There are also experiments which show that violence, cheating and exploitation happen between animals.
observing animals, it is quite apparent what we have to master in our our own animal nature, if we are to transcend mere animality and move to higher ground.
they can absolute bastards to each other, given half a chance, and what's worse, take that default to be entirely normal, and if not morally 'right', at least reality-based.
they don't call it 'the law of the jungle' for nothing...
that's the nuts'n'bolts of it, the raw material, we get to work with, and boy is there a lot of work to be done if we ever want to make a 'civilised' world with humans in it, as humans are the most intelligent and resourceful beasts, and left to their sheer animality, all you have is a Hobbsian dystopia, or ruanda writ large...rape, kill, steal and torture.
all religions try to address this, and largely make it worse, i think because as soon as you set up a taboo, you create a counterforce that wants to break it.
animals can also 'break pattern' and do astoundingly noble things, and their unintellectuality precludes them from being ever truly diabolical.
unfortunately humans are less limited in that way, :( ~Government budget deficits are not nearly as dangerous as the deficits we have created in vital and complex natural systems.~ Naomi Klein.
Uh, we are animals, so anything we do is part of our animal nature. The idea that there is a separation (a duality if you will) between humans and animals is one of the most dangerous that exists, part of the idiot belief that humans and "nature" are somehow separate things, as if humans are unnatural in some way or don't function within "nature".
We have a potential for rational planning and for modelling fairly complex outcomes without having to live them first. Occasionally we're even smart enough to let this take priority over instinctive responses, which aren't good at the long term.
We also have persistent culture, which makes it less necessary to relearn everything about the world from scratch with each new generation.
They're limited abilities, but not trivial.
If you want to think of us as animals 2.0, fine, but then other animals range from 1.0 to 2.0 on a continuous scale.
For humans, persistent culture is very much non-trivial.
We spend at least five and sometimes more than twenty years learning how we're supposed to be human and being taught what previous humans have done so that we - literally - don't have to reinvent the wheel.
Human cumulative memory reaches back thousands of years. Animal memory never lasts more than a generation.
To a certain extent, these are discrete steps, not a continuous gradation, so there is a sense in which 'Animals 2.0' is an appropriate metaphor. A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith
Humans don't have a venomous bite. Does that make spiders and snakes Animals 2.0?
You have to have the ability to transmit behaviour between individuals. It shouldn't be surprising that animals can do this but every time it's proved by research for a particular species it makes big headlines. Maybe a lot of what passes for "instinct" is actually cultural transmission. The experience of releasing animals bred in captivity out in the wild should provide a data point.
But there is a stage beyond "transmitted behaviour" and that is "transmitted information". There's no reason to believe that some animals can't have a "concept" of the world, but can they transmit it to others in their group? That would be in the same 'Animals 2.' (maybe 'Culture 2.' is better) class as oral-transmission human cultures.
And then we get to the production of material artifacts to supplement memory - is that 'Culture 3.*' ? A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith
There's no reason to believe that some animals can't have a "concept" of the world, but can they transmit it to others in their group?
i believe they can, but it's anecdotal. when i took my horse to a pro stables for 3 months during training, he was a totally good natured animal, more pet than worker.
he learned to work while there, for sure, but he also learned something else, a spirit of disrespect for humans he had never exhibited before, a flare of rebellion, a vein of crankiness.
i felt it was worth it, so i tried to compensate, but it distressed me, and i eventually brought him back home a month before the trainer thought appropriate, because i was fed up with the personality disintegration.
after a month of a lot of personal attention, grooming and treats, he regained his original mellow friendliness, as i had hoped, (and had faith in, because his early childhood, his first 2 years were as close to idyllic as could be, and that's why i chose him, not just because the breed has a rep for toughness, resilience, intelligence and long, healthy lives.)
so the early conditioning is always the bedrock, and has the most power, but animals can encourage each other to change their attitudes, at least it sure seemed that way, though i'm aware you could probably never prove it 'scientifically'! ~Government budget deficits are not nearly as dangerous as the deficits we have created in vital and complex natural systems.~ Naomi Klein.
