Are humans, animals?
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Scientifically speaking yes we are animals. Socially we vary in interactions and behaviour compared to any other animal, but we alway have exhibit traits cross a broad spectrum of other fellow animals that show us to be just as much if not in some cases more snimalistic in certain situations. We have at the same time have lost many things that made us say closer to the natural world be it how humans where able to digest raw food much more easier before we started cooking food and we focused solely surviving and reproducing the next generation more than say the modern world human does today unless said human is in a third world country that is back in the stone ages. Also many diseases came to be because of us spreading around and brining foriegn animals and vegitation with us to lands that never had them exist there beforehand and of course us creating man made diseases/viruses with our science and at the same time curing old natural diseases of the past.
All living organisms are broken down into Animals, Plants, Fungi, Protoctista, and Prokaryota or Monera. We are in the animal kingdom. There's no real discussion to be had on the subject. Could we move out of this category eventually? Sure. For now we are animals.
Yes, we are animals, just animals that have abstraction and planning. Those are the only meaningful qualities that we have that other animals don't seem to have. Saying we are no longer animals because we possess those traits seems arbitrary and oddly specific unless we are very interested in classifying animals only by what intellectual traits that seem to have.
You can call it arrogance all you like, you can even use all kinds of long words all you like. To me it's not arrogance, it's just an objective view point, I wouldn't say any animal is less than a human ... a human is just on a different level.Asita said:
It's not like I am a king saying the peasants are less or a KKK member saying people with different skin are lesser. I am saying humans have some significant advantages over animals ... You say something like "an ape uses a stick to get ants, see they use tools" ... we make huge, metal tubes that fly! We can launch into space or delve the depths, sure a monkey could put a bucket on it's head and walk along the bottom of a pond but it's not even close to a submarine!
You know when something is out of reach but you reach for it and your finger tips are nudging it? I feel like your doing that with my point. If you sat down Noah style with each animal and asked it what it thought we should do with the planet, how can all the other animals help them ... you'd have a fucking massacre, the carnivores and omnivores would be eating the herbivores etc.
Sure, if you got everyone in a room and asked what we could do to improve the world it would be an endless argument but nobody would be eating anybody, might get the odd cannibal actually.
Yeah, I think we're animals.
I don't even think we're some kind of higher form of animal or anything like that. Our brains are merely specialized in a different direction, not necessarily any further than other animals.
I mean look at birds. Those fuckers can fly. Sure, we've got planes but that ain't really the same is it? I'm certain if you could somehow communicate with a bird and explain all the virtues of our species the reply would be very simple: yeah... but you can't fly...
Not to mention that those fuckers can fly in a giant swarm with their hundreds and not crash into each other. I mean seriously, these fuckers can fly at 60 km/h in a flock of hundreds and they don't all die.
I mean how the hell are those bastards not constantly crashing into each other? Try that with humans, even trained pilots, get a few hundred of em in planes and fly around like that. Let's see how well that ends and if any involved still feel like the pinnacle of evolution afterwards.
And that's just birds, freaking starlings to be specific, there's thousands of other extraordinary species out there doing things that we can't for the life of us do.
I don't even think we're some kind of higher form of animal or anything like that. Our brains are merely specialized in a different direction, not necessarily any further than other animals.
I mean look at birds. Those fuckers can fly. Sure, we've got planes but that ain't really the same is it? I'm certain if you could somehow communicate with a bird and explain all the virtues of our species the reply would be very simple: yeah... but you can't fly...
Not to mention that those fuckers can fly in a giant swarm with their hundreds and not crash into each other. I mean seriously, these fuckers can fly at 60 km/h in a flock of hundreds and they don't all die.
I mean how the hell are those bastards not constantly crashing into each other? Try that with humans, even trained pilots, get a few hundred of em in planes and fly around like that. Let's see how well that ends and if any involved still feel like the pinnacle of evolution afterwards.
And that's just birds, freaking starlings to be specific, there's thousands of other extraordinary species out there doing things that we can't for the life of us do.
Of course we are, everything we have done in terms of social advancement was done to try and distance ourselves from our animal nature, but we have failed, because:
-There is still a massive emphasis on sex, which is driven by instinct, not to mention the importance of love (going into cynic mode here, beware) which is just a surge of hormones telling you that you want that person because your brain thinks of them as a genetic match.
