That animal with strange behaviors that walks upright does not seem to be from this planet, I think that is what an intelligent being from another planet would think when observing or studying our species, because we certainly must admit that our behavior is very different from that of all the other species that accompanied us on this trip through space in this rock that we call earth. This situation of being so different has encouraged me in some reflections about nature and human behavior.
In the past we believed that we were the only animal with the ability to think, but as science has advanced in its studies it has been shown that it is not so. We also believed that we were the only ones who had developed a language to communicate with other members of our species, but that has also been refuted by evidence of communication between members of other species with their own languages. However, it is clear that the level of development and complexity that human knowledge and language have reached are far from the level achieved by other species and that the achievements that humanity has today have been thanks to that development.
In addition to the high level and complexity of their cognitive and linguistic abilities, something that differentiates men from nonhuman animals is that nonhumans use these skills primarily to adapt to the physical and social environment in which they operate, while man In addition to using them for that, he also uses them to create new constructs of reality that allow him to study, analyze, understand and modify it at unimaginable levels for other species. That is, for non-human animals, knowledge and language are basically adaptive tools, while for man, in addition to adaptive, they are constructive of new ideas and realities.
Something also interesting about our species is that despite the physical vulnerability that we have to many other animals, this level of cognitive and linguistic development has allowed us to become the dominant species on the planet . In addition, there is another ability, as far as I know if it is exclusively human, that has contributed to the man reaching and staying on that peak, that ability is writing, which allows him not only to transmit but also preserve for posterity knowledge acquired by the species. Additionally, even when other animals, such as dolphins and some primates, have proven to have it, although at a lower level of development, there is another characteristic that stands out in humans and is their ability to reflect on their own ideas, feelings, emotions and behaviors, which allows you to create new knowledge and behaviors from those you already have.
When the ancestors of our species came down from the trees and began to walk upright they freed their hands from the use to move, which allowed them to use them for the construction and use of tools, which according to anthropologists, is one of the key facts in the differentiating evolution of our species from our closest relatives. However, even though this ability to manufacture tools has led us to the creation of some as sophisticated as computers, spacecraft, electro-medical equipment, among others, I think that the main “tool” that has made us evolve So fast is our ability to reflect.
Personally, I have always been curious about our species, I fully identify with the phrase “Nothing human is alien to me”, because it seems to me that even when anatomically and physiologically and even in our own DNA we may not be able to tell much of other similar species, our behavior makes us very different from the rest of the animals, as if at some point something had happened that caused a “quantum leap” in our evolution. I have always wondered why species that take us millions of years of presence advantage on the planet have failed to evolve at the same or similar rate and why we do. I think it's an interesting question to find an answer and science has been asking for many years.
That curiosity about the human animal has led me to reflect on some of the characteristic facts of man and hence the name of this article, Reflections, which I want to use as an introduction to other articles in which I will share my opinion on different topics related to our species
At this point, it is important for me to clarify that this and the next Reflections articles are only intended to share my views on what I deal with in each of them, without trying to convince or get adherents to my opinions, and I say this, because I think that one of the most enriching characteristics that we humans have is precisely that of being able to think differently, because it allows us to discover that there are different ways of seeing what we are seeing, which contributes to our evolution as a species, is by that the main objective of these articles is to generate in the reader the same desire to learn about the new things that each topic generated in me, to promote in him his own reflection.
Now, what leads me to promote reflection in other people ?, As I said before, I think that reflecting is one of the main human tools to evolve at the pace we do, I consider that we are interested in issues that at first sight could It seems that they do not have specific relationships between them, but that they have the human being as a common element, it is an excellent way to contribute to the development of humanity, while we know more about ourselves in that process . That is why in my reflections I include religious, scientific, psychological, philosophical and speculative topics.
I hope that this series of reflections achieves its objective of encouraging in some readers that wonderful capacity of the human being to think carefully about all those issues that at some point arouse their interest.
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Author : Juan José Sequera. Author of the White Brotherhood family
