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| ����������� What differentiates a human from an animal?� What quality lets us label a person sapient and not a deer or a frog?� The most obvious answer is the ability to think rationally, but what is the cause of rational thought?� Words are. | ||||
| ����������� So if a person loses words, does that make his sapience lessened?� Conversely, is a well-worded person intrinsically better than his counterparts with lesser vocabularies? | ||||
| ����������� It is apparent that words are the very basis of thought.� They embody concepts that would have to otherwise be shown.� The word "fire" carries all the connotations of the actual phenomenon of fire to one who understands it.� Our mental processes use words and symbols to piece concepts together instead of imagining the extent and implication of the actual phenomenon represented by the words being used. | ||||
| ����������� Imagine the complexity of using "be"; verbs if this were otherwise.� I get a headache trying. | ||||
| ����������� A mute does not lose their sapience with their inability to speak, though.� they still have sign language and the ability to write, and thus also compose their thoughts of symbols. | ||||
| ����������� What happens, though, to a person with brain cancer who begins forgetting common words as the disease eats at the language centers of the brain?� Is it ethical to treat one who has no humanity as an animal?� What would the public outcry be if brain cancer patients were used automatically in lab tests and for transplants of viable organs? | ||||
| ����������� The outcry would be deafening.� But if the subjects possess no sapience, what then is the difference between them and animals?� All but a few of us believe that the deaths of a few lab rats are inconsequential if it benefits mankind.� What makes a human with the humanity of a lab rat more deserving of an extended life at the expense of science and medical technology? | ||||
| ����������� Some people would answer that a soul is what sets man above the animals and is why the incapacated human deserves to live.� Those people are fools, yet they deserve a better refutation than that. | ||||
| ����������� Just as many behavioral psychologists dismiss the idea of the mind as something with no proof or physical manifestation, thus can the should be dismissed unless one uses poetic allegory.� I would say that words and thought are the manifestation of the soul, if there is such a thing, thus linking mind and soul as concepts with the same meaning.� If someone doesn't show the manifestations of the soul, then it must not be present.� | ||||
| ����������� Also, let us not forget that the Church excommunicated a plague of locusts, thus damning their souls to eternal torment.� It seems that the definition of the word "soul" has changed over the years; otherwise we could experiment with cognizant humans along with animals, as both possess souls.� | ||||
| ����������� If not words, then what makes humanity higher than animals? �I have provided a feedback box at the bottom of the page for your comments.� I would really like to know what everyone else thinks about this. Just type "Words" on the subject line, and I may put your thoughts on this page. | ||||