IAP Political Forum

 

Not in biological terms (this is in Philosophy section).  What makes us different from other animals?

Besides our excellent tool using/making skill, language ability, pattern recognition abilities, myth making skills, abstract reasoning and ability to consider the future in hypothetcial terms, - all these things other animals shown a small inkling of having as well - we don't seem to have much that seperates us except in how well we do those certain things.  Of course, if you claim that doing these things better make us human, then we fail in other terms: in cooperativeness of say, coral, speed of the cheetah, altruism of the bee, etc. (In other words, you can frame this in many ways.)

I don't think religion offers any answer here, either, since saying "god cares extra special for us" doesnt mean anything since 1) the term "god" is meaningless, and 2)flies in the face of the evidence.

To me, as a cheetah is known for its particular advantages, so are we. What makes us human is that we have some advantages in total. A sum total of odds and ends that make us particularly competative and able to think about it and communicate that feeling to each other.  The experience of meaning. It's all about mythology.

The Universe has no purpose: We are no different than animals!

Well apart from the fact that we have a magical soul (obviously) I think humans just do all of those things to a greater degree than other animals.

Opposable thumbs and a highly developed brain. A winning combination.

Apes have opposable thumbs, and dolphins have highly developed brains. One or the other isn't good enough.

Other than that the only difference is that we spend more time watching tv.


IMO, the essence of being human, I would describe in the way an old friend said it to me.

Life is a process, where you trade your body for your mind.

So we are half ape, half dolphin?

A dape?

That would make us "dopes" actually.  :P

Niiiiice.

But some animals are different from other animals. And we can compare ourselves to plants, viruses, minerals and other aspects of the Universe.



I'm not saying there is a big mystery about who "we" are, it's just interesting to sometimes consider us as part of the Universe and other times, to consider us as seperate, or different.

Language - with all its benefits and drawbacks.

The essence is choosing.

We choose to eat, sleep, drink, fuck, kill, rape, love, smile, hate and everything else. Religion takes this away from us. There is no choice in following. It's fascism at the highest order.

As someone who is leaning towards Determinism, I have some issue with that, but your point is well taken.
I wonder, though, do apes choose?  It might be anthro-pride that we look at all other animals and think they all simply act on instinct; without choice.

I have to wonder, though, if an alien race looking at us from afar would come to the same conclusion.  Would they just see us as operating on dumb instinct?

Maybe we can say this: her is something that allows us override our instinct more powerfully than other animals: we can fast (I'm not sure about some of your other examples, since I think other animals exhibit some of those behaviors: we just can't know what they are thinking. And what can't be spoken about, we must remain silent.)

Is our quality, as Callum suggests, language and the ability to create a narrative:

I can create a narrative in which the future may change due to my fasting...


gotta go - sorry!

If this was true, those of faith would not sin.

Edit: Religion attempts to take this away from us.

It "attempts" to take away nothing.

To "take away" is active.

It provides rules for life with rewards and benefits for adhering to the rules, and consequences for not.

This is what our criminal code provides also.

Following rules is passive.

It is still your choice to adhere to the rules and either reap rewards or pay consequences.

Nothing is "taken" away.

1. What rewards and consequences? Doesn't Xinanity teach that non-belivers will go to Hell?  In fact, xianity does and this means that this religion doesn't allow you to opt out.  For example, i can't claim to be Hindu and reap the rewards of Hinduism, according to Xian dogma.  That is EVERYONE is forced to be judged by the xian god.

You might say this is payment of the consequesnces, but not only are some people unaware of xianity, some believe something entirely different and it is not a choice that they make in disbelieveing your religion, they simply find no reason to believe it - just as you are not worried about being judged by their gods.

So, in order for you to opt in or out of your religion, you must accept it as real and possible.  One doesn't opt out of Zorastianism, you simply aren't aware of it, or care.

So, following the rules is not passive when your religion claims that ALL will be judged - unless you are claiming that your religion is just one more myth narrative in the world and holds no special truth.  It's not like speeding and thinking you won't get caught. Everyone alive will die and be held to the Laws that govern, whether xianity is right, or atheism, or Hinduism.

