34889Y176 Will the chimpanzees, the elephants, ...

Q&@

THE AMAZON
RAINFORESTS AND ARCTIC
GLACIERS SURVIVE THE 21ST CENTURY?
This depends on the wishes and decisions
of intersubjective entities such as the European Union & the World Bank;
entities that exist only in our shared imagination! No other earthly animal can stand up to us,
not because they lack a soul or a mind, but because they lack theme necessary imagination. Lions can run,
jump, claw & bite. Yet théy cannot open a bank, account or fild a lawsuit. And in the 21st century, a banker
who knows how to file a lawsuit is far more powerful than the most ferocious lion in the savannah. As well as
separating humans from all other animals, this ability to create intersubjective entities also separates the
humanities from the life sciences. Historians seek to understand the development of intersubjective entities
like gods and nations, whereas biologists hardly recognise the existence of such things? Some believe that if
we could only crack the genetic code & map every neuron in the brain, we wìll know all of humanity's secrets.
After all, if humans have no soul, and if thoughts, emotions & sensations are just biological algorithms, why
can't biology account for all the vagaries of human societies? From this perspective, the crusades were terri-
torial disputes shaped by evolutionary pressures, And English Knights going to fight Saladin in the Holy Land
were not thàt dìfferent from wolves trying to appropriate the territory of a neighbouring pack! The humanities,
in contrast, emphasize the crucial importance of intersubjective entities, which cannot be reduced
to hormones & neurons? To think historically means to ascribe real power to the contents
of our imaginary stories. Of course, historians don't ignore
objective factors such as climate changes &
genetic mutations, but they give
much greater importance to
the stories people
invent &
believe.






18 jun 2019 - bewerkt op 24 jun 2019 - meld ongepast verhaal
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Asih, man, 80 jaar
   
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