RE: What is the essence of being human?

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RE: What is the essence of being human? - 11/19/2007 12:49:17 PM

MasDom

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In the mass chaos of a thousand plays being written and acted out on a single stage, to me that one thing that makes us human is the will to be afraid and also choose how we act upon it.

As we better ourselves or make more unneeded mistakes it all always relates to the endeavoring genius of our eternal idiocy.
The thoughts,feelings and devotion all from that simple boiling point of confusion, and resolve for better or worse.

< Message edited by MasDom -- 11/19/2007 12:51:51 PM >

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RE: What is the essence of being human? - 11/19/2007 3:06:10 PM

RealityLicks

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quote:

ORIGINAL: MissBabydoll

quote:

ORIGINAL: RealityLicks

Yet take away the programming and you still have a human. Children raised in the wild by pack animals have famously survived and returned to human settlements. They may remain lifelong outsiders but in all essentials are just like any of us. Oddly, humans who never leave packs often behave in a way which is far less "human".

Actually, this isn't true, unless you think that human language is not one of the "essentials." If the relevant areas of the brain are not stimulated continually in early infancy by exposure to human speech (especially mommy babytalk, which teaches babies phonemic patterns in ways that employ multiple forms of memory), the child never develops those areas. The result is a very smart hominid that is not a functional homo sapiens sapiens. I have a teenage cousin who had an undiagnosed cleft palate--the split was only in the back of the mouth--and when he got a cold at 8 weeks, the mucus drained into his eustachian tubes and blocked them when it congealed. The result was that he was mostly deaf through the next two-three months until My aunt's useless pediatrician figured it out. It has set him back hugely--major developmental delays in language acquisition, then reading and writing, and also socially. He has been mostly a fuckup in school. He is finally getting it together because he luckily has high spatial intelligence, which may have developed partly as compensation, so he is becoming a mechanic. And that was just a partial and very temporary blockage. A genetically human brain does not become a fully human brain without interaction with other humans in very early life.

I think experiences vary with learning language. I referred to feral children - without human contact. Your cousin, though deaf for a time, still had contact with people. The idea of a critical period, up to puberty, has been challenged and is usually now considered the "sensitive" period. In lots of cases, these kids are still able to learn language later, some faster than normal. There are lots of variables.

But all that is assuming that language is an essential. I wouldn't hesitate in calling your cousin homo sapiens and am shocked you seem to think otherwise - if I understand you correctly. Cognitive abilities surely cannot be the be-all and end-all. If I fall into a coma tomorrow, am I no longer a human? And those chimps that have been taught a few words, are they people?

Gonna have to hit the Stephen Pinker tomorrow!

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RE: What is the essence of being human? - 11/19/2007 3:26:46 PM

samboct

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Damn- and I'd read Rendezvous with Rama years ago too. Guess it was still rattling around somewhere- although it's clearly getting closer. Thanks- I'll have to go back to writing my book on why we're losing the war in Iraq, or maybe my cookbook. On the other hand, if I didn't throw away the idea just yet- one advantage I'd have over what's gone previously, is that good science fiction often takes off from existing science, so that since science is further advanced (especially biochemistry), it might be possible to write a story which involves less handwaving and more grounded speculation. But that may be passe these days- it's been awhile since I've read much sci-fi.

Darcy- so when you load a Microsoft OS onto an HP platform, does that make it signficantly different than loading it onto a Lenovo? (I think it'll suck either way- I'm not much of a computer person, just been around long enough to wonder about how much progress has really happened in the past 15 years in word processing programs- seems like regression, but that's a distraction.) Sorry- it's the architecture that matters- not the material that the circuits are composed of. It's quite possible that we will not be able to produce the inteconnections and the circuitry in silico that we have in our heads - I don't think binary circuitry is going to work. But I don't know enough about neural architecture to really debate this on firm footing.

