It's not a judgment, it's a survey

[Taomeow]

It occurred to me yesterday at a sushi place...

 

What is it that really separates humans from animals and other life forms? Not our capacity for love -- other creatures have that. Not our intellectual prowess -- I do believe many other life forms are way smarter, by different means. Not our penchant for enslaving our own -- ants have that. As they, as well as beavers and birds, have their architecture. Wars maybe? -- unusual for a mammalian species, but viral cultures, yeasts, and even kelps do have their wars. Religions? -- I've seen many a dog worship his master. Playing with nuclear energy? Bacterium radiodurans is better at that than we are. So, what sets humans apart? What, if anything, is special about us?

 

Well, food and clothes, of course. The way we prepare our foods and eat so much of everything changed and modified in so many ways. No animal bakes cakes. No animal knows how to combine grains and sea creatures and poultry all in one pot to create a paella. No animal fills chocolate bonbons with aged brandy to be served with coffee and a platter of aged cheeses from around the world. No animal makes sushi. They all eat what god, the higher powers, the alien or human geneticists, or tao herself have given them to eat. We don't. We invent our own foods. Been at it throughout our civilized history, and maybe from the start (depending on what you believe or know about how we started).

 

Then again, they wear their skins and furs and shells and scales. We wear out jeans and jerkins and togas and kaftans and sarafans. We wear wool and silk and cotton and linen and, lately, mostly polyester (not me, but most of the rest of humanity today.) We have "fashions." How we look is not how god or whatever higher powers or the meddling higher (or lower) civilization of geneticists or tao herself have created us to look. We look hip, we look cool, we look dated, we look sloppy or put-together by virtue of what we wear. We look wealthy or poor or middle class, blue collar or white, careless about it or obsessed with it, with what we put on. We walk on stilts of heels and platforms, noose a tie around our necks, and create places where we can't go unless we do. The variety of ways we cover our bodies with things that aren't part of it is endless, subject to changing and arbitrary rules, and for the most part the effort exerted has nothing whatsoever to do with a mere attempt to adapt to the seasonal weather changes. (For this, internal cultivation would suffice -- animals do that, so do trees, they change their own body in order to adapt to the weather. Not us. We change the way our body looks in a certain weather for the look, without the change affecting the body itself.)

 

So, it occurred to me that all those rumors about "judgment" when we die must be founded in a sort of review that does take place -- a creator (whoever or whatever he or she is) would want to know... what? Most probably what she didn't herself create -- what we, the species that has come up with cuisines and fashions, have created. So it's not, contrary to rumors, about our deeds and misdeeds (what's new and interesting about that? -- we're just like everybody else in this respect). It's about what we've experienced that other species don't experience. Which is our foods and our clothes.

 

I imagine it will go something like this...

 

"And what was the absolute best dessert you remember having?"

"Um... I think alfresco de maracuya I had in Peru... also those little eclairs my mother made for my tenth birthday... and aunt Sima's raspberry cake..."

"Very well. You'll have unlimited access to these from now on."

 

"And which sweaters of yours do you remember as your absolute favorites?"

"The one I got when I turned four, the soft, warm, lime green thing with little snowflakes embroidered at the neck -- it always looked so festive and felt so gentle! Then, of course, the heavy grey mountain goat wool "native" one I got in the vicinity of Elbrus, from a peasant who knitted it. And that outrageous black cashmere thing that hugged the throat but opened the back almost to the tailbone! I loved that thing, whatever happened to it?"

"Nothing happened, it's immortalized by your forming a bond with it. Wear it whenever you like, it repels stains, tears and moth for all eternity."

[thelerner]

Reminds me of the movie City of Angels, where angel Nicholas Cage asks each person who's recently died and come into his care 'What did you like best on Earth?'

 

The movie, What Dreams May Come, with Robin Williams makes the claim, only what we've created is of any value in the afterlife. Its not things, but art and love that follow us.

 

Shamanic cultures had power stories to cure and inform, we have movies; that reflect and empower new paradigms.

 

I used to think some luxuries were silly and decadent. These days I see the importance of having a style in life. Things just so, not about money, often simplicity is best, but 'a' plate or cup, you really like, adds to life. If there's a god that created us then creating a world house hold in our image to our liking, as long as we're not stepping on others toes, is not a bad idea.

[zanshin]

I think what separates us from animals is that we always think and wonder "why?." Although if we end up getting judged on our answers to that question doubt most will do very well. In the meantime, cooking is more enjoyable, an afterlife of reminiscing about meals past sounds pretty close to paradise to me.

Edited May 14, 2012 by zanshin

[Protector]

Do we really need to know we're special by comparing us to something else?

