Defining Features of being Human
What are the defining features of being a human?
Do you believe that there are any unique human traits? Are there sex differences that give us a different embodiment experience or sexed perspective on being human?
Or do men and women have some fundamental human traits making our experiences likely very similar?
What about the possibly infinite diversity of individual subjective experience? Could we all be having profoundly unique and unmatched experiences?
Do you believe that there are any unique human traits? Are there sex differences that give us a different embodiment experience or sexed perspective on being human?
Or do men and women have some fundamental human traits making our experiences likely very similar?
What about the possibly infinite diversity of individual subjective experience? Could we all be having profoundly unique and unmatched experiences?
Comments (66)
What for? That's a serious question: For what purpose is it important to define what human is? The taxonomy hasn't been disputed for some little while. No other claimants have come forward. We're not expecting to be carded at some cosmic disco. So - what for?
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Nah! Air, water, food, warm and cold, fear, comfort, infancy, pratfalls, agonizing first love, bad poetry, parents just don't get it, fear of failure, enormous highs of exuberance.... All much of a muchness... all happening in a distinct, isolate, separate skin to a particular, unique consciousness, 8 billion times in eight billion different ways.
Discursive metacognition.
As a species, we produce knowledge by which we ratchet-up ourselves out from every ecological niche we've inhabited (so far).
Outies and Innies (i.e. yin and yang).
Natality-desire-mortality & reasoning.
Possibly but only if each individual is a member of a different species.
It strikes me that a human is a real definable entity distinct from other things.
Some thinkers have already argued for us having unique traits such as a very sophisticated language with thousands of words and numerous uses as well as story telling, inventiveness, creativity, awareness of our mortality and our ability to think about things like infinity and mathematics.
Some of these things do not seem to rely on our body as opposed to our mental architecture but they combine mental and physical to make who we are.
I am wondering if we are just random arbitrary creations or some how maybe an inevitable product of nature or maybe something we can never pin down or ethereal.
I believe we do have unique abilities but I wonder if our physical body is like an arbitrary vessel from which our mental life exhibits itself.
Initially though I was wondering what makes male and females both humans. Is it just our brains or our genetics? In some species male and female are very different looking, one tiny one large for example and in some species both sexes are quite similar. And there are things only females can do like carry a child. So I also feel as if my sexed body may form a substantial part of my self.
I am rambling a bit sorry.. In sum. I feel like I know what it is to be human but also I don't and am puzzled.
So's an eraser..... but what's the point?Quoting Andrew4Handel
unique among thousands of other animals that also unique for the ability to produce honey, a talent for echo-location or the ability mimic the colouration of their environment. So?
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Oh, that. As you were.
Having a heart is not unique to humans so it seems features like these found in many other species could not be what makes us human.
Being an eraser would be a weak emergent property.
The attributes of humans are the most profound and sophisticated ones of anything on earth.
You couldn't have this conversation with an eraser could you? Or a bee.
Not this one, no. OTOH, somehow all the people looking for how people are unique neglect to mention the unique human ability to fuck in numerous, varied and spectacular ways.
Good observation, but I'm not sure bonobos wouldn't put up a serious challenge there.
We cook our food. The degree to which we can manipulate and investigate our environment. We are space goers as well as deep sea explorers - our frontiers extend far beyond that of any survival habitat of other animals. Art. Our genome. The complexity and peculiarities of our languages. The capacity/range and resolution of our 5 physical senses. Our religions (as far as I know other animals don't have spiritual practices or engage in philosophy), the length of human childhood/maturation. Our athroponososes (diseases and infections that only affect humans).
There are many distinguishing features of being human.
Both behaviourally, cognitively and physically.
Only humans argue over whether somebody is male or female, either, neither, both, too female, not female enough, and whether they should be allowed to be whatever they say they are.
Oh yeah?
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/07/europe/ukraine-nova-kakhovka-dam-environment-damage-intl-hnk/index.html
I was taking "fuck" more literally than you seem to have meant it.
