What Moves Survives Philosophy of Animal Evolution and Movement 1900-2025

What Moves Survives Philosophy of Animal Evolution and Movement 1900-2025

Bergson reconsidered the evolution of animals from the perspective of "refinement of movement. Plants can basically obtain nutrients without moving, but animals need to move and act on the outside world in order to survive. This "movement" is what fundamentally defines the existence of animals. Individuals that move faster and more skillfully have an advantage for survival, and this has encouraged the development of the nervous system, sensory organs, and muscles. Evolution is not just a change in form or structure, but an increase in "locomotion," the ability to actively interact with the environment.

At the pinnacle of this mobility is the human being. However, humans did not evolve solely on the basis of muscles and skeletons. The most important characteristic is that we are able to create locomotion devices outside of our bodies. Tools, machines, vehicles, computers, robots - all of these are the result of humans externalizing their own locomotor abilities. While other animals are confined to a range of instinctive movements, humans can choose, imitate, design, and change forms of movement according to time and place. This variability and versatility is the core of human motor evolution.

In addition, humans have successfully used fire to conserve digestive energy through cooking. This created surplus energy that could be channeled into art, thought, and creative activity. Bergson did not miss this point and believed that the human intellect is also an extension of movement. Thinking is an "invisible movement," and the brain is not merely a processing organ but part of the means by which we work with the world.

In other words, animal evolution was not a mere physical change, but a practical question of how to relate to the world through movement. Moving things feel, think, devise, and survive. Animals deepened their consciousness through movement, and humans expanded their consciousness "outward" by increasing their freedom of movement.