Animal instinct versus human intelligence. Who comes out ahead? There’s no doubt animals have a ‘certain intelligence’ beyond their instinct … but does that give them an edge?
Animal instinct is powerful but the areas where man excels are his brain and his mind, although sometimes we wonder about this! We associate thought, reason, emotion, and creativity with these aptitudes. Along with this, man has manipulative dexterity. He uses his hands to essentially formulate and fabricate whatever he imagines.
Finally, his vocal cords and the written word give him the capacity to communicate knowledge, exchange ideas, interact on a social level within his institutions (such as families and communities), and transmit his know-how to future generations.Man has vocal cords and the written word to #communicate, exchange ideas and interact on a social level Click To Tweet
Today, there are studies showing that animal intelligence is close to man’s intelligence. Well, the fact that animals have intelligence and emotions is undeniable, but it is not realistic to think that it is anything equivalent to a man’s intelligence when coupled with his hands to flesh out his ideas.
The magnitude of this combination of man’s brain and body is unimaginable. Who would have ever thought a 3-D printer was possible? Yet man invented it. In this area, man surpasses animals.
Brain and Instinct
Brain and Mind
|Animal decisions and motivations are instinctive. Animals are not decision makers; they are executors of an innate path that is laid out for them from birth.||Man doesn’t operate based on instinct, though he does have “gut feelings” that can direct his mind. Man is a decision-making being.|
|Animals have left and right sides to their brains as well as asymmetry for survival like humans have.
It allows dolphins to sleep and swim or chicks to peck and detect predators at the same time.
|Man goes much further by combining information from both sides of his brain to imagine, reason, understand, and execute his thoughts through creativity.
Man has invented and conquered many of the animal skills and talents that we saw in chapter 6. He has better methods of mimicry, speed, adherence, and so on.
|Animals can predict tsunamis, the sinking of a vessel, and the occurrence of earthquakes because of their inherent physical capacities.||Man predicts based on education, insight, and science. This allows him to project into the future. At worst, it’s magic and guesses. At best, it’s based on scientific evidence.|
|Animals can be cute and cuddly, but they are not intelligent for the most part. They don’t think, they react. When they are not in their environment, man has to take care of them, train them, and lead them.||Man can discover, understand, solve problems, learn, invent, do exciting things, experience pleasure, program, prepare, and give.|
|Animals make tools. Chimpanzees and crows can copy from others, including humans. Animals learn from man. They can do extraordinary things.
For example, parrots can learn a few hundred words and even participate in a very limited conversation.
Some primates are able to count and do very simple math exercises. This is often after long periods of painstaking training and many morsels of sugar.
|I saw a billboard by the Emerson Electric Company at the Hong Kong airport. Their slogan captures the spirit of man’s ingenuity in answer to the challenges to his progress: “It’s never been done before. Consider it solved.”
Another example is IBM’s “Think Different” campaign.
The list of discoveries made by people who thought “outside the box” is unending: antibiotics, the polio vaccine, the fact that light is both a wave and a particle, the theory of relativity, Fermat’s Last Theorem, and so on.
We’re almost at the end of Inventory of the Universe. But this end is really just the beginning. The beginning of the story of mankind. This inventory culminates with mankind’s intelligence compared to animal instincts. You need to be thinking about whether animals and mankind are on the same level.
Is mankind just a more advanced animal? Is intelligence just a more advanced animal instinct and intelligence? Are mankind’s emotions and feeling just more advanced animal emotions and feelings?
This post is an excerpt from chapter 10.9 of Inventory of the Universe.
The Explanation Blog Bonus
There just aren’t a lot of decent videos referring to this subject of animal instinct and human intelligence. In fact I couldn’t find one. This video reveals just how incredible the human brain and mind is and works. As you watch this try and think about: Could an animal do this, of and by itself? The answer is a triple no! There is now way. Human minds are without comparison. At 17.30 minutes watch the portion about rehearsing by visualization … the power of what the human mind can accomplish.
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