[Marblehead]

We all are animals with very basic animal instincts. We have a more developed brain that allows us to be more cruel than most animals.

 

Well, I suppose some humans could be categorized as vegetables based on their life style.

[Stosh]

It occurred to me yesterday at a sushi place...

 

What is it that really separates humans from animals and other life forms?

 

What makes us fundamentally different is our ability to abstract and imagine, to bridge the divide between the world in a mind and bring things into being., therefore we,,

reshape the environment, adapt ourselves , concieve of others as somehow ourselves.

Thumbs help , language helps ,

An outstanding ability to handle bizarre food, the ability to sweat effectively, long lives with long childhoods , minimal instincts ,broad shoulder rotation etc make us rather unique even otherwise..

but the mind is the key element.

That aint much of a surprise answer is it?

[mYTHmAKER]

As far as I know animals only eat when hungry humans are another story.

Animals are not greedy.

Edited May 14, 2012 by mYTHmAKER

[Protector]

As far as I know animals only eat when hungry humans are another story.

Animals are not greedy.

 

Do sharks count?

[mYTHmAKER]

Do sharks count?

 

only up to 10

 

http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/psk_pskf3.html

[Mark Foote]

It occurred to me yesterday at a sushi place...

 

Pass the wasabi, gee, you're lookin' swell...

[konchog uma]

most animals don't have language as complex as ours

 

but there isn't a lot that makes humanity "special" if you ask me. just a bunch of hairless monkeys babbling on about some nonsense 99% of the time.

 

some say we have the capacity to realize the nature of our selves in totality (intellect, language, insight, etc) and that makes the human form a 'final form' in the evolutionary sense. however i don't see why a dolphin wouldnt be able to realize its own true nature in totality, or what the difference would be if it were a final form too (or not), or even what what i just said means. so now i am the babbling monkey

 

yes we have no bananas

 

edit: by the infamous "some say..." i refer to mark griffin and his siddha yoga teachings which come from advaita vedanta, shaiva specifically

Edited May 15, 2012 by anamatva

[Aetherous]

"And what was the absolute best dessert you remember having?"

"Um... I think alfresco de maracuya I had in Peru... also those little eclairs my mother made for my tenth birthday... and aunt Sima's raspberry cake..."

"Very well. You'll have unlimited access to these from now on."

 

Fun thought!

 

Here's a relevant essay, from an organization which focuses pretty much solely upon humanity's unique qualities (I am not part of this group but find it interesting):

 

https://xeper.org/pub/pub_gil.html

[3bob]

We all are animals with very basic animal instincts. We have a more developed brain that allows us to be more cruel than most animals.

 

Well, I suppose some humans could be categorized as vegetables based on their life style.

 

sounds rather grinchy

[Marblehead]

sounds rather grinchy

You should hear me around Christmas time!!!

[3bob]

[3bob]

You should hear me around Christmas time!!!

 

[konchog uma]

Fun thought!

 

Here's a relevant essay, from an organization which focuses pretty much solely upon humanity's unique qualities (I am not part of this group but find it interesting):

 

https://xeper.org/pub/pub_gil.html

 

i studied taiji and kungfu from a high priest in that order. pretty dark. it caused me problems to get that close to it. stuff i couldnt cleanse myself of til years later.

 

as he said, "we make satanists look like girl scouts"

 

i was only 17 at the time so i didn't really know better or i wouldnt have done that

[Aetherous]

Yes I don't understand their attachment to dark/post-Satanic crap, their own interpretations of white/black magick, or even the Egyptian neter Set. Too much baggage for me to get involved, but I do like the ideas presented.

[Taomeow]

Pass the wasabi, gee, you're lookin' swell...

 

Thank you! How about some truffle oil? Over hamachi under avocado? Yum. Another item for the Food Judgment Day.

 

Oh, and I'm partial to nigori sake, the cloudy unfiltered kind that you drink chilled, surprise surprise. Did you know that sake (and perhaps the Chinese versions of rice liquors too, but the study was with sake) is the only alcoholic beverage that produces rather than depletes Kidney Yin? This may well be the secret of all those long-playing masters who can drink buckets without losing their gong -- or their face.

 

...All in all, guys, some of you may have missed the point I was making. It's not about "superiority" to animals -- I am convinced, in the shamanic tradition, that we are NOT superior to any creatures great or small. It's not about "inferiority" either. Nor is it about greed, Marblehead, a gourmet does not equal a glutton. It's about things one can experience that are uniquely human.

