The movie 'Planet of the Apes: Rebellion' follows the life of a particularly intelligent chimpanzee named Caesar in the depths of the research laboratories
The movie 'Planet of the Apes: Rebellion' follows the life of a particularly intelligent chimpanzee named Caesar in the recesses of the research laboratories. Researchers are trying to find a cure for human Alzheimer's disease, and for that they need subjects that are particularly similar to humans, such as chimpanzees. We will not reveal too much from the film, but we will only say that during the experiments the researchers manage to increase Caesar's intelligence, and unintentionally answer one of the oldest questions of all -
"What turns a man into a man, and an animal into an animal?"
This question has been asked for many generations and even more years. It has been relevant for us since the time when we lived side by side with our Neanderthal cousins, a hundred or more years ago. It troubled the ancient Greeks almost three thousand years ago. The first historian, Herodotus, describes in the first history book in the world how a Carthaginian ship arrived at the island called 'Gorilla Island'. The sailors described the gorillas as 'roughly human-like' and having 'hard skin', and captured three of them who proved to be so wild that they had to be killed, skinned and taken back to Carthage. The Carthaginians were indeed a wild warrior people, but they did not skin their human enemies. The difference between man and ape-man was also clear to them. The former is entitled to basic respect even in his defeat. The other is no more than an animal.
But what makes a man a man, and keeps the apes out of this prestigious group? This question bothers us to this day, when we go to the zoo and watch our relatives the chimpanzees and gorillas locked in large cages. They create families, play with their children, love and multiply within the family. What is the difference between them and the visiting families watching them from outside the bars?
Many thinkers have tried to deal with the question throughout the ages. Of all of them, the linguist Noam Chomsky stood out in particular, who claimed that the main feature that humans enjoy, and that does not exist among apes, is language: the way to express thoughts, ideas and desires.
This is not referring to the human language that requires the exact coordination between the trachea, lungs, vocal cords, tongue, lips and palate. It would be ridiculous on our part to expect a chimpanzee, gorilla or orang-utang to have a similar combination of organs and muscles that would give them the ability to speak as a human. Because of this, some have argued that Chomsky ignores that apes cannot speak their thoughts out loud - but they can certainly think them for themselves.
Over the years, a group of researchers arose whose goal was to test whether apes can learn to speak. They did not try to teach them to speak through the use of well-tuned vocal cords, but in a simpler and more graceful way: in sign language. This was one area where apes were supposed to have an advantage over normal humans from the excess flexibility they possessed.
The first experiment in the field is still cited in psychology books today, and is called the Washoe Project. Washoe the chimpanzee was raised almost from birth by psychologists Alan and Beatrix Gardner. The two treated Washo as their own child. They would dress her in clothes and sit with her at the dinner table. She enjoyed access to toys, comb, toothbrush, books and clothes. Her entire routine was similar to that of a human child, with chores she had to do, playing inside and outside the house and traveling in the family car. All the while, her adoptive parents made sure to communicate with her only in sign language, assuming that she would acquire the language on her own. A similar technique is now used to teach sign language to human children.
The investment quickly paid off. Washau began to pick up simple sign language words in a short time, and by the end of the experiment she had mastered more than three hundred words. It was a demonstration of the mind's power to connect physical signs with objects and desires - but it was not a language. No more than my cat knows how to howl especially shrill to make me wake up from a deep sleep and fill her bowl with food in the middle of the night. Washau learned to associate hand movements with results, but she did not acquire a real language.
We define real language as a combination of words in a certain order, and changing the word order will result in the creation of a new meaning. It is clear what the difference is, for example, between the sentence "man bitten dog" and "dog bitten man", or even "man-dog bitten". From three simple words we managed to create three different meanings, and with a little creative thought and correct connotations we could create additional sentences with different meanings. This is the power of human language: from a limited number of words, we are able to create infinite meanings by connecting the words in different orders.
Washou learned hundreds of signs, and acquired some of them without the researchers even trying to consciously teach them. Despite this, she does not seem to have been able to create real combinations of signs that would indicate the development of language, except in a few cases. She developed her own spontaneous curse, in the form of the word "dirty" which she would mark before the names of people she did not like. In addition, her caregivers claimed that when she saw a swan, she marked "water" and "bird". Did Vashoo create a new word here to describe the swan as a water bird? And maybe it just marked water due to the fact that the swan was floating in the lake at the time? This is a good question, and perhaps the most significant answer is that no one could find the way to ask Washau what she meant.
