An Argument for Human Exceptionalism

[Seon]

There are?
Crap. There has to be something related to the mind that makes humans unique from other animals.

We can do calculus.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Viruses and bacteria could do that far more effectively than humans could.

Oh, do tell me how it would be evolutionarily advantageous for them to do that. Tell me of the possible selection pressures that could drive them in that direction.

 

[Ajidica]

We can do calculus.

Well, I can't make heads or tails of calculus. Guess I'm not exceptional.

 

[GoodGame]

...through de facto "Might is Right"? And maybe throw in "I like Might that is Like"?


Basically Fascism.

 

[Seon]

Well, I can't make heads or tails of calculus. Guess I'm not exceptional.

Fine, most of us are "capable" of learning calculus in an ideal environment

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

With enough education you can. Someone should experiment if an animal can do that. I'd love to see a positive result (not being sarcastic here. It really would be amazing to see that happen).

 

[GoodGame]

There's a lot of complexity in trying to gauge sapience without a common language between the observer and the subject. You're stuck with more basic tests like navigating a maze, learned response behavior, etc... You can prove a mouse has empathy and can run a maze to find cheese, but how do you prove it can handle abstraction, or even complex abstraction like calculus (or using CFC-OT)?

 

[Seon]

With enough education you can. Someone should experiment if an animal can do that. I'd love to see a positive result (not being sarcastic here. It really would be amazing to see that happen).

That happening would, admittedly, be quite interesting. All we need to do is make a human-parrot translator.

Oh wait.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

but how do you prove it can handle abstraction, or even complex abstraction like calculus (or using CFC-OT)?

And instead of the null hypothesis, we'd like to believe that they can handle higher brain functions.

 

[GoodGame]

And instead of the null hypothesis, we'd like to believe that they can handle higher brain functions.

Well lets just assume that of plants then?

 

[carlosMM]

There are?
Crap. There has to be something related to the mind that makes humans unique from other animals.

It's easy to see why that must be wrong: we are animals, have evolved from other animals, so historically there must have been a being that was intermediate between the "first human" and the "last non-human animal".

Which is why you first need to define "human" properly - only to then find that the difference to the closest non-human is utterly minuscle.

 

[Hehehe]

In recent threads, it is apparent that a lot of poster adhere, knowingly or otherwise, to Human Exceptionalism, which is to say a belief that human beings, for one reason or another, occupy a special, privileged position in the world which other life forms do not.

Now, this may just be me and my tree-hugging tofu-munching hippy ways, but that doesn't make immediate sense to me, but a lot of reasonable people seem to take it more or less as read, and have argued, albeit in the jumble of another discussion, in its favour. Since it seems to be so crucial to the world views of some posters here, it seems like we could do with a space for such an argument to be laid out. So, here it is.


(A few ground rules:

- Don't cite religious ideas or texts. Beyond their obvious inapplicability outside of a particular context, every exceptionalist claim has at an equal contradiction in another religion, which rather neuters them (and, equally, the reverse).
- Establish the relationship between humanity and personhood; could a hypothetical a AI, alien or uplifted animal be a person?
- Define the limits of "humanity" in terms of species; does Homo neanderthalis count? Homo erectus? Australopithecus africanus?
- Define the limits of humanity within the species; are embryos human? Are the seriously developmentally challenged.
- If invoking the concept of sapience, define its limits, and why it is considered to be effectively interchangeable with "humanity".)

You could have just looked up wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human

Humans, known taxonomically as Homo sapiens (Latin: "wise man" or "knowing man"),[3][4] are the only living species in the Homo genus of bipedal primates in Hominidae, the great ape family. Anatomically modern humans originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago, reaching full behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago.[5]

Humans have a highly developed brain, capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection, and problem solving. This mental capability, combined with an erect body carriage that frees the hands for manipulating objects, has allowed humans to make far greater use of tools than any other living species on Earth. Other higher-level thought processes of humans, such as self-awareness, rationality and sapience,[6][7][8] are considered to be defining features of what constitutes a "person".[9][10]

Like most higher primates, humans are social animals. However, humans are uniquely adept at utilizing systems of communication for self-expression, the exchange of ideas, and organization. Humans create complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families to nations. Social interactions between humans have established an extremely wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals, which together form the basis of human society. With individuals widespread in every continent except Antarctica, humans are a cosmopolitan species. As of August 2010, the population of humans was estimated to be about 6.8 billion.[11]

Humans are noted for their desire to understand and influence their environment, seeking to explain and manipulate phenomena through science, philosophy, mythology and religion. This natural curiosity has led to the development of advanced tools and skills, which are passed down culturally; humans are the only species known to build fires, cook their food, clothe themselves, and use numerous other technologies. The study of humans is the scientific discipline of anthropology.

