sense.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Valandil

The fact that we even choose to discuss this matter separates us.

I agree that because we have a relatively complex brain we are an interesting animal. But I don’t agree that that makes us fundamentally different. We just happen to be the furthest along the range for this ONE particular trait: brain development. Certainly a monkey is even more different from say a bacteria in this way then we are from a monkey. Monkeys think and contemplate and have an awareness of self. They just aren’t as sophisticated as we are in the use of that bundle of neurons between our ears because THEY DON’T NEED TO. They are just fine as they are. And no I don’t think they need us to take care of them because they aren’t as intelligent as us. That’s sheer folly.

Frankly im a little surprised no one has brought up the one thing that really is a gold star for our species. Forget all this garage building and art making nonsense. Has everyone forgotten that we are the ONE species that has breached the womb that is this earth and dabbled precariously out into the cosmos? That’s pretty damn significant. It doesn’t make us “fundamentally different� from other animals but it does give us a serious coup. We are the FIRST earth species (as far as we know) to have begun the arduous process of untethering ourselves from this incubator we were born on. And with that kind of a radical step who knows where evolution will take us.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

What that explanation completely missed was this: that I learned to play the harp because I think it sounds beautiful; and because I think music in general is beautiful; and because my mother whom I love plays the harp; and because it reminds me of Middle Earth, which is a beautiful literary creation; and because I feel pleasure in creating my own arrangements of songs that have been around for centuries and have touched the hearts of countless people; and because I feel pleasure in playing such a intimate instrument (you pull it right into your body to play it, next to your heart, and you can feel the music through the soundboard); and because I feel pleasure in sharing the music with others; and because I am made in the image of God, who is a Creator, and therefore I feel pleasure in creating beautiful things; and it is right and good to create beauty.

Right. So what yer saying is that playing music makes you feel good. Is therapeutic for you. sets endorphins off in your mind which please you greatly. And you enjoy sharing this pleasure with others of your troop and of your species. And this doesn’t at all seem biologically useful to you? whales will make calls even when it isn’t necessary for communication. Birds will sing even if there are no other birds around. There are often very good reasons for things we call “beautiful� on the surface.

Let me ask you this. If playing your harp did absolutely NOTHING for you and you really truly saw no purpose to it at all would you do it any way? Of course not. There would be no inspiration (if you prefer that word) for you to. Just as theres no real strong inspiration for you to scrape your finger nails on a black board all day long. But the harp you ENJOY. It makes you feel GOOD. So of course why not do that? Sounds like an animal to me.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Right. So what yer saying is that playing music makes you feel good. Is therapeutic for you. sets endorphins off in your mind which please you greatly. And you enjoy sharing this pleasure with others of your troop and of your species.

No, I'm not saying that at all. I guess you don't understand what I mean. So that's why your explanation of things satisfies you, but is not sufficient for me.

If your explanation of things covers what you observe, then good for you - keep it! If it doesn't, then start seeking. I always think people should think things through for themselves.

If your explanation of things covers what I observe, then I would adopt it. But it does NOT cover everything that I observe (altho it covers some) - so I cannot adopt it without compromising my intellectual integrity.

Bless your kind heart, IRex. I guess you would deny it exists, or you would say you're driven to be kind by past experiences of endorphin production, or by the desire to pass your genes on, or by your instinct for herd preservation, and you're free to say that. But I think there is more behind it - I think you have a kind heart. As I said, I always know you're gonna post when you see hurting people on the Venting thread. I don't think it's due to your genes, even if you do.

[sun-star]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

woah woah there. how do you know making art doesnt serve a biological purpose? i would have to seriously disagree with you there. art has some great biological purposes. in fact one could say that for our entire history we have had a burning NEED (dare I say INSTINCT) to create. and to represent in abstract. id say there are clear benefits to such a practice in terms of our survival. at worst excercising the brain is helpful in keeping us sharp enough to deal with things that come along.

Can I ask you: what do you think the biological purpose of art might be, apart from making us happy (as you said to Rian) and exercising the brain? And why do people have the instinct (or whatever you want to call it) to share their artistic creations with others by publishing books, playing music in public etc.? What about when the artistic impulse conflicts with other instincts - like writers who neglect their children or their own well-being because they want to spend time writing, for example?

