The idea that animals/plants are lower form of species and if your lucky you reincarnate as a human?

[skydog]

I just dont see it to be honest?

 

It sounds very like the musings of someone just guessing, to me it makes no rational or logical sense...how a dog could do good or bad acts then become a human, or a worm could do good or bad acts and become a cat, also this idea of animals being more primitive or less happy in many ways I see some animals as more advanced and more happy.

 

Yeh just wondering and please if your going to respond I would prefer it wasnt just information that is hearsay from a book, that never cuts it for me unfortunately

[eye_of_the_storm]

This is what I think

 

Animals + Plants are equal to Humans (animals) and have their own evolutionary path to follow both physically and spiritually

 

I dnt think there is cross species reincarnation stuff going on

 

I think when a soul is created it is given certain characteristics?

 

I think in many cases animals are more intelligent than humans

 

It is insulting to say that humans are the peak of evolution, saying that all other life is below us

 

I would say some of my greatest teachers have been animals / mostly dogs as I have grown up with them

 

*Howls*

 

I think the closest thing to God on this planet would be a Dog

 

I think even Buddhas would pale in comparison to the love, joy, courage and devotion expressed by a dog.

 

I think humans have the ability to shape shift into animals - this has been documented across many cultures

 

Literal or metaphorical or both hmm?

 

Perhaps when spirit walking or "dreaming"

 

However,

 

The Druids believed the human race originally descended from trees, and each tree had specific magical qualities. They encoded these mysteries in a secret Shamanic alphabet, known as the Ogham, the origin of which is ascribed to Ogma, the Celtic god of poetry.

 

http://www.natures-e...tm#.ULZoOIab90Q

 

I think there is some truth in this too

Edited November 28, 2012 by White Wolf Running On Air

[Jetsun]

Evolutionary humans are obviously higher, we have a more advanced prefrontal cortex which means we have a more sensitive nervous system and are more complex advanced beings, to argue against this is like saying a basic calculator is the same as a supercomputer.

 

But to start talking about higher from the sense of a value judgement in the grand scheme of existence then things are a lot more complicated as all things have their proper place. But clearly we all put a value on things as being of more or less value., for example we all regard the life of a mosquito as less value than a human, why that is I am not entirely sure, but I feel it is completely correct, it could be that humans play a more important role in the life of the planet.

[Ish]

Well for sure there's some incredibly smart animals, from what I know about some wolves and elephants they can indeed have almost supernatural perception, beyond what we understand with today's science. I'm sure its the same for other animals too.

 

I don't think they are lower life forms, just different, maybe humans just have a greater tendency towards spiritual evolution while animals are more instinct/survival based?

[eye_of_the_storm]

More important role only in the destruction of the planet and each other.

 

Few use the higher processing ability of the brain.

[eye_of_the_storm]

What is the difference between instinct and intelligence?

[skydog]

Jetsun your post is good, I just wanted to address one small thing you said "we all agree a mosquito is less important than a human"

 

in my opinion this is powerful realisation I had a while ago that actually this is all in the mind only according to humans and social conditioning and ideas are mosquitoes less valuable than humans as value is (arguably) a concept of the mind, everything is meaningful and meaningless ok that could be another concept there are more meaningful things but again how does that make sense

[eye_of_the_storm]

Really (most) humans are just like mosquitoes

 

We really need to break this parasitic mindset / consumerism

Edited November 28, 2012 by White Wolf Running On Air

[Ish]

What is the difference between instinct and intelligence?

 

Instinct is in our DNA, things that don't need to be taught. Of course humans have instincts as well.

 

Intelligence is a lot more open, as Jetsun said about the more complex brain development of humans, its basically how you learn, inferences and connections/patterns that can be deciphered are all a part of it.

[Fū Yue]

What is the difference between instinct and intelligence?

 

Intelligence is active conditioning, based on self-reflection of the past and future right now, much like solving a math equation... while instinct is beaten into the DNA through many life times of trial and error, based on inherited memory.

[skydog]

someone was saying how he astral projected and found that actually humans are not the center of the universe and are much more intelligent than people realise, cant remember who though

[eye_of_the_storm]

Would not everything that we consider I be an expression of DNA?

 

Including ones capacity for intelligence

 

Do instincts drive intelligence?

 

Why do I have certain interests? likes?

 

I like a certain fruit or a certain type of music... where does this come from?

 

Why do I have certain drives to study certain things?

 

Why does one person become a teacher or another person an engineer and so on (are these instincts?)

[eye_of_the_storm]

Fū Yue said: Intelligence is active conditioning, based on self-reflection of the past and future right now

 

I would say this is true in part

 

Do we choose our conditioning though / what to reflect on + the result of that? I would say yes and no.

 

Why do we choose this or that?

 

I rejected my forced conditioning (education) as my instincts told me that this wasn't right

 

So which is greater?

Edited November 28, 2012 by White Wolf Running On Air

[Jetsun]

Jetsun your post is good, I just wanted to address one small thing you said "we all agree a mosquito is less important than a human"

 

in my opinion this is powerful realisation I had a while ago that actually this is all in the mind only according to humans and social conditioning and ideas are mosquitoes less valuable than humans as value is (arguably) a concept of the mind, everything is meaningful and meaningless ok that could be another concept there are more meaningful things but again how does that make sense

 

I don't think it is a concept of the mind based upon social conditioning, it might be a concept of the mind but could be based on other things like intuition, wisdom or universal laws.

[oildrops]

Humans evolved away from their natural being. How intelligent is that? Think about how disconnected you are from your own survival even compared with pre-industrial revolution humans, let alone hunter gatherers.

 

Maybe humans are the only speices that struggles with spirituality. If we could use energy to it's potential would we have learned to speak to eachother? We have so much else going on with social norms and technology that we have not evolved to use, that we can barely cope with our natural urges. In repressing most of our urges to mold ourselves into a society, we are forced to compartmentalize our spirit. Does a bird have to do this? It just lives; it will never intellecualize the soul, because her earthly life embodies it from start to finish.

Edited November 29, 2012 by oildrops

[z00se]

someone was saying how he astral projected and found that actually humans are not the center of the universe and are much more intelligent than people realise, cant remember who though

 

I agree with your original post. I don't think humans are anything better than anything else. And to say what that a human's astral experience is anything to go by is silly too. People say 'but look at our cities, we have dominated the earth'. But there are pretty huge ant nests too, in comparison to their size. Look at the populations of dust mites, there must be many more of those than us. How about deep in the ocean where we can't even go, how do we even know what is there. How silly people are to believe we are so great, we are really just legends in our own lunch boxes.

[Marblehead]

Higher and lower are subjective values and guess who is doing the valuing. Talk about ego!