Most animals are not malicious. This does not mean they do not call their mates occasionally. They do. Recently a chimp was killed and eaten by members of his troup or colony?
My question is why are humans capable of expressing the whole range of behaviour from altruism to sheer unbridled malice? What is it about us that makes this possible?
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Selfishness?
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That’s in the range of what our species express. What is it that makes man the selfish animal
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Basically: animals eat and procreate; man wants/needs to do more…
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Like gorge his fellow? Or kill them in war…
We really are a crazy lot
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I don’t understand comeplitly your question makagutu
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Simply put: what is it about human beings that makes it possible to express the whole range of animal behavior, sometimes in one person but mostly in groups.
For example a guy killed his sister, skinned her, dismembered her and then hid the body parts while helping the family search for her?
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In your specific example, he was likely searching for her to take the eyes off him. It was self preservation and a way not to get caught. From what I remember in biology, humans have a more developed cerebrum which enhances reasoning. A brain injury or disorder can impact that. Non human animals don’t have the development and rely on the cerebellum, which is more instinct and impulse based. This likely helps none but is just my two cents.
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I think you are right, it could likely have been self preservation because once he saw it was getting too close, he attempted suicide.
It does seem the big brain has made us capable of the whole range of behaviour possessed by all other animals singly and to give it expression either in one person or groups of persons
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Obviously, this guy was an atheist. Only atheists behave like that. I learned that from Pat Robertson. He’s a really, really wise man. Smart, too. Happy Sunday, my friend.
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Happy Sunday too.
I thought atheists only eat small babies?
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Very true. The moral-less bastards.
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I think Christians will start copying us
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he can leg press 1500 pounds, too! Thanks to his special God-Blessed Energy Drink or something!
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Ah ok! For the same reason the tide rise and fall ..maybe!
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Well, when it comes to tides – a href=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzkRHFl2ppw”>the tide comes in, the tide goes out.- YOU you can’t explain that.
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Here.
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You can’t explain that 🙂
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We are no less animals ourselves Mak. We try to behave civilized, and many of us pull it off. But down deep we are all animals with animal tendencies.
When things go to shit around here, and my temper gets riled up a tad, I tell everyone not to mess with the Big Monkey. 🙂
Yes we have some sort of moral code, yes we try to be civilized towards each other. But society is a sliding scale. Many of us exist within the norm. Many exist on the extreme edges of that scale. These people are capable of doing things that might shock the rest of us.
There is no perfect world. We are but one of a species in the animal kingdom. Like it or not human beings are capable on any given day of being the croc, or the antelope.
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I agree with all you say. A lion kills of necessity; whether it is a gazelle or cubs. We kill out of malice and rarely out of necessity and still claim to be rational and having morals. Who is kidding who?
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That is the discussion that might take a while to conclude. I’m not sure many would like the assessment.
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It is the type of discussion I enjoy
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Hah! 🙂 🙂
Let me begin with this, I suffer from no delusions as to our nature.
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Have you, by chance, read Mark Twain’s damned human race?
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No sir. But never met a Twain I didn’t like.
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It’s 4 pages in length. It fits well with this discussion.
You will love it
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4 pages. I could probably read that in an hour or two 😉
I will look for it.
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https://moodyap.pbworks.com/f/Twain.damned.pdf there you go
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I just read it. Brilliant.
In many ways you and I see through the eyes of Twain. We have observed and remembered these these little tidbits of man most people never realize.
I’m not sure yet whether that is a curse or a blessing.
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Twain was brilliant.
I have read of a philosopher, I can’t recall at the moment, who says he doesn’t like those who compare us with other animals and show us to be the worst of them. His argument is that we should be patriotic to the race or something close. I should start taking notes when I read, Pink is right.
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Anyone who cannot see we are the most destructive invasive species on the planet hasn’t been paying attention.
Including your philosopher.
Unsure of the Pink reference, I know who she is, but that’s about it.
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Reading books is good. Dressed of sea. – http://wp.me/p5pRqI-Qf
He writes about reading books and in the comments section, there is talk about taking notes
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Oh duh, wrong pink lol.
If that’s the biggest mistake I make today all is good…
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It’s not so terrible and he is usually forgiving 🙂
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Good Question. Our genetic makeup is different than other animals and therefore the expression of our conditioning differs from theirs. Happy Sunday to you my friend. ❤
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Happy Sunday too, good friend. Hope you have been great.
Maybe we should attempt a rewrite and allow only those that dispose us to peaceful coexistence
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Because we are the present-day tip of the petri dish in a univesre given over hopelessly to the production of ever more potents expressions of evil.
Well, it’s a hypothesis…
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I like your hypothesis…
Do you think it’s a progress towards expression of evil or its opposite?
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A greater and greater ecology suffering, which is synonymous with evil, which is synonymous with complexity. We are in a vast complexity machine.
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You should write a book about that. 🙂
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I agree with you on that
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Maybe I will 😉
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You should.
Even if it means having it as a chapter in the second installment.
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Short answer: evolutionary biology. Shortened answer – evolutionary biology that has rewarded mirror neurons with increased reproductive capability.
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That includes traits for altruism and malice
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Yes… although malice is usually a suppressed neurology (sometimes dysfunctional), which a necessary ability in order to successfully kill (handy for defense and food but not so much to help us harm others for various unnecessary reasons).
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Interesting
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I think it’s an easy question to answer in a general way. As with all species, greater intelligence equates to more complex behavior. Chimps, as the author points out, exhibit very complex behavior. They exhibit tribalism, wage war, have violent mood swings, etc.
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This I think would explain it.
We can plan to kill, flail and then dismember all in great detail.
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Precisely.
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I’ve often wondered, human nature being what it is, how many would survive a trip to Mars. Not because of the dangers of space but because of the dangers of “man.”
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Good question.
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As long as they have enough resources to last them the entire length of journey, they might survive. Short of that, there is likelihood of fireworks.
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Chimpanzees make war between clans. Many insects make war, even between species, like the termites against the ants. However, we as humans are more adept at recognizing human experience, than the experience of other species. Sure, one species among the mammals may have wider range of emotions, than others and it might just be us humans with our rather complex brain and social behaviour models, but it might be the dolphins. The dolphins just might actually have a wider range of emotions and even more delicate methods of behaviour, that we simply are too dumb to even recognize. We do know, that they are quite uniformally more fanatical in their altruistic behaviour, than any humans typically get, when they sense a sentient being is in peril, be that being a nother dolphin, or for example a human being. I have known a horse who showed something, that I can only describe as malice. It had a bad temper, and even for such a boneheaded species of animal, this particular individual was terribly clever at hiding it’s true intent.
We humans tend to see ourselves so very special, because we are special, but we should not overemphazise it in seeing other animals as unable to be comparable to ourselves in many more respects, than we tend to give them credit for traditionally.
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Interesting thoughts.
I don’t see us as very special. We just are different. What gets me thinking is why we, claiming intelligence, morality, rationality, sophistication end up doing dumb things, like killing because of theological differences or because the next guy has a darker complexion
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But I think those “reasons” are justifications for the underlying reasons, which are typically good ol’ greed, sexual predation, and fear of out-groups. Like Chimpanzees but with advanced weapons.
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I think I agree
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Perhaps we are cursed with the wide range of behaviors because we are the species that seeks and creates deities in order to have an excuse for said behaviors. Good point, my Kenyan brother! Naked hugs!
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That could be it, my friend.
Have a pleasant week and enjoy the President’s day and Drumpf
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I’ll enjoy the holiday, my bare brother, but I definitely don’t enjoy the incumbent idiot-in-chief! Much love and many naked hugs!
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