Examining whether humans are unique, how to define humanity, and when humanity evolved.

[RJM Corbet]

The first animal instinct is for self survival. The second is to procreate. And it's almost as strong, imo. When young are born, the instinct for self survival gives way to the instinct to protect the young until they are able to live viably alone. Penguins take huge risks to return food to their young, etc.

An animal may not usually lash out or bite the human whom it perceives as its protector and source of nourishment. There is a balance of values. A dog still follows its pack instinct, and a trained circus lion performs for a mix of reasons.

Is there something different about human beings? Perhaps there is not.

From Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff when test pilots are laughing about new astronauts saying a monkey could perform the same job, Chuck Yeager observes: "But a monkey doesn't know the rocket can blow up."

So ... not sure where I am trying to go with this ...

 

[Montero]

I was wandering and wondering a bit myself..... I worked towards what I wanted to say in my previous post....

 

[Provincial]

The bit I thought interesting -- more as a germ for a story than as science (to the extent of not bothering too much whether the "evidence" for it is there or not) -- was the suggestion that we were infantilised hominids (in the way that domestic cats and domestic dogs are infantilised versions of their wild forebears).

While we almost certainly have infantilised ourselves, there's the tiniest crack through which a suggestion that, perhaps, we might have been the "pets"** of other hominids might squeeze through and, if so, we eventually decided we didn't like our status and took action to rectify it. (Note that I write as someone who, from early on, has come to think that the hominids in the Culture are -- or very well could be -- the pets of the Minds.)


** - Other, less cosy, owner-owned relationships*** are available for consideration.

*** - I wasn't completely convinced by:

We have (quite recent) examples of the offspring of slaves or concubines becoming the heirs, sometimes the principal heirs, of their mother's owners.

I also found that ‘infantilising’ idea quite interesting from a story point of view, but more from the viewpoint that we are a race which hasn’t grown up yet!

 

[Fiberglass Cyborg]

Whenever I see on the cover of a popular science magazine the words "Special Issue: What it Means to be Human!" I always think I'd be more interested if they did "Special Issue: What it Means to be Hedgehog!" just for a change.

 

[Venusian Broon]

This video I came across yesterday has some bearings on the topics of this thread, I believe, although it it's entertainment....no...edu-tainment, just not rigorous . (I think the bit about the ants made me think about this thread!)

Anyway it's not quite related to the OP, but still deserves a looksy

EDIT: Okay, the media function here doesn't seem to be working....so....the video I am refering to is called 8 million species of Aliens and it is on the exurb1a channel on Youtube

 

[Foxbat]

Animals have an irritating habit of getting in the way when we try to define ourselves. For example, New Caledonian crows have been observed using (and, it’s claimed, making) tools to get to food. When it comes to language or communication, honey bees communicate within the hive by vibrating their wings and moving about in specific sequences (often known as the waggle dance). This is supposed to transmit info on direction and distance to food based on its movements relative to both the hive and the sun.

Humanity would be so much easier to define if there weren’t so many animals about.

 

[Harpo]

What about Environmental Personhood?

Environmental personhood - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[RJM Corbet]

Depends what you mean by 'achieve' in the above sentence. Ants, termites and bees to give some examples off the top of my head "achieve" more in social groups/species than they ever could in individuals. So it's not absent in the world with no humans.

Perhaps these creatures are more like cells of a single entity, as suggested in The Soul of the White Ant by Eugene Marais?

 

[Montero]

What about Environmental Personhood?

Environmental personhood - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I think that is a bit different from humanity. The article is making the point that it is a legal construct to help protect the natural environment, as it allows people to stand forward as guardians of the environmental area granted personhood. However there is also the human tendency to assign personality, or a deity to something like a river, or a particularly splendid old tree.

In terms of comparing personhood and humanity my thoughts run as follows:
So having a river, with presumably the watershed in which the river exists, being treated to the benefit of the environment - watershed land, river waters, and all that live in, on and above them - is a very worthwhile thing to do.
Giving it personhood emphasises the entire package of what makes a river and bring the consequences of actions together in people's minds. It isn't just about don't use pesticide X in this field, it is don't put anything harmful to the river where it can harm the river. It is a concept which encourages joined up thinking.
You could also potentially argue that considering the watershed area and the river itself as one entity is a bit like recognising a beehive as one entity. It is not as centralised as a beehive, but all the life there is interconnected and interdependent.
If you consider the ability to feel pain, to have a personality, to have emotions, which animals do, then it gets more complicated in respect of the river. If you regard a river solely as a water channel, and the water in it, then it is no to pain and emotions in the way that fauna feel them, but people would still assign a personality to a river in a basic way - tranquil, happy, dangerous - though that is more about how it makes the humans feel.
However when you get to the personhood of a river, if you include the water shed and all the fauna living in it, then there is most definitely the capacity to feel pain and emotions.