2. However, I agree in a way. Religion is simply a set of laws, written by men, in an effort to make people act according to their wishes.  Don't like gay people? Write a law, tell a story about them being killed and then say it came from your god.  Who dares argue with someone who speaks to god, and god speaks back?!

So, in the regard to following rules, it is somewhat passive. But actually, you still have to act. In order to NOT pay taxes, you can be passive, but it is an act.  ("You can choose to not decide, but still have made a choice").

Religion, is a set of laws (and rituals) that try to get people to conform to a certain attitude in society. Often, religion also includes "niceties" about how to feel better about yourself and others. Meditations, as it were.

Most people concern themselves with the niceties and ignore the laws. (How many Xians have married a divorced woman?) Basically, people do what they want and justify their actions later.

Humans are just glorified animals that are ruining the Earth ;)

Does our criminal code allow you to "opt out?"


Being "unaware" or "ignorant" of the criminal code is no excuse...you will still pay the ticket.


Ignorance is.

The essence of a human is an interesting question when you examine all it'ss parts. Consider the number of separate microbes, bacteria and parasites outnumber actual dna-card-carrying human cells by 10 times or more.

The more you look it, imo, from the atom to the edge of the universe it begins to seem like one chain, one grand homogeneous device.





...*sigh*...and "No" that's not an ID argument.
Ahk

So when will you submit to Islam?

We're different than animals because we can choose to risk our own life for higher, abstract causes. Our respective countries, freedom, pure glory etc........

The essence of being a human is to roll around (no homo) the hood smokin' blunts, drinkin', and blastin' soulja boy out yo trunk.

Taking a reductionist approach, I would rephrase this to cover two underlying ideas...

We're different from animals because higher, abstract causes figure in our deliberations.  These can affect our value structures in a way that is not apparent in other animals. Our respective countries, freedom, pure glory etc are such abstractions that are communicated to us via language: they are shared concepts that exist only in our ability to share them.

Following rules isn't passive all the time. It is when I follow the rule of not killing anybody, but I actively drive the speed limit. In today's society, it is nearly impossible to passively be following the rules set forth by most religions. You have to actively make the decision not to do certain things. You have no choice if you follow the leader. There is no decision in right from wrong, because the dogma tells you what the decisions are, taking away the power of choice. It's like making one choice so you don't have to make any others.

You plan to stop saying nonsense, Cabrini, or just are competing with MD to be the forum's funless fool?

I am not ignorant of Islam.

Bingo. The tool which gives us the ability that makes us human...

Self-awareness.

Language gives us the ability to claim self-awareness, to discuss it and philosophise about it.  You need to put in a lot of work into explaining how it actually gives us that awareness, and how come other animals don't have it.  I reckon the cat here is pretty much aware of his social position, his own body, his routines and desires... where does he fall short of human-level self-awareness.  Can you actually give a definition of what it is to be self-aware?

"I think therefore I am."
-- Descarte

Can't exist if we can't think.  Can't think without language.  Therefore a cat has no idea it is a cat.  Only because of language are we able to say "I exist!"
Unless your a dualist and the idea of I is just a construct of your social upbringing...which I can agree with. (Check out my avatar... ;D)  But there is still the we...

But yeah.  Self-awareness is a powerful thing. If you are asking the chicken and the egg question like, was it language that defined us first or was it self-awareness, now that would be an interesting debate. 

It helps us get down to the nitty gritty of what makes us Human.

You have misunderstood Descartes. Thinking is not required for existing. Rocks don't think, water doesn't think etc.

I think therefore I am is a way of proving one's own existence. It's not a necessity for existence.

Sorry.  What I meant in terms of "existence" was being aware that we "exist."  And in some cases many would argue that Descartes did mean that if something does not think, like a rock, it does not exist.  I am more in line with that kind of thinking.

But yeah, it wasn't my intention to say that.  It was more tune of defining self-awareness.

You and Descartes seem to have redefined existence as self-awareness.

No. Just me. That is what Callum asked for right? The definition of self-awareness?  I just used Descartes quote as an example.  I wasn't using Cartesian dualism to support my argument if that is what you were presuming.

I asked for a definition of self-awareness, and for you to show how language was what gave us this awareness. I also said you needed to put a lot of work into doing that - meaning that it is a difficult task.

