Is Anthropocentrism Justified?

[selfAdjoint]

This is true among large (visible to the human eye) animals, but the greatest biomass around, just about everywhere, is bacteria. And they can live in places we can't. at least so far.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Royce
Is it our egos, our insecurity or our need to justify our actions that make us feel apart and superior to the rest of life? Is it simply human arrogance or is it ignorance?

I think it is a natural offshoot of survival instincts, maybe. I am not arrogant, or ignorant about the subject, but if you ask me if a human life is worth more to me than an animal's, I would generally say 'yes'. *shrugs* We are just wired that way, I guess.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by Dissident Dan
(SNIP) So, you are just accepting what everyone else tells you, rather than coming to your own conclusions? What do you mean by "do ideals"? Have you been inside the mind of another animal so that you have the authority to make such an assertion? (SNoP)

In a manner, I have been inside the mind of another animal, but I have certainly noticed that the only 'other' animal minds, that I have any access to, are the human ones, because they can reveal the insides of themselves to the rest of us simply by speaking, or "typiconographic" manerisms.
That one ability places us so far ahead, away, distant, special, superior, on top, first place, the best on the planet, somewhat invincible compared to the rest of the animals, with the only other differences being that we need to find clothing and shelter, the rest of the animals do not, and we have no specialized self defence apendage(s). We are forced/required to use the minds that we have, to survive.

 

[Royce]

Originally posted by Zero
I think it is a natural offshoot of survival instincts, maybe. I am not arrogant, or ignorant about the subject, but if you ask me if a human life is worth more to me than an animal's, I would generally say 'yes'. *shrugs* We are just wired that way, I guess.

As I sit here having a southern fried steak sandwich with potato chips for lunch I can not disagree with you about this. I much prefer being at the top of the food chain rather than lower down.
My point remains, however, that we are a part of nature and life not apart from it. Until we have survived a couple of hundred million years like the dinosaurs I think its a bit premature to call ourselves the ruleres of this planets and highest form of life.
After all humanity may be a short term selfdistructive abbaration in the normal chain of events. As far as life itself is concerned we are pretty much the new kid on the block and it has yet to be determined whether we are worth keeping around for a while or not.
We may also be nothing more than a transition phase to the REAL superior and ruling being of Earth.
This is what I mean by the arrogance and ignorance of Mankind collectively not necessarily of individuals (though I have met some to whom it would apply).

 

[Zero]

I'm in agreement with you Royce...how cool is that?

 

[Royce]

It is amazing isn't it. Is this a great country,world, universe or what?

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by Royce
(SNIP) After all humanity may be a short term selfdistructive abbaration in the normal chain of events. (SNoP)

Humm, something NO other animal can do, destroy itself completely, or all of the rest of life. (pretty much)
Oh Ya, also something no other animal SEEKS to do, only us (humans) the intellectual idiots(?).

 

[Royce]

And possibly lemmings if the folk tales are true.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
Humm, something NO other animal can do, destroy itself completely, or all of the rest of life. (pretty much)
Oh Ya, also something no other animal SEEKS to do, only us (humans) the intellectual idiots(?).

Ummm...so what? It is still an outgrowth of our animal behavior, not something different from what any other animal would do.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by Royce
And possibly lemmings if the folk tales are true.

They are NOT.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by Zero
Ummm...so what? It is still an outgrowth of our animal behavior, not something different from what any other animal would do.

It is "something different" as no other animals do it, as for it being "an outgrowth of our animal behaviour", hows that?

 

[Royce]

Well chimps have wars and raiding parties and kill one another. Of course they are our nearest relatives so I guess that's to be expected.
Insects, ants, wasps, etc, frequenty raid other nests or hives and wipe them out completely. Killing beyond need for food is not exclusive to mankind.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by Royce
Well chimps have wars and raiding parties and kill one another. Of course they are our nearest relatives so I guess that's to be expected.
Insects, ants, wasps, etc, frequenty raid other nests or hives and wipe them out completely. Killing beyond need for food is not exclusive to mankind.

So we, humans, must be in the same category inasmuch as we, or I, or you, can sit in a place and wipe out an entire troup of monkeys without even being near them.
It is language that enables us to act out far beyond the rest of the Animals, waaaaaaaay beyond, enables!

