How did the mind arise, and how do people differ from animals? These questions have tormented humanity from the very moment of its inception. And if you think that the answers to them have long been found, then you are mistaken. Scientists will continue to argue and seek these answers. Let's see what they do.
ANIMAL WITH TWO LEGS AND DEPRECATED OF FEATHERS
So, according to legend, Plato replied to his students when they asked him to define a person. Then Diogenes brought a plucked rooster and declared: "Here is Plato's man!" “And with wide nails,” Plato was not taken aback. It seems that this was a joking answer, since in fact the great philosopher knew exactly how a person differs from an animal: the ability to think (not to think, namely, to think, analyze, make generalizations) and the presence of an immortal soul, in the presence of which Plato was absolutely sure. We'll talk about the soul sometime next time, but for now let's get back to thinking, which is a product of reason. It is the latter, according to many, many philosophers living after Plato, that is the defining feature of man. Reason first of all makes a person the highest value and original personality,as believed in the Renaissance. Or an independent free person with unlimited possibilities, according to the thinkers of the Enlightenment. Kant, Hegel and other German classical philosophers considered man, a spiritual being, and the thinkers of the era of romanticism focused on human feelings. According to Marx, man is, first of all, a social being, the cause and effect of the historical process as such … And so on and so forth. It should be recognized that none of the definitions of a person available today is flawless and raises more questions than answers. Especially when comparing man with higher animals.a spiritual being, and the thinkers of the era of romanticism focused on human feelings. According to Marx, man is, first of all, a social being, the cause and effect of the historical process as such … And so on and so forth. It should be recognized that none of the definitions of a person available today is flawless and raises more questions than answers. Especially when comparing man with higher animals.a spiritual being, and the thinkers of the era of romanticism focused on human feelings. According to Marx, man is, first of all, a social being, the cause and effect of the historical process as such … And so on and so forth. It should be recognized that none of the definitions of a person available today is flawless and raises more questions than answers. Especially when comparing man with higher animals. Especially when comparing man with higher animals. Especially when comparing man with higher animals.
CHARLIE, YOU ARE WRONG
Charles Darwin, whose authority is still of extraordinary weight in the scientific world, in his book "The Origin of Man and Sexual Selection" substantiated the difference between the human mind and animals not so much by qualitative as by quantitative characteristics. And many modern scientists fully agree with their counterpart from the 19th century, citing genetic research data as evidence, according to which, for example, our genome differs from the chimpanzee's genome by only 1%. However, one simple question, recently posed by the Harvard evolutionary psychology professor Mark Hauser in the article “The Emergence of Mind”, upsets the “quantitative” theory like a ball to a pin. “If our common genetic heritage is enough to explain the origin of the human mind, then why isn't the chimpanzee writing this article?and doesn't he sing on stage with the Rolling Stones, and doesn't he make the soufflé?"
And really, why? It is likely that Charles Darwin and his followers are still wrong, and the point is not in quantity, but in quality. Our thinking separates from the thinking of animals (with the undoubted cognitive, that is, the cognitive properties of the latter) an abyss of insurmountable dimensions. Not to mention the fact that the mystery of the origin of the human mind is still sealed and everything indicates that it arose practically out of nowhere and immediately.
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CRITERION, OUCH
And yet, what is the main criterion that distinguishes us from animals (especially higher ones)? Ability to make and use tools? We have all known for a long time that monkeys and many birds do the same. Not only that, experiments show that some animals understand the basics of physics! For example, chimpanzees and orangutans were given a hollow cylinder with nuts at the bottom. It was impossible to reach with a paw or turn the cylinder over to shake out the nuts. Then the monkeys took water in their mouths and spit it out into the cylinders. And so over and over again until the water level rose so much that the floating delicacy could already be reached.
Life in society, the concept of justice? Ants can also teach us the first, and dogs and the same monkeys (in particular, chimpanzees and capuchins) demonstrate that they are well aware of the second (especially during an unfair distribution of food).
Animals teach their babies, as we do. They use complex verbal communication systems that can easily be called a language - for example, dolphins, in the language of which there is a sound, syllable, word, phrase, paragraph, context and even their own dialects. Art? Its rudiments are demonstrated by male bowerbirds (a bird from the order of sparrows), who, in order to attract a female, build nests - real architectural structures, and decorate them not only with feathers, leaves and found buttons, but even paint from crushed berries.
THREE KITS OF MIND
And yet there are criteria. The aforementioned professor of evolutionary psychology Mark Hauser and other scientists identify three “whales” on which the human mind rests and develops. This is combinatoriality, symbolism and abstraction.
The first feature, combinatorics, allows us to endlessly combine words, any symbols (including mathematical ones), concepts or actions, creating all new statements or meanings. Indeed, do we know of at least one animal that managed to write or voice at least a short story, or create the simplest combined tool of labor like a penknife or pencil?
The second feature, symbolism, enables us to express any impression derived from reality or our imagination in the form of a symbol. Which we then use in language, art, mathematics, or a computer program. Not a single animal, as we know today, uses symbols (at least in its natural habitat). This means that they cannot develop a culture that is all based on symbols.
And finally, abstraction. Only humans are capable of abstract thinking (again, as far as we know it today). A person knows how and even loves to think about what is not there or about what he has never seen. For example, about God, elves or aliens. And the same monkey thinks, at best, that the stone on which she sat is perhaps too cold or how to get a banana hanging too high.
THE MAN OF DECISION
And all these distinctive abilities are accumulated, perhaps, in the main quality of man, which distinguishes him from an animal. We know how and love to solve new problems. Not only individual, personal, but also appearing in front of this or that society, and even all of humanity. The mind of any animal is able to solve only one problem, and even then not too difficult (to get a fruit from a tree, teach a cub to hunt and notice danger, make a den). The human mind allowed us to settle all over the planet, overcoming mountains, forests, deserts, rivers and oceans. Build cities and states. Invent and create a bow, a computer, a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a spaceship and writing. Write brilliant music and imagine eternal life after physical death.
What's next for our minds? Is there a limit to its development, or will there come a time for a new, qualitative leap when it will be transformed into something new, different from the present in the same way as our current mind differs from the mind of animals? The search for answers to these questions continues.
Akim Bukhtatov