The Theist - Agnostic - Atheist Poll

 

Guess it's kind of hard for me to argue in english... but at the end you answer what I wanted... the "sophisticated emotions" are debatable... so as we don't have a proof of that we can say that there are not such "sophisticated emotions"... so... we are animals... but it's very different to percieve quemical reactions to the fact that you feel something... how you distinguis one thing to another, emotions from feelings... that's my question... and other thing, I imagine then that love doesn't exist, 'cause there are just chemical reaction and by that, all of you could possible denied that you feel love for someone, your parents, wife, sons or whatever... because as I understand it, love is way much more than the "instinct" of protect the individuals of your species... or am I wrong...???

I think that every action, emotion, motivation, drive, need, want, desire of mankind is inherently natural and governed by biochemical and bio-electrical process triggered by our interaction with our local environment (be that physical surroundings or the other animals we share that space with).

 

I also think that the characteristics that define us as human have always been present in our species, and were probably present in earlier hominids in the human branch of the family tree in one form or another. One thing that is certain is that a newborn baby transposed from 200,000, 20,000 or 2,000 years ago into the present day and raised in the 21st Century would griow-up to be indistinguishable from modern man. And by that a 21st century baby transported back in time would survive in a prehistoric tribe just as well as a prehistoric baby.

 

In other words, our sophisticated 21st century emotions that enable us to survive in the modern world are the exact same sophisitcated emotions that enabled us to survive as a hunter-gather living 200,000 years ago as part of a "primative" tribe living in a cave. Since those emotions were not "chosen" because we would one day develop into a civilisation that lived in cities, used computers and went to war, then they must be for survival in Paleolithic times.

 

Homosapiens sapiens is a social animal, that means that (like our chimpanzee cousins) we naturally live in an enlarged family group or pack. This improves our chances of survival - it gave us an evolutionary advantage. It also gave us an encoded set of rules to live by, we can only survive if the family/pack/tribe survives, therefore part of our genetic code is to protect the family tribe. Love is one of those controlling emotions that stops us from being selfish that causes us to put the survival of our family before our own safety - and to be able to do that it has to be a powerful emotion.

 

 

 

Homo sapiens sapiens is more than a social animal. It is a cultural animal who's behaviors are so intertwined with the exchange of information between its members that as far as we know no other creature like us exists. (Aliens maybe?)