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Are we human because of unique traits and attributes not shared with either animal or machine? The definition of "human" is circular: we are human by virtue of the properties that make us human (i.e., distinct from animal and machine). It is a definition by negation: that which separates us from animal and machine is our "human-ness".
We are human because we are not animal, nor machine. But such thinking has been rendered progressively less tenable by the advent of evolutionary and neo-evolutionary theories which postulate a continuum in nature between animals and Man.
Our uniqueness is partly quantitative and partly qualitative. Many animals are capable of cognitively manipulating symbols and using tools. Few are as adept at it as we are. These are easily quantifiable differences - two of many.
Qualitative differences are a lot more difficult to substantiate. In the absence of privileged access to the animal mind, we cannot and don't know if animals feel guilt, for instance. Do animals love? Do they have a concept of sin? What about object permanence, meaning, reasoning, self-awareness, critical thinking? Individuality? Emotions? Empathy? Is artificial intelligence (AI) an oxymoron? A machine that passes the Turing Test may well be described as "human". But is it really? And if it is not - why isn't it?
Literature is full of stories of monsters - Frankenstein, the Golem - and androids or anthropoids. Their behaviour is more "humane" than the humans around them. This, perhaps, is what really sets humans apart: their behavioural unpredictability. It is yielded by the interaction between Mankind's underlying immutable genetically-determined nature - and Man's kaleidoscopically changing environments.
The Constructivists even claim that Human Nature is a mere cultural artefact. Sociobiologists, on the other hand, are determinists. They believe that human nature - being the inevitable and inexorable outcome of our bestial ancestry - cannot be the subject of moral judgment.
An improved Turing Test would look for baffling and erratic patterns of misbehaviour to identify humans. Pico della Mirandola wrote in "Oration on the Dignity of Man" that Man was born without a form and can mould and transform - actually, create - himself at will. Existence precedes essence, said the Existentialists centuries later.
The one defining human characteristic may be our awareness of our mortality. The automatically triggered, "fight or flight", battle for survival is common to all living things (and to appropriately programmed machines). Not so the catalytic effects of imminent death. These are uniquely human. The appreciation of the fleeting translates into aesthetics, the uniqueness of our ephemeral life breeds morality, and the scarcity of time gives rise to ambition and creativity.
In an infinite life, everything materializes at one time or another, so the concept of choice is spurious. The realization of our finiteness forces us to choose among alternatives. This act of selection is predicated upon the existence of "free will". Animals and machines are thought to be devoid of choice, slaves to their genetic or human programming.
Yet, all these answers to the question: "What does it mean to be human" - are lacking.
The set of attributes we designate as human is subject to profound alteration. Drugs, neuroscience, introspection, and experience all cause irreversible changes in these traits and characteristics. The accumulation of these changes can lead, in principle, to the emergence of new properties, or to the abolition of old ones.
Animals and machines are not supposed to possess free will or exercise it. What, then, about fusions of machines and humans (bionics)? At which point does a human turn into a machine? And why should we assume that free will ceases to exist at that - rather arbitrary - point?
Introspection - the ability to construct self-referential and recursive models of the world - is supposed to be a uniquely human quality. What about introspective machines? Surely, say the critics, such machines are PROGRAMMED to introspect, as opposed to humans. To qualify as introspection, it must be WILLED, they continue. Yet, if introspection is willed - WHO wills it? Self-willed introspection leads to infinite regression and formal logical paradoxes.
Moreover, the notion - if not the formal concept - of "human" rests on many hidden assumptions and conventions.
Political correctness notwithstanding - why presume that men and women (or different races) are identically human? Aristotle thought they were not. A lot separates males from females - genetically (both genotype and phenotype) and environmentally (culturally). What is common to these two sub-species that makes them both "human"?
Can we conceive of a human without body (i.e., a Platonian Form, or soul)? Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas think not. A soul has no existence separate from the body. A machine-supported energy field with mental states similar to ours today - would it be considered human? What about someone in a state of coma - is he or she (or it) fully human?
Is a new born baby human - or, at least, fully human - and, if so, in which sense? What about a future human race - whose features would be unrecognizable to us? Machine-based intelligence - would it be thought of as human? If yes, when would it be considered human?
In all these deliberations, we may be confusing "human" with "person". The former is a private case of the latter. Locke's person is a moral agent, a being responsible for its actions. It is constituted by the continuity of its mental states accessible to introspection.