-We still tend to lean towards reasoning through emotions rather than reason(wars: greed/fear/anger, military pacts: fear, etc.)
I would say that we as a species are only advanced in the sense that we are self-aware and that we have traits unique to us: empathy, philosophy, culture, technology, etc.
But we are still animals.
-There is still a massive emphasis on sex, which is driven by instinct, not to mention the importance of love (going into cynic mode here, beware) which is just a surge of hormones telling you that you want that person because your brain thinks of them as a genetic match.
-We still tend to lean towards reasoning through emotions rather than reason(wars: greed/fear/anger, military pacts: fear, etc.)
I would say that we as a species are only advanced in the sense that we are self-aware and that we have traits unique to us: empathy, philosophy, culture, technology, etc.
But we are still animals.
Blame it on my being a biology major but yes. Yes, we're still animals.
We are just animals that have traded claws, fur, and strong teeth for bigger brains (all the better to figure out how to make tools with) and more developed social structure. We stopped walking on all fours so we could peer over tall grass and use our stamina to outlast our prey, and as a consequence coped with more strenuous and dangerous childbirth by becoming a very social species.
We're definitely animals. We're just animals that have developed an complex social order and lots of nifty tools (like, oh, the internet). We still are warm-blooded and have backbones and have hair and feed our young milk and reproduce sexually instead of through asexual budding etc. etc.
I think the philosophical question you're looking for is "can humans rise above their base instincts or not", with a side order of "are humans good or bad by basic nature".
We are just animals that have traded claws, fur, and strong teeth for bigger brains (all the better to figure out how to make tools with) and more developed social structure. We stopped walking on all fours so we could peer over tall grass and use our stamina to outlast our prey, and as a consequence coped with more strenuous and dangerous childbirth by becoming a very social species.
We're definitely animals. We're just animals that have developed an complex social order and lots of nifty tools (like, oh, the internet). We still are warm-blooded and have backbones and have hair and feed our young milk and reproduce sexually instead of through asexual budding etc. etc.
I think the philosophical question you're looking for is "can humans rise above their base instincts or not", with a side order of "are humans good or bad by basic nature".
Yeah, we are still animals. We like to dress up all fancy but it doesn't take much to tear that facade away.
Sometimes, all it takes to trigger a riot is a blackout. Turn out the lights and the pretence fades.
Most of humanities problems come from the fact that we are still trying to overcome out primal origins.
Sometimes, all it takes to trigger a riot is a blackout. Turn out the lights and the pretence fades.
Most of humanities problems come from the fact that we are still trying to overcome out primal origins.
Alright lets see:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae
Tribe: Hominini
Genus: Homo
Species: H. sapiens
We only have ~5% of our DNA unique. Rest is shared with all living things to greater or lesser extend.
We act in predictable fashion, we are social and prefer the safety of group (even if we have weapons), we are born and we die.
Yeah... We are quite animal still and forever we be. I think the point we can call ourselves not animals is when we have more unique DNA than shared with other species of living things. And that is going to take few eons to happen.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae
Tribe: Hominini
Genus: Homo
Species: H. sapiens
We only have ~5% of our DNA unique. Rest is shared with all living things to greater or lesser extend.
We act in predictable fashion, we are social and prefer the safety of group (even if we have weapons), we are born and we die.
Yeah... We are quite animal still and forever we be. I think the point we can call ourselves not animals is when we have more unique DNA than shared with other species of living things. And that is going to take few eons to happen.