There has been recent research on trees response to damage, and that you could refer to it as the trees feeling pain. Peter Wohlleben, a forester in Germany who now manages community woodlands has collated the research, and his experiences as a forester, in an excellently written and approachable book.

The Hidden Life of Trees — Peter Wohlleben

www.peterwohllebenbooks.com

 

[Foxbat]

What about Environmental Personhood?

Environmental personhood - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I've always struggled to grasp the Japanese concept of the Kami. Perhaps it might be similar to this concept of environmental personhood but from a religious point of view. The Kami doesn't have to be alive. It could be a rock or a mountain. Perhaps a forest (which is alive) or even a wind (Kamikaze). Where I think there is a similarity is that it is something to be worshipped, cherished and protected - much like many of us feel about our environment. Is there another animal beyond humans, I wonder, that consciously adds such significance to the place that they live in above just living in that place? So maybe what makes us what we are is the dual nature that we have as a species. On the one hand, we have the capacity to destroy it but on the other, we also have the capacity to love our environment.

 

[RJM Corbet]

I've always struggled to grasp the Japanese concept of the Kami. Perhaps it might be similar to this concept of environmental personhood but from a religious point of view. The Kami doesn't have to be alive. It could be a rock or a mountain. Perhaps a forest (which is alive) or even a wind (Kamikaze). Where I think there is a similarity is that it is something to be worshipped, cherished and protected - much like many of us feel about our environment.

I think the Earth is a living entity

Is there another animal beyond humans, I wonder, that consciously adds such significance to the place that they live in above just living in that place? So maybe what makes us what we are is the dual nature that we have as a species. On the one hand, we have the capacity to destroy it but on the other, we also have the capacity to love our environment.

It may have been more evident in earlier people who lived closer to the earth? Perhaps we as a species are losing that identity with the the earth -- with that sense of close and personal identity -- as science reveals more and more about the mechanism of nature?

 

[Montero]

I think the Earth is a living entity
It may have been more evident in earlier people who lived closer to the earth? Perhaps we as a species are losing that identity with the the earth -- with that sense of close and personal identity -- as science reveals more and more about the mechanism of nature?

I agree with you about Earth as a living entity.
Earlier people were certainly more directly affected by the earth, in the sense that in bad weather they got wet and cold, in poor harvests they struggled, and that modern technology has buffered at least some of us from that. The level of buffering I think depends on location and occupation, so an office worker living in a block of flats may barely see the outdoors all week, and if unlucky the only green growing thing they might see would be the ficus in the office lobby (which could be plastic as well if really unlucky).

I am not sure of the idea of science revealing more of the mechanism of nature isolates us from it. I think the accusations of anthropomorphism that became popular in the 19th and 20th centuries were isolating - they told us that if we believed in human like behaviour in animals, then we were flawed in our science and behaviour. There has been a lot of push back against that, with animal behaviour studies and field biologists coming up with data that refuted it. A book from the 1990s, " When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals (Paperback)
Jeffrey Masson (author), Susan McCarthy (author) does a very readable job of showing the advances in animal studies, and documenting how hard it was to stand up to the "anthropomorphism" brigade.
I think that the sciences of field biology, and animal behaviour, and ecology and plant behaviour are reconnecting people in a new way, where accuracy of observation is key and we can appreciate the similarities between us and animals as well as the differences.

I do think we are much less reliant on animals in western society than we were - vehicles instead of horses and oxen - and it is more technology and engineering that separates from it and many people will have little contact with animals. However when we were totally reliant on animals, wind and water power and our own muscles, then there was a range of results from great care and connectivity to nature, to a lot of animals and people being badly overworked and mistreated. I would also note that people will merrily swear at their cars or computers for failing to do what they want them to, in just the same way as you could finish up swearing at a horse that decides "shan't". People personalise things, or at least some people do.

Regarding attitudes to the living world, I recently watched a documentary about migratory cranes, and how in one area of India people were feeding pigeons, and the crane came to the meal. This evolved into several tons of grain being spread in the town square every day for the length of the stay of the cranes, and the cranes behave in a very orderly way, queuing up outside the town walls and flying in, in batches, to feed. It is members of the Jain religion who pay for the grain. Having barely heard of the Jain, I looked them up and thought this paper on the different attitudes to animals, in different religions, including the Jain was interesting. The Jain have been around for thousands of years, and include all the flora and fauna in the soil in their respect.

https://academic.oup.com/af/article/10/1/8/5699790?login=false