Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Nov 25, 2023 1:12 am
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In fact, we have things that this brain of ours does that find no parallel in the animal world at all. Self-awareness is one of them. Philosophy is another.
You are wrong on the self-awareness part.
- The MSR test is the traditional method for attempting to measure physiological and cognitive self-awareness.
Species that have [pass the MSR test] include the great apes, a single Asiatic elephant, rays, dolphins, orcas, the Eurasian magpie, and the cleaner wrasse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test
The difference between humans and the above are a matter of degrees.
But theologically, we have a spirit. Animals do not. Nor do animals have spiritual concerns; there are no animal "religions," just as there is no such thing as "cultures" of animals..all members of the same species have exactly the same "culture," (though the word does not even really apply to them) and exactly the same instincts. But we do not. We have variety, volition, self-consciousness, conscience, teleological awareness, rationality...all kinds of stuff comes out of that amazing brain that is completely different from what animals have.
Why humans has theological concerns is due to the following;
- 1. All animals [including humans] has the fundamental instinct to feel terrible primal fears with any threat of death to motivate them to avoid the threats of death.
2. Humans has evolved with higher degree of self-awareness with the emergence of the "I"-ness that is self-aware of its inevitable and unavoidable mortality.
3. Because of the self-aware unavoidable death, the fundamental instinct to feel terrible primal fears is triggered [consciously or subconsciously {angst}] as long as one is alive.
4. To soothe the conscious fears or subliminal angsts, theists invented the fictitious and illusory being of God to cling to for salvation which enable immediate elimination of the feel terrible primal fears.
God is illusory; It is Impossible for God to be Real
viewtopic.php?t=40229
Nevertheless God is a useful illusion to deal with 4 above.
And morally, if we were just animals, we would have no moral duties at all, nor any reason to have a sense of morality. Instinct would do, so far as survival is concerned. But we do have these inclinations, and they puzzle us...for by naturalistic explanations, they shouldn't exist. Just as we can observe and question our universe in ways that no animal ever does.
Like we're doing right now.
Animals [in varying degrees of complexity] do have moral instincts in varying degrees.
Animals within its own species do not simply kill each other upon sight in general, this is in a way a moral sense and instinct.
Note Inbreeding_avoidance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbreeding_avoidance
in an instinct in higher animals. Males within a group, e.g. Male lions, upon reaching maturity will be 'kick' out of the tribe so as to avoid inbreeding which could threaten the survival of the species.
Point is there is an
innate moral sense algorithm in the various instinctual moral elements that has passed on to humans via evolution.
The innate moral sense algorithm [supported by physical neurons -thus objective] has manifested within humanity in various ways.
The religious had adopted these moral instincts and sense into their restricted doctrines as moral commands from an illusory God.
The secular has their own approaches to morality based on rules or consequences.
What is most critical for humanity is to expedite the unfoldment of the innate moral potentials so that they manifest spontaneously like within animal instincts but in a more matured human way.
To do so, humanity must recognize these moral potentials as objective elements that can be improved upon within a morality-proper FSK, i.e. morality is objective.