Comment on We wouldn't listen, anyway.
yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day agoMost humans can’t even contemplate these questions. We have a lot of depressing research showing that most people can barely engage in abstract reasoning at all, let alone willingly.
theneverfox@pawb.social 1 day ago
I don’t think that’s different, I think that’s very related to the topic at hand
And yeah, that’s all true. All living things can suffer, down to single cells
The real question here is where is the line between us and other animals. And I think you’re almost there - you’re on the verge of recognizing there is none, or maybe of internalizing that realization
Most animals don’t often think about the meaning of life, just like most humans. They don’t think to ask us either, because we’re honestly a pretty foolish species. We’re powerful and intelligent, but not wise
An orca, elephant, or corvid is probably the wisest being on earth right now. Possibly even a whole forest
yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Elephants are wise in that they’re concerned with (some of) the things that matter most — social bonds and creature comforts. But, as far as we know, they can’t abstract away from those concerns to scrutinize them abstractly, or analytically, or reflect on the nature of wisdom or the metanormative conditions of their own experience.
We can do that — due to some freak accident of evolution that probably has to do with the recursivity of language and the self-referential nature of subjective experience. And again, when I say “we,” I mean some humans sometimes.
theneverfox@pawb.social 1 day ago
What are you even saying? What evidence do you have?
That sounds like a bunch of unfounded nonsense to me.
Elephants seem to clearly understand life and death, cause and effect, who fucked them over and where they ran off to
I’d bet the average elephant has a better grasp on the meaning of life than the average human
yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago