Thread: Seriousness What is it that makes us human?
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Old 04-25-2009, 01:46 PM   #36
Steven Lyle Jordan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cassidym View Post
Isn't the main thing that makes us human the fact that we're not afraid of vacuum cleaners?
No... the fact that we are not brave enough to chase a car.

Another film that offers insight to the question is "Ghost In The Shell." Many of those characters are cyborgs, or in some cases, organic brains encased in an entirely robotic body, and work alongside unaugmented humans. The question that is often asked is whether or not those cyborgs have retained their souls, or "ghosts," by becoming cyborgs or robotic brain cases, and if there is really any difference between them and any other animal, or machine.

Overall, I see no fundamental difference between humans and any other animals on this planet... we are the Naked Ape. Communication... dexterity... emotion... tool-building... self-awareness... learning... survival... self-sacrifice... community... abstract thought (which extends, by definition, to religious belief, which is at root <AuthorDucks>a psychological affectation created by our own over-developed pattern-recognition skills </AuthorDucks>)... all of these things have been catalogued in other animals, and so cannot be used as yardsticks for "uniqueness."

Possibly the only thing that sets us further apart from all other animals is our plasticity, our unique ability to adapt any or all of the above-mentioned elements, at will, to our purposes.
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