Category: Writers Block
Plato, searching for a succinct definition, once deemed man the only
"featherless biped." On hearing this, Diogenes promptly presented his fellow
philosopher
with a plucked chicken.
It's funny to picture the great thinker being the butt of such a joke, but the
problem he was trying to solve -- how to separate man from the animals --
is a tough one. Long before, and ever after, people have been trying to draw
that line. Animals are like this. Man is like that. Unfortunately, every
line in the sand, whether built on precepts of physical differences or mental
distinction, only becomes more smudged over time.
One of the guidelines that served for a long period was man's use of tools. Man
was "the tool-using animal," and this distinction was even used to help
separate paleontological sites belonging to "human ancestors" from those
belonging to other offshoots of the hominid line. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the
critical moment that pushes man down the road to being man, is the point there
the human-to-be lifts a length of warthog bone and discovers its capabilities
as a club.
However, a pair of recent articles point up the folly of making tool use the
test of humanity. It appears that chimpanzees had their own "stone age."
Around the same time the pyramids were being constructed in Egypt, Chimps in
West Africa were using stone tools to get at hard-shelled nuts. It's not only
chimpanzees of the past who use tools. It's long been known that some bands of
modern chimps use sticks to tease insects from their hives. Now it seems
that chimpanzee tool use can be
just as violent
as those of our direct ancestors.
"Chimpanzees living in the West African savannah have been observed fashioning
spears from sticks and using the handcrafted tools to hunt small mammals --
the first routine production of deadly weapons ever seen in nonhuman animals."
Tool use in primates isn't limited to humans and chimps. Many other great apes,
particularly orangutans, have been seen making use of tools. All of this
suggests that tool use is something inherited from a common ancestor, not
something that developed in humans alone.
So how can you draw the line between us and them?
Emotions? Language? The answer is that you can't. There are no lines. Deeply unsatisfying as it is
to the desire to group items into black and white (a tendency also not
limited to humans), all the answers of science are grey.
Your species is not that special. Reading the text of paleontology and history,
there is no bold message of certainty. Winding back the clock reveals
no inexorable march in our direction, or even the triumph of "better" over
"worse." Let the clock come forward again, and we would not be here -- not
in a million, million tries. Likewise, human history has been defined as much
by fortuitous placement of natural resources as it has been by human action.
You're the tail end of the tail end of a process that much more closely
resembles random chance than progress toward an objective.
Your world is not that special. Your planet is not located at the center of the
universe. Neither is your star, or your galaxy. Perhaps most disturbing
at all, as telescopes have revealed to us the enormity of space, both astronomy
and geology have revealed the breathless expanse of time. We are not just
insignificantly small items living in a vast ocean of space; we're living in a
moment so brief that it's barely a single tick of a clock that's already
run through millennia without us, and will not pause when we are gone.
No, you are not that special. And yet, you are a wonder, absolutely unique and
irreplaceable. Your species is a wonder, gifted with physical and mental
resources that provide boundless opportunity. Your planet is a wonder, swarming
with life in infinite variety and complexity. Your universe is a wonder,
based on laws so precisely balanced that the slightest variation in any of them
might have caused everything -- space, time, and everything that moves
through both -- to never have appeared.
Einstein made some of his greatest discoveries starting with pure thought
experiments. Here's one you can try. The next time you are logged on to the zone,
look at the lines showing everyone else who is logged on. Instead of picturing them as competetors, zoners you must impress with your gift of gab, picture the other people logged on as unique
individuals, as much at the center of their universe as you are of yours. Don't
worry for the moment about trying to extend this belief to all the people
around the globe, just look at the list of people logged on, and picture each
with family, friends, and dreams. They are no less complete individuals
-- and no more -- than you. This is a concept almost as difficult to hold as
the scope of the universe revealed through science.
Our instinct is always toward tribalism, toward drawing lines between human and
animal, manmade and natural, us and them. However, these lines don't exist
outside our own minds. You can't draw a line between humans and animals because
humans are animals, not less than the smallest ant or the largest whale.
But what if you start to erase those lines? Or what if you can sketch that line
around other people, so that you don't chase down every personal desire
without considering how it affects others? What if you sketch that line to
include the whole planet, so that you act in ways that help not just yourself,
but your fellow humans (and fellow non-humans)? Do that, and you're making real
progress. In fact, some might even call you progressive.
And in my book, that makes you pretty darn special.
Bob
I think it's a paradox, but I don't consider myself in the quote animal end of quote category. I believe I'm different from an animal in the sense that I have a higher intelect. That said, I do believe it's a paradox. On one hand, we may not be "special" per se, yet we are special in the sense of having the spirrit and guts to build civilizations complex in social order, hi-archy, and industralism. Who is qualified to say whether we're special? If we journeyed to other sequestered planets, and saw the life teeming there, or we qualified to say they're not special. How can someone believe we're not special, then say we are. And what is the definition of special? It truly is a gray area, neither black nor white. My little dog may not be "special" to someone else, but she is to me. But she is an animal. I'm not. I have a conscience, an intilect, and a spirit that will never be destroyed. Just my thoughts. Very well written.
Well written. It gives me something to think about. Very interesting.
Hi Bob, I know exactly what you mean and I'll tell you something. there are many times wehn I come on here and I feel worthless because many folks here don't give me the time of day. I often ask myself why, and I've come to realize that it is because I see myself in a different way. For example, many people often ask about my country of origen given my choice of a username. To most of the folks its not a big deal, and most of them leave it alone after they find out that I'm just an american who just happens to have an interest in african culture. But a few days a go, one of the zoners had a problem with my audio profile because I used my username when introducing myself. After she'd explained to me that it bothered her, I changed it and she's no longer mad at me. If others would take the time to realize that I would change something if it bothers them, then maybe they'd get to know the person behind the name.
m Biko.