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Position:Home>Philosophy> In you're opinion, what is man?Question: In you're opinion, what is man!? What are your feelings on the true essence of man!? Are we divine creations, mere animals, or viruses that plague the environment we live in!? Or are we something different altogether!? I'm interested to here other peoples thoughts on this!. Www@QuestionHome@Com
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: We are certainly not divine!. While we are animals in the biological sense, our capacities for language, tool-making, planning, self-awareness, empathy, and rational thought have propelled us above the level of pure instinct that other animals are stuck at!. Still, we're not so far above the other animals as we'd like to think we are!. In many ways, instinct and emotions still play a huge role in human behavior, and rational thought is still the exception rather than the rule!. We've gotten somewhat clever with our tools (technology), but we're still killing each other over politics, religion, and other irrational dogmas!. In that sense, humanity is still a rather immature species!. I think there are some of us who can see the light at the end of the tunnel, who can see the day when humanity's descendants no longer have either the need or desire to kill one another, for any reason, and real progress proceeds unhindered by dogmas or belief!. Such a day may not come until we have evolved as far above modern-day humans as modern humans are above the apes!. For what it's worth, there are those working to speed up the arrival of such a day!.!.!.!. P!.S!. I agree with the first answerer about those people who think humanity is a plague upon the Earth!.Www@QuestionHome@Com Humans are animals!. Our uniqueness lies in an odd paradigm shift that is approximately 12000 years old!. Around the time of the Younger Dryas the quality & quantity of our tools AND the size of our tribes began to increase!. Good enough stopped being good enough!. The slow march of biological evolution stepped into the rapid volatility of intellectual evolution!. Our intellectual evolution places us on the doorstep of directly designing our biological evolution!. The "humans are virus/plague" crowds are idiots!. All life modifies the environment!. Humans have merely evolved to a greater power to do so!. Www@QuestionHome@Com |