662. Oliver, The Alleged Humanzee

662.  Oliver, The Alleged Humanzee

I have been watching this documentary:
http://documentaryheaven.com/oliver-the-chimp/

At first I suspected it to be a hoax, but after some googling, Oliver's peculiarities as shown seem to have been genuine.   But my curiosity to find out more was disappointed.   

His having the same number of chromosome as chimpanzees has been accepted as sufficient evidence to declare him as a genetic chimpanzee in spite of considerable genetic differences.   

After Oliver's death in 2012, the owners of his carcass cremated him and refused any scientific research on his body.  

http://www.friendsofanimals.org/news/2012/june/the-life-and-times-o.html 

The people in the sanctuary do a good job protecting animals, while they are alive, but this does not justify to boycott scientific progress by impeding research on dead animals' bodies.  

I found some more sources, but I cannot know, how much is based upon evidence, and how much is legend, rumor and hearsay.  

Other bipedal chimpanzees are mentioned:
http://www.bigfootencounters.com/creatures/oliverabilene.htm

According to this source, there are several unrecognized and unexplored species of apes in Africa:
http://www.mid-americabigfoot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=3838

So my comments and speculations are only based upon the video showing Oliver.   By both his looks and his bipedalism, he is remarkably different from regular chimpanzees.   But he does not appear to me as a half-breed as would be a first generation hybrid, but more like 3/4 or even 7/8 ape.     With mules, this is at least not impossible:

"A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse.[1] Horses and donkeys are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes."
"A few female mules have produced offspring when mated with a purebred horse or donkey."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule

"the genetic difference between humans and chimps is less than 2%"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolutionary_genetics

Therefore if a man had raped or otherwise abused a female pet chimpanzee, the result could have been a hybrid daughter, who mated with a chimpanzee and become the mother or even the grandmother of Oliver.       

If Oliver really had a human ancestor, if indeed human-ape hybrids are feasible, then this is one more indication, that defining what is human cannot be merely based upon genes, but a distinction by other criteria is required.    

 

The unique human cognition justifies specific privileges, because humans can discriminate between appropriate and inappropriate targets of their behavior.    

 

A hungry lion hunts anything, he does not distinguish between antelopes and humans.   He has not sufficient cognition to know, that if he would only hunt antelopes and never humans, he could be tolerated and left in peace.  A lion is not fit for the privilege to be allowed unlimited liberty.    

But a human hunter can know by his cognition, that he can hunt deer in a limited area without consequences, while sheep on a meadow or the deer in another tribe's territory are no suitable targets for a hunt.   

Therefore the question, who is human, is also the question, who gets the privileges only reserved for humans.   

There is an unfortunate fallacy.   While privileges reserved for humans are derived from the principal and theoretical ability to choose appropriate targets for behavior, this does not mean, that all members of the species homo sapiens do choose the appropriate targets.    They can instead know, what is inappropriate, and they can nevertheless be driven by instinct to do it.  

Cognitive humans are able to keep out, where they have no right to be.  Groups driven by the ingroup-outgroup instinct raid another tribe's territory.   In this case, they behave like animals, but they nevertheless continue to feel entitled to privileges as if they were acting by cognition.     

The genetic distinction serves the selfish needs of those, who want to behave as ruthlessly as animals but also to feel justified to profit from all the privileges reserved to humans.   

Oliver had been captured in the Congo, and the video completely omits questioning his origins.   This omission indicates one of the last taboos, zoophilia and sodomy. 

In all societies of superficially civilized but desensitized men, who consider objectifying and commodifying women as normal expressions of masculinity, restricting abuse to females of the human species serves the justification of being specially privileged while also allowing instinctive behaviors not different from other animals.   Would such a man admit, that zoophilic abuse suffices for him to restore his sexual homeostasis, he would also admit, that he really is not any better or any different from a beast and he would have to face this unpleasant truth.  

But when desensitization has gone even farther, then privileges are not ascribed to human genes, they are considered as the right of the strongest after applying any methods of fighting.   Considering the extreme cruelty of many African armed conflicts, rebellions and wars, including atrocious rapes, there the step from abusing women to abusing chimpanzees is only a small and logical further step.   Human-ape hybrids are extremely rare, if any exist at all, but this is only due to biological reasons and not because dehumanized men keep away from female apes.

A human-ape hybrid would cause serious logical problems, if privileges were to be accorded automatically to beings having the genes of homo sapiens.  This is one more reason, why these genes are not a sufficient justification to give human privileges to any person.     The best criterion is the talent of sufficient cognitive control over those instincts, which cause harm to others.   Only those, who do not harm and abuse others, deserve to be called human.  