I hope these aren't too stupid questions; I always sucked at Biology and instinct was the part I could never reason out

[Fat middle]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Right. So what yer saying is that playing music makes you feel good. Is therapeutic for you. sets endorphins off in your mind which please you greatly. And you enjoy sharing this pleasure with others of your troop and of your species. And this doesn’t at all seem biologically useful to you? whales will make calls even when it isn’t necessary for communication. Birds will sing even if there are no other birds around. There are often very good reasons for things we call “beautiful� on the surface.

Let me ask you this. If playing your harp did absolutely NOTHING for you and you really truly saw no purpose to it at all would you do it any way? Of course not. There would be no inspiration (if you prefer that word) for you to. Just as theres no real strong inspiration for you to scrape your finger nails on a black board all day long. But the harp you ENJOY. It makes you feel GOOD. So of course why not do that? Sounds like an animal to me.

All that makes some sense, but I think it is a bit unfocused (is that a word?) because of the anti-dualistic ground it has. The curious thing about it is that you, and BJ and some others think that christian philosophy is dualistic and it is not.

Your comments are related to what brownie says about humans having only a difference of gradation respect other animals. I can admitt that sentence, more or less. After all, the differece between a difference of gradation (quantitative) and a qualitative difference is just a difference of gradation

You think that christian philosophy sees human as a body plus a soul, like two different "beings". More or less in the way in what Plato explained man: an infinite soul imprisioned in a limited body.

I, for one, don't agree with that dualistic vision. The man is just one being. We are materials. And all our actions have some material causes and consequences. I am my body. BUT...

... I am spiritual too. Spiritual is not he same as religious, mind you. "Spiritual" has a philosophical sense that reffers to the abilty of doing actions that are not conditioned to the materia. Autoconscience, intelligence (not only rationality), moral sense, historical sense, artistical sense, free will (I'm sorry, Lizra )... are operations that are not conditioned to materia (though they might have material manifestations in us, in our body).

You can consider that as only a matter of gradation respect animals, but the thing is that they're of a very higher gradation and that have consequences for our lifes that cannot be present in animals.

One of those consequences is that that spiritual condition doesn't give us the right to rule animal's life, but gives us the responsability of caring about them and all the enviromernt.

[Fat middle]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

That really made me think, and I realized a problem that I have with the people-and-animals-the-same and the no-free-will ideas.

They may explain things, but what they explain is too small.

Good point, RÃ*an, and not a small one

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by sun-star

Can I ask you: what do you think the biological purpose of art might be, apart from making us happy (as you said to Rian) and exercising the brain?

well other then those things its widely held that it may be done because of our need for expression. Just like song birds sing with no apparent purpose (they will sing beautiful songs when no other birds are around) theres an innate need among some social animals to EXPRESS themselves. And art is really good at that after all. Its very closely related to communication and you know how important communication is in our species.

And why do people have the instinct (or whatever you want to call it) to share their artistic creations with others by publishing books, playing music in public etc.?

desire id say. Or urge. Not instinct. And that can be explained by the urge to express yourself and communicate yourself to others of your social group. Its probably been going on since before we became fully homosapien. The ability to express yourself well and in an abstract (artistic) form to your fellow tribe members could be a REAL strong benefit in a hostile world. It would communicate important things to others and it would strengthen your ties with them. Both of which would be beneficial to everyone. We still hold those traits today in our world. Look at tiny children who have the strong urge to color and make artistic things. Or even savants who are limited in other ways. Do they do it because they think about it overtly and consciously and because of their super unique garage making brain? No they do it because they have a desire to. It feels good to express themselves. It just feels natural to make pictures that represent their environment and abstractions they feel are important or meaningful. Just as so many other animals do. Oh by the way the real proof to the pudding is that there are separate areas in our brain that work when we are doing artistic endeavors and even particular TYPES of art. So when we make music or listen to music you can see a certain zone in our brain become highly active. Or when you are drawing another zone becomes more active then usual. Its interesting to note that some of these zones are actually deep within our ancient amphibian brain (or hind brain) area and not high on our cortext. For example, when we play music the temporal lobes are active of course but also the cerebellum is highly active. And the cerebellum is about as basic and ancient a part of our brain as you get. So if art was simply about our highly developed nature as humans then you wouldn’t expect to see activity in parts of the brain that have been around for millions of years before we arrived on the scene. So something really significant must be going on in there then. Make sense?

