The Thinker - The Puzzler

A visit to the Templeton Foundation website got me thinking about similarities between ourselves and other animal species.  The question posed on the site was, “Does evolution explain human nature?”  The answer written by Simon Conway Morris, “Except where it matters,” was really thought-provoking.
    In my last two posts, (February 16 and 18), I talked about the many ways we have come to see powerful similarities between ourselves and other animal species, even very distant ones.  Many of these similarities, like tool-use and problem-solving must involve something like thought.    
    But Morris points out that we may be going overboard about the similarities between other animals and ourselves.  It’s not surprising that other animals resemble us in “thoughtful” ways: after all, we did evolve from common ancestors, so of course we share many characteristics.  Yet are the recently discovered, surprising resemblances blinding us to certain essential differences?
    The difference Morris emphasizes is our intuition for the ineffable, our capacity to ponder the awesome and the sacred.  And he points out that this capacity results from our ability to use language.  
    In our enthusiasm over teaching a chimpanzee to use symbols to communicate with us—in our amazement over a parrot’s ability to name colors, count, and say when he wants to quit working—we may have forgotten the immense gulf that separates the most human-like orangutan in the world from Socrates or Renoir or Joan of Arc or Mother Theresa.   
    What are we to make of this gulf?  As Morris puts it, “…how did we come to be so different, in fact, so very odd?”  He suggests that our leap toward cosmic truths may be, not the happenstance of evolution, but our destiny.  
    And what might that mean?  Wow!  Here come a whole lot of new questions.  But I love answers that lead to new questions—new food for thought.  In fact, this is part of what Morris is talking about.  We are certainly a puzzle-solving, puzzle-posing, puzzle-seeking animal!