Lillie-Kate

share my awe and wonder at being alive at all
Untitled 2 years ago

last night on a midnight walk i got pretty excited about the fact that i am constantly growing.
what a blessing it is that this is a ‘fact of life.’

can you imagine how unbearable life would be if we didn’t grow?
if we were stagnant as human beings… never learning or discovering or experiencing?

i thank god for memories and minds that trancend animal instinct.

also – did you know there are more atoms in your body alone than there are stars in the entire universe (or so they estimate…)??

Jul 14, 2007, 11:18AM PDT


Comments:

Compassionist

Query

Please tell me how human memories and minds transcend animal instinct. Thank you.

Jul 14, 2007, 01:14PM PDT | Thread | Respond to this 1 cheer

Lillie-Kate

answer?

“Even in our wildest state, human life is infinitely more complex than animal life, for we are affected by an infinitely greater number of influences.”

The most obvious evidence that human minds and memories are capable of more than those of the animal is all of the bad (‘inhumane’? ha.) things humans have done.

the white horse will except the black and live freely with it.
but humans, for some reason, decided to create issues between people of different skin color.

one human can rise into power over many, and choose to do terrible things with this power.
whether it be to try and wipe out a race,
or take away innate freedoms,
or promote unnecessary technological development(?).

a human will find a reason to be angry, and hold that grudge for a lifetime.

but, even though we’ve created such terrible things,
we also fight against them.

social revolutions and evolution!
we will fight the oppressive ruler.
we will question the ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ we’ve been taught since birth.
we will fight two sides of an argument!
we will continue to love someone even if the continue to hurt us.

it can be argued that all of this is done in the name of self-preservation – which is the most basic of animal instinct.
but how is it that we have so many different ideas of what ‘self-preservation’ really is?
to wipe out a race, or to accept that race?
to give up freedoms, or to hold on to them as tight as we can?
to clone human beings, or to live in an Amish village?
to spend your whole life being angry because you were wronged, or to love the one who wronged you anyway?

humans recognize instinct, and they make the choice of following it or not.

Jul 18, 2007, 11:47AM PDT | Thread | Respond to this

Compassionist

Interesting

Thank you for providing me with much food for thought.

There are certainly many positive and negative aspects of the human mind.

Animals discriminate between ‘like’ and ‘unlike’. It’s a question of what is considered ‘like’. If you take a bird and paint it, the other birds will beak it to death!

We humans have the most developed cerebral cortex which allows us to modify our cerebellar and limbic system impulses in sophisticated ways. It’s not the fault of a lion that it thinks like a lion, just as it’s not the fault of a human that he or she thinks the way he or she does.

I think people identify themselves firstly as an individual, then as a member of their immediate family, then extended family, then ethnic group or citizen of a particular country or religious group or political group or ideological group, etc.

This identification and belonging results in ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ conflicts e.g. capitalists vs communists, whites vs blacks, Democrats vs Republicans, Muslims vs Christians, Hutus vs Tutsis, etc.

Human mind, like the mind of any other animal, is a product of genes, environments, nutrients and experiences.

Both instincts and deliberations are facilitated by the brain. They only differ in the degree of processing involved. Due to our large cerebral cortex we just process inputs in more complex ways than organisms without this benefit. Of course, all things have pros and cons. Our large head causes extra difficulty during birth and can lead to death of the mother and baby.

Jul 18, 2007, 01:02PM PDT | Respond to this 1 cheer


 

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