Religion is a strange human phenomena and the way we treat the dead and consider the afterlife and the wide variety of religious beliefs and mythologies. These things appear to be internal in terms of personal beliefs but with external manifestations like churches and temples and iconography, prose music and ritual.
These seem to be intellectual, mental or cognitive traits of humans that you could not guess at by looking at us. But do they rely on our embodiment in a human physical form?
Some religions have a male monotheistic and paternalistic deity, others have male and female gods and goddesses with capricious behaviours and others have animal or alien deities.
This seems to illustrate an crazy diversity in human behaviour that seems to set us miles apart from other living things. Although some animals do display mourning and ritualistic behaviours towards the dead.
Sometimes being human seems mundane and stifling but reflecting on our capacities seems to imbue us with specialness. And then we seem to be the only philosophic creature prone to existential crises.
Why this recurring need to re-affirm our identity?
Or this obsession with the gender identity?
Just how insecure are we??
I'm not sure how one might quantify the degree to which experiences are profoundly unique and unmatched.
We all have unique brains, so from a physicalist perspective, and in light of the diversities of our life experiences, I don't see how we could not have profoundly unique and unmatched experiences.
On the other hand, I think one of the most unique thing about humans is the 'bandwidth' with which we communicate amongst ourselves, which leads to an ability to 'get on the same page'. (Not to say we're nearly as good at it as we might like to be.)
So more complex properties are subservient to basic atom interactions and physical laws.
In this sense phenomena like, pain, thought, dreams, imagination, personality, consciousness and pain and so on that form part of being human are promised to be subsumed into some kind of basic unified model of reality.
But I don't see these things as being reducible to something simpler so I see the emergence of Human traits as more profound and you might say we currently are the thing in reality that contains the most challenging complex and unique properties. And some of these properties like consciousness have been argued to be fundamental.
Do you class this as a physical or mental attribute?
Some humans I believe we recognise as human without them displaying various human cognitive dispositions such as babies and the mentally disabled. I feel that the aspect of humanity found in our cognition is rather abstract and elusive.
Although I do accept it as probably unique to us.
Quoting 180 Proof
You could say we are ubiquitous although we seem to bring various other creatures along on our coattails like cats, dogs and birds and rats. I am someone who has not been abroad and doesn't like much travel. I wonder how much concepts and location and home play a role in being human? In This way we have a diversity of inclinations among humans. On this note there are immobile humans who travel in their minds far distances.
Quoting 180 Proof
I feel like bearing a child for some women may be a transcendent experience. Notwithstanding reluctant and abusive and neglectful mothers. As a men I feel like some female experiences are more profound than any male ones.
We have celebrated (and vilified) men and women and gender diverse in different ways in art and culture. I think we (people) may be in a state of conflict over what it means to be human male and female that may be a hall mark of our species. And we have the massive body of art, literature sociology etc that we have devoted to examining in ourselves.
Language.
Yes.
This would entail:
a) Not randomly creating humans en masse without putting extreme thought and care into the creation of human life.
b) Not enslaving humans
c) Treating everyone with dignity and intelligence
d) Respecting issues of consent
f) Not creating societies and models and paradigms that worsen or debase the human condition
Problem comes with the interpretation, right? What counts as slavery? I would include wage slavery, but others might not. I can't seem many people agreeing on how "f" should look, even if they all agree with the sentiment. With "a", just how would we determine what counts as 'extreme thought and care'? Maybe 'rigorous' would be better than 'extreme'. But can you see this leading to 'only psychologically stable and wealthy people with means should have children', or any number of unpleasant permutations.
Might work for AGI machines (like Asimov's "Law of Robotics") but we're primates, first and foremost, driven by territorial, hierarchical, reproductive & tribal instincts amplified by a sliver of forebrain grey matter into (mal/adaptive) cognitive biases which reinforce in each one of us "I am special" (i.e. "more special than you"). Eusocially constrained self-serving organisms delusional and struggling. To wit: if we "treat" everyone "as if we are special", Andrew, then no one will be "special". Human facticity problems for us endure, or strive against, not for us to solve.