Although Washaw was unable to acquire a complete language, the Gardeners regarded the experiment as a success, especially due to the human tendencies she demonstrated. When she saw herself in the mirror, she gestured "Me, Washu", a gesture that may indicate self-awareness. She also showed clear human characteristics, such as the ability to show anger and disappointment at close people who did not come to visit her in time. And at the same time, she also knew how to show compassion and empathy. After her nanny didn't show up for work for several weeks due to a miscarriage, she was ignored and defiantly carried away. But when the caregiver signaled to Washau that "my baby is dead", Washau showed signs of grief and marked the word "cry" while dragging her finger along the cheek, in a path similar to the one that a falling tear would leave.
All these observations teach us about the variety of emotions possessed by great apes, especially chimpanzees. But they do not answer the main question: can apes acquire a real language, which will allow them to express themselves in an infinite variety of ways, like humans? It was clear that more experiments were needed, and so the NIM project began, eight years after Washau's birth.
Nim Shimpsky project
Nim Shimpsky got his name as a pun on the name of the linguist Noam Chomsky. Like Washoe, he was also raised by humans, in an attempt to disprove Chomsky's idea that only humans are capable of acquiring language. The researchers invited him into their homes, fed him on their tables and taught him sign language. He learned to use the toilet, acquired table manners and most importantly - bought himself more than a hundred signs which he used successfully to make his wishes clear.
The head of the Nim project was the researcher Herbert S. Terrass, a scientist in every inch of his body, who was well aware of the ways in which the researchers' expectations and emotions can disrupt the proper experiment. He suspected that the Gardners had become attached to Washau to such an extent that it clouded their scientific judgment, causing them to interpret many signs to point to the ultimate goal: progress toward the development of a true language. He was determined not to repeat a similar mistake, and tried to be completely objective in his treatment of the results of the experiment. And the results were disappointing.
Nim was indeed able to put the words he learned into sentences, but these were short and the order of the words was not important. Simple sentences of three words included - "I'm going to eat an apple", "Hug me Nim" and "Tickle me Nim". Longer sentences contained four words, but were not much more complex - "tickle me nim to play", or "I nim to eat me". The longest sentence in Nim's career contained 16 words, some of which are repeated. "Give me an orange, let me eat an orange, let me eat an orange, let me eat an orange, let me eat you."
The sentence demonstrates well why Terrass believed that the experiment had failed and that chimpanzees could not acquire real language. The sentence does not consist of a sequence of words, each of which, in its correct place, brings a new meaning to the entire sentence. It is made up of randomly placed words, each of which Shimpsky has learned to recognize as signs trailing an orange. No more, but certainly no less either. Nim Shimpsky did manage to learn words, but like Washoe and all the other chimpanzees, he failed to acquire language.
What turns an animal into a human... and a human into an animal?
Different researchers treated the results of the Washau and Nim projects in different ways. On the one hand, it is now clear that the chimpanzees failed to acquire real language. While a human child begins to try to combine dozens of words to describe the world around him, Washau was barely able to put two words together to create a new meaning. We believe that without language the creation of complex thoughts is not possible. And on the other hand, can we really state unequivocally that the spoken and marked language is the one that distinguishes between man and animal?
Weshou and Nem demonstrate well that great apes are also endowed with a large part of the complex of human emotions. They could feel hurt and anger, but also experience love and its Siamese twin, jealousy. When their handlers encountered personal difficulties, the chimpanzees could empathize and comfort them. And when they were transferred to groups of 'normal' chimpanzees, they both experienced a real identity crisis when they suddenly realized that they did not belong to the human race in which they were raised.
On an emotional level, therefore, we are no different from apes. The real difference lies in the intelligence we possess, which is manifested among other things in our ability to create complex thoughts and sentences. The creators of the movie 'Planet of the Apes: Rebellion' came to a similar conclusion. The ape, Caesar, is thrown into a tailspin when he chooses to take violent defensive action to protect the humans who raised him. In this, it is similar to Neem, which was discarded at the end of the project as an irreplaceable stone and sold for medical research purposes. Nim must have understood the injustice of his situation, but he could not change anything. Caesar, on the other hand, reaches a sufficient level of intelligence to organize a rebellion that changes the face of the world and the existing order using the power of the arm. But in the process, and unlike almost any human revolution in history, he consciously tries to reduce the harm to innocent citizens, regardless of the biological species to which they belong. He demonstrates that he is able to differentiate between good and bad, between right and wrong, with a sharpness of thought that can put most human beings to shame.
