AHHHHH you mean Idiocracy is what the future is going to be like.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
Popisfizzy wrote:
Cellzer wrote: These days it doesnt matter how many children you have. The world is full of humans and the amount of children you have has nothing to do with the survival of the human race these days. No one is worried about continuing their family line when there are millions of other family lines out there anyways. And tell me, if humans are not more evolved than any other species then why isn't it practiced as such? We kill a little ant at will but apparently those ants are just like us according to you and many others. If the ant is just like us then we should treat him as a king, but instead we kill it without even thinking about it. There's no logic to the fact that we are no better than any other species. We are better, that is the truth and everyone knows it. |
Really? Twins are your sticking point here? Come on, that's trivial. If you start from the belief that an individual is endowed with a soul at the point where it becomes, for all intents and purposes, an independent entity, then obviously the same would apply when that individual splits into two.
As for what differentiates a human cell from another kind of cell in whether it should get a soul, that's a separate question. |
Lummox JR wrote:
As for what differentiates a human cell from another kind of cell in whether it should get a soul, that's a separate question. The answer to that is said everytime a scientist mentions the word instincts. Animals live with their "instincts" which control every single thing they do. They do not have emotions which cause them to love another animal, they do it through their instincts to survive. What sets us humans apart is that we have the ability to break free of that and think for ourselfs to make our own judgement. That is what our soul is. |
Fugsnarf wrote:
Lummox JR wrote: Octopuses have complex decision making skills. Does that mean they have souls? And Rasengan, a zygote is the first cell of an organism. It's an egg and sperm combined. |
It does not mean they have souls because these skills they have are simply traits that every octopus has and uses with their instincts.
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Fugsnarf wrote:
It does not mean they have souls because these skills they have are simply traits that every octopus has and uses with their instincts. Because Octopuses are genetically programmed to take blocks and insert them into their corresponding holes properly? Octopuses learn and are smarter than dolphins, not to mention they can kill a shark without breaking a sweat. |
Octopuses could not do anything apart from what they naturally are taught to do with their instincts. We humans are the ones that are able to teach them new things. No animal taught us to do the things we do, we taught ourselves.
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Fugsnarf wrote:
These days it doesnt matter how many children you have. The world is full of humans and the amount of children you have has nothing to do with the survival of the human race these days. Evolution occurs at the genetic level, not at the species level. Individuals mutate, not entire groups, and it's the better-adapted individuals that are going to be able to propagate more. Now-a-days (at least for humans) it's less about dying before you can breed and more about producing a lot. The less intelligent and less wealthy produce more, and are less likely to produce intelligent children, which are, in turn, more likely to produce a lot, which is at odds with the intelligent and wealthy. They're more likely to have fewer children, or adopt, which doesn't propogate their genes. And tell me, if humans are not more evolved than any other species then why isn't it practiced as such? No animal really treats another species with great respect, or even animals in their own species. But, just to point out some irony here: Arthropods (insects and bugs and all those wonderful little creatures) are some of the most successful group of species on the planet. They are some of the most numerous, and there are many more diverse species there. They may be tiny, but their numbers are significantly higher. And humans are not "more evolved" no matter how much you want to believe it. No species is more advanced than another, as a whole. Sure, any given species may be better at certain things than another, but that's because that's what evolution does. It allows something to fill in a given niche and become well-adapted to that niche. It's rather obvious you have no knowledge of evolution, so you shouldn't argue from your ignorance. |
Fugsnarf wrote:
The answer to that is said everytime a scientist mentions the word instincts. Animals live with their "instincts" which control every single thing they do. There is hardly conclusive evidence that every action an animal performs is stereotyped. It has recently been shown that chimpanzees are able to plan and think ahead, and it's known that dogs are able to work out basic problems to get items that they haven't been told the name of before. We hardly know everything about how animals think, and, in fact, we know very little. |
Fugsnarf wrote:
We humans are the ones that are able to teach them new things. Which is why dolphins, several groups primates, and a lot of other species have been known to use tools. Yes, we are more intelligent than other animals. This is well-known and documented. But we are not more evolved than any other animal. The world is not Pokemon. There are not evolutionary levels. |
Fugsnarf wrote:
Octopuses could not do anything apart from what they naturally are taught to do with their instincts. We humans are the ones that are able to teach them new things. No animal taught us to do the things we do, we taught ourselves. Please tell me when someone taught Otto how to juggle, short circuit his aquarium's power, and to do his interior decorating. |
Octopuses could not do anything apart from what they naturally are taught to do with their instincts. We humans are the ones that are able to teach them new things. No animal taught us to do the things we do, we taught ourselves.
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Fugsnarf wrote:
Octopuses could not do anything apart from what they naturally are taught to do with their instincts. We humans are the ones that are able to teach them new things. No animal taught us to do the things we do, we taught ourselves. And their instincts tell them to decorate and short circuit power. Did you even read that article I linked to? |
Octopuses can have fun, can't they? They can be taught to do tricks, or simply do as they please with the abilities that they were created with. They don't think about what they are doing or the consequences that might come about for it. They simply do it.
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Fugsnarf wrote:
Octopuses can have fun, can't they? They can be taught to do tricks, or simply do as they please with the abilities that they were created with. They don't think about what they are doing or the consequences that might come about for it. They simply do it. First of all, octupuses exhibit cephalization to a great degree. In other words, they have fairly advanced brains. They have been shown to think of the benefits of their actions and plan ahead; they build shelters on the ocean floors, just like how people build houses. They learn like all other intelligent animals, through cause and effect. Here is an example of an octopus exploring its surroundings and learning. I think the article also has other information that shows how intelligent they are, but I only read the top part. |
They can be as intelligent as they want. It still does not put them at the same level as humans. No matter how intelligent they are, they cannot do the things that we humans can do. We form relationships with other humans and build tools to make amazing things that no creatures has ever made before. You don't even see the most intelligent of animals making things that we humans created in the stone age.
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Fugsnarf wrote:
They can be as intelligent as they want. It still does not put them at the same level as humans. No matter how intelligent they are, they cannot do the things that we humans can do. We form relationships with other humans and build tools to make amazing things that no creatures has ever made before. You don't even see the most intelligent of animals making things that we humans created in the stone age. Now that's just incorrect. Many animals are capable of making and using tools, they just don't have the opposable thumbs we have. |
No they aren't. This is a misinterpretation of evolution; humans are not "more evolved" than any other species, and there is no next "step" in evolution. Evolution is simply adaptation to an environment. In fact, in modern times it is actually disadvantageous to be intelligent or wealthy (traits commonly-assumed to be very useful), as intelligent people tend to have less children. The intelligent and wealthy are more likely to use contraceptives or adopt, meaning their genes don't go on.