the difference
On my way back from Houston, I met a psych doctor who was sitting next to me on the airplane. I asked him what the difference was between animals and humans.
He said: "The ability to cheat."
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Profound statement? Or creepiest pickup line ever?
I second the first.
how do you define cheating? i would think that cheating consists of exploiting some advantage to obtain an object of desire. human or non-human, an advantage is an advantage, whether you're using night vision and flight to catch a mouse or using persuasion to manipulate somebody into giving up their lunch money.
cheating is a weak parameter to differentiate human from non-human.
I think the topic of discussion involved relationships. As such I believe the appropriate definition of cheating would be: "Someone who is in a committed relationship and breaks the trust of his or her partner by getting physically or emotionally involved with another person."
With all due respect and agreement to your comment, I would think this applies specifically to humans, no?
Defn from UD
I'm glad you included "emotionally involved" in that definition. I've had debates in the past with individuals who believe the only way to cheat on a spouse is to have sex with another person.
For me,it would simply not be that black and white.
because your definition of cheating is in the context of humans, it can't possibly be used to describe "the difference" between humans and non-humans.
ofcourse - deception is deception is deception. i get that.
but i think it differs in how its applied - when in the context of the definition i gave, it's deception of the human emotion/connection. sure, one could argue that we don't really know if that's what animals experience too. but there isn't yet proof that if an animal deceives something else the one deceived gets upset or is significantly affected apart from the moment of deception (does that make sense?).
i also think "the difference" is all relative - the human intellect/emotion can be described in many ways, and the psychologist i spoke to chose to do so in terms of exploiting human trust. i think this has farther reaching consequences than those of stealing someone's lunch money or hunting prey.
Post a Comment