How about a man/boy who no longer consents to be a man/boy?
And of course a woman/girl who no longer consents to being one?
:100:
Did they ever "consent" in the first place? AFAIK, no one "consents" to be born; one can only "consent" to destroy (or mutilate / modify) oneself.
Yeah, I was referring to consent after birth and perhaps even after you are legally recognised as an adult.
Some consider a tattoo or a body piercing, to be mutilation, most don't.
How about any form of plastic surgery, is any such a mutilation, I think some folks do look like they have mutilated themselves via plastic surgery but all things considered, I think modify is a much better term for use in the trans community, do you agree?
Yeah, suicide is also a choice, but certainly one I would personally try to dissuade someone from doing, unless they were terminally ill and suffering badly.
I can't remember if you have already offered comment, regarding your support or lack of support of trans folks?
Well, I do not believe I'm trans-phobic.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/336888
I am an antinatalist and one of the reasons is because life is imposed on us without consent.
Also it is because I recognise how special human experience is and life can be an affront and suffering and our own bodies cause us great suffering.
But I believe that once we come to exist people should be protected and valued and encouraging delusions and compromising women's rights by allowing men to identify as them is pure dysfunction and reality denial.
It seems humans are the only creature able to discern the truth and our quest for the truth is somewhat noble. Gender ideology is a perversion of the truth.
Creating a world based on fictions could be described as escapism.
Science and technology often extends human choice.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I am not an antinatalist and for what it's worth, if I could have been asked for consent to be born into this world I would have said yes.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
We have already exchanged our opinions on that issue.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Your truth in this case, is not objective truth.
Personally, I no longer care about the 'junk in someone's trunk.'
I accept the gender and sex you tell me you are.
The rest is a matter of a case by case basis imo.
Who can go to which area and compete in which sport etc, is simply 'issues' yet to be fully ironed out.
In my youth and probably up to around my mid 30's, I was very 'anti,' towards all non-heterosexual people.
I then began to find their arguments too hard to defeat, so I dropped all of my objections.
They simply won their case imo.
We appear to be the only entities with a concept of truth and facts but as Hume pointed out you cannot get an "ought" from and "is".
Facts about reality do not compel us to behave a certain way or say how we ought to act or shape reality.
So I think a diverse range of things like law, social norms, taboos, gender ideology and religion may not have inherent truth value. But certain claims can be proven false like in the case of the bible containing falsities and contradictions.
I think falsity is the closest we can come to an ought in the sense that we can reject falsity as an unjustified grounds for action. Biological facts exclude gender identity from being true. Religions do not provide truthful justified grounds for actions.
In the case of human fabrications like laws and social structures we can treat them pragmatically as convenient fictions.
Like when people say the gods or God has/have spoken to them. Like people who say they recieved a sign or had a near death experience or witnessed a miracle. And All sorts of equally subjective religious anecdotes and then they should also advocate that these things to be enshrined in law as well as transracial and trans abled identities.
But I doubt people support this position and this would lead to outcomes of fantasy and conflicting ideological beliefs. Secularism should include secularism about gender identity and not inflicting other peoples self beliefs on other people.
You can see now that there is a global fight back against this ideology because people do not believe iot and are resisting.
Also I think the success of a human ideology is not proof of its truth. At most people religions and ideologies tell us something about human aspirations and insecurities and unconscious forces.
Are you claiming everyone is driven by instincts or are their exceptions? I suffer from a lack of drive, motivation and reproductive urges so instincts seem to have bypassed me.
My notion of specialness is not a case of more special or conflicting rights.
I believe in human equality. I could look up the definition and etymology of specialness and discuss that but in my sense I am referring to unique human attributes shared by most humans and latent in other humans (babies/the unconscious etc)
I said we should be treated "as if" we are special which leaves open the possibility we are not but raises us up temporarily for respect and gives us reason to protect each others interests. I feel like some political and scientific systems treat humans as expendable, cogs in a machine etc or systems and tokens to be manipulated.
But societies are moving away from that with human rights language and welfare systems. And this also requires inherent compromise where we cannot all just do what we want and flourish or cohere.