Locke's is a functional definition. It readily accommodates non-human persons (machines, energy matrices) if the functional conditions are satisfied. Thus, an android which meets the prescribed requirements is more human than a brain dead person.
Descartes' objection that one cannot specify conditions of singularity and identity over time for disembodied souls is right only if we assume that such "souls" possess no energy. A bodiless intelligent energy matrix which maintains its form and identity over time is conceivable. Certain AI and genetic software programs already do it.
Strawson is Cartesian and Kantian in his definition of a "person" as a "primitive". Both the corporeal predicates and those pertaining to mental states apply equally, simultaneously, and inseparably to all the individuals of that type of entity. Human beings are one such entity. Some, like Wiggins, limit the list of possible persons to animals - but this is far from rigorously necessary and is unduly restrictive.
The truth is probably in a synthesis:
A person is any type of fundamental and irreducible entity whose typical physical individuals (i.e., members) are capable of continuously experiencing a range of states of consciousness and permanently having a list of psychological attributes.
This definition allows for non-animal persons and recognizes the personhood of a brain damaged human ("capable of experiencing"). It also incorporates Locke's view of humans as possessing an ontological status similar to "clubs" or "nations" - their personal identity consists of a variety of interconnected psychological continuities.
Source: On Being Human. By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
http://samvak.tripod.com/human.html
Are we really that different from Animals and Machines?
We are human because we are not animal, nor machine. But such thinking has been rendered progressively less tenable by the advent of evolutionary and neo-evolutionary theories which postulate a continuum in nature between animals and Man.
Our uniqueness is partly quantitative and partly qualitative. Many animals are capable of cognitively manipulating symbols and using tools. Few are as adept at it as we are. These are easily quantifiable differences - two of many.
Qualitative differences are a lot more difficult to substantiate. In the absence of privileged access to the animal mind, we cannot and don't know if animals feel guilt, for instance. Do animals love? Do they have a concept of sin? What about object permanence, meaning, reasoning, self-awareness, critical thinking? Individuality? Emotions? Empathy? Is artificial intelligence (AI) an oxymoron? A machine that passes the Turing Test may well be described as "human". But is it really? And if it is not - why isn't it?
Literature is full of stories of monsters - Frankenstein, the Golem - and androids or anthropoids. Their behaviour is more "humane" than the humans around them. This, perhaps, is what really sets humans apart: their behavioural unpredictability. It is yielded by the interaction between Mankind's underlying immutable genetically-determined nature - and Man's kaleidoscopically changing environments.
The Constructivists even claim that Human Nature is a mere cultural artefact. Sociobiologists, on the other hand, are determinists. They believe that human nature - being the inevitable and inexorable outcome of our bestial ancestry - cannot be the subject of moral judgment.
An improved Turing Test would look for baffling and erratic patterns of misbehaviour to identify humans. Pico della Mirandola wrote in "Oration on the Dignity of Man" that Man was born without a form and can mould and transform - actually, create - himself at will. Existence precedes essence, said the Existentialists centuries later.
The one defining human characteristic may be our awareness of our mortality. The automatically triggered, "fight or flight", battle for survival is common to all living things (and to appropriately programmed machines). Not so the catalytic effects of imminent death. These are uniquely human. The appreciation of the fleeting translates into aesthetics, the uniqueness of our ephemeral life breeds morality, and the scarcity of time gives rise to ambition and creativity.
In an infinite life, everything materializes at one time or another, so the concept of choice is spurious. The realization of our finiteness forces us to choose among alternatives. This act of selection is predicated upon the existence of "free will". Animals and machines are thought to be devoid of choice, slaves to their genetic or human programming.
Yet, all these answers to the question: "What does it mean to be human" - are lacking.
The set of attributes we designate as human is subject to profound alteration. Drugs, neuroscience, introspection, and experience all cause irreversible changes in these traits and characteristics. The accumulation of these changes can lead, in principle, to the emergence of new properties, or to the abolition of old ones.
Animals and machines are not supposed to possess free will or exercise it. What, then, about fusions of machines and humans (bionics)? At which point does a human turn into a machine? And why should we assume that free will ceases to exist at that - rather arbitrary - point?
Introspection - the ability to construct self-referential and recursive models of the world - is supposed to be a uniquely human quality. What about introspective machines? Surely, say the critics, such machines are PROGRAMMED to introspect, as opposed to humans. To qualify as introspection, it must be WILLED, they continue. Yet, if introspection is willed - WHO wills it? Self-willed introspection leads to infinite regression and formal logical paradoxes.