MissBabyDoll- excellent point- humans have to be raised as part of a human social network, otherwise they don't develop the pathways that make them human. We're a bit closer to insect hive mentalities than I think some of us are happy admitting.

Sam

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RE: What is the essence of being human? - 11/19/2007 6:27:52 PM

dcnovice

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Animal tool use came up in a meeting at work today, and I immediately thought of this thread! It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud.

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RE: What is the essence of being human? - 11/21/2007 1:22:15 PM

Vendaval

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General reply -

Thank you to all for the thought provoking and humorous answers. I would include a sense of fate counter-balanced
by a sense of humor as two qualities that make us homo sapiens.

(Now where did my whoppee cushion go?)

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RE: What is the essence of being human? - 11/21/2007 1:25:36 PM

philosophy

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........the ability to imagine ourselves as something we are not. The ability to play the 'what if' game.

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RE: What is the essence of being human? - 11/21/2007 1:36:49 PM

samboct

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Just plowing through a couple month old issue of Science (July 27, 2007 if it's really important), and there was an interesting article on human eyes. The sclera (white part) of the human eye is much larger in relation to the iris than other species. Animals and humans modify their behavior if they think they're being watched- actions go from selfish to altruistic, hence the sense of "feeling eyes" really does change behavior. Human eyes with their highly visible sclera make it much easier to determine the direction of a human's gaze compared to other species. Since this must have served some evolutionary function, there have to be differences in human behavior compared to other species. The authors thought this would induce more altruistic behavior since humans would know when specifically they're being scoped, but I think it's simple- obviously, mother nature didn't like guys checking out the babes without getting caught- so really, they must like knowing they're being scoped. (They wouldn't have sex with the ones whose gaze they couldn't track.) I guess there are other hypotheses possible-maybe humans other senses were so compromised by the brains stuffed in their noggin that being able to tell the direction of the gaze was a way to make up for it in the mating rituals. Note however- that checking out gazes is a two way street-women's eyes are similar to men's eyes, so both sexes could tell where the other one was looking. So much for women not checking out guys- or needing to do so surreptitiously.

Sam

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RE: What is the essence of being human? - 11/21/2007 4:06:39 PM

Real0ne

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Raechard

If someone thinks you are then what are they?

Here is a bit of background on it. i have never seen a lower common denominator if you will on the subject.

Cogito ergo sum From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Cogito, ergo sum" (Latin: "I think, therefore I am") or Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum (Latin: "I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am") is a philosophical statement used by René Descartes, which became a foundational element of Western philosophy. "Cogito ergo sum" is a translation of Descartes' original French statement: "Je pense, donc je suis", which occurs in his Discourse on Method (1637). (See Principles of Philosophy, Part 1, article 7: "Ac proinde hæc cognitio, ego cogito, ergo sum, est omnium prima & certissima, quæ cuilibet ordine philosophanti occurrat.") Although the idea expressed in "Cogito ergo sum" is widely attributed to Descartes, many predecessors offer similar arguments—particularly St. Augustine of Hippo in De Civitate Dei: "Si [...] fallor, sum" ("If I am mistaken, I am") (book XI, 26), who also anticipates modern refutations of the concept.

The phrase "Cogito ergo sum" is not used in Descartes' most important work, the Meditations on First Philosophy, but the term "the cogito" is (often confusingly) used to refer to an argument from it. Descartes felt that this phrase, which he had used in his earlier Discourse, had been misleading in its implication that he was appealing to an inference, so he changed it to "I am, I exist" (also often called "the first certainty") in order to avoid the term "cogito". At the beginning of the second meditation, having reached what he considers to be the ultimate level of doubt — his argument from the existence of a deceiving god — Descartes examines his beliefs to see if any has survived the doubt. In his belief in his own existence he finds it: it is impossible to doubt that he exists. Even if there were a deceiving god (or an evil demon, the tool he uses to stop himself sliding back into ungrounded beliefs), his belief in his own existence would be secure, for how could he be deceived unless he existed in order to be deceived?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sum

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