lundi 2 avril 2007

Cogito ergo sum - Cartesius - 1644

When somebody speak about an animal, he never says "it thinks" or "it loves" or "it is conscious about something". All these acts are human ones.
It's a mistake. But a very subtle mistake.
When I say "I think then I am", I actually say "I think like a human then I am a human". Scientifically, I have not the possibility to say that I think in the absolute.

It is the same mistake than the next one done by Cartesius when he says that "God exists because I have the idea of infinity in me". If I have this idea in me, it is a human idea and I cannot say that God exists because he is transcendantal.
We do in the same way when we meet other peoples with different culture and we appreciate this one by our customs.

Do we return to our first subject. There are some psychologists who learn to apes to speak or to understand human language. Some philosophs show that apes mau have moral attitudes. But always these possibilities are not very developped. An ape may get an IQ of a little child but he never become an adult human. The reason is simple: the ape don't need the human sophistication and his species choose seven millions of years ago an other way of development.

The human lived like apes in trees and forest. But they quit this biotope to savannah, and grassland. These reinforce their use of tools. Their anteriors members become more and more skillfull. To beat the beasts for their defence and for eating, the society become more inegrative. But what was decisif was the hand and not the sociability. Many animals are sociables but only apes and after them the human give all the liberty to the movement of the hands.

The animals communicate by sounds, and the apes also. It is the beginning off the speaking. But hand plus sociability were a very good way of development to the humans. It gives the possibility of a big development to the speaking and after this, to the writing. Nota bene, without skillful hands, there is no writing.

Then, do the animals think? The question is not properly asked. We don't think in the absolute. We never sit down to think then to act. If a philosoph do it, it is because he is payed for this, it is his job. He says always that he only think. But, il he doesn't eat, walk, love, or sleep, he may die rapidly. I am very sorry we don't think 24 hours a day but we always act even when we sleep. There are many acts in a day, in a a week or in a year when there is not very much thought. In conclusion, the animals don't think like we because they don't speak with us and don't say what they did when like a dog sitting on his place or a bird silently installed on a branch, they do nothing like we do sometime when we rest ourself at home or in the nature.

In conclusion, when we say that a human thinks or loves or is conscious we mus always add in a human way of thinking, loving or being conscious. For I don't want to be in a dispute with my brothers the humans, il will never use the verbs think, love and be conscious for them. But i do say that all huyman are "I", all animals are "I" and all vegetables are "I".

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