 

[kulade]

I dunno. The fact that humans seem to be able to reflect on what would else-wise be considered natural reflexes and evaluate whether it can be beneficial to the world is a whole in some moral-like sense seems pretty significant. Not to mention humans have built up a pretty sizeable amount of collective knowledge outside of there own heads through which they can make more informed decisions. And that people have created a scientific framework that not only and gather and catalog information about the entire universe, but can even make viable predictions about the unseen, all of this on scales far greater than even humans' closest relatives and beyond their comprehension.

And obviously I don't buy into that garbage about some magical human spirit or that there was mystical moment in which early humans just became better that everybody else, or that there is some holy teleology that humankind is gradually working to, but the fact of the matter is if you honestly can't walk through a library or between skyscrapers or see the face of the planet that in the course of several thousand years has be radically modified just so one species can feed itself more effectively, and not be able to see why humans are so much more "special" than your average barnacle, I dunno what to say, dood.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Other living things and computers are specialized, while humans can critically think...as we are doing.

 

[Traitorfish]

Before I make a statement that I would probably regret, there are no self-aware animals, right?

You mean animals that look in a mirror and know its them? There are actually quite a few.

True, and not just the obvious ones like Great Apes and dolphins- some birds can manage it, like magpies, crows and parrots, and even some of the thicker ones like pigeons manage it when trained to understand a mirror.

You could have just looked up wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human

I feel that you are missing the point of that particular comment.

I dunno. The fact that humans seem to be able to reflect on what would else-wise be considered natural reflexes and evaluate whether it can be beneficial to the world is a whole in some moral-like sense seems pretty significant. Not to mention humans have built up a pretty sizeable amount of collective knowledge outside of there own heads through which they can make more informed decisions. And that people have created a scientific framework that not only and gather and catalog information about the entire universe, but can even make viable predictions about the unseen, all of this on scales far greater than even humans' closest relatives and beyond their comprehension.

And obviously I don't buy into that garbage about some magical human spirit or that there was mystical moment in which early humans just became better that everybody else, or that there is some holy teleology that humankind is gradually working to, but the fact of the matter is if you honestly can't walk through a library or between skyscrapers or see the face of the planet that in the course of several thousand years has be radically modified just so one species can feed itself more effectively, and not be able to see why humans are so much more "special" than your average barnacle, I dunno what to say, dood.

This is actually quite a good argument- if I understand it, you're suggesting that humans are unique in that they are not only sapient, but "meta-sapient"? I suppose what I would then ask is why this creates a fundamental exception, rather than simply implying that we are the most intelligent of all animals.

 

[Perfection]

This is actually quite a good argument- if I understand it, you're suggesting that humans are unique in that they are not only sapient, but "meta-sapient"? I suppose what I would then ask is why this creates a fundamental exception, rather than simply implying that we are the most intelligent of all animals.

What the heck is a "fundamental exception"?

 

[Traitorfish]

What the heck is a "fundamental exception"?

The idea that humans are objectively removed from other animals, rather than merely being the smartest of the bunch.

 

[asbestos]

Humans are bigger, ergo we will feast on the flesh of other creatures and defile the bones to make xylophones.

 

[Ajidica]

The idea that humans are objectively removed from other animals, rather than merely being the smartest of the bunch.

Phrased like that, we don't have any innate abilities that separate us. Rather, by being the smartest of the bunch we have qualities that set us apart from other animals since by and large we are leagues ahead of other animals in almost all intellectual or social areas.

 

[Traitorfish]

Humans are bigger, ergo we will feast on the flesh of other creatures and defile the bones to make xylophones.

You're bigger than a cow?