 

[Royce]

I think that language has had as much effect onour development as Homo sapiens as anything else. I think language influences the way we think as much as the other way around. It IMHO goes far beyond reading and writing enabling the acummulation and preservation of knowledge from one generation to the next; or, the ability to share thoughts and knowledge via spoken language. I think that it was instrumental in our becoming human and in what humans are.
Rather than being a consequence of being human I think it is at least in part what made us become human and determines what being human means as well as human behavior. It may not be the prime or most important influence but it is right up there among the most important.

Think about it. Did our brains develope speech centers so we could communicate or did rudementary communication cause the speach centers to develope so that we could communicate better. I think most of us have the cart before the horse. speech or language is the cause not the effect or at least as much the cause as the effect. I have said as much in FZ+'s thread.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
So we, humans, must be in the same category inasmuch as we, or I, or you, can sit in a place and wipe out an entire troup of monkeys without even being near them.
It is language that enables us to act out far beyond the rest of the Animals, waaaaaaaay beyond, enables!

We get your point, I think. We are having a trouble getting our point across, though. We are saying that it is a difference of degree, rather than a difference of kind.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by Zero
We get your point, I think. We are having a trouble getting our point across, though. We are saying that it is a difference of degree, rather than a difference of kind.

Humm, I suspect that I have 'seen that' just that I have this notion that it's impact upon us, and therefore all of what we can, and do, do, is enourmous, and that that differentiates us from the rest of the animals in a manner that appears (simply) subtle but works out over time to be HUGE, sort of like that "little degree of difference" expanding in orders of magnitude what we can accomplish.
Hence (perhaps) just a little (bit) more then is being admitted to...?

 

[selfAdjoint]

We are saying that it is a difference of degree, rather than a difference of kind.

Which is just where I get off the train. Langauge alone would constitute a difference in kind, and human self awareness is so much more than feelings + thinking + language.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Put it this way, if it's a difference of degree, how much/high do you rate that degree of 'difference' to be worth?

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
Put it this way, if it's a difference of degree, how much/high do you rate that degree of 'difference' to be worth?

Not enough to say that humans aren't animals, which we clearly are.

 

[Royce]

Not only that humans are animals also but are a part of nature and of the natural order of life on earth. We are not separate from, apart from or different from nature and the rest of life on earth. We are of nature and nature is part of us. We are all one life form on one planet. In this way we are no different from the rest of the animals nor of life itself. The difference is of degree. A vast degree I agree but any more vast than the difference between an amoeba and a mammal?

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Royce
Not only that humans are animals also but are a part of nature and of the natural order of life on earth. We are not separate from, apart from or different from nature and the rest of life on earth. We are of nature and nature is part of us. We are all one life form on one planet. In this way we are no different from the rest of the animals nor of life itself. The difference is of degree. A vast degree I agree but any more vast than the difference between an amoeba and a mammal?

And, also, we choose what criteria to judge the differences...the difference in strength between a gorilla and human is tremendous, but we are both primates.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

It is agreed that we are animals, but we are the most different animal on the planet, and the most adapted/adaptable.

All of what any of you knows is waaaaaay past anything any other animal will ever learn, in it's entire life!

The rest of the animals learn only from the situational circumstances, they learn from the immediacy (sp?) of where they are!

 

[Royce]

Okay we're different, even waaaaaaay different than any other single species; but; you are saying this because of one or two criteria. It it those two things, language and ability to learn outside of the immediate circumstances? I don't agree with the latter by the way. Is it correct to say that both are so interrelated that they are actually one characteristic, language; that language is what makes us human and different from the rest of the animals?

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by selfAdjoint
Which is just where I get off the train. Langauge alone would constitute a difference in kind, and human self awareness is so much more than feelings + thinking + language.

Do you have vidence? We act just like monkeys, boss.

 

[Dissident Dan]

Originally posted by selfAdjoint
Which is just where I get off the train. Langauge alone would constitute a difference in kind, and human self awareness is so much more than feelings + thinking + language.

Our linguistic abilities are a function of our superior intelligence combined with our capable vocal chords. Other animals have intelligence, too. Therefore, it is a difference of degree. All language really is is using symbols. Even a dog can recognize a correlation between a symbol and what it's related to or supposed to represent. We give them oral commands, don't we? How is that not a simple version of linguistic abilities?

Even more obvious, as I have already pointed out, gorillas have been taught to use sign language to form sentences. If this is not language, then I'm bewildered as to what language is.

It is a difference of degree.
----------------------------

Also, all the debate about what "separates" us from other animals centers on our abilities that give us tremendous power. If our great power is what justifies calling us superior and doing what we want with others, then the 3rd reich was for a time superior and justified in killing all those millions.

