Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
Putting it like that makes eating an orange seem gruesomely barbaric while eating an animal seems the least violent of the two, lol.
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Is Human a kind of animal?
- Thread starter InvestigateTruth
- Start date
Being that acts on instincts, not by own reasoning.
Why do you think eating is based on instinct? I think it is based on the feeling of hungry and reasoning that eating something helps.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
How do you think a squirrel for example eventually manages to overcome a complex obstacle course so as to obtain a food reward? Is this animal behaving differently from a child who might do the same - trial and error or choosing between various options?
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TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Humans act on instinct all the time.
Perhaps even arguable more then "by own reasoning".
Having said that, this is not how biology defines "animal" at all.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Why would that be different from when my cat decides to come into the house to eat when it is hungry?
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Biologists make criteria that fits a set of organisms.
It's impossible to come up with a definition for "animal" that encompasses all animals yet excludes humans without explicitly, through special pleading, adding "special" rules to explicitly exclude humans.
You'ld end up with a definition like "all multi-cellular eukaryotes that consume organic matter, except humans".
Or like vertebrates: "all creatures with a backbone, except humans".
It's pretty ridiculous and blatant special pleading.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Secret Chief
Vetted Member
We get squirrels in our garden (possibly for the food in the squirrel cafe) and they are right cheeky buggers!
Secret Chief
Vetted Member
If seeking water and food are not intinctive behaviours then nothing is.
Viker
Your beloved eccentric Auntie Cristal
Because hunger, it drives the instinct to eat. This is real simple stuff. You're being obtuse on purpose.
I think one mark of intelligence, and not just instinct, is when so many creatures will accept food proffered by humans knowing that they are safe and such food is not just a trap, so they obviously learn as to how we behave. And this applies to so many birds, squirrels, whatever, in one's own local environment, etc. This recent news I find quite intriguing, and perhaps aiding as to understanding why humans and other life do differ so much:
Sequential Memory Is A Unique Human Trait - Neuroscience News
New research unveils a probable unique human ability to recognize and remember sequential information.
neurosciencenews.com
Although one has to wonder as to such - given this:
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Heyo
Veteran Member
(Yes, I know that this story is bull**** but I've seen drunken and hung over animals myself.)
But you are not talking to someone who is interested in biology at all. Whole other magisterium from his.
Then I put it to you that is totally oxymoronic. The requirement for an anus speaks to nothing less mundane than the purely physical business of living in a biochemical body.
Heyo
Veteran Member
Our main defence system is our social living and the intelligence of other humans. Very few humans would survive in the wild depending on their intelligence alone.
It's actually not oxymoronic, but paradoxical. It's apparently contradictory ideas, yet ironically true nonetheless. And that's the point. That's what Becker was pointing to in that ironic statement that humans are gods with anuses. Human have both our biological selves, and our higher cultural selves, which goes beyond our simple lizard brain instinct/impulse selves.
Basically we not only run the biological programs, but we can also change our own worlds through the power of our minds and our wills. And that is a power of the gods, when you contrast that with just running blind programs all day. So basically, we are gods who also ****, in other words. Make sense now?
We Never Know
No Slack
I like a different phrase.... "We are monkeys with guns"
Well, it doesn't convey exactly the same thing. But what you say is also true. I like to put that truth in a slightly different way that "We are neurotic monkeys with oversized brains." We take those oversized brains and do some really crazy **** with them like hoarding bottle caps, piles of money, and stockpiling weapons.