| View previous topic :: View next topic :: |
Kier
Joined: 27 Nov 2009
Posts: 1
|
Post: #1  Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 9:04 pm Post subject: How do you define human? |
  |
|
|
How do you define human? and What makes up human?
Is it the soul?
Let's discuss! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Harmless
Joined: 24 Nov 2009
Posts: 8
|
| Post: #2 Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 9:19 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
| withouth brining the soul into the discussion, i feel what really makes us human is our ability to look beyond ourselves and think abstractly. to wonder and dream and wheter u call that part of the soul |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Fey
Joined: 28 Nov 2009
Posts: 2
|
| Post: #3 Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 5:04 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
Human is a flesh..They live because of it's soul..
We can call them humans because they're not the same with animals..(even though biologically we're similar with animals)
Humans are creature that can "think"..And have any other aspect that had by humans only(but in some part, animals also had some aspect)..Ambition, hatred, love, sadness, happiness..
We have "feeling"..
But in humans these day, most of them(not all) are the "same" with animals..Since they kill another humans, they act without thinking..bla8..
And i personally said that humans existence are futile.. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Belinda
Contributor
Joined: 10 Jul 2008
Posts: 3850
|
| Post: #4 Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 5:14 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
If things are divided into animal, vegetable and mineral then humans are animals.Humans are animals.
_________________
Socialist |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Fey
Joined: 28 Nov 2009
Posts: 2
|
| Post: #5 Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 6:10 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
Exactly..  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
athena
Contributor
Joined: 11 Jun 2009
Posts: 857
|
| Post: #6 Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 10:14 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
| Quote: |
| http://www.feralchildren.com/en/index.php |
The study of feral children is very interesting in answering the question about what it means to be human. The explanation of feral children does not seem so different, to me, as explanations of isolated aboriginal people.
I would say, what makes us human is our connections with each other. Without our connections with each other, we are more like animals than humans.
So human would mean our physical condition. We are naked apes that stand upright and usually walk to two legs. Only in connection with each other, do we develop the traits that we identify with being human. This connection must being at birth and be maintained, because as other animals we go through windows of learning, and if do not learn, say language, within that window of time, we can not later learn the complexity of language, and the thinking dependent on language, such as contemplating what it means to be human.
Just as birds have a small window for learning the song special to them, and can not learn their song when this window closes. However, a bird that can not sing its song, is still a bird. A human who behaves as animals is still genetically a human.
I want to add to this, that monkeys raised in isolation, do not mature into normal monkeys, and do not later engage in sex. The normal development of a monkey is also dependent on its associations with other monkeys. It is my guess the big leap from monkey to human is the ability to learn complex language, which then means being able to ask what it means to be human. The Greeks said this ability to learn and think is what makes as the gods. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Amerie
Joined: 28 Nov 2009
Posts: 2
|
| Post: #7 Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 12:51 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
| 'Human' to me is 'Homo sapiens sapiens' - a species, purely a label to describe the animal that we are. For me it is just biology. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ape
Joined: 06 Apr 2009
Posts: 3324
|
| Post: #8 Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 1:22 pm Post subject: Re: How do you define human? |
|
|
|
| Kier wrote: |
How do you define human? and What makes up human?
Is it the soul?
Let's discuss! |
Hi Kier! Welcome!
Human is any being, alive or dead, whose brain uses or used to use words to work by.  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Belinda
Contributor
Joined: 10 Jul 2008
Posts: 3850
|
| Post: #9 Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 6:47 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
DNA
_________________
Socialist |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
athena
Contributor
Joined: 11 Jun 2009
Posts: 857
|
| Post: #10 Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 9:16 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
So far the answers have not encouraged discussion. Like Belinda, my first response to say we identify humans with DNA. With DNA we can identify a fragment of bone as a human bone. However, we speak of being human, we do mean being as feral child. We mean being as cultured and social being, capable of learning and teaching.
