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RE: Today I learned that the human intellect may be like peacock feathers.
Besides being very poetic, this idea of intellect being like a peacock's tail is just another example of reductionism in seeing the world. Everything is explained by the lowest factors. Obviously, intellect gave us a lot more than just sexual attractiveness (art, science, technology, religion, philosophy etc.). But the idea implied here is that all of this is just a by-product of a process motivated by biological urges, a very Freudian idea. And I firmly doubt that. Humans are striving for so much more than just reproduction. Our history and everything we see around us is the proof of that.
Well I really don't think that the only reason I became an intellectual is that it gave me more things to talk about bin dates. But who knows what really happens subconsciously. You know one of the more dominant liniage in my family is of daughters of the head of the head of a yeshiva in Lithuania being married to the best scholar in the yeshiva, who later became the next head of the yeshiva. So go figure...