On Animal Intelligence and the Separation of Man from the Beast

Elephants are cool. They’re probably the second most intelligent species on the planet. Some people say Chimps, but Elephants are the only other species, that can have existential dread. They can also paint, too. It’s like a five year old’s painting, but Elephants are insanely smart.

Dogs are pretty smart, too. They can develop a sense of humor.

And there’s a bonobo who plays mine craft. But, the bonobo doesn’t build in minecraft, or use it as a cathexis; it’s more trained to do things, and then get a snack. That’s its only interest in the game, is the real world reward. An elephant might, if it could, play minecraft as a cathexis, which makes them doubly unique. Which is why you see it enjoying the zoo like a human would.

You also wouldn’t believe the number of animals that can process language, or communicate with humans. Dogs do it all the time, so do cats, parrots have been known to have verbal processing, same with some Crows and Ravens, so do Chimps, Gorillas, Bonobos. But, the Elephant is unique above all of them, because it has a capacity to understand its own mortality, and also a need for catharsis and cathexis. Like, it has an imagination, which is unique among animals, because we don’t have that recorded in any other animal. Dolphins we know have senses of humor, but they still don’t have imaginations. Not that we’ve recorded.

I don’t think any other animal, beside man, has the capacity for reason, though. The capacity to abstract something into principles of algebra or calculus. Dogs can do addition, and I’m sure some animals can do basic arithmetic, but I think there’s no animal that can do Algebra. So, I do think the ancients were right, that man is the only creature with capacity for reason. That is, as a fleshly entity. Or the capacity to take concrete principles, and reason them by abstraction to more complex concrete principles.

Which was the foundation of the Declaration of Independence, that prosperity, liberty and life were self evident virtues, and it validated the revolution, as Britain was using taxation, as a way to police communications. They were also policing the colonists, and committing heinous acts of terror. But, the Townsend and Stamp Acts were nefarious because they were paid in a foreign currency unavailable to the Colonists, and it was directed at basic necessities like glass and stationaries. But, our capacity to know such a thing is unlawful, and our capacity to reason to these principles—and transfer them down through written history—is what separates man from beast. You wouldn’t know that today, as man acts more like a beast with every passing day, and their regressions of knowledge and reason, and their incapacity to put things together and form more complex understanding.