Ours are not.įueled largely by the acquisition of language-the ability to talk to, with, and for our interior self with words-we communicate subjective thoughts aloud. Their decisions, such as they are, are guiltlessly unencumbered. The animals were not burdened in that way.Īnimal cognition is a touchy subject, but for the most part they seem to live in an eternal now, their lives almost certainly determined by what is going on around them in the present moment. Hovering within and around those choices, there was death and we knew it. We possessed an interior consciousness that permitted self-aware choices, decisions, and mistakes that brought regret. We awakened one morning, so it seems, and if we did not know who we were we at least knew we were not like the animals. Just lately from the forest and after a short time on the savannah, humanity acquired a sense of self.