And thus he became, for the first time, human.
Epilogue -
Nim was rescued from the labs at the last minute and legally by animal rights activists, and enjoyed a relatively calm life until he died of a heart attack in 2000. Washoe was sent to a 'chimp zoo', where she was given comfortable living conditions and activities with humans and chimpanzees. She died in 2007 in Shiva Tova, after a short period of illness.
50 תגובות
A. Animals do not cry and laugh.
B. They do not have a female period. (except for something like dogs). third. They don't know how to talk and it doesn't seem like it will ever happen.
d. Much lower intelligence.
So much so that it seems to be a matter of substance rather than proportion. After all, if we measure the ratio in the level of intelligence between an average person and a developed ape-man, the gap will be very large (I don't know how to measure maybe in "magnitude") if it doesn't seem possible to measure the gap in IQ.
He has no thought at all about the distant future. about the distant past. Concept of abstract worlds. Morality and society. If it was an insignificant gap we would see monkeys who advanced at least halfway.
So monkeys and animals are not of the human species. at all. Only their bodies are similar.
E. They have no soul. (according to Judaism they have a soul)
and. They did not have prophecy like humans did in ancient generations. (I know you don't believe because the prophecy did not enter the laboratory) Superpowers (which probably still exist today) only in humans.
Yes, but when you switch to a new language, you should do it gradually so that they don't understand what I'm saying.
Just as it was once said that in England they will move to driving on the right side of the street - gradually - at first only the trucks and later on everyone (who is left of) the rest
Sagit M.R.
You must have meant to write:
Should have said "the phrase X is jarring" 🙂
And maybe it's enough to write: it was hard to say.
HS girls:
The phrase "the phrase X is jarring" is really jarring and inconsiderate.
Should have said "the expression X is jarring"
The phrase "humans" is stupid. As if there really was one creature named Adam. Like him "daughters of Eve". We need to invent a phrase to illustrate that we are all descendants of primates.
"Look at this son of a monkey, can't he find himself a more hairy girl?"
Political correctness has destroyed every good part of the USA, don't bring this garbage to Israel either. There is nothing to do, there are expressions like people, fathers' houses, etc., which have taken root in the language. You can't replace them every Monday and Thursday, you have to learn to live with them. This does not indicate chauvinism today but that it is impossible to change the language so that soon it will not be possible to read old articles without a politically correct dictionary.
Language was created to be understood
The expression "humans" is really jarring and does not take into account 50% of the population. There are many substitutes.
Rani
The brain is not only 'inventing things', the brain also knows how to separate things from things and even categorize them.
Human language is more complex, therefore over time, human culture has also become more complex. Thanks to the fact that the human mind was able to invent more things.
I remember that a few years ago I read a study that said that the jaw of the monkeys underwent such a mutation that it allowed the brain to grow (due to the convergence of the jaw into the skull) and thereby actually allowed the part - of the brain - that is related to language to develop.
I know there is a big debate on the subject - an article with lots and lots of puzzle pieces that feed the debate:
http://lib.cet.ac.il/pages/item.asp?item=12124
I don't know what the accepted theory is today, but according to Dr. Yuval Harari (the concise historian) there is a suspicion of a mutation that slightly changed the wiring in the brain and then natural selection that preferred the improved individual over time (which corresponds to the version you are probably choosing).
Rani
Rani:
I didn't say that it was a "jump" but only that it was something that is unique to a person and could have developed gradually.
In fact - the beginning of speaking is really a leap, but it is not an evolutionary leap but a cultural leap that relied on the gradual evolutionary development that preceded it and that brought the human race to a state where there was already "someone to talk to".
I also tried to propose a more logical mechanism for this development than those that were accepted.
I also ask for a reference, in Metota.
How do we know that the ability to lie and believe in myths contributes to the success of the human genome?
Thanks in advance
Michael,
Thanks for the referral. I agree with your logic regarding the development of human language as a result of an evolutionary leap since a high probability of utilizing only raw abilities (a logical flash) does not match the lack of success of the human species before the linguistic revolution.
I actually wanted to explain that these are specific abilities and not "just" arbitrary intelligence, because despite our intellectual limitations, the ability to think about things that exist only in the imagination (myths like gods or money) is what drives the evolution of history.