This is a fairly poor false equivalence. I'm sure you are a smart person but that sounds like the kind of limited thinking that would have someone provide rickety straw man arguments like - 'But what if someone identifies as a Lego brick, would you agree with that?' Yeah, right....
A religious claim involves something supernatural or ineffable which cannot be identified or even described (e.g., gods and goddesses). Gender identity is a human phenomenon we can identify and point to and have conversations about. For me gender is an open question, our understanding of it is developing all the time. What harm is there in allowing people to be who they need to be? And can this be answered without straw manning, catastrophizing or using the hasty generalization fallacy?
Sounds like trans issues really upset you.
Quoting universeness
:up: Exactly. Humans can work the through issues. Gender is complex and if someone needs to be male or female on non-binary where the fuck is the problem? People think it's against god or against nature. They think it's a war on truth. I heard all the same shit about homosexuality back a few decades back and even now in some communities.
The arguments are almost irrelevant. It's here. It's happening. It's not going away. Deal with it respectfully and respect people's choices. We can prevent suicides and depression and miserable lives if we can just agree to accept people's need to be who they are.
Unethical surgeries that are causing increasingly well documented harms. A woman on excess testosterone increases her chances of dementia, stroke and Multiple sclerosis.
Woman are a real biological category and allowing men in their spaces and awards and sports is undermining their privacy dignity and security.
Lia Thomas won women swimming medals that biological women strove hard to get. They were exposed to his intact naked male body in the changing rooms (more of this is coming out as we speak.) This is misogynistic abuse and gas lighting. Gender identity does impact other people it is a state enforced religion and it should not be taught as a fact in schools.
It is far from harmless and you are in denial about the harms and my support for it decreases my the day the more the harms become evident.
There is no state of being in a state you need to be in. That is subjective. "I need to be a Hollywood celebrity." "I need their to be an afterlife." I need a million pounds. Our basic needs are biological and psychological needs are an inherently problematic area.
Anyone can claim anything to be necessary for psychological flourishing. Absolutely anything. It is self identified and subjective and unfalsifiable. But nobody can change sex or live as the opposite sex. A defleshed inverted penis is literally not a vagina and it is a misogynistic insult to call it so. Women's biology is how we all entered the world.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
That is such a literal minded, banal observation. It is pretty clear empirically that people do live well and happily as genders other than their birth gender. A reductive focus on sex organs and sex in general is beside the point.
I've known personally and worked with a fair number of trans people. It has always been a marked quality of life improvement for each of them. I now know a number of teens who have identified as trans. Their lives have also improved immeasurably. The lived experience is the thing that matters. But I fail to see how a ceaseless back and forth on this is of any use. Trans is here to stay - the arguments are largely moot.
I have met four males identifying as women. Two of them through the local autistic services I have used and the other two exhibiting autistic traits and complex mental health issues none of them passed as the desired "gender"
I don't know where you are meeting your trans identified people, I also follow gender related forums and twitter closely so now have a wide knowledge of issues in this area from surgeries to definitions, gender theory , to being a member of the categories "gay" and "autistic".
Religious people are never going to go away it seems but that doesn't mean we have to respect there questionable or fictional beliefs and structure society around them.
The gay rights movement eventually improved the lives of folks like @Andrew4Handel significantly, in many countries of the world. An openly gay person can now become a political leader.
It's a pity he can't find it in himself to help achieve for another minority group what has been achieved for him, after what seems to me to have been a very very hard fought fight.
My personal acceptance of people as they want to be, when it really is no serious threat to 'human civilisation,' allows me to even have 'some understanding' towards folks who choose such as:
or
What sex or gender a person chooses to be, worries me a lot less, (in fact it pales into insignificance in comparison) compared to a person who chooses to be a trump supporter, a religious zealot, a capitalist, a billionaire, a plutocrat, a celebrity cult, a personality cult, a narcissist, an autocrat, an aristocrat, etc.
:fire: I hear you.