Our DNA is not that complex, but our brains are complex, and what makes us different from a feral child is the increased use of our left brain. For most people the center for speech in the left brain. Feral children are predominately right brain. We can assume the demands of life leave most primitive people to be predominantly right brain. How the ease of life made possible by agriculture and then the division of labor, would result in some people becoming more left brain dominate. I don't know of another animal that can be left brain dominate, so perhaps we could define humans as left brain dominate creatures.
Here is an excellent site that describes the differences between the chimpanzee and human brains and the differences in our anatomy that makes us human. It is helpful to understand brain neurons grow when they are stimulated and they atrophy and die when they not stimulated. Both chimps and humans hear, but the chimps brain lacks the feature that processes sound into language. However, chimps can learn sign language.
http://www.slideshare.net/PaulVMcDowell/comparativ e-primate-anatomy |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Nick_A
Joined: 19 Apr 2009
Posts: 1461
|
| Post: #11 Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 12:46 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
Human being as distinct from other animal life one earth is defined as in the image of God.
The question then is what does it mean to be in the image and why we are not so can be said only to be human in potential.
_________________
Man would like to be an egoist and cannot. This is the most striking characteristic of his wretchedness and the source of his greatness." Simone Weil....Gravity and Grace |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Scott
Site Admin
Joined: 20 Jan 2007
Posts: 1710
|
| Post: #12 Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 1:00 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
Human is a biological term, is it not? The answer is as simply answered as the question, "What is a dog?" or, "What is bacteria?"
I think the question would have more to discuss if it was phrases as, "What is a person?" If there was an intelligent non-human animal that was smarter than some of the stupidest humans, would that be a person? Is a braindead human a person? What about if a human's brain and heart are completely destroyed but the human's body is artificially kept working through machines for the purpose of organ transplants? What about an embryo, a box containing viable sperm and eggs, or a fetus in which a brain has not developed? What about a hypothetical extraterrestrial life-form that is smarter than humans with more sophisticated language? What about hypothetical vampires as portrayed in any number of films who sometimes live more 10 times as long as a human, sometimes are nicer than the average human, sometimes look down more on relatively weak, young humans more than humans look down on dogs, and who are considered 'soulless,' whatever that means, by religions?
These are interesting questions indeed.
_________________
Online Philosophy Club - Please tell me how to improve this website! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Beneasteas
Joined: 29 Nov 2009
Posts: 1
|
| Post: #13 Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 9:44 pm Post subject: |
|
|
|
| A human. I believe a human is nothing but a vehicle, who without a soul would remain undead. The same goes for all other animals, all of which have souls. Without a soul to influence our vehicle, we are nothing but humans who do what they do best: eat, sleep, and repeat. With a soul however, we have the ability to rewrite our internal programming to our desire; i.e. personality. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
wanabe
Joined: 24 Nov 2008
Posts: 2112
Location: EVERYWHERE
|
| Post: #14 Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 12:16 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
I loosely define human.: As anything that aspires or makes an effort to be like 'god'.(Forgive the connotation-->to improve everything)
This can be made of just about anything.
How can we tell if there is an aspiration or effort? We can't. Does it matter, beyond triviality?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
Of scott's post:
A person is a merely a member of a community, a part of the populous.
By my definition all those things could be human.
_________________
The Secret To Eternal Life: Live Life To The Fullest, And Help All Others To Do So. Fear is weakness leaving the mind. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
hilda
Joined: 30 Jan 2009
Posts: 52
|
| Post: #15 Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 9:35 am Post subject: |
|
|
|
I think it would be an excellent if we actually took the quaestion seriously for once instead of trying to give a zoological answer. A civilised question deserves a civilised answer and one which serves civilisation. So the antithesis is "what is inhuman?" and if humanity is a function of civilisation then "what is primitive?" and "what is anti-human (call it pro-active primitivism)?", "what is subhuman?", "what is a human response to inhumanity?" and "how should civilisation deal with primitivism?"
Philosophy might regain some respect if it interpreted this question in the right spirit.
Is it not tragic that such a significant question could become zoological, bio-chemical or that its pertinence had anything to do with the metaphysical existence or nonexistence of the soul? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