Your responses so far have only shown the latter to be right   ;D

You may well be right that the cat doesn't know that he's a cat.  He does appear to  know that he is himself. I could hazard a conjecture that all 'higher' animals have a sense of their individual existence.  So where does self-awareness exceed that?

I guess this is where our ideas split.  I don't think that self-awareness is that hard to define especially given our very learned positions.  Let my try and compare and contrast our ideas.

Self-awareness includes the presumption that we are individuals.  We can't be individuals without some sort of "Self" or "Consciousness" and this is something I say that a cat can not have for the following reason.  For us to have this higher manifold of awareness requires that we understand just exactly what this awareness is.  And the only way we can put these feelings of self-realization is to communicate with ourselves as well as others.  The tool for this communication is language and is the requirement for any human to become "self-aware."  So when we are born, we don't know that we are babies yet until we begin to learn words, phrases and ideas and then have the cognitive ability to understand that when we look in a mirror we are actually looking at our "self." 

I am going to switch our animal of focus to dogs. For a dog to look in the mirror, (and this is where we may disagree) is that it does not have the ability to understand that it is aware of its own self.  In fact you find this sometimes funny when dogs look into mirrors they bark at themselves even though what they are perceiving is understood as another dog.  And to that fact, they may even learn that they themselves are being reflected in the mirror however, they can't comprehend that they are actually a living being.  Something separate of this world.  The only thing that they can distinguish between is by a learning behavior that I can not deny many animals have.

But when trying to put these memories into context, only humans have the ability to place meaning behind it, in which, because of language, we communicate to others and ourselves that we are an actual person, an individual, that is "self-aware."  So when we look in the mirror we are not barking at it, but communicating with ourselves to try and figure out what it means...

OK, thanks...


You now are shifting into a discussion of what it is to be an individual.  Here you are merging together 'self' and 'consciousness'.  They are VERY distinct concepts.  Every individuated thing may be seen to have a 'self'.  The cat certainly has one - he ministers to it, feeds it, preserves it...  So lets look at 'consciousness', as you start to do.  You seem to be saying that we can only have consciousness if we can understand what consciousness is.  There are three immediate responses.  Firstly, it appears wrong.  Higher animals are obviously conscious (see later).  Secondly, the activity of understanding is a feature of consciousness, which means you are saying that to be conscious we must be conscious.  Thirdly, if this is so (that we must understand consciousness to have it) then humanity is not conscious, since there are currently no robust theories of just what it is. NObody is widely accepted as understanding what consciousness is.


Again we have some slipping and sliding around with terminology.  Where did self-realisation come from, how is it related to self-awareness?  We also seem to be schizophrenic in that we communicate with ourselves (communication implies utterer and audience - two separate entities).  So far the argument seems to be that:

- we need to be aware that we are aware in order to be aware
- we must verbalise that we are aware of being aware in order to be aware that we are aware
- we have to have language to do this
- so language produces awareness QED.

I think the premises are all highly suspect.


I don't think that babies need to learn to speak to learn as they develop that they are individuals. 'Wolf children' seem to do that.  In some primitive cultures mirrors have been unknown, the concept of a mirror lacking from the culture.  Yet their introduction - with no language support - has had the expected results of people learning how they function.  Chimpanzees appear to be able to perform the same trick of recognising themselves in mirrors. The concept of self seems to be prior to language.

You are on thin ice by assuming that dogs do not have an awareness of themselves as living creatures.  The empirical grounds are by no means certain and, in the proper logical sense of the phrase, you are begging the question (assuming what is to be proven as part of the argument).  (As an aside, does the phrase "Something separate of this world" mean an individual thing separate FROM everything else in the world, or are you trying to imply that minds are something 'outside' this world?)


Only humans have a language-facility developed to their high standard of complexity - yep.  Language is a medium for transferring information. ANY species that communicates amongst its members is transferring information - i.e. functionally using a language.  Cetaceans have a (lesser developed) language-fascility, we think.  Are they therefore to be considered more or less self-aware?  Chimps certainly communicate their individual desires, useful information, they plan and organise.  Self-aware just a little less?  Ant colonies are immensely complex in their organisation and projects...