At the actual level of evolution, this talent can only be found in a fraction of the species homo sapiens. 

661. Comparing Disturbed Characters And Chimpanzees

661.  Comparing Disturbed Characters And Chimpanzees

I already mentioned George Simon before (entries 615, 618 and 629).  After having read his book 'In Sheep's Clothing' with unencumbered fascination, I just finished reading another of his books:  George Simon: Disturbed Characters.  

As far as he describes and analyses disturbed characters, it is also an excellent book.   But it seems that between the two books, he has relapsed into the grasp of religion.  He preaches submission under a god as an important ingredient of his suggested alternative to being a disturbed character.  This is annoying.  

I also disagree with his claim, that there is a free will, which gives people an option to either be a disturbed character or not.    

Two other books already mentioned are:
Martha Stout:  The Sociopath Next Door (entry 137)
Robert Hare:  Without Conscience (entry 160).         

All these books implicitly consider socially acceptable, considerate and responsible behavior as the baseline of what can be expected of all sane humans.   They have no answer, why and due to what reasons disturbed characters are deviant from such an baseline.

I doubt, that the qualities constituting this assumed baseline, are sufficiently frequent to justify this assumption.   With a realistic view at the amount of atrocities regularly forced by beings of the species homo sapiens upon suffering human victims, the ability to live by little or not harming others is only found in a minority.   Only they have the privilege of deserving to be called true humans.   Even they are not born like this but get there only after a long process of maturation and socialization. 

My explanation of disturbed characters is derived from looking at the power of instincts and at different levels of the evolution of cognition and rationality.

1. Human evolution as a process.  
 

Phase 1: 
There were early ancestors, who just like animals were automatically and fully driven by instinctive urges, which had evolved for optimizing procreation.  Due to lacking any mental capacities for comprehending the consequences of behavior, instinctive behaviors of animals are not at all impacted by any awareness for harming, hurting and suffering.  

Phase 2: 
The cognition started to evolve.   Rudimentary intelligence became a powerful tool supporting and serving instincts.   But instincts still continued to completely determine the entire behavior, including the overall goal of breeding.  
 

Phase 3:  
The unique human theory of mind evolved.   This capacity of anticipating or evaluating the effects of behavior upon others or upon the own person in the future with the additional help of a memory gives a unique option only to human.    The unique ability to act in defiance of instincts, to override momentary instinctive urges in favor of cognitively preferred alternative behavior is the decisive distinction between humans and animals.    This includes also the unique ability of humans to prefer and decide to not procreate as the result of a cognitive evaluation and perception of the own identity.    Only humans can be childfree by choice.   There are no childfree animals.  


2.  Chimpanzees

Chimpanzees and humans started to evolve separately about 6 million years ago.   Either the common ancestors had at this time already reached the threshold towards phase 2, or chimpanzees continued to evolve at a slower pace in the same direction as humans.   Today's chimpanzees are a good illustration of phase 2.  They show some amazing skills, which nevertheless always serve instinctive goals.  

In entry 648 I presented the chimpanzee Ayumu, who does better than humans on a task requiring fast perception and short term memory, as can be seen in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPiDHXtM0VA
 

While Ayumu's abilities are amazing, they yet are only isolated and not connected to any higher cognitive control.  He only does the task, because he is immediately after every run rewarded with a treat.   He cannot apply his talents for any abstract or generalized goal.  

Solving the elaborated and complex task on the screen is not different from the more simple achievement of other chimpanzees using tools to get food as is shown here. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cp7_In7f88
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaEDeRJKN0s

But chimpanzees also kill and are aggressive.  
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/26/baby-chimpanzee-killed-at_n_1629318.html

They are even cannibals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU1zUzXkTtw

Other amazing skills and behaviors have also been observed in chimpanzees, but they have never reached any ability as found in humans in phase 3.  Ultimately the chimpanzees are completely determined by instincts, and all their amazing capacities only support these instincts.    No cognition has evolved, which would enable them to act in defiance to instincts by consideration or empathy.


3.  The evolutionary level of disturbed characters

I think that the human evolution is in a state of transition.   The evolution of instincts has been established millions of years ago, while the cognitive evolution is still continuing.   I see the determination of the behavior as distributed along a bell curve between phase 2 animals at one end and phase 3 humans at the other.   The majority of people are somewhere in the middle.  They are acting by the combined impact of both subconscious instinctive urges and some cognitive control. 
 

