Are humans merely animals?

HythlodaeusHuxley · 2022-06-23T16:17:00+00:00

[permanently deleted]

Pilling_it · 2022-06-23T16:34:39+00:00

We are animals in clothes that like to pretend we're beyond our instincts. We can have some discipline but that's about it.

All I can say for sure is that the instincts we have now are there because it's what kept us in the genetic pool. We can make of that what we want.

Kentucky_Supreme · 2022-06-23T16:42:11+00:00

We're essentially clever monkeys that have technology.

Substantial_Video560 · 2022-06-23T17:03:52+00:00

You and me ain't nothing but animals, doing it like they do on the Discovery Channel! 😅

wtknight · 2022-06-23T17:37:33+00:00

Culture in the form of both family culture and societal culture shapes human actions just as much as the genetics based upon evolution do. The building blocks of human behavior are probably “animal” in nature, though.

Teflon08191 · 2022-06-23T20:12:09+00:00

Yes.

Slightly more self-aware animals, but animals none-the-less.

We forget this fact at our own peril.

smallstarseeker · 2022-06-23T16:14:25+00:00

Yes but. Sponge is an animal, and it doesn't even have a brain. And humans have the most complex brain and highest nurture/learning time of all animals.

If being the most complex animal in existence is not enough for you, then join some religion or something.

GlowingAsItDazzles · 2022-06-23T17:18:09+00:00

what else would they be

LarryLooxmax · 2022-06-23T18:08:56+00:00

You are not an animal - that’s an insult to animals. In reality you’re an insect.

Insects and humans specialize, animals do not.

Insects and humans sacrifice their well being for the collective, animals care for their families only.

Insects and humans live in colonies with millions of members, animals do not.

Insect and human colonies produce sterile worker drones content to never breed and be used by the genetic elite, animals do not.

About the only aspect of human behavior that is still animal-like, and therefore still has some semblance of nobility, is the mating dance.

Back to monke, “humanism” is just the way of the virus, the insect, the micro organism.

SuspiciousRule · 2022-06-23T19:08:06+00:00

You should check r/likeus animal are not the dumb impulsive beings to you seem think they are. Just because that are not building buildings and inventing new thinks doesn't mean their of low intelligence.

ScrimmyBingusTwo · 2022-06-23T16:39:52+00:00

I can fully comprehend how humans evolved from apes but it blows my mind to realize that our earliest mammalian ancestors were shrews and before that we were fishes. In fact, your arms and legs likely evolved from fish fins.

mrlunes · 2022-06-23T17:23:17+00:00

We are animals. We like to act like we aren’t by rejecting out natural instincts even though they are plain an easy explanations for problems that plague society. Lucky for us though we have evolved far beyond any other known animal and created technology that makes our animal instincts obsolete. The downside is that we developed technology so fast we are coming to a conflict between our animal instincts and modern society.

WOPR-1983 · 2022-06-23T18:49:46+00:00

In many ways we transcend our animal nature.

BUT (big but) in many ways we have not.

People who think we're completely separate from animals now and everything is just a social construct up in our big brains are simply deluded.

Human beings exhibit all kinds of animal behavior and it's grounded in biology, evolution and reproduction. People may be disconnected from the primordial forces at work in their day-to-day lives, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

Look at us turd flinging monkeys here on Reddit for example...

None0fYour8usiness · 2022-06-23T19:41:35+00:00

Sorry kiddo, you're an animal. Just one that's smart enough to create a basic society and technology.

todo_pasa_ · 2022-06-23T16:19:00+00:00

technically we are animals but we have our own set of characteristics that differentiate us from other animals like tools, culture, math, clothes, nuclrar power, vaccines, buildings, etc etc etc etc.

The_Meep_Lord · 2022-06-23T16:55:13+00:00

Worse.

We are objects…advanced, self-learning bio-quantum computers that take pride in our value and pretend we are better and more valuable then we really are.

Ohmaygahh · 2022-06-23T16:44:45+00:00

Yes. It would be the height of hubris and arrogance to think that we are gods.

fizeekfriday · 2022-06-23T20:38:15+00:00

No, we have spirits/souls.

We have an Ego that is basically our stage-play role that has been assigned to us in this physical world but "You" is actually the consciousness and awareness you have.

roguish_rogue · 2022-06-23T21:56:21+00:00

No, but we are alot more merely animals than 90% of people think they are.

