virus: Abortion, etc.

John Aten (jwa@inx.net)
Thu, 14 Mar 1996 18:49:12 -0600

John Steele,

When I said that early humans created the idea of morality I didn't mean
that physicaly disadvantaged humans got together and consciously created
it. Morality came about as you said; through it's own course of
evolution. Morality undoubtably came out of the necessity of physicaly
disadvantaged humans to propagate. Early humans developed stereoscopic
vision out of the necessity of depth perception (Needed for living in
trees), in the same way as the development of morality had it's
necessity as well, that necesity being protection from stronger humans.
The disadvantaged humans then were capable of reproduction, because then
humanity was united in the struggle for survival.

On the issue of animals thinking, I would like to point out that
language is the agent of thought. Language a.) provides a coherent
structure or "code" for thought, and b.) allows us to communicate our
thoughts. Consider how difficult it would be to think in terms of
images. What image would you have for the concept of freedom? For the
concept of morality? And how could we communicate with images? Drawing
immediately comes to mind. But the problem with this is that everyone
has a different idea about how abstract terms are defined. With no other
way to communicate, everyone would assume that everyone else meant
exactly what they did, causing communication gridlock. Animal thought
can never advance until animal communication does. Of course language is
not the only factor that advances thinking ability, but advanced thought
would not be possible without it.

--
John A.
jwa@inx.net