-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Is Human a kind of animal?
- Thread starter InvestigateTruth
- Start date
We Never Know
No Slack
it depends on the ordering relation mentioned here: “superior”.
if it is not defined, the question is meaningless.
for instance:
superior = “understanding Italian”, then yes
superior = “being able to fly with my limbs”, then no
Ciao
- viole
Assumes far too much for me -- and loads more than philosophers will generally grant. For example, it appears to assume pretty much unlimited free will that no other animal has. Yet beavers change our world quite profoundly. And if (as most philosophers now think) we do not have unlimited free will, then we -- like the beaver -- as nature evolved us to be, and there is nothing magical about the changes we make to world any more than there is that of the beaver. If fact, it would seem we are much harder on it.
1. People are much less rational than you imagine.
2. "Animal" is a technical, biological term.
Those aren't monkeys, they're apes. Very different.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:
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
You seem to have an unrealistic idea just how "rational" human beings are. The truth is, most of our decisions are made instictually, and then after, our cerebral cortex makes up "reasons" to explain our actions to ourselves.
You know what is a very well done series on human irrationality? It's called the Psychology of Belief and is on YouTube. It is a series of 12 videos, each of which examines a different form of human irrationality. You can find it by going to YouTube, type and search for Psychology of Belief, and look for the 12 video series that has a picture of a devil in a red suit. Here is just the first video:
Your brain makes decisions before you even realize it
You make countless decisions every day that range from mundane to incredibly important, but what part of you is actually making those decisions? We all assume that our brains are focused on whateve…
nypost.com
A beaver changing the world is simply the result of a beaver being a beaver. You don't seem to understand that basic distinction that we can and do choose to go against, or change the direction of our programming. Beavers don't do that. Now that's not to say that all human actually exercise the freedom of choice. Many just follow the programs unaware that they are programs at all, and think they are choosing when they are not. They are under the illusion that they are making a choice, when they're really not.
But no one is arguing for unlimited free will, of course. It's not all freedom, or all programs. No one is suggest such wild extremes like that here. We still can't choose to not take a **** and continue to live. But we also are not bound to do nothing but programs eithers. Beavers don't have that choice, do they? As far as I can tell, they can't decide to not build that dam, can they? Can a lion decide to become a vegetarian? You get my point, maybe?
Don't tell me, tell the article/video producer!
Please give one example, what was the last thing you did instinctively and what was the reason going by the instinct?
I can believe that, when I listen to atheists.
Nowadays maybe. I like more of the older definition.
Hunger can drive the instinct to bite whatever comes next to you. But normally humans decide to eat by reason, not by instinct, at least I do so.
For me they are not instinctive. Hunger is a feeling and I eat because I have that reason for it. I don't just act on basis of instinct, without any reasoning. But, maybe it is different for you.
Thanks, but, how do you know it was by reasoning and not by instinct, without readings ones mind?
Before the "scientists", the word animal was already used, for example in the Bible, and in there human is not an animal. And I believe the reason for that is he difference between acting instinctively or by reason. If modern people make poorer definition for the old word, I don't see any good reason to accept it.
Difficult to know, if one can't read cats mind.
Good question. We would have to read its mind for to be sure.
Well there are plenty of examples of non-human animals solving all sorts of problems, so why would we pass these off as being instinctual behaviours when we wouldn't do this for a child - which often will appear to solve problems in much the same manner? As I've mentioned before, I think AI will be the thing to get more understanding as to animal communications, and perhaps as to what else is going on in their minds.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
1. By that "logic" you could ask the exact same question about humans
2. Creative problem solving as seen in those clips (use of tools and the realization of things floting in water) is literally a criteria for reasoning. Reasoning is all about problem solving. And the more creative / out-of-the-box the problem solving, the more present the ability to reason. That's literally what "reasoning" is.