<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
<snip>
> I think the seperation from nature is the whole issue with man, not
> as individuals but as an evolutionary thing. The seperateness comes
> from abstract thought, we are the only animal that knows that it will
> die. All other creatures are blissfully ignorant of this and thus
> joined to nature by lives of pure instinct.
FWIW, there's some evidence that the higher apes are
capable of abstract thought.
If you paint a red splotch on an orangutan's head, then
give it a mirror, it will look at itself in the mirror
and then reach for its own head to find out what the
splotch is. This is taken to mean that the orang has
a sense of itself as an individual, some degree of self-
awareneness.
Whether it knows that it will die is another question.
But do we really know we will die? I suggest that we
know only that *others* die and extrapolate from that,
but the bottom line is that this is really just a
speculation, well founded though it may be.
Our intuition, our gut sense, tells us otherwise: we
literally cannot conceive--except on an intellectual
level--that our consciousness will cease to exist (or
that there was a time before our birth when it did not
yet exist). We come to believe in the evidence that
we will die because we see that others die, but it's
still just a belief, and moreover a belief that
contradicts our intuition.
An orangutan also sees that others like itself die.
The higher apes are known to mourn the deaths of
others. Given the orangutan's sense of itself as
an individual like other individuals it sees die,
it's not *too* great a stretch to think it may also
extrapolate to the idea that it too will die.
In any case, my point is that it's not so much abstract
thought that makes the difference, but rather the
capacity for self-awareness, which must exist before any
abstract thought can take place. But the capacity for
self-awareness in and of itself may mandate some degree
of abstract thought; and since some animals apparently
do have self-awareness, it would follow that they also
have some capacity for abstract thought.
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