From Ralph

07/30/03

To know is HUMAN- to imagine divine. A thinking animal's musing.....

Boundaries between instinct and learning do not coincide. We refer to all things 'cultural' as that which is learned. What we learn today is effectively innate received knowledge within society, rather than a power which is symbolically grounded.

'Traditional behaviour' overlaps human and non-human behaviour. The production of artefacts depends on a capacity for symbolic thought. This appears to be unique in homo-sapiens, based on our capacity for language. nevertheless, behavioural 'dialects' exist in animals, particularly in chimpanzees.

Our languages allow for innovation by deliberate invention rather than acts of of blind variation. We direct our evolution towards an imagined future Utopia. We practice an active and conscious acquisition of culture (rather than imitative learning) which in turn is responsible for cumulative and progressive growth of knowledge. The consequences of this educational restraint misleads humans into thinking that it underlies everything we do. It underlies only a small (albeit significant) fraction of what we do. In this way, human conduct does not differ from the conduct of non-human animals.

Our emancipation from the animal kingdom must be regarded as a freak of nature. The story of Creation favours man and has been passed down and elaborated by the one faculty peculiar to us- language. It is language that has spearheaded our rapid evolution into the position of a selected species, and even in that capacity, our specific cultural concepts have dominated the variations by which we have formed our hierarchical sense of being.

I always remind myself of this when I sit outside on summer evenings and observe the exquisite little habits of silly creatures going about their business through the distorted liquid image of a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. This helps me to imagine the next move. It also reminds me that we are merely a tiny part of the whole miracle. It's good for the soul- if we animals possess one, just like the squirrel trying to chew its prickly way through my Gunnera Giant Rhubarb Plant. It'll hurt itself, but that's its problem