Moreover, the notion - if not the formal concept - of "human" rests on many hidden assumptions and conventions.
Political correctness notwithstanding - why presume that men and women (or different races) are identically human? Aristotle thought they were not. A lot separates males from females - genetically (both genotype and phenotype) and environmentally (culturally). What is common to these two sub-species that makes them both "human"?
Can we conceive of a human without body (i.e., a Platonian Form, or soul)? Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas think not. A soul has no existence separate from the body. A machine-supported energy field with mental states similar to ours today - would it be considered human? What about someone in a state of coma - is he or she (or it) fully human?
Is a new born baby human - or, at least, fully human - and, if so, in which sense? What about a future human race - whose features would be unrecognizable to us? Machine-based intelligence - would it be thought of as human? If yes, when would it be considered human?
In all these deliberations, we may be confusing "human" with "person". The former is a private case of the latter. Locke's person is a moral agent, a being responsible for its actions. It is constituted by the continuity of its mental states accessible to introspection.
Locke's is a functional definition. It readily accommodates non-human persons (machines, energy matrices) if the functional conditions are satisfied. Thus, an android which meets the prescribed requirements is more human than a brain dead person.
Descartes' objection that one cannot specify conditions of singularity and identity over time for disembodied souls is right only if we assume that such "souls" possess no energy. A bodiless intelligent energy matrix which maintains its form and identity over time is conceivable. Certain AI and genetic software programs already do it.
Strawson is Cartesian and Kantian in his definition of a "person" as a "primitive". Both the corporeal predicates and those pertaining to mental states apply equally, simultaneously, and inseparably to all the individuals of that type of entity. Human beings are one such entity. Some, like Wiggins, limit the list of possible persons to animals - but this is far from rigorously necessary and is unduly restrictive.
The truth is probably in a synthesis:
A person is any type of fundamental and irreducible entity whose typical physical individuals (i.e., members) are capable of continuously experiencing a range of states of consciousness and permanently having a list of psychological attributes.
This definition allows for non-animal persons and recognizes the personhood of a brain damaged human ("capable of experiencing"). It also incorporates Locke's view of humans as possessing an ontological status similar to "clubs" or "nations" - their personal identity consists of a variety of interconnected psychological continuities.
Source: On Being Human. By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
http://samvak.tripod.com/human.html
Are we really that different from Animals and Machines?
Page:
When the world was covered in Jungle our race of monkeys were being outcompeted by other species. We were forced out of the jungle and had to live in the more dangerous and less resource intensive plains. In order to survive we needed to be able to communicate more effectively than other animals and we had to develop advanced social hierachies. Thus our brains became more advanced and we evolved into humans. Then we realised our own mortality and shat ourselves, inventing religion as an emotional crutch.
Animals and machines are dumb.
We are clever.
There is a difference.
Animals and machines are dumb.
We are clever.
There is a difference.
Firebrand wrote:
>
> If we threw aside all our social history and technical knowledge, and
> sent our children to live in the trees again without aid, they would
> be disorganised, filthy, incommunicative beasts, unable to carve a
> knife out of a piece of wood, much less send a rocket to mars.
By the same token, if a monkey or apes were raised as a human (as happens with quite a few Orang-Utans in Thailand...most peculiar), you would never get an educated one.
The only difference between us and other animals is that evolution saw fit to give us more efficient brains. I can't stand the self-congratulatory "Man is lord of the beasts" b******t that gets peddled by religious and other such unimaginative types. If one were to restart the world from year 0, then it could just as easily have been intelligent insects as the dominant race. Or giant sloths. Or pixies for all we know.
Evolution is random chance, and it's random chance that has made us different to other animals. But then, pretty much all animals are different from one another in key ways. Intelligence (as we understand it) is absolutely no use to any other member of the animal kingdom.
>
> If we threw aside all our social history and technical knowledge, and
> sent our children to live in the trees again without aid, they would
> be disorganised, filthy, incommunicative beasts, unable to carve a
> knife out of a piece of wood, much less send a rocket to mars.
By the same token, if a monkey or apes were raised as a human (as happens with quite a few Orang-Utans in Thailand...most peculiar), you would never get an educated one.
The only difference between us and other animals is that evolution saw fit to give us more efficient brains. I can't stand the self-congratulatory "Man is lord of the beasts" b******t that gets peddled by religious and other such unimaginative types. If one were to restart the world from year 0, then it could just as easily have been intelligent insects as the dominant race. Or giant sloths. Or pixies for all we know.
