It is often said that through empathy we can overcome our animal nature because that is basically the difference between animals and humans (the fact that some animals DO experience empathy, or otherwise that they show all of the tell-tale signs is a fairly ironic lack of empathy on the part of the individuals who do claim such things). The fact that it is impossible to tell the difference between "showing all of the tell-tale signs" and genuinely experiencing it, even in humans, is also fairly ironic and indicative of a complete lack of it. Empathy is a topic for another day, though...
The question is, what does it mean to "overcome" our animal nature? Another question, somewhat related, is how would we know if we did and how do we tell the difference between our genuinely overcoming our animal nature and "thinking" and "feeling like" we've overcome our animal nature? There would be no apparent difference between "overcoming" it and deluding ourselves into thinking we've overcome it.
Is this just another campfire the neanderthals build to gather around in order to not realize how insignificant they really are?
The question is, what does it mean to "overcome" our animal nature? Another question, somewhat related, is how would we know if we did and how do we tell the difference between our genuinely overcoming our animal nature and "thinking" and "feeling like" we've overcome our animal nature? There would be no apparent difference between "overcoming" it and deluding ourselves into thinking we've overcome it.
Is this just another campfire the neanderthals build to gather around in order to not realize how insignificant they really are?