OldSkoolball#52
10-26-2013, 12:57 PM
One of the defining distinctions between humans and and other animals is our ability to empathize. To put ourselves in the place of another being and imagine how they must feel. To analyze, rather than rely on pure instinct.
A cheetah does not, and cannot, think about what an antelope feels while it sprints for its life. It does not have the emotional capability or "conscience" to determine whether it is right or wrong to trip the antelope up from behind, and it never, ever analyzes why it then sinks its teeth into the frightened ungulates flesh. Its brain is not biologically capable.
Primates, our closest living ancestors, specifically chimpanzees, have shown a marginal ability to empathize, at a level superior to other animals but inferior to modern humans.
Accepting that we have evolved from chimpanzees, it is natural to wonder how far our ability to empathize has evolved... and are we finished?
A wild grouping of chimpanzees can display both impressive organization and structure for a non human social species, as well as wildly impulsive and purely instinctive behavior. Mothers often try to raise their children separately from the males because males may attack young for no reason other than instinct. Males from the same pack might abruptly begin fighting with each other for no reason other than impulse.
But over the course of evolution from chimpanzee to modern humans, these beings developed more rational brains, and what ensued was an ability to cooperate for common and personal gain. To do this required them to suppress their innate instinct for physical competition more frequently than they previously had. The ones whose brains were developing the early ability to see this advantage prospered, and from that continued an evolution in social and intellectual capability.
But these early stages of evolution were still exceedingly barbarous and brute by our modern standards. The "social conscience" was still very primitive and fighting was a constant. However the necessity of cooperation continued to ensure that in-fighting was minimized. Eventually adult males were no longer attacking their own offspring out of instinct, but increasingly protecting them for the sake of communal stability. Physical violence between neighbors continued to give way to systems of exchange and communication.
Oh, but there were still enemies. Any outsider was an enemy. Remember, evolution does not happen out of want - it happens out of need. These late chimps, or early humans (obviously it is impossible to pinpoint a place on the timeline where each concept originated) had only developed an ability to peaceably associate and empathize with their immediate circles. There had been no reason to develop beyond that, and thus they were not capable. Foreigners who encroached on their territory were slaughtered. Unless the second group was capable of slaughtering the first, in which case that was the result. There was not a lot of breaking bread in those days. And of course keep in mind, the size of these groupings in such primitive days was typically just a few nomadic families at most. These species had evolved beyond chimp, but were not yet human.
Suffice it to say, as technology and intellectual capacity continued to evolve over thousands and thousands more years, the advantages of sharing and cooperating with increasingly large groups began to manifest. And so blossomed humans. But still we remain cognizant of who we developed from, and why.
We are still self-serving beings. The only difference is, our abilities have increased, and our needs have shifted. In the developed world, our physical needs are generally met. Food, shelter, clothing, basic safety. In the third world, these basic needs are largely unmet. Thus, "tolerance, diversity, compassion" are low in the pecking order, because these people do not have the luxury of prioritizing spiritual and complex emotional needs. Nor did our ancestors all those hundreds of thousands of years ago. Spiritual and complex emotional needs are very, very recent on the time scale. The most obvious example is suicide. No animal commits suicide intentionally. Suicide is the opposite of survival. Most animals are instinctively programmed for survival, and I would bet few if any neanderthals, cro-magnons, homo erectus' and so forth had even the ability to contemplate suicide. The phenomenon of suicide is a testament to our evolved ability to empathize, even with ourselves.
So once fully formed humans finally arrived, what then? What characteristics had the Egyptians and Greeks and Iroquois and Huns and Zulus and various Chinese dynasties evolved? Well, these early civilizations serve to mark as the latest possible point of development of spiritual and complex emotional needs. One could argue that deity worship marked the beginning of conscious rationalization. Nor longer was questioning confined simply to the instinctive daily challenges of "How will I catch this food, how can I build this hut, which direction has more food, when will winter arrive?" Man finally had consummated the last interrogative to show up in his vocabulary:
"Why?"
And so, every society developed its own methods of discovering and answering "Why?"
If we are to follow the guidelines of evolution, you'd have to assume that this process did not satisfy a want - but rather a need. The need to justify. The development of empathy in early humans allowed them to engage each other with relative peace and cooperation. But this evolution in intellectual ability also gave rise to other consequences. The ability to question. The ability that the cheetah and the antelope do not have, the ability that chimpanzees generally do not have. But these new kids on the block, these humans... Now they've got it.
And so these early societies continued to serve their own interests, as they'd evolved to do. They still plundered and conquered and invaded and pillaged and went to war. And while many continued to find an instinctive appeal in these things, increasingly people began to ask "Why?"
But even this asking of "Why?" was not an act of pure empathy and altruism. It was an evolved risk-reward analysis. As life continues to become more stable, people question the risk in fighting. Afterall, the more you have to lose, the less you'll be inclined to gamble it. Chimpanzees may fight to the death over territory or mates, but usually not over a banana.
To sum up so far, empathy and analysis are evolutionary tools. They are not a certificate you get after completing a philosophy class in your freshman year at college, they aren't trophy rewarding you for how you voted in the last election. It's an evolved trait that, like any other, varies amongst individuals. No different than self interest.
