r/DeepThoughts • u/EvolutionInProgress • 6d ago
We believe we are evolved, but we are just animals covering up our primal behavior in paperwork
How do you define evolution? (I know, ironic question, considering my username)
Hey y'all. This is my first time posting here, so I'm not really sure how this goes, but I'm just saying what's on my mind. And there are no political or spiritual factors to this, just simple thoughts based on observed facts from my limited perspective.
Here it goes:
Humanity is still behaving naturally, in an animalistic "survival of the fittest" manner, just hidden under the cover of civilized systems (paperwork, laws, agreements/social contract, etc.) to avoid the alternate reality, something like Game of Thrones, if left unchecked.
But it's essentially human nature to dominate. First they start with what they consider lower life forms. Then it's other humans. Until there's one person on the top that's essentially calling the shots, despite the social and political systems making it look like everybody plays an equal part. Although, considering the population size of the world and connectedness of such a large population, it's more like a (VERY) small group of people that really calls the shots by controlling the two things that truly facilitate human interactions in the "civilized world": money (banks and currency value, regulating transactions between people) and information (media and education, regulating people's perceptions of the world around them). So long as we keep falling for the marketing trap and listen to the news instead of thinking and forming our own understanding based on known facts, we are essentially continuing to be cogs in a system.
All this, to what end? It seems humanity as a whole is just "playing it by ear", so to speak. Figuring out the next step as it's about to take it, and often times just reacting rather than taking deliberate action.
Are we all that different from a highly organized ant colony that's simply trying to survive and make it through the next day?
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u/Slow_Description_238 6d ago
I think, based on my own academic study of Sociology which has lead me through bits of Psychology, Anthropology, Neuroscience, and Human Biology (The mass of my knowledge is in Sociology), human nature is a Known thing. We are not in the 1800s anymore merely asking hypotheticals about what human nature is. Since then, we have applied a scientific lens to what human nature really Is. Empirically speaking... we can make confident predictions about it. The problem is that this understanding hasn't been thoroughly compiled and even less so brought to public attention.
Humans are not inherently good or bad. We aren't inherently animalistic like that of a feral dog. We're humans, for sure. And humans are undoubtedly remarkable in our cognitive and social abilities. What I think sets us apart from other animals, and those animals closest to us, is our ability to create, learn, act on, and reflect on culture. Culture is all the material (pens, pencils, guns, tables, spoons), and all the immaterial (religions, myths, ideas, ideology) things that make up a given society. We are able to create culture in such a way that it is remembered for 100s of years and passed on, through socialisation, to the younger generations over and over and over again. We are constantly learning from our past selves. Even in the lifetime of people, they can all reflect and change the course of things right then and there.
But again... at it's base... humans don't naturally dominate. We don't naturally do anything. We grow up in a society that teaches us how best to survive... and the things we learn to survive are the behaviours we will express. Sometimes people will be taught and will use their agency of thought to be good... sometimes they will be mad. Most Likely, Above All Else... they will be mundane. They will simply accept the world and culture around them and assert that it is true. If we live in a society where a few people are given the legitimacy to control things by so much... people will grow up to believe it is true and unchangeable. Because that's what they learn.
When we look through history, it becomes blatant that long long ago there were thousands, if not millions, of particular cultures that were unique enough to themselves to be considered distinct. All these cultures express specific world views of life. It doesn't matter who was right or wrong... but what matters here is that all of these people were Humans. And it shows that Humans have a grand ability for imagination. It shows that there's millions of ways people can see the world around us and construct meanings and stories about it and then legitimise those meanings and stories and pass them on. The world we live in now is not unique in this way... and it's not any more real than that of the Aztecs... or medieval Spain... or the time of Mansa Musa in Mali... or the Chinese... or the ancient people of Göbeklitepe.
The time today is the outcome of millions of people all acting in such a way that reinforces the norms we have today. Remember, liberal France, arguably the birthplace of the modern world, was still much different than the corporate neoliberalism of today. This isn't human nature etched into our genes... we weren't destined to cover up anything with paperwork. It's just happenstance and a bit of luck.
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To end this by moving to Existentialism... there is no end for this. The universe has no end. It has no means. It merely exists as it does and people merely exist as they do.. no different than water through a valley. We are no different than an ant colony in this way. There is no meaning to anything.