Evolution is random chance, and it's random chance that has made us different to other animals. But then, pretty much all animals are different from one another in key ways. Intelligence (as we understand it) is absolutely no use to any other member of the animal kingdom.
How are we different?
*twiddles thumbs*
That's why we can use tools and live indoors
*twiddles thumbs*
That's why we can use tools and live indoors
So you're saying that animals only act like humans when exposed to them.
Have you ever heard of feral children? Children abandoned by their parents and left to live among animals? These aren't myths, it actually happens. The children, rather than inventing things and aspiring to be something more, the children mimic the traits of the animals they live among.
They'll walk on all fours, they won't use their fingers in the advanced way that we know we can, they won't talk, other than bark like a dog or whatever and most importantly - once they've become feral, there's no return. The poor upbringing provided by animals permanently impairs future brain activity. The feral child will always want to be a dog, because that's what it thinks it is.
So how are we different? The only difference is that our more powerful brains have allowed us to better educate our children, so that we don't ACT like animals.
If we threw aside all our social history and technical knowledge, and sent our children to live in the trees again without aid, they would be disorganised, filthy, incommunicative beasts, unable to carve a knife out of a piece of wood, much less send a rocket to mars.
Have you ever heard of feral children? Children abandoned by their parents and left to live among animals? These aren't myths, it actually happens. The children, rather than inventing things and aspiring to be something more, the children mimic the traits of the animals they live among.
They'll walk on all fours, they won't use their fingers in the advanced way that we know we can, they won't talk, other than bark like a dog or whatever and most importantly - once they've become feral, there's no return. The poor upbringing provided by animals permanently impairs future brain activity. The feral child will always want to be a dog, because that's what it thinks it is.
So how are we different? The only difference is that our more powerful brains have allowed us to better educate our children, so that we don't ACT like animals.
If we threw aside all our social history and technical knowledge, and sent our children to live in the trees again without aid, they would be disorganised, filthy, incommunicative beasts, unable to carve a knife out of a piece of wood, much less send a rocket to mars.
Blank wrote:
> Belldandy, all the things you mentioned are artificial. Is your point
> that because we can invent these things we are more than animals?
My point is that you and Firebrand list examples of all these special attributes animals have, but those are themselves of limited use for anything but basic living regarding the animal with them. Humans create technology which surpasses what nature has given some animals, and does it better. And we learn how to apply that technology in new ways. We do more than dream, we as a race create dreams and make them real. We also have the capacoty for being distinctly irrational, unpredictable, and for being shortsighted.
Sure, you can train a monkey to write certain words, but it's never going to write a novel. You can train it to do a task, and it won't complain as long as you feed it etc, but it'll never aspire to be something more.
Same goes for puzzles, you can teach a monkey to solve basic puzzles by repetition, eventually it learns because the process becomes a task. It can only solve the puzzle because it's learnt how not to. A human has a greater capability than that basic intelligence, we create the puzzles, solve them, and change them. We've begun solving the ultimate of puzzles, teh secrets of life itself through projects like the human genome project. Stem cells, cloning, artificial insemination, IVF, test tube babies and more - we are beginning to change the nature of life itself.
Now lets go to Firebrands beloved animals. What have they done ? Erm, nothing. Noticeably all the cases of animals displaying human like behaviour occur when those animals are placed in a human environment and conditioned to it. If a monkey can do a task it's because we've simplified the task using technology in the first place, it's called automation and streamlining. With the right technology anything can make anything....
> Belldandy, all the things you mentioned are artificial. Is your point
> that because we can invent these things we are more than animals?
My point is that you and Firebrand list examples of all these special attributes animals have, but those are themselves of limited use for anything but basic living regarding the animal with them. Humans create technology which surpasses what nature has given some animals, and does it better. And we learn how to apply that technology in new ways. We do more than dream, we as a race create dreams and make them real. We also have the capacoty for being distinctly irrational, unpredictable, and for being shortsighted.
Sure, you can train a monkey to write certain words, but it's never going to write a novel. You can train it to do a task, and it won't complain as long as you feed it etc, but it'll never aspire to be something more.
Same goes for puzzles, you can teach a monkey to solve basic puzzles by repetition, eventually it learns because the process becomes a task. It can only solve the puzzle because it's learnt how not to. A human has a greater capability than that basic intelligence, we create the puzzles, solve them, and change them. We've begun solving the ultimate of puzzles, teh secrets of life itself through projects like the human genome project. Stem cells, cloning, artificial insemination, IVF, test tube babies and more - we are beginning to change the nature of life itself.
