Philosophy Wire: Orangutans. Past. Future. Humans.

Orangutans are the only non-human primates we know of who can talk about the past. [1] Gifted we are. Seeing the past. Pondering on the future. And yet, there is something wrong with this nice picture. We used to cry. We used to laugh. Now we do neither. Now we cry about someone. Now we laugh about something. We used to feel. But now we don’t anymore. We just feel things. We used to exist. We do not exist now. We only do for a reason. We used to think. We do not think anymore. We just think for something. Only because we have forgotten that Being is only about non-thinking. The picture is crying now. Gifted we think we are. But the orangutan is laughing. Seeing the past. Pondering on the future. But only because he does not see the present…

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