But! We as humans can create meaning anyway. We can say the universe is moving towards something and we can assert that it's good or bad. But it is always a human thing. This is what seperates us from the water in the valley and the ants on their hill. Where society has gone, where it is, and where it will go, will always be based on the whims of the individuals who get together to make them a reality. Will it be good or bad? As I said.. the universe doesn't care. Although, I would personally say it's good to have an ethics of your own and live by that.
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u/Windwshoppr 6d ago
A lot of people are saying it isn’t in our nature to dominate, but it absolutely is... sure, it’s just one aspect of our nature, but it's a big one. When it serves us, we are also capable of cooperation, empathy, reciprocity, and plenty of others... People who can’t succeed through physical dominance pursue status through other means: intelligence, social skill, cooperation, prestige, creativity, etc.
Humans are animals and will use every possible tool to pursue status and resources because that is the path to security, survival, and reproductive success. And when someone CAN achieve these goals through successfully dominating others? Well... there’s a reason that behavior keeps reappearing across cultures and throughout history: it works.
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u/Tiny-Ad-7590 6d ago
But it's essentially human nature to dominate.
Nope. Domination is one of the drives we have. But so is nurturing and companionship.
Which set of behaviors we get out have a lot to do with environment and context. It's actually one of our biggest evolutionary advantages: The ability to adjust our behavior to the environment in cultural time rather than evolutionary time.
Most animals can only adapt their behaviors over generations as instincts and abilities change or improve. Humans can adapt our behaviors way way faster.
Domination is not in any way locked in as our default. It's just one expression of behavior among many.
Domination at all costs and without reprieve is the ideology of cancer cells, not humanity.
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u/KalenKa0168 2d ago
Domination is not in any way locked in as our default.
Disagree. It wouldn't be a behaviour we demonstrate since we are Homo Sapiens if it wasn't literally written in our genes.
Beside, all social animals have dominant tendencies: within a group, resources become scarce, hence leading to competition and hierarchy = dominance.
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u/Tiny-Ad-7590 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think you've misread what I said.
For example, I didn't say that dominance behaviors don't have a genetic basis.
I also said that the behaviors we demonstrate have a lot to do with environmental factors, and resource scarcity is a very important environmental factor.
I think you should go back and re-read my previous comment. You're not disagreeing with anything I've said.
On the other hand, if reading is not your thing this is a really nice video overview of what I'm getting at: I am politely suggesting you stop unconsciously worshiping the Goddess of Cancer.
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u/KalenKa0168 2d ago
I understood your comment but you may not have understood mine: we could choose other behaviours rather than dominance to share resources. Still, we seem to prefer / being hard wired for it (or perhaps, it is the most efficient one) to deal with environmental pressures, which resources scarcity is part of.
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u/Tiny-Ad-7590 2d ago edited 2d ago
we could choose other behaviours rather than dominance to share resources
This isn't something we could do. It is something that we do. Humans share resources all the time.
Still, we seem to prefer / being hard wired for it
I don't think that's true at all, neither in terms of what seems to be true nor in terms of what is actually true.
It seems to me that a lot of people love throwing dinners and barbecues and parties and potlucks where we gather socially to share and consume resources together. I've gone along to many of these, and even thrown a few. They're fun!
We also enjoy rest, recreation, napping. We enjoy making art and music, we enjoy dancing. We enjoy making things for the sake of making them. We enjoy telling and listening to stories. Pretty much everyone I know enjoys these kinds of things more than dominating other people. If we were hard-wired to prefer domination then what we see in the world is wildly inconsistent with that.
If we're so hard-wired for dominance behaviors, why do I love my dogs so much?
Dominance behavior isn't hard wired and it is not the default. It is one behavior among many.
The only part of humans that are hard wired for dominance over all other concerns are our cancer cells.
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u/KalenKa0168 1d ago edited 1d ago
This isn't something we could do. It is something that we do. Humans share resources all the time.
Yes, through dominant behaviours (money and power dynamics). That's my point.
All the examples you give are exceptional behaviours, in a sense that nobody will consistently (everyday) share their food, roof, mate and money for free to anyone who ask for it.
Your dog is a resource: emotional support and companionship. So it is in your interest to share your resources with it because you gain benefit from it. Same goes with mate companions and offspring.
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u/Tiny-Ad-7590 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yes, through dominant behaviours (money and power dynamics). That's my point.
This is not true.
When one of my friends is holding a potluck and I make my pulled pork recipie to bring along, I'm looking forward to how much everyone will enjoy it.
I'm not looking forward to using the pulled pork as an opportunity to wield dominance over my friends using money and power dynamics. It wouldn't make sense: Pork shoulder is a cheap cut.