Whenever persons, mostly men, commit atrocities of any kind like murdering, torturing, raping, cannibalism, slavery, they seem puzzling, when compared with what is required and expected from humans.   But if they were instead compared with animals, they would appear as healthy and sane chimpanzees. 

I consider severely character disturbed persons, including those labeled psychopaths and sociopaths, as beings, whose cognitive evolution has relapsed, failed or is delayed and retarded.    In spite of belonging genetically to the species homo sapiens, they are not less animals than are the chimpanzees.   Their cognition only suffices to serve their instincts and to enhance their being a hazard.  But their cognition is insignificant as a determinant of personal goals.    

Chimpanzees use skills to acquire food.  Disturbed characters have a more advanced cognitive knowledge about other human and their behavior, but they use this knowledge also only as a tool.   They succeed to get more than food, they also abuse woman, gain power or pursue other instinctive and selfish goals.   While chimpanzees just lack rationality, these disturbed characters are instead determined not only by instincts but also by irrational beliefs, which serve to excuse and allegedly justify the consequences of instinctive behavior.  

It is a very sad and unfortunate reality, that the survival of the human species depends on the worst and most devastating forces in people, their instincts.   
While the extreme disturbed characters are a hazardous minority, the same instincts are virulent to a lesser degree also in the subconscious mind of the majority of the non or less disturbed people.   This lesser degree of the impact of the same instincts leads to an unfortunate bias towards too much tolerance for and condoning of harming others.  Many damaging behaviors are thus considered as still in the scope of normality, in spite of the extreme suffering of the victims,   Their suffering is not recognized as an outrage, but as unavoidable collateral damage.   


4. Distinguishing animals from humans

It is an unfortunate fallacy, that the distinction between humans and animals has always been only drawn along the genetic borders between species. 

 
In the christian tradition, humans are believed to be special, because a god allegedly created them to be so, and thus, there is a thinking taboo to reconsider and recognize anyone as an animal, no matter how much he behaves as one. 
In recent times, some people are debating, if there is really any decisive distinction at all. 

But to my knowledge, nobody has ever suggested, that the quality of being human, let alone of being more or less human, is an individual trait of the level of the individual cognitive evolution..
   
I claim:  To be considered as human requires more than the genes of homo sapiens, it also requires sufficient cognitive control over the instincts.  

This has far reaching implications.  

The concept of a general human dignity and basic human rights can rationally only be valid for humans, it is a fallacy to automatically attribute and assign it to all members of the species homo sapiens.   When someone acts like an animal, he should be treated as one.   An animal with the liberty only suitable for humans is too much of a hazard.    

The home of chimpanzees is in the wild, but in the zoo or lab, they are for good reasons kept in cages.  
http://www.ippl.org/gibbon/a-tragedy-in-eden/

If extremely disturbed characters would be recognized as animals lacking the basic human capacity of cognitive control, then this could lead to realistic methods of dealing with them.  Once disturbed characters have done serious harm, they should be recognized as animals and treated the same as dangerous chimpanzees.   The need to be protected against becoming a victim is independent of the species of the animals, which are dangerous predators.

The innate predisposition for instinctive or cognitive determination is not carved in stone, but malleable by education and social influences.    Socialization can enhance the cognitive control over instincts, when there is something to enhance.   When there is no rationality and cognition as a constituent personality trait, then no upbringing can convert an animal into a human, no matter the genetic species.   

All children start as instinct driven beings, they need socialization to develop the capacity to use cognitive control, when this talent is innate.    
When a chimpanzee is raised like a child, as in the tragic case of Moe, this does not stop him from biting off someone's finger.  
(http://www.theflamingvegan.com/view-post/Chimpanzees-as-Pets-When-Something-Goes-Wrong).  
I doubt, that a completely instinct determined disturbed character could ever become more human than Moe, no matter the quality of education.   Such a child may not bite off fingers, but bully other kids instead, before committing worse atrocities as an adult.    

Any person is entitled to be given the benefit of the doubt to be human, until he behaves like an animal and thus demonstrates, that he is an animal.   Committing atrocities as an animal forfeits the privileges reserved to humans.  Treating and considering an animal nevertheless as if he were human is an unjustifiable slap into the face to his victim(s).  


4.  The brain

Brains scans have shown differences between the brains of psychopaths and those of non-psychopaths.  

