What separates man from beast?
>>873516
Art and science.
The constraints of civilization. Without social regulation, man is nothing but a wolf to man.
I think it's the ability to think rationally, and to act according to reason, as opposed to only acting on instincts and emotions.
>>873516
Nothing.
'Man is a beast of prey.' - Spengler
>>873516
We've found way more ways to have sex on.
>>873516
What separates a man from a rock? We are all.....but chemicals....
>>873516
Beasts were not made in the image of God.
For all of you people who think you are just socialized animals, may you live next to cannibals who think likewise.
>>873539
This is what I'm getting at.
What is it to think rationally?
I would argue that many animals make "rational" decisions. and many humans make irrational ones.
Philosophers have said that agents behave rationally and are therefore subject to moral restraint. But what is an agent?
>>873548
We also sexualize them more than they sexualize us.
>>873563
So is it a soul that makes us man.
I understand and appreciate that definition but I'm looking for something purely rational here.
>>873530
So how can we say that a life is valuable?
>>873572
Have you ever read Freud? Obviously a lot of his psychological ideas have been thoroughly debunked but I actually find some of his political philosophy quite compelling.
>>873579
Only psych stuff. What political stuff would you recommend.
>>873576
We can't really claim life has any inherent value that we haven't constructed ourselves. What we can do is understand that the validity of constructed/attributed value and indigenous value is equal.
>>873565
Thinking rationally is a kind of way to use your brain. Animals just can't do it because their brains don't match up to ours. Ascetics are an example, they use their reason to come to the conclusion that they should fast (for example) and live in celibacy. They forego pleasures such as sex and good food even though they could get it in abundance. That's something an animal would never do, because animals aren't rational.
>>873581
Start with "The Future of an Illusion" and "Civilization and its Discontents".
Genotype expressed through our phenotype.
>>873544
I don't get it, you just posted another human quote and expect me to what... understand that your opinion is copy-pasted of someone else opinion? Can you provide some proofs or construct an argument?
>>873701
You just destroyed most arguments done by philosophy undergrads.
>>873556
You use we for the context of human societies, groups - we doesn't apply for other forms of matter be it organized or not organized.
A dead corpse will never say "we".
"we" is only for the living, and life in humans go under rigorous conditions.
>>873516
for one, the ability to accuratly throw stuff
no anmial can do this
>>873708
Pls read some dawkins and harris so you don't say such stupid shit in the future.
>>873584
I actually resonate with your definition ( not that guy ).
And I never studied philosophy, but I see it this way - man with rationality is able to look upon the table see the bread and don't just feel hungry and eat it - but rather see it understand the principle of seed being put in ground, sprouting, growing, being harvested, baked up and then the bread is there - he is able to reflect and self reflect on his condition - he is able to make decisions based on future events.
An monk will feast, pray and live in seclusion for the sake of eternal life that comes after biological demise.
Someone who wants to get rich, lives under his means, invest all the money then what remains use for minimum spending - because he rationalized the whole process and understands it.
>>873708
Holy lol what the fuck is this?
>>873724
bait for retards.
>>873726
I meant that post, not the entire /his/ board
>>873516
A greater intellect what else? Our brains compared to the brains of other animals are more complex with a greater capacity to understand our world and problem solve
Man's ability to become something other than man.
Bests only care about fucking, eating and not getting eaten. Humans sometimes bring an aberration in this pattern.
Abstract thought.
Abstaining for the sake of it.
>>873516
Humans are able to reject and fight their instincts
>>873572
It is a soul that makes us human. It is being responsible that makes us men.
the Y chromosome
>>873516
> What separates man from beast?
The fact that man can be more savage than them
>>873516
nothing. "REASONand logic are usually inflated and superlative concepts for the electrical impulses inside your brain network which respond to and come from external stimulae from the wind in your ass hair to the light and its visible colour spectrum hiting your cornea
>>873992
/thread
there is no up and down nor right and wrong. only energy in motion in the space time continuum OF THIS UNIVERSE
>>873569
True.
>>873516
Organic structure and the difference in our abilities because of it, nothing else. We are just as beastly as the rest of the beasts otherwise, and we all share the same fundamental will.
>>873516
You are a man. You can not produce viable offspring with a beast.
>>873516
The environment.
Once you break down man he becomes a beast.
In our city's and communities we are man but when pushed to the edge become our beasts.
During torture or war conditions you become you desperate to get back to your communities that you will do as a beast does just to get back.
You become a beast at times most desperate only to help you become man once more.
>>873584
>They forego pleasures such as sex and good food even though they could get it in abundance. That's something an animal would never do,
And you came to this conclusion how exactly?