 

(No, I don't believe self-awareness, much less consciousness, is uniquely human. I know for a fact cucumbers have that. You would too if you spent a summer paying attention every day, watching what cucumbers do every day, for the whole duration of the season of their life. I planted them on an irregularly shaped little patch of soil in the back yard, some six feet away from a wooden fence. There was enough sun everywhere, but for reasons I didn't understand at first, I noticed that they all seemed to have decided they wanted to grow in the direction of the fence, regardless of how close or how far they happened to have started. So they all began moving in that direction, slowly but surely -- took them about a month to reach it -- I kept wondering why, then I saw it. The first cucumber plant to get to the fence threw a tendril over it like a lasso, wrapped it around the lower beam several times -- took it about three days -- then pulled itself up onto the fence! -- then threw another tendril over the higher beam, pulled itself up, and then threw a tendril to the next cucumber plant and helped it climb up! and that one helped the next, and the next, till they all spread themselves evenly all over the fence, side by side. Then they opened their flowers proudly, for all the pollinating insects to see, but later, when the actual cucumbers appeared, they did an excellent job of hiding them by hanging them off the fence and wrapping leaves over them on both sides. I've seen more than one perplexed squirrel sniff and sniff and look this way and that and jump on and off the fence dozens of times, and he couldn't find the cucumbers. I wouldn't know they were there either if I hadn't watched the process from the start -- not a single cucumber was visible from the street or from the yard. There they lived in peace, knowing I'd only take one or two at a time for a salad, and granting me the right in exchange for daily watering, by letting me see the one or two ready to go today -- literally moving some leaves aside as I approached so as to let me see one cucumber or two every day, here I am, I'm yours, thanks for all the water. It all looked like a lot of planning, foresight, cooperation, care, mastery -- none of it looked like "instinct," anymore than human behavior in choosing a residence by planning in advance, taking into consideration things like the safety of the neighborhood, the proximity of transportation, the access to jobs and friends -- it looked like a lot of conscious decision-making we erroneously think is reserved for our own kind. Cucumbers are absolutely sentient, self-aware, and full of complex inner life -- and so is everything else.)

 

So, consciousness, no, self-awareness, no, these are not uniquely human. But truffle oil over hamachi is.

[3bob]

Thank you! How about some truffle oil? Over hamachi under avocado? Yum. Another item for the Food Judgment Day.

 

Oh, and I'm partial to nigori sake, the cloudy unfiltered kind that you drink chilled, surprise surprise. Did you know that sake (and perhaps the Chinese versions of rice liquors too, but the study was with sake) is the only alcoholic beverage that produces rather than depletes Kidney Yin? This may well be the secret of all those long-playing masters who can drink buckets without losing their gong -- or their face.

 

...All in all, guys, some of you may have missed the point I was making. It's not about "superiority" to animals -- I am convinced, in the shamanic tradition, that we are NOT superior to any creatures great or small. It's not about "inferiority" either. Nor is it about greed, Marblehead, a gourmet does not equal a glutton. It's about things one can experience that are uniquely human.

 

(No, I don't believe self-awareness, much less consciousness, is uniquely human. I know for a fact cucumbers have that. You would too if you spent a summer paying attention every day, watching what cucumbers do every day, for the whole duration of the season of their life. I planted them on an irregularly shaped little patch of soil in the back yard, some six feet away from a wooden fence. There was enough sun everywhere, but for reasons I didn't understand at first, I noticed that they all seemed to have decided they wanted to grow in the direction of the fence, regardless of how close or how far they happened to have started. So they all began moving in that direction, slowly but surely -- took them about a month to reach it -- I kept wondering why, then I saw it. The first cucumber plant to get to the fence threw a tendril over it like a lasso, wrapped it around the lower beam several times -- took it about three days -- then pulled itself up onto the fence! -- then threw another tendril over the higher beam, pulled itself up, and then threw a tendril to the next cucumber plant and helped it climb up! and that one helped the next, and the next, till they all spread themselves evenly all over the fence, side by side. Then they opened their flowers proudly, for all the pollinating insects to see, but later, when the actual cucumbers appeared, they did an excellent job of hiding them by hanging them off the fence and wrapping leaves over them on both sides. I've seen more than one perplexed squirrel sniff and sniff and look this way and that and jump on and off the fence dozens of times, and he couldn't find the cucumbers. I wouldn't know they were there either if I hadn't watched the process from the start -- not a single cucumber was visible from the street or from the yard. There they lived in peace, knowing I'd only take one or two at a time for a salad, and granting me the right in exchange for daily watering, by letting me see the one or two ready to go today -- literally moving some leaves aside as I approached so as to let me see one cucumber or two every day, here I am, I'm yours, thanks for all the water. It all looked like a lot of planning, foresight, cooperation, care, mastery -- none of it looked like "instinct," anymore than human behavior in choosing a residence by planning in advance, taking into consideration things like the safety of the neighborhood, the proximity of transportation, the access to jobs and friends -- it looked like a lot of conscious decision-making we erroneously think is reserved for our own kind. Cucumbers are absolutely sentient, self-aware, and full of complex inner life -- and so is everything else.)

