From: clyder@GN.APC.ORG
Date: Sat Nov 18 2006 - 15:44:32 EST
Quoting Dogan Goecmen <Dogangoecmen@AOL.COM>: > > The complexity of these forms of transitions are well known, even to Marx. > (See first parts of German Ideology) I probably do not this particular film. > > But I know these sorts of films. Even birds use tools. I konw this. But the > > question is this: do animals produce their tools they use or do they just > take > them from nature as they happen to be out there? Do they conserve and > improve > them as the process of production proceeds? This is just what is so remarkable about the video of the crows. They do just this. The crows are confronted with a new problem, a milkbottle at the bottom of which is a small paper basket containing nuts. The basket has a tiny handle. Next to the bottle are a couple of pieces of wire perhaps 300 mm long. The crows examine the bottle and the wires for a while, and then proceed to bend the tip of the wires into 'fish hooks', they then insert the wires with the hooks into the bottle, pick up the little basket using the hook and pull it out to get the nuts. > > Dogan > > > In einer eMail vom 18.11.2006 16:43:06 Westeuropäische Normalzeit schreibt > clyder@GN.APC.ORG: > > Quoting Dogan Goecmen <Dogangoecmen@AOL.COM>: > > > > > Paul, your discusion is, then, just to remind us of these froms of > > transitions. But this does not argue against Marx. It become, however, > > problematic if > > you reject to recognise the qualitative difference between animal and > human > > > > labour. This is an old discussion. Some refer to the capacity of > thinking, > > others to language, other again to morality. But all these discussions > end > > up in > > asking what makes the difference between other animals and human > beings. > > Marx says humans work consciously, that is to say that they plan before > they > > > > work. > > These transitions are, I think, considerably more complex than one would > guess if one was just going on what is in Capital, but then we have much > much more biological knowledge available to us than Marx had. I am just > pointing out that the distinction human/animal labour based on > intentionality > is now regarded as untenable by researchers into animal behaviour. > > Ian Wright's old tutor Aron Sloman, has a magnificent video of problem > solving ability and tool use among caledonian crows. > Once you have watched it, you > will never again be so confident about human particularity. > > > > Human labour according to Marx comprises, then, : thinking, it is a > > conscious action; it comprises language, it is a communicative action; it > > comprises > > morality, it is an ethical action involving moral judgments, This is, > of > > course, not a God given capacity. It is a result of of a historical > process > > of > > tousands and tousand of years. Now, tell me, is there any species of > animals > > > > (apart from human beings) which plan the future, say, reproduction of > > subsistence and the means of production in the next few years to come. > > This sort of planning though, is not specifically human, it is specifically > agricultural. It only exists post the neolithic revolution. > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
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