What separates man from the rest of the animal kingdom?

Who was Joseph Campbell? What is a myth? What does "Follow Your Bliss" mean? If you are new to the work of Joseph Campbell, this forum is a good place to start.

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CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

Orangevalkyrie wrote:Just thought I'd chime in. Some studies were done with children and apes showing a preference of children cooperating more often than apes to get a mutual goal accomplished. Can't find a link to that study, of course, lol.

I did manage to find this one from NOVA about a small portion of our brain that is used to "read minds".

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/what- ... human.html

There is just not enough information to really answer this question currently in my opinion. But it's fun to theorize! :-)
Welcome Val.

Excellent Nova piece. Thank you for the link.

I love that our great ape genes are so much alike. The behavioral and emotional gap between human and ape is like the differences between fish and bird.

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Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

Cindy B.
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Post by Cindy B. »

A medieval interlude...

Andreas wrote:Not to mention that animals feel no shame for their nakedness, that is a totally a human thing.
Dog-heads, do you know of them? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynocephaly Campbell likely mentioned these beings, too, but I don’t recall reading anything from him.

During the Christian Middle Ages, three sorts of beings were acknowledged to exist—spiritual, human, and animal, and it was assumed that only spiritual and human beings had souls. Dog-headed people, or the dog-head race, ( i.e., a canine head, including barking, and an otherwise human body in addition to human clothing and ways of living) were collectively believed to live in distant lands. (No dog-head was ever met throughout medieval Christian territories, of course, yet were “known” to exist.) So a pressing theological question of the Christian medieval period was, Do dog-heads have souls, i.e., are they animal or human? If in fact human and descended from Adam, then there were souls to be saved when encountered and brought into the Catholic flock. But how to know? After lengthy reflection and examination, it was decided that yes, dog-heads do have human souls, and the defining criterion—dog-heads also wore clothing to hide their genitals as did all shameful descendents of Adam. They were, therefore, entitled to conversion and to receiving the Holy Sacraments…if ever met.

Woof!
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

Learn something new every day.

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Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

Andreas
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Post by Andreas »

Nope, I didn't know that. Interesting.

Sitting Owl
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Post by Sitting Owl »

This is the problem Joseph is always talking about: taking mythical images as concrete and factual. Yes he did speck of them, but they were mythical; they represent energies that live in man's psyche. That's what this is all about. Poor Joseph Campbell would be rolling in his grave if he knew these things were being spoken in that way on this site. And of course I don't mean that literally either; he's dead; his body is now Mother Earth, but his essence lives on through his works and those that understand his work. His Soul again resides with God, Great Spirit, Great Mystery or whatever you want to call the transcendent.
Yours in Spirit
Sitting Owl
www.sittingowl.com.au

CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

In the book, A Fleeting World: A Short History of Humanity, David Christian suggests that collective learning is the big difference between humans and all other species. We change our behavior without having to wait for our genes to evolve. We benefit from what previous generations have learned.

~
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

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