Article from the NY Times

We Aren’t Built to Live in the Moment

Tau.Neutrino said:

Article from the NY Times

We Aren’t Built to Live in the Moment

We are misnamed. We call ourselves Homo sapiens, the “wise man,” but that’s more of a boast than a description. What makes us wise? What sets us apart from other animals? Various answers have been proposed — language, tools, cooperation, culture, tasting bad to predators — but none is unique to humans.

What best distinguishes our species is an ability that scientists are just beginning to appreciate: We contemplate the future. Our singular foresight created civilization and sustains society. It usually lifts our spirits, but it’s also the source of most depression and anxiety, whether we’re evaluating our own lives or worrying about the nation. Other animals have springtime rituals for educating the young, but only we subject them to “commencement” speeches grandly informing them that today is the first day of the rest of their lives.

more…

Tau.Neutrino said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Article from the NY Times

We Aren’t Built to Live in the Moment

We are misnamed. We call ourselves Homo sapiens, the “wise man,” but that’s more of a boast than a description. What makes us wise? What sets us apart from other animals? Various answers have been proposed — language, tools, cooperation, culture, tasting bad to predators — but none is unique to humans.

What best distinguishes our species is an ability that scientists are just beginning to appreciate: We contemplate the future. Our singular foresight created civilization and sustains society. It usually lifts our spirits, but it’s also the source of most depression and anxiety, whether we’re evaluating our own lives or worrying about the nation. Other animals have springtime rituals for educating the young, but only we subject them to “commencement” speeches grandly informing them that today is the first day of the rest of their lives.

more…

I would have thought that language as used by us would be unique to us.

Or lighting fires. That is from cold, not just moving a fire about which has been recorded supposedly for some birds of prey.

AwesomeO said:

Or lighting fires. That is from cold, not just moving a fire about which has been recorded supposedly for some birds of prey.

Agreed.

It is either-orist nonsense to suggest that we are not unique because there are examples of other animals that use tools, communicate, or live in complex communities. The extent to which we do these things far exceeds anything else in the animal world.

> We are misnamed. We call ourselves Homo sapiens, the “wise man,” but that’s more of a boast than a description. What makes us wise? What sets us apart from other animals? Various answers have been proposed — language, tools, cooperation, culture, tasting bad to predators — but none is unique to humans.

Discussing that topic in Good Scientist Cartoon numbers 22 and 23.

Half interesting read that, though are a few simplifications (I hope) that, well, are a bit stupid.

>It’s also why you don’t laugh when you tickle yourself: You already know what’s coming next.

It’s likely not the only reason, or the most important, to the extent it’s a satisfactory explanation at all, given that when you tickle someone and they know it’s coming it’s still tickly, sometimes even more so. I’d expect there are people out there tickling themselves too.

Not sure about the end of the article re the subject of death, seems a bit washed out of reality, or some details related, but it helps initiate the reader into the prospective revelation I guess.

Most death is preceded by an injury, illness or organ or system failure of some sort, and health is the prophylactic (so to speak), so it’d be a bit of stretch to partition health (so entirely) from the former (terror of mortality!). What happened to lesser horror, or revulsions, disgusts and aversions that are common. They are there, influencing individuals every moment, more transformed into something unrecognizable (even to self).

What I read had possibly more of how minds ought work, as how they really do work.

The subject of depression (what lends to maybe a vulgar popular conception) has become a bludgeon too I might add.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Article from the NY Times

We Aren’t Built to Live in the Moment

Offer not shyte from others. Spoeak for yourself