[Vision2020] [Bulk] Re: Summer Reading

[Paul Rumelhart]

I guess I would argue that we are different from, but not necessarily 
superior to, other animals.  The way in which we are different is a 
consequence of our intelligence and our ability to shape our 
environment: we have more capacity to do evil and more capacity to do 
good.  We have a wider range, in effect.

Minimizing this doesn't help us any.  Animals with less ability to shape 
our environment might not be strip mining and driving those evil SUVs, 
but they can't do anything about an asteroid on it's way to collide with 
us or save seeds in an underground bunker for future species to use, or 
find a way to spread life to other planets, or learn how to cope with 
other disasters, either.  To argue that we are no better than other 
animals is to deny our potential.  On the other hand, to argue that we 
are no worse than other animals is still incorrect, as we have the power 
to do more harm.

Paul

Chasuk wrote:
>> Book by British Philosopher John Grey, from the London School of Economics:
>> "Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals"
>>     
>
>   
>> In a work of thoroughgoing iconoclasm, British philosopher Gray attacks the
>> belief that humans are different from and superior to animals.
>>     
>
> This is an odd sentence, as it implies that humans are something other
> than animals.  I know many who argue that humans are different from,
> and superior to, other animals, but none who would argue that we were
> not animals.  Maybe this is just a quirk of reviewer Bryce
> Christensen's phrasing.
>
> I'll have to look this book up.  I'm a Peter Singer fan; it sounds
> like John Grey and Singer are at least intellectual cousins.
>
> Where I largely disagree wit Singer, and likely with Grey, is in the
> weight I assign to my existence.  I may not be superior to other
> animals, but I do value my own survival above theirs.  I will do
> anything to guarantee my own survival and the survival of my progeny
> (and loved ones, which I don't know how to justify in an evolutionary
> sense), even if it means the certain extinction of other animal
> species.
>
>   
>> Gray explains the human refusal to confront the darker realities of our nature largely as
>> the result of how we have consoled ourselves with the myths of Christianity
>> and its secular offspring, humanism and utopianism. Human vanity, he
>> complains, has even converted science (which should teach us of our
>> insignificant place in nature) into an ideology of progress.
>>     
>
> Agreed.  The bible practically gave us a warrant to subdue the Earth.
> I'm sure a lot of revisionist theology contradicts this, but the
> damage was done on the earlier perceived mandate.
>
> Thanks for the recommendation.
>
> Chas
>
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