Smart Animals
One aspect of
Hinduism that I’ve always found questionable is the belief that humans are the
pinnacle of evolution (in the climb towards God, not in the Darwinian sense).
Here are my problems with that: How does one compare different species? In what
way can someone say that a cat is more (or less) “evolved” than an octopus?
But wait a
minute. Doesn’t science do something similar, in ranking some animals as
“smarter” than others? Like chimps and dolphins? Personally, I don’t agree
those rankings mean anything either. After all, as Jessica Love pointed out in “Are
You Smarter than My Cat?”:
“A limiting factor for tool use—the
smoking gun of animal intelligence—may well be physical dexterity: the dumb,
lucky ability to clamp or poke or push things around with some precision.”
Going a step
further, Love points out that questions have been raised about applying the
same IQ tests across different human cultures. Those questions resulted in “culturally
neutral” tests to be devised involving geometric puzzles instead of “culturally
encrusted words”. But that just raises a different question, says Sarah
Judkins, a clinical psychologist at Gonzaga University:
“Just which aspects of intelligence are
being tested with a completely nonverbal test?”
So I agree with
Love that:
“We should recognize that whatever
ranking system we impose—to live with ourselves and with the havoc we are
wreaking on the rest of the animal kingdom—is pure folly.”
Perhaps Jamie Condliffe
was right in pointing out that we
humans are as dumb as the “unevolved/dumb” cat:
“If you've ever teased a cat by waving a
laser pointer around on the floor and watching it chase the red spot around the
floor, you'll know animals can seem pretty dumb. But don't for one second
assume that you're a higher form of intelligence. Don't think you're kidding
anyone into believing that you're actually taking in all those Twitter feeds,
Facebook status updates, news stories, images and videos that whizz past your
eyes. You're just another dumb animal, amused by light chasing across your
retinas.”
Regarding categorizing and classifying animals (or even human species) smart or dumb, I can agree with your line of argument. Our conclusions will be due to our own prejudices.
ReplyDeleteRegarding evolution, many people endorse Darwin's approach, later improved upon by others. I know that Semitic religion was once opposed to the idea of evolution and today has no idea how to reject scientific evolution principles because religious faith is no longer under their the Church's control. The Christian world refuses to subordinate to blind faith. Very good.
Now coming to your take on Hindu evolution principles, which you have referred as, "One aspect of Hinduism that I’ve always found questionable is the belief that humans are the pinnacle of evolution (in the climb towards God, not in the Darwinian sense)", I have something to say.
Firstly I am glad you stated that in the Hindu (to be specific Sankhya, within it) approach, evolution is about climb towards God. I agree it is questionable because God's existence itself is questionable. Fair enough. However, a rationalist has this difficulty in countering the Hindu idea of evolution. It goes like this: Let's assume God exists. If so, then God has no option but to be the ultimate of all things imagined and not imagined. Some kind of Omnipresent, Omniscient and Omnipotent. We need not take up specific descriptions of God and analyze them. God has to be the most supreme, else the God proposal becomes silly and invalid. God would be no more than a very powerful politician. That is nothing and that kind of God needs to be discarded.
Hence logically speaking, God-realization has to be the greatest possible thing in the universe for any being. It follows that evolution (as per Eastern mysticism) is continuous movement towards that. To use the popular word, the 'goal of evolution' (in the Eastern mysticism evolution has a purpose) is enlightenment. [Please note that in Hinduism the word for evolution is simply something to the effect of change. Parinama is the word. Everything, according to Sankhya, proceeds from something Changeless. Having done continuity of changes ends up in regaining what everything came from - the Changeless. The word for this Avyaktam, the undifferentiated. All these, expressed in much greater detail and precision, are not contrary to proper ways of reasoning if God is true. For anyone who dismisses God, parinama is invalid I agree, but if anyone believes and wishes to be rational then Sankhya idea is the best choice.
I would like to further add that Sankhya is pretty good in offeirng something close to modern Western sciences because itself is atheistic. It refuses God, a governor of the universe. Nature, according to Sankhya is self-regulatory.
Your point that religion, to be specific Hinduism, considers "man alone is at the pinnacle of evolution" is incorrect. Your interpretation does not conform to the Sankhya principle. Here again the approach stands to reasoning in Sankhya. Since the goal of parinama (approximately evolution) is God-realization, it grants that even the lowest worn has the potential for it. There is higher chance for the manifestation of that potential in a more evolved species. This refutes man being at the top on simple grounds. Sankhya has objection to God-realization possibility in some members of an alien society in Andromeda galaxy, for example! They are evolved - period. Sankhya has no objection to some member of any earthly animal (other than human) to reach God-realization. The potential is there in all species, and the realization can occur occasionally. It is not against the law. The probability for this is slanted more favorable for the humans. That is all Sankhya has to clarify on this matter.
Finally it would all come to the same thing: the eternal debate between the atheist and the theist! Let is go on and on.