I want to add something more about the actual topic. I think Aristotle articulated something fundamental with his classification of man as 'the rational animal'. Rationality (and language, and all that it brings) is a difference that makes a difference. Likewise the ability to ask 'who or what am I', to contemplate death and immortality, and to do all the innumerable other things that h. sapiens alone seems able to do. My firm conviction is that h.sapiens transcends biology, and is able to realise horizons of being that are, as far as we know, unique to us.
:lol: and surely they itch something awful at times!
This woman Elaine Davidson holds the world record for the most facial piercings:
:up:
This is ridiculous. It indicates you have barely read any of my posts on this topic.
Calling a group a minority does not make them credible or sympathetic. Terrorists, Paedophiles and murderers are minorities.
So here is a list of a few criticism I have made of gender ideology and trans identity none of which can be levelled at homosexuality.
1. Women's rights are compromised by allowing men to identify as them
1.(b) There are no longer women only spaces
2. No one can change sex
3.Gender identities are meaningless and incoherent
4. Phalloplasties and inverting penises are genital mutilation.
5. Puberty Blockers are harmful and chemically castrate children and stunt their development.
6. Gay people are same sex attracted and are having their identity , reputation and spaces undermined.
7. Gay detransitioners regret castrating themselves or having double mastectomies due to internal and external homophobia
8. Gender ideology is homophobic and misogynistic and encourages children to reject their bodies.
9. Gender affirming health care is experimental and being increasingly discredited
10. Gender critical beliefs are protected by law in the UK.
11. We should not be forced to have to affirm peoples self beliefs.
Is that because you are not a women in sheltered accommodation? Is that because your penis or vagina is still intact and you are not poisoning yourself with wrong sex hormones?
Is that because you are not an a elite female sports woman having to share a changing room with a penis that then goes onto to beat you at your sport because he has gone through a male puberty and has bigger stronger bone structure and larger lungs and is over 6ft.
Is that because you don't have MS, early on set dementia or cardiac arrest due to poisoning yourself with cross sex hormones that your body does not want or need.
Or is it because you are not a gender non conforming gay child who is being told he must be born in the wrong body?
Or maybe it is because you are not a member of the gay community whose reputation is being trashed?
I do accept that humans beings have proven capable of a wide array of almost transcendent things through thought and deed including the worst depravity and greatest self sacrifice, feats of thought art and technology.
But I feel biology trumps psychology and for a wide range of people that and circumstances places severe limitations on them.
My older brother was disabled for most of His adult life by Multiple sclerosis and was eventually paralysed by MS and communicated by blinking and was simply unable to a lot of things before dying prematurely at 47.
I don't believe people can do anything or anything they put their mind to or that they are existentially free.
However I have just been reminded of a Woman with Locked in Syndrome who completed a degree by Blinking facilitated technology which is amazing.
I have read your posts on this thread. I agree with others who have posted that your claims are about outliers. You don't comment on the majority of trans folks who are very happy indeed with the path they have taken. I hear them say so, on their on-line community representations.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I have no interest in invoking sympathy for any minority group. I support ensuring that any minority group has their basic human rights fully respected.
Your 11 points are just your opinions they are not facts.
Which peer reviewed study of all women on Earth are you citing that shows they think the trans community has a major detrimental effect on their rights and their 'women only' spaces?
I could write a refutation of each of your 11 points very easily.
A person can change their sex via personal psyche, hormone therapy and surgery. They currently cannot change their chromosomal sex or produce the gametes their preferred sex produces, but science will probably be able to do both at some point in the future. Changing 3 out of 5 elements aint bad at all.
What you call genital mutilation is corrective surgery for the majority of the trans folks who take that path.
One of the greatest entertainers ever, Little Richard, had an almighty battle with homosexuality. He was a homosexual then he rejected it and became a gospel singing preacher who became anti-homosexual then he became a homosexual again. So, some homosexuals have been as conflicted and confused as the outliers you mention in the trans community.
Quentin Crisp said:
The rest of the world in which I lived was still stumbling about in search of a weapon with which to exterminate this monster [homosexuality] whose shape and size were not yet known or even guessed at. It was thought to be Greek in origin, smaller than socialism but more deadly, especially to children.