 

[THANOS]

Let me use the dictionary to straighting things out.

Animal: 1. A multicellular organism of the kingdom Animalia, differing from plants in certain typical characteristics such as capacity for locomotion, nonphotosynthetic metabolism, pronounced response to stimuli, restricted growth, and fixed bodily structure.
2. An animal organism other than a human, especially a mammal.

Mammal: Any of various warm-blooded vertebrate animals of the class Mammalia, including humans, characterized by a covering of hair on the skin and, in the female, milk-producing mammary glands for nourishing the young.

Human: A member of the genus Homo and especially of the species H. sapiens.

Homo sapiens: The modern species of humans, the only extant species of the primate family Hominidae.

Extant: Still in existence; not destroyed, lost, or extinct.

Primate: A mammal of the order Primates, which includes the anthropoids and prosimians, characterized by refined development of the hands and feet, a shortened snout, and a large brain.
A bishop of highest rank in a province or country.

Hominidae: modern man and extinct immediate ancestors of man.

Anthropoids: Resembling a human, especially in shape or outward appearance.

Prosimians: Of or belonging to the Prosimii, a suborder of primates that includes the lemurs, lorises, and tarsiers.

Prosimii: not used in all classifications; in some classifications considered coextensive with the Lemuroidea; in others includes both Lemuroidea and Tarsioidea.

Lemurs: Any of several small arboreal, mostly nocturnal primates chiefly of the family Lemuridae of Madagascar and adjacent islands, having large eyes, a long slim muzzle, and a long tail.

Lorises: Any of several small, slow-moving, nocturnal prosimian primates of the genera Loris and Nycticebus of tropical Asia, having dense woolly fur, large eyes, and a vestigial tail.

Tarsiers: Any of several small nocturnal arboreal primates of the genus Tarsius, of the East Indies and the Philippines, having large round eyes, a long tail, and long fingers and toes tipped with soft disklike pads.

I'm sure humans end up being linked with animals here don't they?

 

[THANOS]

I looked up ape and found the meaning also contained Mimic in there. mimic also means: To copy or imitate closely, especially in speech, expression, and gesture; ape.
Now that i think of it. We are close to the meaning of ape. Considering that our technology is based on imitating our surroundings. We can fly because we thought of wings and imitated a bird. We learned speech only by imitating each other. Ben Franklin learned that lighting was electicity and invented the lighting rod. Thomas Alva Edison thought of electricity as a novelty. And lit up the streets by the time he died. I guess we humans are the master of imitating.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Lets try it this way, a group of monkeys a videoed by a film crew. They experience what humans are, how a filem crew goes around filming them over time, all of us humans, who get to see that video, know of those monkeys, and how they behave, and know that they do not know of us and the rest of the "outside world" (outside of there world)

The monkeys are then left alone in the forest, they go about their activities, and in a mating produce, a baby. When this baby is five years old, the same age of it's parents when they had experianced "The film crew", that baby will still have no idea what a "film crew" is, and it never will if it is never in the presence of one, as there is no input/output for abstractions such as language.

That given, I can hold against anyone of you everything you personally know, your entire learning record is on my side for proving that you are special, in comparision to all of the rest of the animals.

 

[Dissident Dan]

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
Lets try it this way, a group of monkeys a videoed by a film crew. They experience what humans are, how a filem crew goes around filming them over time, all of us humans, who get to see that video, know of those monkeys, and how they behave, and know that they do not know of us and the rest of the "outside world" (outside of there world)

The monkeys are then left alone in the forest, they go about their activities, and in a mating produce, a baby. When this baby is five years old, the same age of it's parents when they had experianced "The film crew", that baby will still have no idea what a "film crew" is, and it never will if it is never in the presence of one, as there is no input/output for abstractions such as language.

That given, I can hold against anyone of you everything you personally know, your entire learning record is on my side for proving that you are special, in comparision to all of the rest of the animals.

I don't understand what you are trying to point out here. How would you expect a the young monkey to know what a film crew is if it never experienced one? The same would be true of a human...

