I wish I had some! Instead, my thoughts are run-of-the-mill (ever wonder about that phrase?), routine, and mostly boring. Yet I still conjure them up... or perhaps they conjure me up: "cogito ergo sum" ("I think therefore I am") said Rene Descartes... and then I lay them out here to bore anyone who happens to drop by.
What brought this self examination on? I was perusing the cartoon strips I have collected and came across this:
I often muse on how we came up with certain things. Calvin wonders how we decided to drink milk and I wonder about things like how did people all over the world come up with the bow and arrow. Foods are easy, we likely saw animals eating things and tried them. They were either tasty or filling and so we continued to eat them. I am sure that the more adventurous food tasters died in the process or just got sick and so we learned to avoid those foods. Look at little kids, toddlers... they'll put just about anything in their mouths... I suspect that is how we determined what foods we can eat. There's a verse in an old Crosby, Stills, and Nash song that goes:
Say can I have some of your purple berries?
[Crosby:] Yes, I've been eating them
For six or seven weeks now haven't got sick once
[Stills:] Probably keep us both alive.
It goes back to the, I think, primary instinct we have: the survival instinct. It may be the only real instinct humans have. I was once taught that the difference between humans and animals is that humans do not rely on instinct to function, that we are taught what we need to know and the so-called lower animals are born with the knowledge they need. I believe we have learned that this is not true. Animal young learn skills, often through "play" and so do humans. Then I was taught that only humans fashioned tools... until we discovered that many other animals also do it.
What that taught me is that humans fool themselves into thinking of themselves as unique creatures. Which just means we have huge egos and maybe that is what makes us different
4 comments:
I always wonder how our dog figures out what to eat -- and what not to eat -- as she noses along the floor. She eats some pretty disgusting stuff, and yet passes on potato chips and orange slices. Go figure. Anyway, I thought it was the opposable thumb, and the awareness we have of our own death. But what do I know? I'm only human!
Your dog doesn't eat potato chips? It must have an aversion to salt or the inherent fats in a chip would tantalize most dogs... the ones I had would eat darn near anything.
I'm pretty sure most/all primates have opposable thumbs? I dunno about awareness of death, never heard anything about that, but I have heard about primate experiments (chimps, I assume), that suggested that some may have an awareness of "self" vs "other", like recognizing that the image in a mirror isn't a different ape.
I was not aware of this, Steven, so I did the Google thing and found that studies done over three years ago showed this. Clearly, I am not keeping up with Chimp developments.
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