Now lets go to Firebrands beloved animals. What have they done ? Erm, nothing. Noticeably all the cases of animals displaying human like behaviour occur when those animals are placed in a human environment and conditioned to it. If a monkey can do a task it's because we've simplified the task using technology in the first place, it's called automation and streamlining. With the right technology anything can make anything....
Belldandy, all the things you mentioned are artificial. Is your point that because we can invent these things we are more than animals?
So you're saying that because we're actually inferior, we have to use artificial methods to mimic natural attributes.
And for your info, we cannot manufacture anything nearly as potent as spider silk.
Put it this way. You can make a monkey understand symbols on paper, a basic form of reading. You can teach a monkey to build things. You can teach a monkey to solve puzzles and do many jobs humans can do. So what makes us better than them? We're a little smarter than them?
Well that makes some humans "more human" than others, doesn't it?
And for your info, we cannot manufacture anything nearly as potent as spider silk.
Put it this way. You can make a monkey understand symbols on paper, a basic form of reading. You can teach a monkey to build things. You can teach a monkey to solve puzzles and do many jobs humans can do. So what makes us better than them? We're a little smarter than them?
Well that makes some humans "more human" than others, doesn't it?
Firebrand wrote:
> When you can also spin silk out of your a$$, inject a lethal dose of
> venom with a single bite, sense tiny changes in air pressure around
> you, create a visual map of your surroundings using the electronic
> signals given off by all living things, fly south for the winter and
> camouflage your skin at will, then we can talk about human
> superiority.
Again you get tied up in theory. The point is we don't need to do any of those things, whereas those animals can only do those things.
Who the hell wants sonar for night vision when we have thermal and NV technology, and when our own eyes adapt to available light, more to the point we don't need to prey on anything for food ! Visual maps ? Crap, sattelites and so forth do that, and it is not like we need to anyway, we can find information about anywhere. Why do we need to spin silk ? We can manuyfacture it. Venom ? No point with the technology we have. Fly south for the winter ? Pointless. Camouflage ? Oly the military needs this and their are already 'predator' style suits in developement.
So for all your posturing on the greatness of animals, we don't need most of their skills and the ones we do technology can do for us, and better.
> When you can also spin silk out of your a$$, inject a lethal dose of
> venom with a single bite, sense tiny changes in air pressure around
> you, create a visual map of your surroundings using the electronic
> signals given off by all living things, fly south for the winter and
> camouflage your skin at will, then we can talk about human
> superiority.
Again you get tied up in theory. The point is we don't need to do any of those things, whereas those animals can only do those things.
Who the hell wants sonar for night vision when we have thermal and NV technology, and when our own eyes adapt to available light, more to the point we don't need to prey on anything for food ! Visual maps ? Crap, sattelites and so forth do that, and it is not like we need to anyway, we can find information about anywhere. Why do we need to spin silk ? We can manuyfacture it. Venom ? No point with the technology we have. Fly south for the winter ? Pointless. Camouflage ? Oly the military needs this and their are already 'predator' style suits in developement.
So for all your posturing on the greatness of animals, we don't need most of their skills and the ones we do technology can do for us, and better.
It hasn't escaped my attention that you completely skipped the slavery thing there Bell.
And Blank raises a good point. Just because we can question the meaning of life, doesn't make us higher than anything else. As he says, in a physical sense, the only thing remarkable about humans is opposable thumbs.
When you can also spin silk out of your a$$, inject a lethal dose of venom with a single bite, sense tiny changes in air pressure around you, create a visual map of your surroundings using the electronic signals given off by all living things, fly south for the winter and camouflage your skin at will, then we can talk about human superiority.
And Blank raises a good point. Just because we can question the meaning of life, doesn't make us higher than anything else. As he says, in a physical sense, the only thing remarkable about humans is opposable thumbs.
When you can also spin silk out of your a$$, inject a lethal dose of venom with a single bite, sense tiny changes in air pressure around you, create a visual map of your surroundings using the electronic signals given off by all living things, fly south for the winter and camouflage your skin at will, then we can talk about human superiority.
Just because we've done things no other animal has ever done doesn't make us more than an animal. Have you ever used sonar to navigate your way through the night and track down and catch live prey? I'd say the answer is probably no. So bats are more than just animals? You could do this with so many creatures.
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