It is amazing to think how strong this "linguistic" power is considering the fact that early humanity was almost extinct in a volcanic eruption 60-70 thousand years ago (only a few hundred individuals survived).
Rani
Please, no parents!
According to him, if I am correct in his worldview, Yossi and his parents are not separate species. So were his parents' parents and their parents until the first Adam - five thousand seven hundred seventy one years without mutations.
Rani:
No one talked here about "impressive" mental abilities. After all, the abilities that allow a bird to capture an insect standing on the ground while flying are also impressive brain abilities.
We are talking here about specific brain abilities.
I recommend you read what I wrote here:
https://www.hayadan.org.il/birth-of-language-1110084/
Joseph:
As an extension to Yuval's answer, I will also add that there is no reason why the creature from which man evolved should cease to exist. Different species can coexist even if one is the parent of the other.
To remind you - your parents too - most likely continued to exist after you were born.
Joseph
The question you raised is as old as Darwin's book.
Its premise presupposes a false fact and is therefore entirely irrelevant. Man did not come from the monkey, but both species descend from another species that became extinct.
However, it reeks of brainwashing and a desire to incite riots. Those who are still throwing questions of this kind into the air are nothing but wrong and especially deliberately misleading.
There are much smarter and more sophisticated questions that can be used to seriously attack the idea of natural selection. I wish you to discover them on your own.
As is well known, monkeys (or man before the tree of knowledge evolved) do not have the ability to organize around common myths (imagined reality). For example the monkeys cannot think of a myth like a market of washed sweet potatoes and trade through it with large groups of monkeys even though they have the physical potential to do such things. If they had the brain capacity to do so then it can be thought that they would have changed their behavior over the millions of years they have existed (disconnected from genetic evolution). The same is true for man before the revolution who believe that a big brain and delicate hands helped him for hundreds of thousands of years to specialize in cracking bones for eating bone marrow since he was not high on the food chain.
Monkeys are able to talk and even lie and gossip by various means, but probably not to organize around an imagined reality that would jump them despite their limited intelligence. Dr. Harari's example is that a transparent person can lie by screaming that a lion is approaching so that another transparent person will run away and leave a banana, but he is unable to ask for the banana in exchange for a ticket to heaven...
To illustrate that impressive brain abilities are not enough, watch the short clip about the absolute superiority of chimpanzees in short-term memory abilities:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJAH4ZJBiN8
Rani
If man came from the ape, how is it that the apes still exist and are different from man?
jubilee:
I guess everyone knows the story about monkeys who learned to wash sweet potatoes and season them with sea water.
There are also various customs of hunting insects and cracking nuts that are part of the ape culture.
A custom of cracking nuts using cars at a crosswalk has also become part of the culture of crows.
But it is clear, however, that language has leapfrogged the development of culture by leaps and bounds.
WTF
Say you
Do you know another creature that has such an evolution?
Rani
What the hell are you playing at?
"As is known, man is the only creature that also has non-genetic evolution." – WTF?
Lectures 2 and 3 talk about the mutation of the "Tree of Knowledge" and the linguistic revolution that is the opening shot of history (before that it was purely biology):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VDVO_xCT6Q&feature=relmfu
What was the change in the brain that led to the linguistic revolution is a million dollar question that there are radical proposals to try to find out. It is known that our brother, the Neanderthal man, did not have our ability even though he had an equally large brain. Some researchers claim that it is possible to revive the Neanderthal man with genetic cloning inventions in order, among other things, to compare the brains!
After the linguistic revolution, human development no longer depended on biological evolution but mainly on the evolution of myths (imagined reality) which is much, much faster than genetic evolution.
For example, even if, hypothetically, we take a human baby from 60 years ago (a little after the revolution) and raise him today, there will be no difference from a baby today (genetic identity).
As is known, man is the only creature that also has non-genetic evolution.
It is important to understand that the evolution of myths does not refer to a single person but to groups as large as the whole of humanity. Therefore, the uniqueness of man is not in mere intelligence but in the ability to create collaborative intelligence through myths. The brain actually shrunk slightly compared to our collecting ancestors and our brain capacity is amazing and limited thanks to our ancestors (strong in gossip and weak in math).
Despite the intelligence, man fell victim to one of the biggest tragic frauds in history - the domestication of man by wheat and the agricultural revolution (lecture number 6):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-3vLGTC9K4&feature=relmfu
Rani
Is the person allowed from the fungus?!?
http://www.calcalist.co.il/local/articles/0,7340,L-3527587,00.html
Mutations in operation
Is there evidence of mutations occurring today?