"So, once again there’s some convincing evidence that the brains of psychopaths not only work very differently from those of non-psychopathic individuals, but also may even be ‘wired’ differently than most human brains."
http://counsellingresource.com/features/2013/05/06/abnormal-brain-psychopaths/

I wonder, what would be discovered, if the brains of psychopaths were compared with the brains of chimpanzees.

648. Ayumu - The Distinction Between Animals And Humans

648.  Ayumu - The Distinction Between Animals And Humans

The evolution of humans and chimpanzees bifurcated about 6 million years ago.    But this does not mean, that only humans have continued to evolve.   Also chimpanzees have not remained the same species as 6 million years ago.   The two species have evolved differently, some qualities and traits have evolved more rapidly in humans.   The possibility cannot be excluded, that after many more millions of years the descendants of today's chimpanzees may also reach the intelligence of today's humans.  

Therefore seeing the amazing accomplishments of a chimpanzee called Ayumu is amazing but comprehensible.  

Ayumu does better than humans on a task requiring fast perception and short term memory, as can be seen in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPiDHXtM0VA

This and other cases of amazing problem solving skills by animals as for example ravens has caused some people to doubt, that there were no real and decisive distinction between humans and animals.    
But there is one clear distinction.  This distinction is the complete determination of all behavior by instincts only in animals, while humans have cognitive control over their behavior.  It is the distinction between all needs and urges being instinctive in animals, while humans have intellectual and emotional needs, which can be stronger than instincts. 

Animals are those beings, who are determined by instincts and whose intelligence and skills are restricted to only serve and enable the pursuit of satisfying the instinctive urges.   

Humans have a conscious identity derived from predominantly cognitive needs, memory and anticipation allows them to be fully aware of the detrimental long-term consequences of whatever instinctive urges they do experience.    Their intelligence enables them to use cognitive control over the instincts and to avoid damaging themselves by succumbing to temporary instinctive urges.

Human evolution is actually in a phase of transition.   Some members of the species homo sapiens are still animals, who are determined by their instincts but have invented very elaborated tools and methods to serve these anachronistic and obsolete urges, causing extreme damage and suffering.   Some have already evolved farther and are no more animals but cognitive beings in full control over their instincts.  

Ayumu demonstrates his amazing abilities as a tool to get treats as a reward.  It serves his instinct to eat.    Only humans do pursue intellectual challenges of any kind for the emotional and intellectual joy of doing so, of feeling good by achievement.  

Weapons are a good example.  

As long as someone driven by the ingroup-outgroup instinct had nothing but a club as a weapon, he at least had to get close to the person considered as an enemy, before he could attack one at a time.  
At the era of the club, there was a balance between the possible damage caused by the ingroup-outgroup instinct and the limited intelligence restricting the magnitude of the maximum damage.  When the intelligence evolved, this augmented the damage done by instinct.  
It needs high intelligence to produce mass destruction weapons as are the nuclear bombs.   One person can press a button and kill millions.   But doing so is still an act of succumbing to the ingroup-outgroup instinct of killing enemies and defending the own kind.
No matter if the club or the button, those who use weapons are animals determined by the instinct, which is served by the intelligence to create the weapons.
 

True humans are no longer determined by the obsolete ingroup-outgroup instinct.  Instead they see all humans as individuals with equal rights, the only valid distinction being the one between decent people, who harm nobody, and the bad ones, who do and who need to be impeded to do so.
True humans are politicians, leaders and organizers, who use their intelligence to install and create fair treaties, agreements and compromises between countries or groups.  They contribute to peace, justice and cooperation. 


The second example is men's reaction to their experience of sexual dishomeostasis.  

As animals, men are driven without hesitation to procure for themselves the access to the ruthless abuse of a female body.   When the legal consequences make outright rape too risky, some men apply amazing amounts of intelligence to get access to female bodies without any awareness of being primitive animals.    For those men, whose attempts of simple seduction by manipulation, trickery and lies are not successful, other men have used a lot of professional qualification to develop and sell instruments and methods for attempting abuse.   Some have invented chemicals like artificial pheromones or knockout drops.  Others have written elaborate manuals for aspiring PUAs (Pick Up ANIMALS).   But no matter how clever the methods, everything serves male instincts to abuse women.   
     

Truly human men are very different.   They consider and experience sexual homeostasis as a mere collateral benefit of having a relationship for reasons based upon the appreciation of women as persons.  By those men, who are predominantly cognitive beings, restoring sexual homeostasis is by itself not considered or justified as a sufficient reason to get involved. 
The behavior of human men is determined by their cognitive need for a companion in a long-term bonded and monogamous relationship.