there seems some population here at the forum......insisting
Man is an animal
and when you look into the mirror.......what do you see?
When I look in the mirror I see a beast and not an animal. An animal operates under natural instinct; tree of life, while a beast is an animal, who has been biased, unnaturally, by knowledge of good and evil; tree of knowledge of good and evil.
For example, an animal will relieve their bowels, if they need to go, where they stand. This is natural. A beast is taught to avoid this natural urge, and use learned social customs; carrot and stick, to do a parallel behavior. The animal follows an inner voice, while the beast is often the product of an outer voice.
In fairly tales, talking animals should be considered beasts and not animals, since they are not talking, naturally, in the tongue of their native species. Rather they speak in an unnatural way for that animal. This usually means that this animal/beast is a symbol associated with humans or a human. The base of this new behavior is grounded in natural animal brain firmware, but this firmware has been modified by the ego; ego and cultural super ego, to become higher or lower than the animals. Animal fight for survival, while human beasts can show mercy in a fight, or become cruel enough to torture.
Humans have two centers of consciousness, which are the ego and inner self. The inner self is as old as evolution of consciousness and DNA. While the ego is new and appeared around the time of the rise of civilization; Adam and Eve. Civilization created a new unnatural environment for the human animal, who then becomes a beast, which helps to evolve the fledgling ego. The ego learns to make choices apart from the inner self and natural instinct to form the beast. The hunter eats the flesh of the lion and wears his skin to make his human animal more invincible as the lion-man beast.
Animals only have an inner self. The natural human animal within would be connected to the inner self of humans. The ego is what modifies the inner animal program, with learned social behavior; will and choice, outside of natural human instinct. This creates the beast. The animal eats based on food availability, while the beast will fast or become a glutton at any food availability.
One interesting exception are some domesticated animals like dogs and horses to name a few. A dog can be induced to have a virtual ego center. For example, the little poodle dog may be treated like a baby by the owner. The dog will figure out what is expected, via interaction with the owner, and can form a virtual ego. Now the dog becomes spoiled and demanding like a human child to meet owner expectations. The dog can become a virtual beast, based on the ego conditioning by the owner. Often animals/beasts in fairy tales are the product of something natural, having been modified into a beast by the ego.
