I've never quite understood the anxiety to categorise us as "higher"
than animals.
Fwiw, Peter Redgrove and Penelope Shuttle suggested that human as
opposed to animal consciousness derives from the evolution of the
menstrual cycle, which liberates human sexual desire from the purely
reproductive tyranny of the oestrus cycle. As I recall, they also
listed a battery of words, such as "consciousness", and the counting
of time or duration, as originating from the menstrual cycle. As
crackpot theories go I rather like it, since it places eroticism and
love at the very origin of consciousness; and so far as I know it's
true that human beings are the only animals for which this separation
of sexuality from reproduction is a biological reality. Though I
could be wrong on that.
Best
A
>In a word, beavers. OK, a few more words--ants, bees, squirrels, birds.
>
>At 11:36 PM 11/29/2003 +0000, mallin1 wrote:
>>Just a small point, there is one important thing which does divide humans
>>from animals, which isn't abstract (like belief) - work. It is an argument
>>among historians, anthropoligists and others to 'mark' the period in which
>>homo sapiens decisively moved from reacting to their environment, to
>>planning within their environment, in order to 'control' it. However, the
>>step from animal to human hinges on this social basis of work, rather than
>>language, belief, etc.
>>
>>Best for now, Rupert
--
Alison Croggon
Blog
http://alisoncroggon.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
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