Anyway, I don't think that anyone is doubting that humans are more intelligent, on average, than other animals. But that does not make some magical barrier between humans and other animals.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by Dissident Dan
I don't understand what you are trying to point out here. How would you expect a the young monkey to know what a film crew is if it never experienced one? The same would be true of a human... Funny, I could just show the human child, a film of it, and they would be able to gain an understanding of it, unlike the "child chimp"

Anyway, I don't think that anyone is doubting that humans are more intelligent, on average, than other animals. But that does not make some magical barrier between humans and other animals. Hummm, your opinion, you seem to miss the "orders of magnitude" of addition to human history (what the monkeys cannot share amongst themselves is their history) that is what arises as "you", and all of what you know from all of what has been collectively learned in humanities history, and how that shapes you, enourmously different from any other animal.

 

[Zero]

Hmmm...lawn mowers and automobiles?? Certainly different, but not a giant gap between them. It is the same principle involved in both. A giant difference would be if cars hovered on anti-gravity fields.

 

[Royce]

Years ago I watched a show, Nature, I think, about monkeys or maybe apes in northern Japan. They were being fed and studied. One mother monkey learned I suppose by accident to separate grains of rice from the sand that it was laying in by throwing it in the water. /The rice floated and the sand of course sank. She then scooped up the cleaned rice and ate it. She taught her daughter how to do this. A few years later when the Japanese again visited the island to study the monkeys they found that most of that group had learned to do the same thing. Isn't this learning and passing along from generation to generation and monkey to monkey a new learned skill? How does this differ from mankind before writing was developed?
We are different from animals by degree only and then only in one or two criteria are we superior. Agreed that these differences have pushed us over the top and we are vastly more technologially developed than any other animals. Never the less is is by degree only and we are animals ourselves. We are not as large as some. we are not as strong as some. we can not see as well as some. we cannot smell as well as some. we cannot hear as well as some. we can not make the sounds that some can. We do not have as big a brain as some.
So how is it that we are superior and separate and different and have the right to use and rule the world as we see fit at the moments?

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by Royce
Years ago I watched a show, Nature, I think, about monkeys or maybe apes in northern Japan. They were being fed and studied. One mother monkey learned I suppose by accident to separate grains of rice from the sand that it was laying in by throwing it in the water. /The rice floated and the sand of course sank. She then scooped up the cleaned rice and ate it. She taught her daughter how to do this. A few years later when the Japanese again visited the island to study the monkeys they found that most of that group had learned to do the same thing. Isn't this learning and passing along from generation to generation and monkey to monkey a new learned skill? How does this differ from mankind before writing was developed? As I tried to explain it is a demonstrable teaching, unlike me telling you about M 31 and you knowing that that is real, is there. (can be seen and confirmed in a manner of speaking)
We are different from animals by degree only and then only in one or two criteria are we superior. Agreed that these differences have pushed us over the top and we are vastly more technologially developed than any other animals. Never the less is is by degree only and we are animals ourselves. We are not as large as some. we are not as strong as some. we can not see as well as some. we cannot smell as well as some. we cannot hear as well as some. we can not make the sounds that some can. We do not have as big a brain as some.
So how is it that we are superior and separate and different and have the right to use and rule the world as we see fit at the moments? The very fact that you can "write" that out, I can "read" it, "respond", that is what is so enourmously different about us humans, our collective ability to deal with these abstractions we call language/typiconography/sybolisms. The rest of the animals have no access to the recioprocity of inner imagination that we have, the ability to correlate the outer with the inner, the ability to lie about either of those, and on and on and on, keep writing......you prove my point

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by Zero
Hmmm...lawn mowers and automobiles?? Certainly different, but not a giant gap between them. It is the same principle involved in both. A giant difference would be if cars hovered on anti-gravity fields.

And the difference between an oxen driven cart, and a car, and a space shuttle, and a motorcycle, and a horse, and "an artificial horse" (AKA Bicycle) and what is it that the rest of the animals use, "X" driven what are youmacallits?

 

[Royce]

We all agree that humans are different from "lower" animals. We are saying that we are different in degree by limited criteria. Inects, birds, mammals all build or make homes and modify their environment to better suit their need.
Man is not unigue in this or any other life activity with the exception of writing. I know of no other animal that "writes" although many communicate and leave signs and records of their passing by or their territorial boundaries. This can be loosely concidered a form of nonverbal communication as is writing because it is done with the conscious effort of communicating with another of it's species without the other being present at that time. So even writing can be concidered just a matter of degree. It is just an adaptation of a trait that has existed in the animal kingdom for millions of years. This is an oversimplification and an extreme viewpoint but could still be valid.
So Mr. Parsons, what is your point?