Thought for the Day “Children, only animals live entirely in the....

[Paul Whybrow]

“Children, only animals live entirely in the Here and Now. Only nature knows neither memory nor history. But man - let me offer you a definition - is the storytelling animal. Wherever he goes he wants to leave behind not a chaotic wake, not an empty space, but the comforting marker-buoys and trail-signs of stories. He has to go on telling stories. He has to keep on making them up. As long as there's a story, it's all right. Even in his last moments, it's said, in the split second of a fatal fall - or when he's about to drown - he sees, passing rapidly before him, the story of his whole life.”

Graham Swift

 

[Hannah F]

Humans are animals, and many species (perhaps most) know memory and their own history. I am a pet behaviourist, and I see the effects their history has nurtured plus the rewarding effects of new learning. The same goes for animals in the wild, otherwise we would not see learning or behavioural evolution. Some animals have also been shown to vary their behaviour(e.g. choice of food) in relation to learnt knowledge of a future reward, and what is anticipation or anxiety other than an arousal reaction to an expected future event. So, Mr Swift, we are certainly not the only ones with more than a here and now (which in itself varies hugely from person to person).

 

[Pamela Jo]

Humans are animals, and many species (perhaps most) know memory and their own history. I am a pet behaviourist, and I see the effects their history has nurtured plus the rewarding effects of new learning. The same goes for animals in the wild, otherwise we would not see learning or behavioural evolution. Some animals have also been shown to vary their behaviour(e.g. choice of food) in relation to learnt knowledge of a future reward, and what is anticipation or anxiety other than an arousal reaction to an expected future event. So, Mr Swift, we are certainly not the only ones with more than a here and now (which in itself varies hugely from person to person).

What has not been looked at is how much "instinct" might have elements of what we use the word "culture" to describe. All mammals who grow up without a group or"tribe" to teach them to survive lack the ability to function in the wild. Elephants and horses are culled in tthe wild to help "preserve" them. The older members are taken out. The result is rogue young elephants who act like urban gang members and wild horses who need to be fed because there are no older mares or stallion who know where the watering holes are even in drought and how to forage in winter.