What is the mechanism that produces the mutations?
In biology classes I heard that mutations are caused by radiation or particles that reach us from outer space. Is it possible that this is nothing more than an idealization of astrology?
Rani, well done for the referral. Although it is 25 lectures of an hour and a half....which is an annual project, it seems to me....but it is worth the investment. I don't know what his message is for our topic, but from what you wrote it seems that you are aiming at two of my points: language and culture (myths, stories, religions and beliefs, works of art of all kinds and species, etc.). Thanks again for the information.
According to historians, the great leap of the intelligent human species is related to the "tree of knowledge" mutation from about seventy thousand years ago, thanks to which man could think about things that do not exist in reality (myths), which is necessary for societies of more than a hundred individuals and which is something that our ape cousins are not able to do (for example, chimpanzees unable to change their social structure without genetic modification). Before this (linguistic) revolution, man languished in place for about a million years.
(See the beginning of the series of fascinating lectures "World History" by Dr. Yuval Harari).
Rani
Amit
The difference between humans and other animals is not (as you wrote): language, morality, culture and art.
The difference lies in the greater complexity of these features. A complexity that developed thanks to the human's superior intelligence over others.
The constant thinker
Your proposal regarding the BH experiments is a moral proposal.
From a scientific point of view, the best way as of today is to conduct an experiment on a living BH.
From a moral point of view, of course, such an experiment should be avoided.
I liked the article very much and I am interested in one thing. The chimpanzees did not develop language but their parents did not know language either, perhaps if you were to teach the chimpanzee whether language would be a possibility for language development or would you create some artificial selection for the need to know language (ie the scientists)
As an animal rights (animal rights) activist, I was sorry to hear how opaque and stupid the institution was that sent the monkey after so many years for medical research, but it's nice to hear that it was released by activists.
I think it's time for scientists to completely stop doing experiments on these animals if the experiments are meant to help the animals. And move to direct experiments on human cells/bodies/body parts in simulations and terminally ill patients, which will allow much more credibility.
Now I understood why a moral person says every morning "I'm glad I didn't smoke a chimpanzee".
What will I say and what will I say? Courtesy of Rothschild I watched the segment in question. And what do I say? First of all, one must also live with medical skills - the hippopotamus tries to revive the little deer.... In addition, his morals are flawed: the cub died and he did not punish the crocodile, and moreover, the crocodile returns to eat its prey, and this is why it is said in our sources: you killed and you also inherited." In the living world the answer is indeed yes.
I agree because the video is amazing and I really have no answers as to why this happened? The only thing that comes to my mind is that the hippopotamus is a very territorial animal and of all the animals in Africa it kills the most people. Maybe that's where the explanation lies? I don't know, I don't understand, you should ask an expert zoologist.
In any case, we agreed that it is the residual intelligence that separates man from animals. No one disputed the difference between man and the rest of the animal world. The idea is to try and find exactly what the difference(s) are. Beyond the fact that it was not disputed - about the difference and superiority of the human intellect - I listed several areas in which the difference between man and animals is expressed: language, morality, culture and art.
Regarding what appears to be morality in animals, I argued that it is an expression of conscience that is of biological origin and that mammals have at different levels of development. They also found evidence of this in babies and I argued that there are feelings that are related to conscience and they are necessary for the development of conscience and that animals have feelings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E51DyWl_q0c
A fellow righteous Jew
Regarding morality, what do you say about the fact that I saw on TV a crocodile coming to eat a moose, and as soon as the crocodile catches the moose,
I think it was a hippo charging the crocodile and preventing it from eating the moose, and as soon as the moose runs away the hippo tames the crocodile.
It is nothing short of amazing.
Animals are similar to us in almost every way, it's just that with us everything is more developed, and it's probably born with new features.
So it can be said that our brain and residual intelligence is what separates us from being alive. It is already possible to "give them signs" for things that are unique to a person - as a result of the activity of the human brain:
1. The language. It refers not only to the ability to communicate but to the invention of the language. By the way, the very technique of speaking is unique to a person. Animals communicate with voices and sounds or body gestures.
2. Morality. Beyond the ability to anticipate the future and therefore understand the consequences of the decisions in the future, maybe also morality - as opposed to conscience as I suggested - which is an artificial system, not natural, which is systematic and methodical. Contrary to the "animal" conscience.
