1 bax unit 1
THE appearance OF RATIONALITY
We are animals, but we have something that makes us totally different from all others: the ability to reason. Now, when does it arise? How do we begin to reason? Why? What is the function of reason? With
With regard to the first question, it seems that everything begins about five million years ago. The land undergoes an important climatic change that modifies the habitats of many animals that lived adapted to them. This change transforms in very little time great extensions of forest and forest in others more similar to the present savannahs. Many animals are forced to migrate to more favorable areas for life. 5 million years ago there were still no humans on earth. On the other hand, a species now extinct of "monkeys" lived perfectly on the treetops. Climate change forced them to adapt or perish. But if climate change was deforesting the forests they inhabited, how could they survive?
We come to the second and third questions: how do we begin to reason and why? Changing habitat was a necessity for survival. With that, the "monkey" was forced to move from the treetops to the ground. This meant losing the precious safety and thus being exposed to predators. But they were animals that, faced with such a rapid change, had no natural defenses to succeed in this new medium: no claws, no feathers, no shells, no escape capability.
It seems that what was adapted was his brain and that the operation of the same based on endorphins contributed to it. It is therefore not a physical adaptation, but a mental adaptation. This mental adaptation allowed him, for the first time in history, to perceive reality as a chaos that demanded to be ordered, that is, to be endowed with meaning. To order is to make sense of things because only then is it possible to know what to take. Therefore, we began to reason to adapt mentally to the demands of the new habitat because we had to survive. The "monkey" thus began the first steps that would make him human. Regarding the last question, reason works by ordering reality. This means that the first human re-presents (re-present) within his mind the reality that exists outside of it, attributing artificial (created) meanings to natural objects and events. He is forced to do so if he wants to survive, since the mental adaptation he has made no longer allows him to inhabit reality from the absurd, from the nonsense of chaos.
While any animal follows its natural instincts to develop in nature without questioning, the human being, instead is forced to think rationally the reality to give it a meaning. From all the exposed until now we can derive the following consequences or conclusions:
1. An animal does not ask about the meaning of things, it simply acts instinctively. But the human animal thinks reality to order it. And to think is to ask questions. Every question continues with the process of finding answers. We call this process "reasoning".
2. This implies that the relationship that animals have with reality is different from that of humans. While animals only have an environment (outer and physical reality), human beings also live, think and act from a world (inner reality, mental) endowed with meanings created by ourselves to be able to understand reality and survive in it.
3. Hence, unlike other animals, according to Ortega and Gasset we are sick animals. Unbalanced beings that continually try to adjust two realities: the outside (environment) and the inside (world) of our own mind.
In summary, about 5 million years ago the Earth undergoes a sudden climatic change that forces to adapt or to perish. This adaptation is mental and consists in that the instincts of a remote ancestor of ours are gradually giving way to a new form of relationship with reality through the ability to reason. To reason is to put in order the chaos in which the real is presented to us. That is, it is to endow reality with rational meaning in order to survive. This implies that the human being, besides having environment, like animals, also possesses world.
THE appearance OF RATIONALITY
We are animals, but we have something that makes us totally different from all others: the ability to reason. Now, when does it arise? How do we begin to reason? Why? What is the function of reason? With
With regard to the first question, it seems that everything begins about five million years ago. The land undergoes an important climatic change that modifies the habitats of many animals that lived adapted to them. This change transforms in very little time great extensions of forest and forest in others more similar to the present savannahs. Many animals are forced to migrate to more favorable areas for life. 5 million years ago there were still no humans on earth. On the other hand, a species now extinct of "monkeys" lived perfectly on the treetops. Climate change forced them to adapt or perish. But if climate change was deforesting the forests they inhabited, how could they survive?
We come to the second and third questions: how do we begin to reason and why? Changing habitat was a necessity for survival. With that, the "monkey" was forced to move from the treetops to the ground. This meant losing the precious safety and thus being exposed to predators. But they were animals that, faced with such a rapid change, had no natural defenses to succeed in this new medium: no claws, no feathers, no shells, no escape capability.
It seems that what was adapted was his brain and that the operation of the same based on endorphins contributed to it. It is therefore not a physical adaptation, but a mental adaptation. This mental adaptation allowed him, for the first time in history, to perceive reality as a chaos that demanded to be ordered, that is, to be endowed with meaning. To order is to make sense of things because only then is it possible to know what to take. Therefore, we began to reason to adapt mentally to the demands of the new habitat because we had to survive. The "monkey" thus began the first steps that would make him human. Regarding the last question, reason works by ordering reality. This means that the first human re-presents (re-present) within his mind the reality that exists outside of it, attributing artificial (created) meanings to natural objects and events. He is forced to do so if he wants to survive, since the mental adaptation he has made no longer allows him to inhabit reality from the absurd, from the nonsense of chaos.
While any animal follows its natural instincts to develop in nature without questioning, the human being, instead is forced to think rationally the reality to give it a meaning. From all the exposed until now we can derive the following consequences or conclusions:
1. An animal does not ask about the meaning of things, it simply acts instinctively. But the human animal thinks reality to order it. And to think is to ask questions. Every question continues with the process of finding answers. We call this process "reasoning".
2. This implies that the relationship that animals have with reality is different from that of humans. While animals only have an environment (outer and physical reality), human beings also live, think and act from a world (inner reality, mental) endowed with meanings created by ourselves to be able to understand reality and survive in it.
3. Hence, unlike other animals, according to Ortega and Gasset we are sick animals. Unbalanced beings that continually try to adjust two realities: the outside (environment) and the inside (world) of our own mind.
In summary, about 5 million years ago the Earth undergoes a sudden climatic change that forces to adapt or to perish. This adaptation is mental and consists in that the instincts of a remote ancestor of ours are gradually giving way to a new form of relationship with reality through the ability to reason. To reason is to put in order the chaos in which the real is presented to us. That is, it is to endow reality with rational meaning in order to survive. This implies that the human being, besides having environment, like animals, also possesses world.
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