What about when the artistic impulse conflicts with other instincts - like writers who neglect their children or their own well-being because they want to spend time writing, for example?

to me that only strengthens the fact that artistic impulses are rooted in our animal brain. Because they can sometimes be too powerful and become obsessions. They aren’t at all delicate peripheral “human� dalliances. They are hard wired deep rooted sub conscious impulses of the strongest variety. Ever notice a lot of artists (GOOD artists) seem to have issues in other areas of their life? Whether its self destructive musicians or famous painters who cut their ears off and see things it seems to be a theme among great artists. Personally think this shows that when our artistic (INNATE artistic) ability is super strong as it probably is in many truly gifted artists, then it offsets other things hormonally and biochemically and just physically within the brain. And it shows by heightened levels of depression and mental illness and strange behavior. But hey Im pretty sure you don’t want me to get into human psychology and how the interplay of instinct and genetics intermingles and with our brain and our environment to produce visual behavior. So ill shut up there.

I hope these aren't too stupid questions; I always sucked at Biology and instinct was the part I could never reason out

not stupid at all. and always follow your first… um… urge…

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Fat middle

... I am spiritual too. Spiritual is not he same as religious, mind you. "Spiritual" has a philosophical sense that reffers to the abilty of doing actions that are not conditioned to the materia. Autoconscience, intelligence (not only rationality), moral sense, historical sense, artistical sense, free will (I'm sorry, Lizra )... are operations that are not conditioned to materia (though they might have material manifestations in us, in our body).

well I think all those things you listed can be traced directly to our physical nature. Not injected from an outer source. But I DO agree with you that there MAY be a spiritual nature to our being that has not been defined yet. But even this may have a simple (or complex) physical explanation to it ultimately. Things like clarevoyance and mind reading can be broken down easily by looking at statistics and psychology. BUT there may be something really fundamental going on there. Whose to say our brain doesn’t contain some connection to something we cant detect with the current instruments we have. Couldn’t a shaman have a heightened ability to tap into something disincorporate? Something just beyond the vale? Or were they all just mental wack jobs who expressed themselves by seemingly being in touch with a spiritual power? Who knows. Science can perhaps pierce this haze some day. But until then NO one can say they know for sure without deluding themselves.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by sun-star

I hope these aren't too stupid questions...

(this from the young lady who just got fabulous test scores (sending her brother into fits of jealousy ) and was admitted to Oxford )

[Rían]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

i was afraid i'd have to start helping RÃ*an to even things out

I just love your noble heart, brownie!

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Oh by the way the real proof to the pudding is that there are separate areas in our brain that work when we are doing artistic endeavors and even particular TYPES of art. So when we make music or listen to music you can see a certain zone in our brain become highly active. Or when you are drawing another zone becomes more active then usual. Its interesting to note that some of these zones are actually deep within our ancient amphibian brain (or hind brain) area and not high on our cortext. For example, when we play music the temporal lobes are active of course but also the cerebellum is highly active. And the cerebellum is about as basic and ancient a part of our brain as you get. So if art was simply about our highly developed nature as humans then you wouldn’t expect to see activity in parts of the brain that have been around for millions of years before we arrived on the scene. So something really significant must be going on in there then. Make sense?

Frankly, I don't see what this proves. Leg muscles become active when we walk; brain zones become active when we think. We live in a physical world, and the fact that our brains wiggle and light up when we think about things doesn't deny in any way the existence of the things we think about or the fact that we choose to think about them.

I thought FM expressed it well (I added bolding): "Autoconscience, intelligence (not only rationality), moral sense, historical sense, artistical sense, free will (I'm sorry, Lizra )... are operations that are not conditioned to materia (though they might have material manifestations in us, in our body)."

And even IF evolution was true, I don't see why art causing activity in the parts of the brain that are supposed to have been around for millions of years matters. I imagine it just means that art and beauty are deep truths that are very important, and we're wired to realize that.

Originally Posted by IRex

Right. So what yer saying is that playing music makes you feel good.

I don't play the harp because it makes me "feel good". I play it because of the reasons I listed. I play it because my heart desires, recognizes and values love and beauty. Yes, it also makes me "feel good", but that is a natural side effect of beauty. I think you're confusing the effects with the cause. If beauty did not exist as a concept that is real and recognizeable, then playing the harp would not make me feel good.

to me that only strengthens the fact that artistic impulses are rooted in our animal brain. Because they can sometimes be too powerful and become obsessions.

