Page 6 - Boca ViewPointe - October '22

Page 6, Viewpointe October 2022
Book Review

Nietzsche & Narwhals: Dumb plant to attract it, squirrels to collect acorns for the
Is Smart And Smart Is Dumb winter. Chimpanzees send out select troops to duke it
out rather than risk excessive, unnecessary damage to
& The God Gene the whole group. Capuchin monkeys seem to display
a sense of fairness with regard to sharing with their
Justin Gregg. If Nietzsche were a Narwhal: What Animal compeers, dolphins echolocate click sounds in the water
Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity. New York: to communicate over long distances perhaps as warning
Little Brown, 2022. or just friendly hellos. All suggesting something similar
Robin Dunbar. How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures. to consciousness. Moreover elephants and many species
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. of insects a good nip apparently for the same reason that
“What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason. . . in humans do. But human beings however are singular: we
apprehension how like a God! The beauty of the world, the are the only ones with the power of mind to rationally
paragon of animals. . .” Shakespeare contemplate our own to be or not to be. Our ethical
“The beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord.” Proverbs, systems can as likely be related to their utility in our
Psalms, Job struggle rather than higher moral reasoning. All life acts
seen as related to the excessive influence of his emotions, with deception for survival and what Gregg characterizes
By Dr. Ronald J. Meyers and inability to control and constrain them as most of us as prognostic myopia, short term gains while neglecting
can and do. long term losses (e.g. climate change).
I’m sure each of us Mr. Gregg finds the answer in the science of evolution, Yet we also enjoy the gift of imagination which
has asked ourselves the the most basic materialistic science and philosophy of enables associative learning and causal reasoning
perennial question: are we our time. In his catchy and knowledgeable mind-popping (2+2=4). Animals apparently have a sense of death, they
smart, or are we dumb? It survey, while postponing his answer until the last sentence clearly do not want to die, but only human intelligence
probably depends on the of the book, he points to the common denominator of not has discovered language and finally and importantly
day, and/or our mood, and only animal life, but all life, whether plant or animal: conceived of the Supernatural influence upon our lives.
our current advances in AI natural selection, the drive to survive, propagate and Professor Robin Dunbar, in a more scholarly,
(Artificial Intelligence) are thrive as the universal life force. Plants have evolved with challenging approach, offers a slightly different
not bringing us any closer the same intentionality as primates and humans and all perspective on the question. He argues that religion is
to a definitive, clear-cut animate spirits, the glowing daisy, millennium old trees, likely the principal agent of human survival. Religion
answer. Freelance author Justin Gregg allows us to and the fearsome tiger. from prehistoric times is reflected in the archeological
speculate on the fundamentals of the human condition. While asserting that intelligence is not a biological discoveries of most primitive burial practices and cave
What is the relationship and/or difference between one process, it derives from the size and morphology of our drawings suggesting that the engagement with the
of the most intelligent men of the last two centuries, the larger brains. The difference, as we now understand it, supernatural is a very ancient phenomenon, has been
philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), is human consciousness, which is the enabler. While around even at the time of the Neanderthals. Human
and the simplest and most primitive creatures?; the he argues that natural selection does not depend on beings early on discovered the value of collaboration,
marine-dwelling narwhal, better recognized as a popular intelligence, all creatures and plants have the elan
stuffed unicorn animal for kids. In each chapter, he cites vital, which drives the honey bee to forage and the Book Review on page 7
the insights of Nietzsche’s brilliant mind, his “philosophy
with a hammer,” “truths are illusions which we have B’H
forgotten are illusions”; and his quip that “the unhappy Sabra Wall Decor
man is like a hen around which a circle has been drawn.”
Like the hen, he cannot escape this mire. He both admires
and reviles the lackluster life of the cow grazing in the EstimatEs
pasture without a thought, but also had excessive empathy
for such creatures as horses, whose suffered cruelty,
according to Gregg, brought about his mental breakdown Painting & More ...
and confinement during the later years of his life. Like his
great contemporary, the Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh
(1853-1890), whose brilliant creativity similarly can be • Popcorn Ceiling • Wallpaper Removal

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