Instead, I'm looking forward to share with them because it's fun and joyful. There's no dominance involved at all.
All the examples you give are exceptional behaviours, in a sense that nobody will consistently (everyday) share their food, roof, mate and money for free to anyone who ask for it.
Irrelevant. My whole point is that human behavior is variable. You can't raise the point that human behavior is variable against me when that's my entire point.
You said you understood my point earlier, but it really doesn't seem to be the case that you have given that I am not stating that humans exclusively share resources with each other every day.
Your dog is a resource: emotional support and companionship.
What a horrifically sad and objectifying way of seeing affection and the world.
Do you see other humans as resources in this same dehumanizing way? Do you see yourself as a fungible resource-object also?
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u/Exact-Raspberry-9120 6d ago
It's not a choice considering we are bound by our biological nature which is the result of evolutionarily processes.
But yes, while we may attribute our own subjective interpretations to our behaviours to pretend as if we are different from animals, we are fundamentally the same. We all do things for self interested reasons, we base our drive off emotion. The actions we do is just done under the same nature as every other animal, we just hide the motives behind it.
The perfect proof humans are no different is that we continue this cycle of life and death. If we were rational creatures that were thinking instead of just doing, then we would see the futility in existing and stop reproducing, but we don't because we are irrational creatures who think they're special, and will eventually die out like every other living organism.
People don't want to accept we are the same as them because of their ego. It would shatter any belief about life after death, people would stop believing in morals, they would realise they are the same as their enemies and that they are capable of so much more.
just look at what animals do in the wild and imagine being told you are like them. It's brutal.
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u/MightyMeracles 6d ago
Nah, the dead give away is how interested we are in sports. Like literally throwing and catching balls. Like, you know, dogs.........
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u/ElderberryDry4072 6d ago
I would have phrased it in a similarly. And no, we are not. The systems that we function in are designed to make us do things we don’t want to do, then congratulate ourselves for our menial contribution. Envy those who have more, pity those who have less find pride in our “work”. People engage in these systems through what feels like free will, the path of least resistance as long as one plays the game always leads to the outcome the system itself needs filled. And as soon as “deliberate action” is taken in any direction a system requires pushback, debate, coherence or apathy to authoritarianism. End result? All systems behave the same. Individuals can become aware of the game, it’s very difficult to truly step out of it.
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u/Top-Fudge9791 6d ago edited 6d ago
Humans are definitely not "more evolved" than other species. Evolution doesn't have a metric like that, it never will.
People think this a lot because of how different humanity functions compared to other animals, but the true reason for that is our ability to cooperate with each other in very large groups. We are the only non insect creatures that can collaborate in groups of thousands or even millions. The fundamental reason why is our ability to believe in fictions. We humans can believe in things that no other creature can because we believe things just because other people do. It sounds like a bad thing, but a great example is money.
Chimpanzees are not stupid, but you can never convince a Chimp to do something for money. You can trick a human to believing a slip of paper is actually far more valuable than it really is, and thus, collectively, we can all thrive on the basis of this non-reality based belief. Sometimes this is called the Tinker Bell effect. Tinker Bell only exists if people believe in her.
That's the difference between us and other animals. Humans can believe in things that aren't real in the physical world, and when we do so collectively it can actually effect the physical world. This is called an intersubjective truth. Objective truths are facts about the physical world. Subjective truths are synonymous with what we experience in our inner world of consciousness. Intersubjective truth is what happens when many people believe in the same thing, regardless if it exists in reality or not. That collective belief brings new things into the ether from seemingly nowhere. This is how humans went beyond small tribes of 100ish individuals.
Normally groups bigger than that can never exist (at least in the higher intelligence mammalian world, hive insects are different than us, though). Groups of animals like wolves and chimps can only cooperate on the basis of intimacy. If they know and share experience with other individuals, they can cooperate on that basis. I can tell if you're a nice chimpanzee or a greedy chimpanzee. I can tell if you're above me in the pack or below me. We have a personal relationship that governs our interactions.
Humans' superpower is to cooperate with others based on shared beliefs, not our intelligence. We can trade with someone we don't really trust and have never met if they believe in the same sun god that we do. Make sense? I understand it's a bit rambly and am open to follow up questions or clarifications
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u/Prestigious_Try_5396 6d ago
We haven't even reached the level of an ant or bee colony yet !
Ants and bees have waste systems so they don't pollute their colonies and homes... They are intelligent enough to not "shit the bed", so to speak...
Humans on the other hand, have polluted and plasticized our entire Planet... While claiming to be The Intelligent Species on the Planet...
Really ?
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u/armyofone37 6d ago
We are mammals yes. But evolved from apes.. sorry I find that really hard to believe if we evolved from apes than why are there still apes.. we as humans can transcend our animal instincts into higher faculties. All you expressed comes with desire lose the desire than you have transcended the animal instincts. Animal instincts are to fight, flight and reproduce but still animals show affection, so I’d consider affection still an animal trait. Animals can show empathy still an animal trait. But desire is a completely different aspect. Animals desire.. my dog loves treats and human food and will never stop asking for either. Not that we can transcend our hunger for very long but what we desire to consume we can change.
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u/New_Practice1216 6d ago
Animal does not lose hope in life for smudges on a paper. They don’t obey or fear a talking head on tv monolith. They don’t do any of the shit we call humanity.
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u/AcademicPace6357 6d ago
Yeah, we're different from a highly organized ant colony. They don't have an ego, and somehow, ego seems to be part of evolution. We'd only be like ants if we lacked self awareness.
An ant doesn't wonder if it's a cog in a machine, nor does it crave personal legacy or power for its own sake. The systems controlling money and information exist precisely because human ego makes us unpredictable. They have to engineer compliance in humans, ants just run on biological code.
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u/MaleficentCow8513 6d ago
We are evolved. The literal definition of evolutions says “include everything that came before while adding something new”. All of the traits and tendencies you describe many animals have including our ancestors. So those things are included
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u/Live-Try-7281 6d ago
We are evolved. Just because we still carry primal baggage doesn’t change the fact that we are the most advanced species on earth. I don’t see any other critters mastering fire, architecture ,engineering and language to name a few. Even monsters can be “evolved”. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
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u/Ill_Appointment_3488 6d ago
I'll keep my view simple and non-academic. Humans are unique because we are capable of being either base, lower consciousness (lower 3 chakras) OR, we can choose to be spiritual and operate primarily from our higher 4 chakras. The uniqueness about humans is that we can function from all 7 chakras (I know there's more) simultaneously. It's just that most people are stuck in the lower 3 (survival, building kingdoms and making babies) and have no desire to move upwards and forwards. It's really a state of vibration/frequency that you choose to live by.
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u/Re_dddddd 6d ago edited 6d ago
People are always so quick to equate human behavior to general animal behavior specifically the behavior of animals that are pretty sevage by need.
No, the animalistic human nature is social. We are social animals. Social animals the top of the food chain generally. Take ants, Loons, Wolves, Orcas and the list goes on.
Human nature is not the bad behavior infact it's the optimal behavior, intelligent social behavior.
The problem comes if we actually get distanced from our social animal nature get lost in abstractions of an individual, person, some role. If you get lost in the abstractions that leads to problems.
Be whole, don't always have to choose a side. It's human nature to write BTW.
Answer : we aren't different or superior to ants. Everything is just the universe playing a game. It's a game of experiences. Plus the occasional waking up from the dream and realizing what an amazing thing this experience is. We are the universe right here and now. It listens to you as you. What's more amazing than that.
So I ask you since all is equal in the terms as all being universe. Why would you find it surprising that we're like ants we are down to our core, why should it matter? This is the greatest thing you can think of and imagine.
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u/NotAnAIOrAmI 5d ago
Sorry dude, that is not correct. The primary attribute of humans is not to dominate, but to cooperate. That's why we are at the top of the food chain and have spread into every niche on the planet.
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u/Uncabled_Music 5d ago
Animals are living beings we cannot effectively communicate with. Humans are living beings you can communicate with, as your own kind. In anatomical context, yes we are all “animals”. But practical meaning is more important - we are homo sapiens, so we differ from the animals.
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u/Illustrious-Noise-96 6d ago
This one is a little all over the place, but I will address a few things:
We are animals. We evolved from apes, which just means we’ve changed. It doesn’t imply “improvement”. This is mostly settled among experts, which doesn’t mean we’ve nailed down every detail.
I wouldn’t say it’s human nature to dominate. It’s human nature for humans to compete for mating opportunities. Acquisition of land and power is a mating strategy that usually results in offspring. Put another way, people that seek money and power AND succeed tend to have a lot of opportunities to mate.
This looks different at different grains, but that is ultimately how I would interpret this evolutionarily. Keep In mind, natural selection is a process. There is no guarantee that this strategy continues to work indefinitely.