Sounds rather similar to some of your current red flag danger waving, towards trans folks.
In 1977 Quentin Crisp told the Times newspaper that he would advise parents to abort a foetus, if it could be shown to be genetically predetermined to be gay: "If It (homosexuality) can be avoided, it should be"
It looks to me like the homosexual community has and had it's outliers as well.
Peter Tatchell, who is a well known gay and trans rights campaigner condemns Crisp with:
Quentin was no gay hero, jealousy made him bitter, he was no longer the only queer in town
From The Peter Tatchell foundation, we have:
[b]For over five decades, I have argued that womens rights are human rights and supported hundreds of womens rights campaigns in the UK and worldwide. There can be no liberation without womens liberation.
Equally, for the same five decades, I have supported the struggle for trans equality, respect, dignity and human rights. I see no contradiction between trans and womens liberation. Both have my support. I echo the stance of the many pro-trans feminists.
I oppose the trans critical views of Germaine Greer, JK Rowling and others but urge an end to abuse and intimidation by some people on both sides of the argument, including the insults, threats and smears directed against trans people and trans allies like myself.[/b]
With all due respect, I value expert campaigners from the homosexual community, such as Peter Tatchell, regarding the trans community and the actual trans folks I have heard speak on line, rather than the somewhat irrational claims coming from you.
No
Quoting Andrew4Handel
No
Quoting Andrew4Handel
No
Quoting Andrew4Handel
No
Quoting Andrew4Handel
No
Quoting Andrew4Handel
No
It's because a trump supporter, a religious zealot, a capitalist, a billionaire, a plutocrat, a celebrity cult, a personality cult, a narcissist, an autocrat, an aristocrat, etc, is a far greater threat to the human race, than what sexual preference or identity a person has.
Oh, I do think there are some issues to address but I think we can address them without condemning transsexuals or transgenders. Some policy suggestions:
1. Transsexuals competing in sports, particulary man to woman transsexuals, still have a significant advantage in endurance and strength, which I do believe is unfair. But easily resolved if we say you can only compete in activities based on the sex you were born with;
2. If you still have a penis, you use the men's room and don't enter the female's only sauna (and vice versa), irrespective of any other steps in your transition
3. There's a significant uptick in transitioning and gender dysphoria in recent years that hasn't been explained. My pet theory is that gender stereotypes have become more extreme due to tik-tokkable and instagrammable views of extreme feminity and masculinity, leading to increased rejection of people who do not fit the norm (such rejection can be real or perceived). In other words, societies have become less liberal and accepting of variation in gender expression with an increased risk of gender dysphoria as a result. I would really be interested in more research in this area and see if more toleration can lead to a lower need for gender affirming surgery since I do believe all surgery carries risks that are better avoided.
Quoting Vera Mont
Tell me more.
j/k Please don't. I have very tender sensibilities.
Oh, dear, oh dear! My failure to edit and proofread results in much misunderstanding! I usually catch those gaffes sooner or later. In this instance, while the statement as it reads is certainly true, what I meant, of course, was to make messes, cause problems, spoil things and break stuff; SNAFU, with the crucial 'up' accidentally omitted.
I do apologize most sincerely for any bruising of tender sensibilities.
Interesting. I'm sure social media plays a role. I think the other fact is that if you build awareness (and tolerance) then more people will feel comfortable to identify and explore their identity.
Quoting Benkei
I think this is the key. As humans we are constantly extending ourselves. We can do it. And sure, there may be challenges and dilemas along the way.
There is a huge one: the rising far right
They need their scapegoats!
I don't think it has anything to do with their core beliefs - they have none, beyond "We Want Power!"; were that not so, how could they support... that .... The bigoted religious stuff is to keep the support of their bigoted religious voters.
In that case, we entirely agree. They have other groups whose prejudices/ fears / hopes they can exploit also. The trick - and it's pretty nearly complete - is to get them all under one flag... and set it on fire.