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6
ists reason that man's innate abilities are
not as great as they first seem - and
that man is merely a mentally advanced
animal.
The Burden of Proof
So the onus and the burden of proof
falls on the shoulders of the nonmate–
rialist. The facts must be
scientipcally
established. Nothing less than rigorous
reasoning will be tolerated. To begin,
we review materialism's main tenets:
1)
The output of the human brain
- if unprejucücially measured by the
real
accomplishments of incüvidual
human beiogs - is
nof
qualitatively
distinct from the output of animal
brain.
2)
Those mental activities labeled
"uniquely human" are just the result of
improved techniques of expressioo.
3) Man's intrinsic mental abilities
are not as great as they fust seem -
they are just
barely
superior to the men–
tal abilities of the higher mammals such
as chimp and dolphin.
4) The simple capacity in humans to
pass on information from one gener·
ation to another has
at•tificially
gener–
ated the appearance of a huge gap
between the psychological and sociolog–
ical creations of humans and anima
1
s.
5) Human mental activity is purely
the refined product of evolving animal
instinct.
6) Human beings are animals.
At·e
these statements true?
1
s
human
mental activity just
t¡1f(mtitatively
-
and just
barely
-
superior to animal
mental activity? Or is the difference
t¡llalitative
and
J11ndamental?
Is human
mental activity purely the refined prod–
uct of evolving animal instinct? Or is it
something more?
Does
there indeed exist an unbridge·
able gulf betwecn the unrestrained
higher mental abilities absolutely
unique to human beings and the com–
pulsive "higher mental abilities" charac–
teristic of all mammals? The eminent
mathematician and philosopher,
J.
W.
N. SuUivan, asan example of maoy, con–
cluded that "a great gulf separates eveo
the lowest races of maokind from the
highest living animals."
But can it be
proven?
This is the question.
The
PLAIN TRUTH
What's NOT Unique About
the Human Miad
We are now ready to scientifically test
whether the human mind is fundamen–
tally and radically different from animal
instinct.
lo all fairness and completeoess, we
must first preseot the psychological
sim–
i/a,.ities
between the mental abilities of
man aod animals. Because if we are to
successfully
differentiate
the human
mind from animal iostinct, we must
real/y
differentiate the two. Not a super–
ficial, self-convincing differeotiation -
but a
real
one! To do this, we must
carefrtlly
determine which characteristics
are
shared
by animals aod humans
alike, and which characteristics are the
excimive
property of human beings.
The average person might well as–
sume that
"obviomly
human mental
activity is vastly superior to animal in–
stinct -
humans have
intelligmce
while animals do not - why all the
fuss ?" Such a simple-minded assump–
tion lends credeoce to the materi:tlist's
argument that animal and human
thought patteros lie along the same con–
tinuum! Because indeed animals and
humans
both
can have "intelligence."
This assertion is, of course, wholly
dependent on the precise meaning of
the word "intelligence."
We must recognize that word-coo–
cepts such as
intelligence, memory,
thot~ght,
semation, perception, emotion,
leami11g, au1areneu, comcio11mess, per–
.ronality, behavior, commrmication,
etc.,
are all included in the materialist's dcfi–
nition of
animal
mental activity! Sur–
prising?
N ot
to the astute materialist.
But he has also
tho11ght
about the prob–
lem. Remember, the difficulty is one of
.remantics
-
a problem of establishing
the exact definitions of complcx and
highly subjective word-concepts.
Carefully note that the above-men–
tioned mental similarities between man
aod animal have been generally
thought, by uninformed laymen and
sincere religious professionals, to be
unique characteristics of the human
miod. Now it is certainly true that these
shared mental qualities
mean m11ch
more to the h11man mi11d
thao they do
to animal brain. Of course! But that
does
not
change the basic fact that
both
january
1972
the human mind
and
the animal brain
do share
these mental attributes. There–
fore it is logically
impossible
to use
them for the purpose of differentiating
the human mind from animal brain.
To try to use the simple word "in–
telligence," for example, in any attempt
to prove that the human mind is vastly
superior to animal instioct would ooly
confuse and undermine the entire case.
Coosequeotly, we must discard aJJ qual–
ities of the human mind which are in
reality also qualities of the animal
brain. We must be circumspect in our
aoalysis. We must not be biased. We
must be rigorous in our logic.
As another example, the materialist
confidently contends that "memory, per–
sonality and consciousoess" can be com–
pletely explained as the output of che
physical braio alone. The non-material–
ist, as expected, finds
himself
on the
other side of the fence, vehemently dis–
puting the contention .
What about it? Are memory, person–
ality aod consciousoess uoique attributes
of the human mind? Or are they found
in the animal kingdom? Again, it
depends on the precise detinition of
these word-concepts. Because, for one
thing, the matcrialist daims that an
al'li·
ficiat
system of electro-mechan ical
mechanisms - nuts and bolts (robots),
transistors and wires ("computers") -
can
si111111ale
(
artiticially
imitate)
memory, personality and consciousness.
And he is right! That
can
be done -
depending,
o{
coLme, on how the words
are defined .
So if a robot and a computer can do
this, how much more the living animal
brain! Memory? Persooality? Con–
sciousoess? There's nothing here that's
unique to the human being.
Where docs this leave the non-mate–
rialist - like the traditional religionist?
In trouble!
One must reject the simple-minded
approach
of those well-intentioned reli–
gionists who are not aware of current
scientific data and methodology. But we
can not oecessarily reject all the reli–
gionists' conclusioos -
because the
httman mind
Í!
rttdically different from
animal brain
-
as will be illustrated in
next month's article.
Thus far, we have seen examples of
(Contilmed on page 47)