3. Perhaps the third product that is unique to man is human culture in the sense that it is expressed in works of art from painting and sculpture, followed by poetry and story, etc. As far as I know, such a culture cannot exist.
Amit:
The first sentence in my response is "In my opinion, everything that man is allowed over animals stems from man's intelligence, of which language is an important part."
In other words - I also claim that language has a part in human freedom.
As I explained in the article about language - it is nothing but the result of mental abilities that are part of our intelligence.
If you read the above quoted sentence carefully you will see that I did not forget the language. On the contrary - I mentioned it, but I also mentioned what it stems from.
In the continuation of the response, I also explained what distinguishes our morality from that of animals and clarified that this difference also originates in intelligence.
In other words - I didn't forget morality either, but I explained exactly why I think our morality is different from that of animals - an explanation based - again - on our residual intelligence.
What sets us apart is not the existence of morality, but the expansion of the basic morality based on feelings only - into a broader morality refined through intelligence.
Our free will is not fundamentally different from that of a dog, but I will devote another article to that when I get around to it.
In the end - it is also expanded by intelligence and therefore - here too - intelligence is the source of the difference.
I have written extensively on the subject you propose to write about and even told you so in a verbal conversation.
In my opinion, as I wrote both in my previous response and at the beginning of this response, our morality is based on the basic feelings most of which we share with the other developed animals in the realm of extensions created through intelligence.
Since intelligence does not reach its conclusions in the blink of an eye, sometimes - our morality also develops over time.
The existence of a language also allows this time to continue beyond the life of a single person when each generation passes on its conclusions in the field to those who come after it.
This is part of what is called "culture" but there is also a catch here: people make mistakes here and there and people also act out of foreign interests, therefore some of what is passed on to us as "morals" within the framework of culture is not true.
Yes! I believe there are many more things here that can be classified as true or false than is commonly thought. In fact, I definitely think that it is possible to formulate an ever-expanding universal morality that is based entirely on our common feelings and conclusions reached through logic.
I also wrote a lot about this in various comments on the site.
In conclusion - everything that creates the difference that seems significant to us - between us and the other animals - is our residual intelligence.
For those who asked about the quality of the effects in the film - only when I finished watching and read a review that said it was in XNUMXD, I was convinced that no real monkeys were used in the film. At least the whole first half, completely real
Those who think that the bah has no emotions/morality/thoughts/complex thoughts
He is strange to me
Michael, I understand that you believe that what distinguishes us from animals is the intellectual capacity. What about language (it seems to me that according to your article you believe that it differentiates between the animal and the human although you claim there that it is "almost...") and free will + morality?
In the matter of morality and the will, this reflection occurred to me: as you presented the difference between the ability to make contact and communicate, which is a skill that must be lived between, and the ability to invent a language that is unique to a person, perhaps we can make the same parallel between conscience and morality. Conscience is the biological basis that man has as a living being (mammal). An instructive article on the subject was published in Calcalist last year. It talks about morals in babies. They distinguished between just and unjust actions in a simple way, of course, and we are talking about babies who do not know how to speak, that is, up to the age of one year. It is clear that the conscience requires some qualities and abilities such as empathy, the ability to empathize with and understand the other, a certain level of emotion, etc. It seems to me that it can be said that all the links you brought indicate that animals-like humans-have a conscience. Conscience is based on biology.
On the other hand, morality is based on culture, human of course, thus distinguishing man from animals because only man created morality. Morality is more complex than conscience, it is not intuitive and "jumps" out of the person like conscience, which is more basic. It is actually similar to the difference in the brain and the mental abilities that distinguish man from the animal and thus a quantitative gap becomes a qualitative one.
My father did not understand that much. It seems to me that there is depth to your words here and we will try to understand them together: everyone has free will.... Who is everyone? Also the worms or just all humans?
Regarding the fact that there are people who showed defective or distorted morals such as King David and many others in the Bible. So what is the idea here? Doesn't human morality distinguish us humans? Or because there were immoral people - even in the Bible God has mercy - so there is no morality or what? Well, you are not clear.
By the way Bible. Have you noticed how much morality the literary character known as "God", "Jehovah", "the Lord God" reveals? Really a moral masterpiece, isn't it? So why are you taking care of David? After all, God himself seems, apes, morally challenged, doesn't he???
Interesting article!