Interviewing a statistically significant number of animals?
>we're fundamentally no different than animals
>but atheists still think we can have morality without God!
>>874273
>morality
>>874072
I don't know, me and your mom did okay with you.
Nothing of substance.
But the fact that we are much more intelligent appears to make a discrete spectrum of "man" and "beast" while in truth it's a continuous spectrum, just one that is depopulated between "man" and "beast".
As to why we should treat human beings differently, it's simple. An animal can derive pleasure only from a limited social and material basis while men's social and material basis is much larger (I doubt anyone will challenge me when I say a man derives more pleasure from communication with another person than a dog with another dog), he also derives pleasure from higher thoughts such as mathematics, science and the arts.
You also have the point that a man, participating in an economy, creates material happiness for everyone else while the animal can only generate happiness for others through social links.
spirit
The medditaranian.
>>875230
>Tries to make white supremacist joke
>Can't spell Mediterranean.
Set oven to broil
Insert head
>>873516
>What separates man from beast?
Nothing, humans are better than beasts at a great many (mostly cognitive) things, but there is nothing unique to humans and humans alone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWZAL64E0DI
>>873516
There is not a single human trait that isn't present in some fort in another animal species. The difference between humans and animals is quantitative, not qualitative. Our greatest traits are animal traits pumped to eleven, but none of these traits are unique to humanity.
>>873556
Our life is worthless if it's spend in the delirium of decadence. Only in the midst of battle we are truly alive.
>>873516
here is the bombshell: reflexivity permits us to see that the belief in rationality, induction/generalization/categorization, imagination, intellect, reason does not lead us to the good life.
animals are the most rational beings, but they lack reflexivity since they fail to see that the faith in abstraction to reach knowledge/truth/objectivity/reality/universality is sterile since it brings only conventions which are, by definition, always fluctuating through, at least, time and space... rationality brings is a deception and a disappointment.
the point of reflexivity is to notice the failure of rationalism, to embrace PURE empiricism, that is to say, to stop fantasizing about a collective reality, but rather to stick to personal phenomena in analyzing them.
the point of reflexivity is to make us wonder what do we want.
Do you want to create norms, conventions in order to claim that you create norms and that these norms are truths that you try to impose on others, until some people will come to you and claim that their conventions are the truths and yours are lies ?
>>875462
This.
Our high mental activity can lead us astray from what our DNA tells us to do, and we get to that feeling of being lost. Animals are more lost than us, but they are much more stable than us.
Our way of life is truly an oddity, natural selection has no much weight on us anymore since our culture got so developed. We now carry the weaks forward, and many of our deaths are influenced by our own cultural conditions, our own sub-environment that we built within Earth's environment.
>>873516
We have been freed from the shackles of living according to the order of nature.
Nothing, only that we're both in the extreme ends of the latter.
"Man is the most intelligent of the animals - and the most silly."
-Diogenes of Sinope; 404 BCE
Local sex offender and NEET pioneer
>>875488
An inspiration to all of us.
>>875595
Kek
>>875442
Meta-cognition.
>>875488
>404 BCE
I like what you did there
>>875634
Dolphins, chimps and magpies have all demonstrated meta cognition.
The Mediterranean sea
>>873516
Laughter. The ability to see the comedy in all this suffering.
>>876081
Apes and dolphins laugh at unexpected things, just like human babies.
The potential for cruelty. Nature is nature, but man is a cruel beast.
>>876029
a body of water seperates a man from a beast?
Sentience. By definition the ability to feel, but it is in truth our ability to make assumptions about the future and set a course. Animals would waddle around on earth until it explodes whereas humans will not.
>>873516
A condom, hopefully...
>>873516
>What separates man from beast?
Success.
>>876560
Divorce
>>873516
where I live, usually a crowbar
>>875462
I agreed on reflexivity, although not on your pessimist perspective.
>>873516
Traps with feminine dicks
>>877304
ha.
>>878924
I am not really pessimistic. i think that most people are here to remain hedonistic.
>>873516
For most, the acknowledgement of existence, everything else is a fruit of that realisation.
>>873516
Moral and consciousness
>>873711
...
You're fucking joking, right?
The Mediterranean sea.
We have a soul.
We are created in God's image.
We have dominion over the animals.
>>873516
A miserable little pile of secrets.
A cage.
>>873516
god
>>881369
wew lad
>>881326
That's actually quite a good one. Not just throwing but being able to launch projectiles is one of the primary things that has made man such a successful species.
>>873516
Being able to understand Being, Time and causality.
a fence
Self-consciousness.
>inb4 dolphins recognize themselves in mirrors