A cheetah does not, and cannot, think about what an antelope feels while it sprints for its life. It does not have the emotional capability or "conscience" to determine whether it is right or wrong to trip the antelope up from behind, and it never, ever analyzes why it then sinks its teeth into the frightened ungulates flesh. Its brain is not biologically capable.
Primates, our closest living ancestors, specifically chimpanzees, have shown a marginal ability to empathize, at a level superior to other animals but inferior to modern humans.
Accepting that we have evolved from chimpanzees, it is natural to wonder how far our ability to empathize has evolved... and are we finished?
A wild grouping of chimpanzees can display both impressive organization and structure for a non human social species, as well as wildly impulsive and purely instinctive behavior. Mothers often try to raise their children separately from the males because males may attack young for no reason other than instinct. Males from the same pack might abruptly begin fighting with each other for no reason other than impulse.
But over the course of evolution from chimpanzee to modern humans, these beings developed more rational brains, and what ensued was an ability to cooperate for common and personal gain. To do this required them to suppress their innate instinct for physical competition more frequently than they previously had. The ones whose brains were developing the early ability to see this advantage prospered, and from that continued an evolution in social and intellectual capability.
But these early stages of evolution were still exceedingly barbarous and brute by our modern standards. The "social conscience" was still very primitive and fighting was a constant. However the necessity of cooperation continued to ensure that in-fighting was minimized. Eventually adult males were no longer attacking their own offspring out of instinct, but increasingly protecting them for the sake of communal stability. Physical violence between neighbors continued to give way to systems of exchange and communication.
Oh, but there were still enemies. Any outsider was an enemy. Remember, evolution does not happen out of want - it happens out of need. These late chimps, or early humans (obviously it is impossible to pinpoint a place on the timeline where each concept originated) had only developed an ability to peaceably associate and empathize with their immediate circles. There had been no reason to develop beyond that, and thus they were not capable. Foreigners who encroached on their territory were slaughtered. Unless the second group was capable of slaughtering the first, in which case that was the result. There was not a lot of breaking bread in those days. And of course keep in mind, the size of these groupings in such primitive days was typically just a few nomadic families at most. These species had evolved beyond chimp, but were not yet human.
Suffice it to say, as technology and intellectual capacity continued to evolve over thousands and thousands more years, the advantages of sharing and cooperating with increasingly large groups began to manifest. And so blossomed humans. But still we remain cognizant of who we developed from, and why.
We are still self-serving beings. The only difference is, our abilities have increased, and our needs have shifted. In the developed world, our physical needs are generally met. Food, shelter, clothing, basic safety. In the third world, these basic needs are largely unmet. Thus, "tolerance, diversity, compassion" are low in the pecking order, because these people do not have the luxury of prioritizing spiritual and complex emotional needs. Nor did our ancestors all those hundreds of thousands of years ago. Spiritual and complex emotional needs are very, very recent on the time scale. The most obvious example is suicide. No animal commits suicide intentionally. Suicide is the opposite of survival. Most animals are instinctively programmed for survival, and I would bet few if any neanderthals, cro-magnons, homo erectus' and so forth had even the ability to contemplate suicide. The phenomenon of suicide is a testament to our evolved ability to empathize, even with ourselves.
So once fully formed humans finally arrived, what then? What characteristics had the Egyptians and Greeks and Iroquois and Huns and Zulus and various Chinese dynasties evolved? Well, these early civilizations serve to mark as the latest possible point of development of spiritual and complex emotional needs. One could argue that deity worship marked the beginning of conscious rationalization. Nor longer was questioning confined simply to the instinctive daily challenges of "How will I catch this food, how can I build this hut, which direction has more food, when will winter arrive?" Man finally had consummated the last interrogative to show up in his vocabulary:
"Why?"
And so, every society developed its own methods of discovering and answering "Why?"
If we are to follow the guidelines of evolution, you'd have to assume that this process did not satisfy a want - but rather a need. The need to justify. The development of empathy in early humans allowed them to engage each other with relative peace and cooperation. But this evolution in intellectual ability also gave rise to other consequences. The ability to question. The ability that the cheetah and the antelope do not have, the ability that chimpanzees generally do not have. But these new kids on the block, these humans... Now they've got it.
And so these early societies continued to serve their own interests, as they'd evolved to do. They still plundered and conquered and invaded and pillaged and went to war. And while many continued to find an instinctive appeal in these things, increasingly people began to ask "Why?"
But even this asking of "Why?" was not an act of pure empathy and altruism. It was an evolved risk-reward analysis. As life continues to become more stable, people question the risk in fighting. Afterall, the more you have to lose, the less you'll be inclined to gamble it. Chimpanzees may fight to the death over territory or mates, but usually not over a banana.
To sum up so far, empathy and analysis are evolutionary tools. They are not a certificate you get after completing a philosophy class in your freshman year at college, they aren't trophy rewarding you for how you voted in the last election. It's an evolved trait that, like any other, varies amongst individuals. No different than self interest.