I
InternetHero
Guest
1. Therefore the further we distinguish ourselves form animals in most occasions, the better, would you not agree?
2. The state and the mob have come a long, long way, despite attempts to regress down to simple amoral animal dynamics.
From Year 1, to Hobbes, to Locke, to everything from the Reformation to the Enlightenment.
Those lessons in life and power were hard won through blood and chaos, but told us more about who we can be, and how much further from debased beasts.
We as a people may have the power of the atom, the power to destroy everything in the blink of an eye, yet as family, tribe, kingdom, and nationstate the good things about humanity in the last few thousand years have lead us in that arc of history.
To be more.
3. Agreed, at least, in so much as the glass of human understanding is half full.
Accurate to say we are fauna?
Biologically, sure.
As a mere construct? Yes.
We share a significant portion of our D.N.A. with a gorilla but, then again, also with a tree.
Yet the noblest of silverback alphas is missing so much of the puzzle, tangible, as well as ethereal that have allowed us to become so much more.
4. And yet my friend, I must point out, you have not made an argument to the contrary.
For I, you, and everyone is not in a world of thought, but also of emotion, and emotion is much, much more powerful.
The scientific reality exists because you, I, or a man in a lab coat, or a number on a piece of paper can exist because we cared to do something besides our nature.
What allowed our grand achievements in science was harnessing, understanding, and controlling the most powerful of ideas: feelings.
These kind of arguments always remind me of a wonderful piece from Oscar Wilde:
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'How do you know?' said the Mathematical Master, (to a group of young dreamy girls) 'you have never seen one.'
'Ah! but we have, in our dreams,' answered the children; and the Mathematical Master frowned and looked very severe, for he did not approve of children dreaming.
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And yet for any argument of logic, any reduction of life to the numbers, that is the last and most important principle that made life worthwhile. What you may be referring to as "sentimentalizing" is the search for something more, the reason for living.
The rock or the chimp or the sky or the stars will be with or without people here to see them, but we live, and our reality is mostly from the influence of those around us, a world of their feelings, feelings which gave us the spark to search beyond being alpha_chimp or pack_follower.
Beyond collective survival, beyond only shame and force as a social guide, and gave us the capability, the chance to see what if anything the search means.
5. In your opinion as your quote might say, and maybe I am a simple fool who knows nothing. Who fails to understand what you clearly know. Fair enough. I truly wish you well you greatness in knowledge, life, and all things. Whether a mathematician approves or not.