 

So, consciousness, no, self-awareness, no, these are not uniquely human. But truffle oil over hamachi is.

 

That was a most insightful and touching story about cucumbers,(!) although I don't fully agree with what sounds like your implied summation.

 

For only a Sage masters throwing tendrils into no-thing, all else is under and or bound by the One to the Ten-thousand.

[Taomeow]

That was a most insightful and touching story about cucumbers,(!) although I don't fully agree with what sounds like your implied summation.

 

For only a Sage masters throwing tendrils into no-thing, all else is under and or bound by the One to the Ten-thousand.

 

The greatest Sage I've met to date is a plant.

 

In the rainforest, they say that underground, her roots permeate the whole of Amazon, connecting all life forms and communicating with everything, and that these roots can be ascertained, you could start digging and following them and they go everywhere in a never-ending network;

 

but that she also has their invisible extensions going above and through and beyond the earth, tendrils that permeate the whole Solar system, the whole galaxy, other galaxies, and other dimensions -- the whole universe. She is connected to and is the connecting medium of all creation and all its creatures. A cucumber on acid you might say... except according to those who keep the score, in the classic shamanic preparation she's about 150 times stronger than acid, and nowhere near as pointless.

 

I've been down one of those tendrils that she throws into the no-thing, and many others too. (Not limited to live and dead things, to being and nonbeing... there's machines and semi-machines there, and things they produce -- e.g., our this-here reality is a side effect of operations of one of those, a trickle-down manifestation of its functions... the universe if full of weird stuff, ten thousand times weirder than anything humanly weird...) So, anyone says something condescending about vegetables, I just LOS... the silent counterpart of LOL.

[3bob]

The greatest Sage I've met to date is a plant.

 

In the rainforest, they say that underground, her roots permeate the whole of Amazon, connecting all life forms and communicating with everything, and that these roots can be ascertained, you could start digging and following them and they go everywhere in a never-ending network;

 

but that she also has their invisible extensions going above and through and beyond the earth, tendrils that permeate the whole Solar system, the whole galaxy, other galaxies, and other dimensions -- the whole universe. She is connected to and is the connecting medium of all creation and all its creatures. A cucumber on acid you might say... except according to those who keep the score, in the classic shamanic preparation she's about 150 times stronger than acid, and nowhere near as pointless.

 

I've been down one of those tendrils that she throws into the no-thing, and many others too. (Not limited to live and dead things, to being and nonbeing... there's machines and semi-machines there, and things they produce -- e.g., our this-here reality is a side effect of operations of one of those, a trickle-down manifestation of its functions... the universe if full of weird stuff, ten thousand times weirder than anything humanly weird...) So, anyone says something condescending about vegetables, I just LOS... the silent counterpart of LOL.

 

Agreed that "She" (as both cosmic and earthly matrix) is connected with no-thing but she can not cross all the way back over for if she did neither her nor her Ten Thousand children would be;(nor non-be) although after she gives countless eons of help and preparation to her wisest and older children they then may be chosen and ready to fully cross.

 

Om

[Stosh]

The greatest Sage I've met to date is a plant.

 

 

I dont date plants anymore , they never want to go anywhere , and act like they know everything

[Aetherous]

I have no idea if cucumbers are capable of self reflection...doesn't seem to be the case! Maybe about as much as someone with a lobotomy...probably less.

 

But of course they have life and existence. Not the human kind with cardiac tissue that miraculously pulsates on its own, but yeah.

 

PS: Mmmmm...iced coffee! Want some, cucumbers?....anyone???? No? Okay more for me.

[Birch]

Reminds me of the movie City of Angels, where angel Nicholas Cage asks each person who's recently died and come into his care 'What did you like best on Earth?'

 

The movie, What Dreams May Come, with Robin Williams makes the claim, only what we've created is of any value in the afterlife. Its not things, but art and love that follow us.

 

Shamanic cultures had power stories to cure and inform, we have movies; that reflect and empower new paradigms.

 

I used to think some luxuries were silly and decadent. These days I see the importance of having a style in life. Things just so, not about money, often simplicity is best, but 'a' plate or cup, you really like, adds to life. If there's a god that created us then creating a world house hold in our image to our liking, as long as we're not stepping on others toes, is not a bad idea.

Oh man. I just spent about 2 days going over and on and over about whether I should buy a piece of clothing. The mind-churn that went into that one.