I have two questions for everyone to answer on the nature of man

It has come to mine that I believe man is another animal. Which in turn man is the most dangerous animal of them all in the world as we type! Man to me is one of the most complicated beings anywhere on Earth. There are so many unanswerable questions that we will never find out. A quote from the Joker in the Dark Knight film has been plaguing my head lately.

Source for the quote

I believe…whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you stranger.

Mankind is truly a strange species. I look at myself and then others. Wondering how do we realize we're not acting on impulses compared to free will? How can we prove both as legit factors in human psychology? Yet I'm getting ahead of myself of chatting to myself. There are two questions I would like for any member to answer. Please answer both as truthful as you can. I'm going to use two different and yet similar quotes that claim man as an animal. You'll see what I mean in a second. The first one is simple and straight forward. The quote comes from the back of my brain.

Man is an animal who over time achieved success in multiple fields of life and then changed the world; for better and for worse.

The next one has the familiar ring to it. But it's more depressing ring to it. I edit the quote to make it less about a being and more about man's pride.

Source for quote

man is just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his "divine spiritual and intellectual development", has become the most vicious animal of all.

Now hopefully you can see the familiar tune to these quotes. One is sweeter; while the other one is more prideful.

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


Are the questions coming in your next post?

I'm just a little slow. (is that politically correct to say anymore?)

Becker

reply to post by Becker44


I'm wanting the answers of all the members. Basically I would like to see how members interpret the two quotes of man as an animal and man's nature. Not the Joker quote.

I'm sorry... I don't see where the questions come in. Maybe you could throw a couple questions marks in there to point the way? Other than that.. thought provoking post.. I would love to post some thoughts.. but I wanted to answer the questions.

Please reframe your questions.

My thinking is that man is half ape, half angel. Equal both. We are the only beings in creation able to choose between the two for our personal lives.

reply to post by wisintel


Answer these two quotes right here. I'm tired so I will quickly repost them here.

Question 1. ?? for you lol.

Man is an animal who over time achieved success in multiple fields of life and then changed the world; for better and for worse.

Source

Question 2 ?? more ?? for you lol.

man is just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his "divine spiritual and intellectual development", has become the most vicious animal of all.

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


Those are statements not questions.

Here let me help you. You seem like a nice feller.

What are the questions? See, that's a question.

Now proceed.

Becker

reply to post by Becker44


Well I mean interpret how you see the two quotes. That's what I'm trying to see what everyone thinks of them.

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


Ding, Ding, Ding we have a winner.

OK my friend brb with some thoughts.

Becker

If I get the question my answer is as follows. Yes we are animals but what separates us from the rest of the animal world is self awareness. We don't act on "instinct" most of the time. As animals always do. It allows us to question ourselves. It comes down to "motives". We can be the most ruthless of all animals but we can also be the most altruistic.

I guess my overall current beliefs about the nature of reality keep me from seeing man as an animal at all. I think to classify man as an animal in the tradional sense as just another brutal result of evolution is to look at the human race through the eyes of an athiest. While I don't ascribe to the absolute truth being found in any major religion, for myself I see humanity as spiritual beings. While our bodies may have evolved over time and may be subject to baser impulses, I don't think you can discount our spirit. For every anamilist act committed by a person you will find acts of creativity and beauty created by man that cannot be fathomed nor understood by any member of the animal kingdom. If man was only an animal, we would simply be at the top of the food chain and not in a position to transend the paradigm alltogether.

The only thing man ever did was set things out of balance.

Human nature is pretty much the same as any other animal.

We are just too arrogant to see the truth about ourselves.

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


The first quote, while you sourced the movie The Dark Knight, is from Nietzsche's The Gay Science I believe.

and here is my contribution to your evolution of this idea:

"No animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel." -Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov

God is not needed to create guilt or to punish. Our fellow men suffice, aided by ourselves. You were speaking of the Last Judgment. Allow me to laugh respectfully. I shall wait for it resolutely, for I have known what is worse, the judgment of men. For them, no extenuating circumstances; even the good intention is ascribed to crime. -Camus (The Fall)

It may be the truth, but I see darkness in the future of anyone who takes this idea out of an edifying framework.

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


I believe the there are only two factors propelling the human animal above all the rest.

Opposable thumbs and Language.

By virtue of these two nearly unique traits we have accended to the top of the food chain. This has resulted in the total domination of all living things upon our planet.

Humans continue to evolve as do animals. Our evolutionary progression has seen giant leaps compared to the rest of the animal kingdom however. These gains have brought us to our place at the top.