Anything can become an obsession.

[BeardofPants]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

I just love your noble heart, brownie!

Brownie? Noble?

Brownie?!

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

Frankly, I don't see what this proves. Leg muscles become active when we walk; brain zones become active when we think. We live in a physical world, and the fact that our brains wiggle and light up when we think about things doesn't deny in any way the existence of the things we think about or the fact that we choose to think about them.

eh?

I thought FM expressed it well (I added bolding): "Autoconscience, intelligence (not only rationality), moral sense, historical sense, artistical sense, free will (I'm sorry, Lizra )... are operations that are not conditioned to materia (though they might have material manifestations in us, in our body)."

lot of double talk going on here. i have no clue what not being "conditioned" to the physical body yet having manifestations in it really means to be honest. Seems like hair splitting double talk so I guess Id need some clarification.

And even IF evolution was true, I don't see why art causing activity in the parts of the brain that are supposed to have been around for millions of years matters. I imagine it just means that art and beauty are deep truths that are very important, and we're wired to realize that.

is that another way of saying pretty much what I said? That artistic expression is important to us as physical creatures?

I don't play the harp because it makes me "feel good". I play it because of the reasons I listed. I play it because my heart desires, recognizes and values love and beauty. Yes, it also makes me "feel good", but that is a natural side effect of beauty.

a natural side effect... so what yer saying is that it DOES do all those physical things that i listed out and it does make you feel good BUT thats all irrelevent. and that you choose to believe you only do this because your "heart desires it". And all the physical stuff is just a big coincidence? I dont know rian. this just seems like a really weak attempt to ignore the obvious and cling to something that pretty much mimics the obvious without stating it outright. well if it makes you feel better about it to think that then more power to ya.

I think you're confusing the effects with the cause. If beauty did not exist as a concept that is real and recognizeable, then playing the harp would not make me feel good.

we have the ability to distinguish "beauty" because it serves us well to be selective in our environment. animals do this too you realize. select things based on how attractive they are to them and how they make them feel. if we didnt have this ability then we would choose neutral and detrimental things as often as we would positive things. and that wouldnt be good for us. communication and expression among other things are important traits for our species to master. so playing the harp seems beautiful to you and makes you feel good. there you have your cause and your effect.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

we have the ability to distinguish "beauty" because it serves us well to be selective in our environment. animals do this too you realize. select things based on how attractive they are to them and how they make them feel. if we didnt have this ability then we would choose neutral and detrimental things as often as we would positive things. and that wouldnt be good for us. communication and expression among other things are important traits for our species to master. so playing the harp seems beautiful to you and makes you feel good. there you have your cause and your effect.

yep, this expresses it pretty well... i think some of the opposing views may tie back to what i was saying about free will too... eventhough we are subjects of cause and effect, we are so far from being able to comprehend the depth of this cause and effect (and probably always will be), that we like to come up with alternatives that make us feel more independent, or 'special'

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

I just love your noble heart, brownie!

i have my moments

and other ones too i guess

[Fat middle]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

lot of double talk going on here. i have no clue what not being "conditioned" to the physical body yet having manifestations in it really means to be honest. Seems like hair splitting double talk so I guess Id need some clarification.

Perhaps you can give yourself the best clarification: try and explain us how can "double talk" be explained from a materialist basis.

It's a question of meaning, not of brains.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

Brownie? Noble?

Yes, I think he is. If you look at his posts, and see what he has posted in response to certain situations, it shows (IMO) a nobility of heart - a real sense of justice and aiding people in need.

For IRex, I see in his posts (as I mentioned) a real sense of kindness and care for people (even tho he gets mad at me in threads like this one).

For YOU, m'dear - (shall I say it? )


For YOU, m'dear, the word that comes to mind is courageous. I see a fearlessness in you that leads to you look more openly at things than some other people will. IMO, you're more willing to accept something on its merits, even if it's unpopular. IMO, you have a courageous heart, and I love that in you.

Not that the others are not courageous, or you are not kind or noble - it's just that we all have character traits that are strongest, and those are the ones that I see as strongest in you guys. And that's ... MHO ... for what it's worth.