AelfredRex · 2022-06-23T22:45:42+00:00

Well, we're not plants. But evolution is dynamic adaption, not static.

ImAGhostOooooooo · 2022-06-23T23:43:34+00:00

Yes we are animals. The most intelligent animals, but animals nonetheless

freespirit1963TJ · 2022-06-23T23:53:27+00:00

I've had a number of very spirited debate's on this very subject. We are animal's, and I believe that our instincts, physiological needs and drives are much closer to the animal world than many will admit.

abaxeron · 2022-06-24T00:56:03+00:00

Do we have any ability or inclination to be more than evolution would demand?

We are products of evolution; therefore, everything we do is innately "what evolution would demand". No matter if it's terraforming entire galaxy, genetically engineering entire new kingdoms of life, or destroying the planet in nuclear hellfire. There is no plan to evolution that we could follow or deviate from; there is only a course of action that we form with our very own existence. Evolution has no courses, only trends. We are within evolution's trend by definition.

I'm inclined to believe that we may be "cooler" than the rest of the animal kingdom by three parameters (which already makes us at least three times cooler than the first animals to go on dry land, the first to master controlled flight, or the first to get a cellular core):

First, we and our symbiotic bacteria are the only life forms from Earth to make a controlled travel into gravitational well of another celestial body.

Second, even bigger, we are the only life forms that aim to create life-like systems on another material substrate (robots).

Third and the biggest one, we are the only life form to alter another life form's genome to deliberately give it an unnatural, but desirable and planned trait. Our gene editing skills are yet very poor, but by itself it's huge and very cool. In a lab, we can do within a year what naturally would require anywhere between decades and eternity.

Unfortunately, all three areas involved a percent of a percent of a percent of the human population, and our baseline behavior (including dating) is very much similar to animals.

ohdiddly · 2022-06-24T04:05:21+00:00

Human beings literally are animals by definition.

sigma1932 · 2022-06-24T06:37:40+00:00

Yes, in a social vacuum, humans are animals-- driven purely by base instincts. They have to have constant social pressure (if even only underlying) put on them to not act like animals and instead act in a way that results in a better overall long-term outcome.

This process is conceptually called "civilization".

8chon · 2022-06-24T06:56:07+00:00

No animal is merely an animal OP, all animals (of which we mammals are) are animals with unique species details.

freespirit1963TJ · 2022-06-24T09:43:51+00:00

Your comment basically echoed what my comment said. In different terms obviously. We are close to animal's, closer than what, "civilized" people would like everyone to believe. The urges, hunger, lust are natural. The things that society has built to control them are what is supposed to represent the distance between humans and animals.

PMmeareasontolive · 2022-06-24T13:35:26+00:00

Sure. Didn't Kinsey have all kinds of cases where people developed fetishes on women's shoes (to choose one example from many) based on major or often just minor childhood traumas? What's the evolutionary basis of your fetish for women's stockings? Do people who insist it's all biology have no idea how easily brainwashed they are? Catholics used to say "give me a child until he is 6 and I'll give you a catholic on his deathbed", meaning the formative years are just that, children are surprisingly pliable and "the child is the father to the man".

For that matter, we aren't even able to walk or talk unless someone guides us at the proper stages in development. This sub for some reason prefers to reduce everything to biology (why is that?) but we are pretty dependent on nurture and not just nature.

sarkington · 2022-06-23T16:33:10+00:00

Biologically, yes. We’re not bacteria or plants

Evolutionarily-speaking, no

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throwaway164_3 · 2022-06-23T17:19:36+00:00

There’s nothing “merely” about being an animal!

Mobrowncheeks · 2022-06-23T19:11:39+00:00

Gotta change the perspective, since everything that is alive and isn’t a plant or fungus is an animal, that means everything that we are and all other organisms are is animal, so there’s no need to be above animal, things that aren’t organisms are classified as such

nadanonenada · 2022-06-23T22:26:23+00:00

The only animal that has the gift of reason. Thus, unlike any animal.

Title	Are humans merely animals?
Author	HythlodaeusHuxley
Upvotes	10
Comments	91
Date	June 23, 2022 3:59 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/vj086z/are_humans_merely_animals/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/are-humans-merely-animals.1120305 https://theredarchive.com/post/1120305

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