So you're saying that you want to distinguish between humans and 'lesser' animals (and by appearances fully support the view the phrase implies) but balk at the phrasing then?omega 616 said:
And much of that can be attributed simply to our formalization of learning and our innovations in passing along knowledge, to say nothing of understanding, exploiting and expanding upon the infrastructure of our predecessors. If we reset the clock on civilization, got rid of all of our books, all our buildings, our mines, and all our technology and blueprints you wouldn't see any of our current tech for centuries if not millennia. The ability to make planes is not a trait inherent to us. It's an application of knowledge acquired over generations that we have access to because we've exploited written language to preserve and easily communicate prior discoveries and techniques, the use of tools we have access to due to generations of using prior tools to refine and create better ones, the collection of resources it took centuries to find and learn to harvest efficiently...You ever hear the expression "Standing on the shoulders of giants?" That's our bread and butter and the raison d'être for all that you see before you. What you see walking down the street is not indicative of what a human can do, it's the culmination of cross-generational cooperation that has been going on for thousands of years.omega 616 said:
Now I'm not going to deny that humans are particularly clever and almost certainly the most intelligent species on Earth (at least that we are aware of), because we are. That said, our advanced brain is simply one trait on top of others, much like a cheetah's advanced speed, the mantis shrimp's advanced eye, or the sheer mass of a whale. But much like how the cheetah's speed, the mantis shrimp's eye or the whale's mass doesn't preclude them from being animals, neither do humans' brains preclude us from being animals. It is not, has never been and by all rights should never be a part of the definition, especially if the sole purpose of the change is to artificially separate humans from other organisms.
Zakarath said:
Nokturos said:
Johnny Novgorod said:
VanTesla said:
Fdzzaigl said:
Rylingo said:
Harpalyce said:
That's a lot of snips!SinisterGehe said:
You're thinking about it in purely biology terms, "think outside the box" ... I wish I knew a better word or phrase for it but instead of "we share dna/we fit in this box" mentality, what about making a new box and put a new sticker on it?
Maybe it will only happen when we meet aliens 'cos at the moment we would be the ones that fit into that box.
I was typing this post out when I noticed this post, so I quoted it for extra clarity:Nokturos said:
What defines us as animals is not based on skill, or historical merits or future potential. It's PURE BIOLOGY.
The term Animal, is a classification. It's the most general specification of (known) life we fall under, short of "Earthlings" or "Terrans" (These aren't biological classifications). We share this category with all species that share certain traits.
TAKEN FROM WIKIPEDIA:
Characteristics
Animals have several characteristics that set them apart from other living things. Animals are eukaryotic and multicellular,[4] which separates them from bacteria and most protists. They are heterotrophic,[5] generally digesting food in an internal chamber, which separates them from plants and algae.[6] They are also distinguished from plants, algae, and fungi by lacking rigid cell walls.[7] All animals are motile,[8] if only at certain life stages. In most animals, embryos pass through a blastula stage,[9] which is a characteristic exclusive to animals.
As Nokturos lists out, "Animal" is just the most general classification we fall under. As you climb down the list you are finding traits that set it apart from the last. For example, we are Mammals because we birth live young and produce milk (basic biology lessons here, don't judge me). These traits separate us from Reptiles for example.
Once you get past primate as a category, you are basically talking about us. But we weren't the first or only Hominidae, which is why we go even further.
The things that we are uniquely identified as define us as H. sapiens.
In order for us to NOT be Animals, we would have to work are way back up that list, removing each trait that we share or altering it as to no longer validly apply, until you get to the order Animalia whereby we suddenly are no longer multicellular, eukaryotic organisms. at which point we can be anything from Plants, Fungii, Rocks, Viruses or whatever the hell we can imagine.
But unfortunately for some of you who are unable to accept reality, we can't do anything about our Animal classification short of redefining what it means... which isn't going to happen over a few bruised egos.
Do you accept that we are Mammals?omega 616 said:
we're still animals as far as I'm aware,
Just like a turtle living in a zoo, hand fed and looked after for it's hundred+ year lifespan, is still a turtle.
To make us 'not animals', I imagine going cyborg (robocop/cybermen style) where basically just some malformed version of a brain remains, would remove you from the animal kingdom.
Or perhaps altering your genetics in some extremely curious way, such as merging with a (theoretical) alien
or becoming incorporeal?
Just like a turtle living in a zoo, hand fed and looked after for it's hundred+ year lifespan, is still a turtle.
To make us 'not animals', I imagine going cyborg (robocop/cybermen style) where basically just some malformed version of a brain remains, would remove you from the animal kingdom.
Or perhaps altering your genetics in some extremely curious way, such as merging with a (theoretical) alien
or becoming incorporeal?