Define "persistent culture".
Some webs are more interesting and bigger than others.
Animals don't have persistent culture, and they particularly don't have or externalised symbolic communication tools which can maintain information for generations.
If true, you need to present "objective" evidence refuting several decades of research by biologists, at least, into mammal psychology --which I understand to be any type of socialability, or interaction within one species group, so classified as "family". Primatologists actively pursue politcal agenda describing what is "natural" altruism, what is "natural" competition.
Jury's still out on cold-blooded species, excepting insects for some reasons that I'm not prepared to reiterate.
If "culture" (physical artifacts) and "externalised symbolic communication tools" (i.e. language performance) are either not evident or incomprehensible to human researchers, how will humans justify and validate genetic fatalism "which can maintain information for generations"? That is, material or axiomatic determinants of individual (unique) and collective (social) of life, not death, or survival if you will.
"Information" is a generic title of "instinct," itself a stream of data subject to physical law as we understand them. Presently the human scope of possible expressions include behavioral (psychological) and pathological (viral, bacterial, unknown degenerative agent) outcomes, you know, at any given point in an individual life cycle.
I don't see how many people are given by experts rationales beyond faith to act according to a morally positive end. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
there is a 'however' though, and that is humans have become de-natured, have often lost touch with their animality, and have repressed and bypassed so many attributes, that in other times and cultures were perfectly acceptable in polite society, but now, by some historical quirk, fall into the taboo basket.
i'm not going 'noble savage' on you, just pointing out that we have a case here for evolution being a process of loops that regress as well as progress.
some are ahead of their times, some behind, some get so far ahead they become almost numb to the fact they have a body at all! as a massage therapist, i've seen way too much of this...
those simple folk who live pretty much as they did for yonks are much more in touch with their bodies, and with them there is really much less distinction, they 'own' their bodies in much the same direct, unaffected way that animals do.
i could start on about anglo disease here, and its exploitational, entitled and exceptionalist attitudes to animals ( which pretty much decree we separate ourselves from the animal kingdom conceptually in order to reduce it to units of expendable protein-fuel or tame cuddle-toys, all the while fetishising the last polar bear/panda survivors of the habitat humans are so busy destroying etc), but that's enough bloviating from me for tonight!
you are so right about just how dangerous this cognitive schism is, i'm glad you pointed that out.
we are gloriously animal indeed, and to forget that is to invite all manner of mayhem to our door. in ommitting to celebrate that reality, we became the cancerous, maladapted, warped, weakened and disharmonic species we see abusing the planet daily, strong, in charge, perfectly 'rational', and totally demented...
there, i've probably set you up for one of your witty one-liners you like to reply to my comments with!
sorry about the mr. mustard joke i laid on you a couple of years ago. i never apologised for it, and looking back it was teh stoopid, really immature and dumb....duh. like you said 'high school'...
and..rude. my bad. ~Government budget deficits are not nearly as dangerous as the deficits we have created in vital and complex natural systems.~ Naomi Klein.
Is the jungle a very nasty place? It seems that animals provide more to each other there than take away. Do they have "tragedies of commons"? Does anyone bother to monopolize resources, push a "competitive advantage" to the maximum? Who is literally struggling there?
There seems to be a view in some quarters that in commerce there is only a ruthless `law of the jungle' to be observed. Yet this is a much-abused metaphor, because a jungle is in fact a vivid example of an immensely complex natural system, in which the various parts survive - and thrive - as much through co-operation as competition. If we really lived by the law of the jungle, properly understood, then we would treasure diversity in our economy, reward collaboration, build skills to manage complexity, and maintain all those subtle checks and balances that keep any economy, or eco-system, vibrant and healthy.
A video of Prince Charles speaking this is here.