Anonymous's enlightenment about not teaching their offspring the language instead
Thank you all
In my opinion, everything that man is allowed over animals stems from man's intelligence, of which language is an important part.
This also includes the realm of morality where, beyond the basic feelings in which we are similar to other animals, all we do and other animals do not do is consider the expected results of our actions, including their consequences for our basic moral feelings.
In this sense - our morality is more sophisticated for exactly the same reasons that our technology is more sophisticated.
Just a few examples for those who despise the morality of animals.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/10/dogs_can_be_good_without_god.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oVhopPjTNg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBYPlcSD490
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1147975.html
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/the-orangutan-and-the-hound/1356710375
One thing was not mentioned and it is significant
that in none of these experiments, the same monkeys had never tried
to teach their offspring the language they learned (however minimal it may be).
There's another difference between a demon and humans - a demon is unable to act within the moral law.
Amit - there is no doubt that humans have highly developed moral skills. That is why we know of cases from the past about people who led to the murder of their neighbors so that they could take their beautiful shoes from them. Or as you, the good Jew, surely know from reading the Tanakh, King David also excelled in morality.
Everyone has free will by the way, I'm not sure you even understand the meaning of free will.
An interesting article that opens a door to a fascinating discussion about "the human right...". As far as I remember from reading, the part of the brain responsible for emotions developed relatively early. Here is a quote from Wiki: "The limbic system, developmentally speaking, is an older part of the brain. It evolved to manage fight or flight responses and is necessary for reptiles as well as humans."
It seems to me that there are several differences: 1. The size of the brain, which turns a quantitative difference into a qualitative one. I know that an elephant's brain is bigger, but the reference is to relative size and the level of development, which means that modern man has only existed for 100,000 years and is the last to evolve, evolutionarily with such a big brain. The size of the brain and its "quality" creates qualitative advantages such as:
2. The language. As beautifully described in the article, man is unique in his ability to develop language, and M. Rothschild just recently published a very interesting article that supports this conclusion.
3. Free will and morality. Just as the language skills of the animals and the apes are completely primitive and limited to a certain level, so the moral skills, if they exist, are completely partial and limited.
I wonder if any of the respondents will find differences in other areas.
What the reporter gathered is exactly my thought.
In my opinion, the difference between humans and other animals is that humans live under the illusion that they are so special and so different from animals. Anyone who has a pet knows that animals have feelings and thoughts and desires. Animals use tools and all kinds of tricks to reach different goals.
The real difference between people and animals is the preservation and transmission of information to future generations, which enables the development of knowledge from the basics to advanced things.
Anyone who tried to teach an animal human language ended up in trouble because the animal has no skills to acquire language,
On the other hand, researchers who try to learn to communicate with the animals - monkeys, dogs, birds or whales
We get to the point because there are mammals (and birds) that use a rich and varied language,
The problem is that those researchers do not reach a complete understanding of the Hittite language.
Therefore the question arises (from the monkey's side) if a person failed to teach a monkey to speak his language,
Or failed to learn to speak in "Kofit"...
Who does not have the ability to acquire a language?
Tell me, Roy, what score would you give this movie? Do you recommend going to see him?
How is the movie compared to Avatar? (I realized that the same effects company is responsible for both films)
Regarding the differences in intelligence between us and the chimpanzees, our brain is 3 times larger than theirs, a huge difference that can possibly explain the differences in mental abilities between us.
When we manage to create a simulation of a human brain on a computer (and I believe we will get there already in the coming decades) it may be enough to double the number of neurons in this computerized brain by 2-3 times to create a "superhuman" brain that will look at us the way we look at chimpanzees today
Another interesting article by Roi Tsenza.
Thanks!
By the way, I think it's worth mentioning the gorilla Koko in this context.
http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%A1%D7%95%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9D_%D7%91%D7%9C%D7%A9%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%99%D7%9D_%D7%91%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%A4%D7%99_%D7%90%D7%93%D7%9D#.D7.94.D7.92.D7.95.D7.A8.D7.99.D7.9C.D7.94_.D7.A7.D7.95.D7.A7.D7.95_.D7.95.D7.A9.D7.A4.D7.AA_.D7.94.D7.A1.D7.99.D7.9E.D7.A0.D7.99.D7.9D
Haim -
This was the impression I got from reading about the conquests of Hannibal, a Carthaginian general. If you explain what I did wrong, I can also correct accordingly.
Roy.
To call the Carthaginians: "with a wild warrior..." is ridiculous to the point of being funny.