Posted by Maverick on January 05, 2001 at 08:28:57:
In Reply to: Re: RA's Saturday Fireside Chat for Type 5s posted by RoTtEn ApPlE on January 04, 2001 at 16:21:25:
Pie,
That's what is called reductionist thinking--one thing that bothers me a helluva alot more than people who get irritated and antagonistic when they are told we are related to animals are people who get irritated when they are told we are more than animals. The origin of the word animal is from the latin root "animus" and it refers to motion. Thus plants are called plants because they are motionless and animals are called animals becasue they marked by their tendency towards motion. Generally, when one uses the word "animal;' theyu refer to an organism that is largely defined by the fact that it eats, drinks,sleeps, and MOVES(ususalyy when hunting or evading other animals).These activities--all physical and requiring little mental abilties--largely define whatbthe animals do. Humasn doall those things but a \lso a helluva lot more:we have prodigu\ious menatal abilties that we use to harness and control nature, think up things like mathematics and science, and create art, and poetry. We are conscoius IN A MANNER IN WHICH ANIMALS AREN'T and by virtue of this fact--by becoming aware enought to acknowledge that we are more than a collection of drives and instincts(animus) we have thus become more than the sum of our parts and have evolved into a new order of beings.
In the same way that animals are clearly not plants, we are clearly not animals.
Maverick
: I think we are not more than animals... just the most successful animals. Maybe being talented/intelligent makes some of us the MOST successful animals but it doesn't make us "more" than animals.