a-social-one-blog

[a-social-one-blog]

What’s Really Makes the Difference Between Humans and Animals?

What’s the difference between a human and an animal? That answer may seem quite obvious, humans build cities, use smartphones, drive cars, and fly rockets into outer space while animals just sit on the earth, eating, sleeping, and procreating. While our actions may be far more complex and impactful, our separation from animals physically, or anatomically, is not so extreme. Similarly, we have have arms, legs, eyes, ears, and noses, and we share 99% of the same DNA to our closest animal relative, the chimpanzee. There is only one physical attribute which could account for the difference; the brain. The human brain, capable of comprehending abstractions and symbols, created language. The development of language is a pivotal point in the evolution of human culture. This was the fork in the road, where humans became humans.

Language and communication allowed information to be spread quickly from person to person and knowledge to be passed down through generations. Before this, information was only passed down through genes, which is very slow and highly inefficient compared to epigenetic information passed along through linguistic communication. And so the social world is born, an invisible landscape which expands and manifests through the advancement of communication technologies. Each communication medium, from print, to TV, to the internet, have changed the human awareness and shaped views of reality in ways unrealized. The social world, made up of concepts as cognitive constructs from a complexity of symbols imbued with meaning, has the power to transform the material world.

Paulo Freire, a 20th century philosopher and educator, says in his book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” that through what he calls “praxis”, or the use of both action and reflection, humans are capable of truly transforming reality. He says that, unlike animals, humans “produce not only material goods- tangible objects- but also social institutions, ideas, and concepts”. With the capacity to objectify themselves and their actions people can tri-dimensionalize time into the past, present and future. This is an extension of awareness which animals are not capable of as they exist in the overwhelming present.

Paulo discussed the difference between humans and animals because it is consciousness which makes the difference. Because humans are capable of using their own consciousness to plan and change the laws which govern social systems, and therefore reality, education should be seen as a condition of progress for society. This is precisely why Paulo is a major critic of the education system because his thought is that, in most cases, it is oppressive and doesn’t free people to become fully human. This was the concern of Karl Marx when he wrote “The Communist Manifesto” in hopes of liberating people from an oppressive political-economic system. Similar was the goal of Lucretius who wanted to free people of the fear of death and the anxieties associated with religion.

It was the aim of many great philosophers of the modern age to use their consciousness, their ideas, and concepts to change social systems, to transform reality, to make it better, so humans can become more human, because humans are not animals who merely exist in harmony with nature.

Us humans have an impact far greater. We transform material reality through praxis and the social world. Humans develop vaccines to save millions of lives and fly to the moon and back but also single handedly destroy earth’s atmosphere and create weapons of mass destruction. It is as if us humans exist outside of nature due to our expanded consciousness. We should feel a responsibility to use our consciousness wisely and spread knowledge in a manner that is conducive to freedom. For the concepts and social institutions which we allow to influence our reality effect not only our well being but the well being of the planet and all of its species. It is our responsibility to shape our social world with this in mind.

[a-social-one-blog]

Eric Andre show is number #1 [as] show

BY Me

[a-social-one-blog]

The Light Year: Part 3 of 3 (Part 1, Part 2) Episode 5: A Sky Full of Ghosts, Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey