If You Believe In Bigfoot, Do You Believe He Is Closer To Humans Or Animals

[Guest]

Sorry........me again!

This is, if I'm reading it right, a misrepresentation of how nature is. Most communal animals are extremely hierarchical. "Pecking order" comes from birds, and who gets first go at the food, but all social animals do the same to some extent. Every single male spotted hyaena is lower in the hierachy of a clan than every single female, for instance. Every single monkey, baboon, chimp etc is very aware of where it sits in the scheme of things, who it it superior to, and who it is inferior to.

I apologise if I have missed your point, but if I haven't, be very careful of assigning charqacteristics to animals which they don't actually have.

Mike

I have been talking about the argument raised here concerning superiority, its apparent existence and apparent role in answer a question concerning the differences between humans and other creatures. I have been saying nothing is superior to another nor inferior, each are unique though connected to each other and each are equal in terms of import in existence.

You seem to mistake a group with defined roles as being a group where some are superior and some are inferior. You observe a group of primates working in a heirachy or birds in a pecking order. You interperet the roles each plays in its group as a heirachical order based on the concept of supremacy - you observe this because of the beliefs you have about life. You have root assumptions about the nature of existence (as we all do though not all the same root assumptions) and you percieve due to these root assumptions. Root assumptions are beliefs that seem so apparently fact to you that you no longer recognise they are only beliefs and not absolute facts. Linear time seems an absolute fact to you but actually it is a root assumption through which you percieve change and transformation.

It may be that primates work in a heirachical structure but heirachy is not necessarily a concept of levels of superiority. Heirachy is a form of order. Each works best in the roles they are most talented or skilled to do. It may be one is best at standing at the end of a milking cue if they are a milking cow for many reasons you are unable to percieve due to your perspective on life.

[Guest MikeG]

this is not a world of survival of the fittest, it is a world of intricate and universal cooperation.

OK..........just spotted this. You're clearly sitting in the wrong nature reserves. Go sit in the Maasai Mara, or the Kafue National Park, or Chobe National Park, or Mana Pools NP, or Ranthambore NP in India, or in the Amazon. Indeed, any extant ecosystem with the normal balance of predators. There you will see that co-operation does indeed exist, within family groups, and within herds, but it absolutely does not exist between species. Indeed, any suggestion that lions and puku co-operate, or tigers and spotted deer, or hyaenas and wildebeeste, or wasps and hornets, ants and ant eaters.......and on and on and on.......is just, frankly, wishful thinking. Even within species, breeding rights are often decided by competition, and often by fighting to the death. Go look at a walrus colony, or elephant seal colony. The big male guarding his harem by fighting, often to the death, is the only one that gets to breed. His genes get passed on, those of the losers don't, and that is survival of the fittest, without the slightest sign of co-operation. Watch a male lion drive an older male from his pride, then kill all the cubs to bring the females back into season. Not what I would call co-operation.

Don't forget that Australia's fauna, which you are no doubt thinking about when you made this comment, is a decimated pale shadow of what it was only 40,000 years ago when man first arrived. There are virtually no predators left, now (one of the reasons for the population explosion of kangaroos, for instance).

This world is absolutely the world of the survival of the fittest. To claim universal co-operation is, sorry, deeply dippy.

Mike

It may be that primates work in a heirachical structure but heirachy is not necessarily a concept of levels of superiority.

I think this line sums up your posting. Hierarchy is absolutely about superiority. It is about life and death. If the group runs low on food, those down the hierarchy starve. Simple. If a lioness tries to eat before the male has finished, he may kill her. Even though she may have caught the food and raised his cubs. It certainly is a way of bringing order, but it also about superiority. It is way superior to be alive than to be dead.

Mike

Edited February 1, 2012 by MikeG

[Guest]

OK..........just spotted this. You're clearly sitting in the wrong nature reserves. Go sit in the Maasai Mara, or the Kafue National Park, or Chobe National Park, or Mana Pools NP, or Ranthambore NP in India, or in the Amazon. Indeed, any extant ecosystem with the normal balance of predators. There you will see that co-operation does indeed exist, within family groups, and within herds, but it absolutely does not exist between species. Indeed, any suggestion that lions and puku co-operate, or tigers and spotted deer, or hyaenas and wildebeeste, or wasps and hornets, ants and ant eaters.......and on and on and on.......is just, frankly, wishful thinking. Even within species, breeding rights are often decided by competition, and often by fighting to the death. Go look at a walrus colony, or elephant seal colony. The big male guarding his harem by fighting, often to the death, is the only one that gets to breed. His genes get passed on, those of the losers don't, and that is survival of the fittest, without the slightest sign of co-operation. Watch a male lion drive an older male from his pride, then kill all the cubs to bring the females back into season. Not what I would call co-operation.

Don't forget that Australia's fauna, which you are no doubt thinking about when you made this comment, is a decimated pale shadow of what it was only 40,000 years ago when man first arrived. There are virtually no predators left, now (one of the reasons for the population explosion of kangaroos, for instance).

This world is absolutely the world of the survival of the fittest. To claim universal co-operation is, sorry, deeply dippy.

Mike

I think this line sums up your posting. Hierarchy is absolutely about superiority. It is about life and death. If the group runs low on food, those down the hierarchy starve. Simple. If a lioness tries to eat before the male has finished, he may kill her. Even though she may have caught the food and raised his cubs. It certainly is a way of bringing order, but it also about superiority. It is way superior to be alive than to be dead.

Mike

Mike what you see in the world reflects what you first believe, its not the other way around. Even though you are not letting down your resistance long enough to even begin to understand that, still even in your logic you can understand that the concept of superiority and inferiority concerns value judgements that animals who do not utilise reflection, would not make. It would be good to be able to see you open to other perspectives but I am not going to be spending hours going back and forth in discussion with you on such matters here. In other posts you have said you think you are working on fact and not your belief system, so in such a case you are not past square one of learning extended and more profound ways of seeing. Thats OK, its not your way. Still I am not going to effect your way of seeing and certainly I do not intend to go back to limited views about my world so we will need to just enjoy each others posts without a point of debate. Tis OK :-)

Edited February 1, 2012 by Encounter

[Guest]

I'm sorry, but all this talk about how Human kind is so different and special compared with our closest and most distant animal relatives is highly influenced by your modern perception of what we are.

What is it that makes us different than the other great apes ? Simple.. a larger brain.

That's it... a larger cranial capacity and the big brain that fits in it.

That and thousands of years of struggling, fighting, evolution, and learning.

Learning which is passed down generation to generation, improving our society little by little.

You think modern humans are so different and wont revert back to an animal behavior?

Let's look at just one simple example or factor- food.

Take their food away for a few days, or put them in a situation where they have to compete amongst others for that food- and watch your most civilized man (or woman) do things they'd never do in normal circumstances. Steal, fight, kill possibly- and why ? To survive....

Take normal people, some who eat meat, and even a few vegetarians- either of which would most likely cringe and turn away at the sight of a chicken having its head lopped off, or a pig having its throat cut, and being butchered.

Thing's I saw and experienced on a somewhat regular basis growing up where and how I did...

Take those same people, and starve them for a few weeks- and watch how quickly they take the knife or cleaver out of your hand, or if not at least become desensitized to the act of taking that animals life.

Why ? Because the "animal" rumble of hunger in their stomach, and the desire to live, will over power all the "civilized notions" we like to think are part of us and make us "special".

This desire for sustenance, and to survive- is just the tip of the iceburg.

There's several other examples I could use with similar results.

I consider myself lucky to have been raised by people and in an environment- that opened my eyes to the reality of life.

That meat doesnt come from styrofoam and saran wrapped encased packages.

That if you sit quietly in the woods, even just for a few hours- your "early brain" (the part that we hardly use anymore) kicks in- and you realize what your senses are really all about.

You observe the natural world around you, the complexity and seeming design and ordered existence of both flora and fauna that surround you.

If you spend as many day's as I have either through hunting, or just growing up in a secluded area in the mountains, both sitting and observing- you may start to see yourself and how you fit into the natural world around you, in a different way then you did before.

Human beings are indeed animals, our hearts beat just the same, our blood spills just as easily, and we have grown to imagine ourselves as something different or special- only as a result of the same big brain that helped us walk out of the woods, and into more modern civilizations many many thousands of years ago.

We are born, we live, and we die.... just like everything else alive on this planet.

How and why we got our big brains remains a mystery.

Aside from that, we just arent all that different from the "beasts" we like to hold ourselves so far above....

That's my feeling on it anyways....

Art

[Guest MikeG]

Art,

I couldn't agree more.

Encounter,

I couldn't agree less.

Mike

[Guest]

When you guys discover BF making fire, creating a written language, and developing a lawful society please get back to me.

At least send me a PM, Okay?

I'm done with this discussion until at least *ONE* of the advanced human survival cultural characteristics are observed. I'm not talking feral humans either.

[Guest MikeG]

When you guys discover BF making fire, creating a written language, and developing a lawful society please get back to me. At least send me a PM, Okay?

Susi, is that really your definition of what humans are? If so, we haven't been human for most of the time that we've been on the planet. Arguably, we're still struggling with "lawful society" even now. We've only been writing for the blink of an eye. Modern Humans have been around for about 200,000 years, and have only been writing for about the last 6,000 years, or 3% of the time we've existed. Are you saying that we weren't human before the Sumerians started making marks on clay?

Oh, and there are reports on here of BF having fire.

Mike

[dopelyrics]

Discovering Bigfoot per se would be a good start.

Best.

Lee

[Guest]

+1 dopelyrics....

Why i've mentioned in so many of these type threads that i dont like hypotheticals....

+1 for MikeG too...

I didnt or wont say what Bigfoot classifies as.

Actually i'm not really sure I care as of right now.

Everyone is hanging on the DNA report that is pending, and to be honest it really escapes me as to why so much hope or expectation is being piled upon it.

Where did the "meat" come from? From a guy with a story.... where's the body?

The same for any hair, tooth, or other "evidence" that's used....

A study like this to me is valid when you have the subject being tested- in a big ziplock bag in a freezer.... No not a freezer in Georgia, but a real one at a University somewhere.

They can say whatever they want about the results of this DNA test and what it "proves", but to me without a specimen to go with it- what's its supposed to prove ??

How does testing a small chunk of meat, that was provided after a questionable (although compelling) story/event, solve the existence of this creature?

Do you really think that the scientific community, and the world in general, is going to accept existence based on the word of two men, and the DNA test that followed?

Without being able to walk over and say- the DNA extracted came from THIS (see giant furry dead bigfoot on cold slab), the chances of that happening are about slim to none.

There will be some initial excitement, then the sound of wooshing air, as people realize it hasnt moved the ball forward more than a few inches.

Sorry, just being a realist....

The debate on humanity is interesting to me, maybe we should start another thread on that so we dont derail this one...?

Art

[Guest]

I'm sorry, but all this talk about how Human kind is so different and special compared with our closest and most distant animal relatives is highly influenced by your modern perception of what we are.

What is it that makes us different than the other great apes ? Simple.. a larger brain.

That's it... a larger cranial capacity and the big brain that fits in it.

That and thousands of years of struggling, fighting, evolution, and learning.

Learning which is passed down generation to generation, improving our society little by little.

Art

Art you posted straight after my post so I hope you havent read my latest response to MikeG and decided somehow I was saying that humans are so special compared to animals. In fact I have said that humans are animals (as they are) and that each animal has a unique ability which identifies it in comparison to the rest, humans have reflection which may be the human unique trait, and each other animal species or family has a unique trait. I have said that all these unique capabilities make up a fullfilled world. So no, I havent said that humans are more special and in fact have argued away from those who speak of human superiority. To be clear!

Still having a larger brain capacity does not mean we are more intelligent than other great apes nor will a larger humanoid be more intelligent than a smaller humanoid. Intelligence is an infinite aspect of conciousness and is no more limited by brain size as ability to love is limited to the size of a heart or genititalia. There are different types of consciousness and at some point each are related to the other.

To Mike - of course you disagree.

[Guest]

^^^ it was a general statement friend... wasnt in reference to your post specifically.

Should have mentioned that... sorry.

Art

[Guest]

^^^ it was a general statement friend... wasnt in reference to your post specifically.

Should have mentioned that... sorry.

Art

OK

[Guest MikeG]

Intelligence is an infinite aspect of conciousness and is no more limited by brain size as ability to love is limited to the size of a heart or genititalia. There are different types of consciousness and at some point each are related to the other.

Encounter, we're from completely different worlds. It is as pointless me telling you that a heart is a pump and not a seat of our emotions as it is for you to tell me that "intelligence is an infinite aspect of consciousness". So, I'm going to leave you alone in your world. I shall continue to respect and admire your love of nature, something we share but that we view through very different prisms. I will continue in love and awe of nature, but seeking answers to its questions through evidence. I can't get you to try to turn your prism around, any more than you can even begin to tell me what your prism is in language I can understand. So I'll leave you respectfully in peace.......

Mike

[Guest]

Yes we agree, just as I said in the post to you above - "Thats OK, its not your way. Still I am not going to effect your way of seeing and certainly I do not intend to go back to limited views about my world so we will need to just enjoy each others posts without a point of debate. Tis OK :-)"

Tis OK

Edited February 3, 2012 by Biggie
Removed unnecesary quote from previous user above.

[Guest HucksterFoot]

It is way superior to be alive than to be dead.

Mike

The lions learned that unity and working together can strip their meal from a crocodile.

But, guess who else learned that behavior. Well, at least in this case.

Then, on the other hand

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNKGUocp-Zs

there are such things as bad deals ...at least for that one individual.

:]

Edited February 1, 2012 by HucksterFoot