Mind you, oppsable thumbs and language won't get you very far when facing a pride of lions on their turf other than to scream for help and perhaps perform the infamous eye gouge with our thumbs. This manuever will prolong one's life span for perhaps 1.5 seconds, but don't be fooled, physically we are no match for most animals.

Becker

reply to post by Becker44


With all due political correctness: i hug you for your comments

On Topic:

The 2nd Quote is a pessimistic / cynical comment. Apart from that aspect it doesn't differ very much from the first one.

So i'll regard both quotes as the same, if you allow me to put aside the subjectiv part of the second quote

Imho the comparison Human Animal is a very delicate one. You here a lot of people say we differ from animals because we have language / the ability to communicate. I'd say the argument doesn't hold ground because animals too have very sophisticated ways of communicating. Our evolved language surely is a fundamental need for our separation from beeing "only animals with instinctual (or a bit more) behavior" and the basis for all the other things that make us different from animals.

As there are a lot of things to add to that list, i'll just talk about the two i think are the major factors of us beeing different than animals: Our ability to build up a moral / ethics and the ability to ask ourselfs questions. Like: Why are we here? Where do we come from? Where will we go? *Edit: And we have Art!
As much intellect/intelligence i'd like to attribute to animals (Dolphins, Apes and Crows rock ) i take the liberty to claim that we are the sole beeings on the planet having those two abilities. I hope i don't sound arrogant saying this I'd very like to be proven wrong, though

And yes, of course we have still the instincts in us that... well..let's just say happen to be in us an similar to animal instincts . Another human ability is to master your mind and but your "ES", like Freud would call it, behind our moral and consciousness. Other instincts are just needed for survival, like the instinct to breathe. It would be very stupid if we wouldn't have that instinct and just die because a 10 min Youtube Video takes all our attention

How to test if you have free will an are not functioning by instincs? Suicides perhaps? Haven't seen animals doing it on purpose (except in extreme cases, stupidity, to save the youngs, etc) because it would conflict with their survival instinct. There are also humans who like to induce themself some pain (lighter under hand, sitting on nails, etc) that would, in my humble opinion, not be so possible if your only working on instincts

Hope i could help you with my blabla

*Edit2: I'm an "atheist" - yet i don't se humans as animals that can just talk It's a bit more complex

reply to post by intrepid


This is what gets me... Have you never seen an animal act out of consideration to it's environment? Not mere instinct?

I have. Numerous times. Both in nature and domestic.

Man surely has a stick up his proverbial.... I guess that is what allows us to continually harvest creatures lesser than us as commodities.

One day perhaps, maybe, the term earthlings will include more than arrogant humans...

Originally posted by badw0lf
Man surely has a stick up his proverbial.... I guess that is what allows us to continually harvest creatures lesser than us as commodities.

Don't forget the time that we used fellow humans as commodities. Even animals don't do that.

Edit to add: If one was called an "animal", that might actually be a compliment.

Man is an animal who over time achieved success in multiple fields of life and then changed the world; for better and for worse.

Achievement is an illusion. Mankind is a horse on training wheels chasing a carrot stick. The real achievements haven't started yet. Free will is a temporary illusion.

man is just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his "divine spiritual and intellectual development", has become the most vicious animal of all.

Pain leads to fear. Fear leads to hate. Hate leads to separation. Separation + hate leads to war. War leads to technology. Technology leads to connectivity. Connectivity leads to unity. Unity leads to exploration. Exploration leads to advancement. Advancement leads to achievement.

Well, I wouldn't of jumped in here probably, but that becker guy seemed a little rude. I figured, being like that and all, he was gonna pop off a fairly intellectual answer and then he obviously half-remembers he heard something about language & opposable thumbs and tacks his 2 cents to it without ever really answering the question before going on to educate us as to how our intelligence & thumbs probably won't prevail in a brawl with a lion. Whatever the answer to the big question is here, becker & his ilk are probably half of the answer if you catch my drift.

But to address one of his points and say that speech itself be a factor is misleading. It's our ability for abstract thought that allows us an abstract language/speech. Not just speech, becker, but abstraction. S&F RR.

Man is an animal who over time achieved success in multiple fields of life and then changed the world; for better and for worse.

Name one other animal, over time, that has achieved success in multiple fields, other than a human?

man is just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his "divine spiritual and intellectual development", has become the most vicious animal of all.

All men, good and bad alike, seek after happiness, which is a good which once obtained leaves nothing more to be desired. If bad men obtained this goodness, they would not be bad. In other words,man is more free the more he contemplates God's nature, and less free when he is imprisoned in earthly flesh.

-Consolation of Philosophy