A front-page article in the Recorder [“Corn and Computation,” Aug. 25] makes me think about thinking: So, what is thinking?

Right off, I will declare that only humans, not animals or machines, think because we are the only beings on earth that have formed a society and therefore moral choices in it. These moral choices, not available to animals or machines, are unique to humans because they are unique to “society,” which has constructed a set of rules pertinent to its continuing existence for generations.

Before we were “social” beings, as we are now, we were “natural” beings, each individual trying to survive as best as they could in the jungle along with other animals. Every individual unit had to fend for itself, in a very tough environment described by Thomas Hobbes as “war of all against all.” Out of sheer necessity, Hobbes concluded, “natural” Homo sapiens had to become “social” Homo sapiens.

In short, we had to learn that all human beings are our brothers. We start this concept from our own family, then extend it to the community and, later, to the nation, and, as we expand our intellectual and moral scope, to our entire humanity, even in faraway places that we never see. Thus were born our “moral” precepts, which require a “thinking” process because they are abstract concepts — after all, what’s “peace” or “brotherhood?” — we had to learn those concepts beyond learning how to pick berries or skin an animal.

To live in peace with one another in society is not easy simply because we are all born as self-occupied “natural” animals that must be transformed into “social” human beings, via “socialization.” For most ordinary people, the transition from natural-born animals to socially adjusted human beings is smooth enough but not without some struggle, often with blistered bottoms and threats of more painful punishments.

In society, our whole life consists of navigating between our inborn desire to do what our “animal” nature dictates and what society teaches us to do that is good for all. Because of this inevitable conflict between our nature and our society, our “thinking” becomes necessary, which is in essence the constant wavering between our own “selfishness” and the needs of others.

Of course, if you didn’t live in society, staying in nature as animals, you would have no need to think since you would have no conflict between yourself and others. You would only “calculate,” most of the time very quickly, as your life may depend on your very quick calculus and response. As you have no neighbors or fellow human beings in nature, all you ever worry about — like children — is how to survive the day, and all calculations are geared to maximizing your own survival and pleasure.

Of course, thankfully, our ancestors left nature and made the trek to society and, eventually to civilization, and such self-calculation is increasingly challenged by the necessity of thinking about others in society.

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Every nation on earth today has existed for thousands of years as a tribe and has a full set of rules — often not written down or constitutionally detailed — that govern their behavior together. Most people in such old societies, like Japan, do not have to think consciously about right and wrong. It just comes to them unthinkingly, because their moral choices are already firmly set internally.

As a historical oddity, America was not formed like the Old World nations. It was formed just by accident with the discovery of a nearly-empty continent, almost like a gold mine. People rushed over to enjoy the freedom of everything, and, by necessity, grudgingly formed a society that is only minimally “social,” if at all. Declaring themselves as “freemen” (meaning they wanted to be free from the rules of society and its moral precepts), these so-called “Americans” — a strange mutational variety among Homo sapiens — barely learned to tolerate each other.

As neighbors and strangers, they still don’t know how to relate to one another. In frontier days, they settled disagreements with guns. Then came the law and lawsuits, in the millions. Now guns are returning as simpler arbiters once again.

A new minimalist “moral” system, called capitalism, was developed to fit the new land where there was constant “war of all against all.” As a new minimal-moral system, capitalism requires only minimal “thinking” (but maximum “calculating”) in its inhabitants. If you are a typical “American,” you hardly need to think. You only calculate your own maximum benefits. Most of the time, smart people do all the thinking for you — with thousands of choices — via most self-pleasing propaganda and advertisement.

The calculation is now increasingly made easier by artificial intelligence (AI), which serves only those, like capitalists, who are like machines themselves. Calculating makes your life simpler and more self-pleasing. AI makes your calculating easier and quicker.

Yes, to be human is to think, and to think is to involve “others” in your thinking and living as a human being. It’s these “others” who make us and keep us human. But most Americans think they are still in the jungle and are keeping their claws and fangs sharp — or AR-15s loaded — to defend themselves from other animals.

Jon Huer, columnist for the Recorder and retired professor, and lives in Greenfield.