We are animals

I'm really frustrated when it comes to a discussion about animals and feelings. Eventually someone will bring up the argument that humans are 'higher' beings and animals are not and have to be treated differently. Why do people create this clear division between animal and human? I don't understand it. If there is a line at all, it certainly isn't clear. It's either very vague and blurry, or not there at all.

I always make the cave man argument. The hunter-gatherer - is he an animal or a human? If you look at common cave man actions they are very similar to those of any other carnivorous animal. And even in the modern world, certain cultures still possess the same attitudes and actions.

Here is a video of the sand people of the Kalahari.

I don't think that you can make a clear distinction between humans and animals because humans are animals. The argument of God specifically creating humans as greater beings is very weak and has no significant basis what-so-ever. A lot of the latest evidence suggests that certain animals possess the same sorts of feelings and emotions as humans.

I have often been criticized for these statements because I claim to be a humanist, which at first seems to directly contradict the ideas in this journal. However, I tend to find a middle ground. I am humanist in the secular sense. I believe that the human is more important than the divine (which I don't believe in anyway). However, I don't put the human into the center of the universe. The human is just a life form. Surely, just because we have a larger brain with a frontal lobe and a cortex that gives us an illusion of consciousness and intelligence doesn't mean we have any right to treat any other animal as a slave or a useless creature. Life, any life, cannot be treated in the same way that you can treat a stone.

Here's a comedy clip by Armando Iannucci about this particular topic:

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Pursuit of Happiness

My favorite song of all time is the Weekend Player's Pursuit of Happiness which not-so-coincidently brings me to talk about happiness. Both the song, and the video by Dan Gilbert from TEDTalks (available for preview below) do a great job explaining what we do in order to achieve happiness instead of what we should be doing. Happiness is rooted inside of our own head and it can be called upon at any moment. Happiness doesn't have a direct link to materialistic objects, although they do influence our happiness and give it definition.

In this memorable talk, Dan Gilbert demonstrates just how poor we humans are at predicting (or understanding) what will make us happy. Gilbert is a psychology professor at Harvard, and author of "Stumbling on Happiness". (Recorded February 2004 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 22:02)

There is another great, popular video up on YouTube which really puts our entire existence into context. A look at the "big picture" as you say. The video is called "What We Are" and is a quick sketch of our world. It will serve a purpose later in this note.

In the next video Barry Schwartz talks about the idea that too much choice is a bad thing. The more choices we have - the more potential there is for us to be dissatisfied. Which is true, but I think that he draws the wrong conclusion from it. It's okay that we end up feeling like we didn't get the best choice, because in the end, the truth is that we got a better choice than we would have had had there been less choices. So in a way I agree with the ideas in the following video, but the conclusion is flawed.

This whole idea of having "the best" I think is very important. Penn and Teller did a great episode about it on their TV Show "Bullshit". In the episode (currently not available for preview online) they do an experiment where they use the cheapest ingredients to make food that looks very exquisite and present it as if it's very expensive. The unsuspecting customers think that they are getting the best and therefore they feel really good. Even though the actual food quality is awful, their mind ignores that and when asked whether or not the food tastes good - almost everyone responds with a very positive note. We fool ourselves!

We often see TV shows where guys run back to their ex-girlfriends with lines such as, "I was a fool. I didn't know what I had when I had it. Take me back." When you're in a relationship, for example, you have a very narrow and limited point of view. You compare the world around you to what you have and you look for all the things that are better than what you have. You always want a faster car, or a more powerful computer, or a bigger MP3 player. And even when you have the best one, a year later there will be a newer version and you'll want that. But as soon as you go outside, as soon as you leave your relationship, you assign a value to what you had. You compare experiences on a different scale, because what you had goes back into the pool of things that you no longer have and therefore they look enticing and you want them again when you can't find anything else.

So what should we do? Well, unfortunately I don't know. I don't have an answer. Yes, it's very disappointing after having watched all those videos and read all that text. But I think that this is one of those topics where the solution is individual. You need to turn all those options of best and worst outwards. Instead of focusing on yourself - "Do I have the best cellphone?" Focus on a comparison between the rest of the world, "Am I happy with what I have even if the average person has a better cellphone?" Well, that's for you to decide. And it's for you to decide whether or not you really want to let a tech toy rule your happiness.