The Human Animal (Humans)

by David Turell , Thursday, August 06, 2009, 15:21 (5587 days ago) @ dhw

Alison Gopnik simply takes it for granted that we are different.
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> In the Adler thread, the question has been asked whether humans are different from (other) animals by kind or by degree. I'm not sure whether this distinction really matters outside the sphere of religious dogmatism (i.e. that man is a special creation), but I would argue that it's a mixture. We ARE animals. - Physiologically we are animals, but our brain is enormously different, although physiologically it functions just like animals, but with much more placicity, and enormously more functionality. 
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> Where I think we are different in kind is in our culture, 
> Our culture, though, is a product of our consciousness, reason, emotions, will, memory etc., and this is where we enter a grey area. I don't know (and would welcome other views) to what extent we can say that our faculties are different in kind from those of other animals. The degree of difference is clearly massive, but animals are capable of making decisions, solving problems, feeling emotions, taking precautions, remembering the past, helping one another etc., albeit normally within the framework of the basic activities listed above. - Everything you list implies a simple similarity. Our massive brain does things animals would never dream of. And we have a complex consciousness: we are aware that we are aware. They are aware, but do not analyze it. - 
> Another of Alison Gopnik's observations is: "One of the fundamental ideas of cognitive science is that our brains are in some senses like computers, created through evolution." Again this is in the context of humans, but is equally true of animals. And so I'm left wondering just how far we can and should take this idea of difference. At the back of my mind are the horrific consequences of man's sense of superiority. The principle of difference underlies some of humanity's most barbaric actions. - Just because we are as barbaric as animals in crime and war, does not mean we are not different by degree. They have to kill to eat and live. We kill for higher (The Crusades) or lower motives. Religions have not acted effectively in creating an absolute morality among humans: see the Old Testament and the Quran. But biologically that does not negate our super-computer brain. It is different. Now you know Adler in some sense.