Humanity: a precarious achievement

A short talk on humanity.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-key...
&
http://www.amazon.com/Selfhood-Authenticity-Winner-Erving-Goffman/dp/0791449009

Category:

Education

Tags:

• humanity
• agency
• magic
• purpose
• achievement
• teleology
• consciousness
• freedom
• art
• philosophy
• meaning

[alchemistra]

Humanity may be an achievement, but are we satisfied with our achievements toward the whole of humanity, we still have a long way to go, I think.

Are we human yet? Define Human.

[Professoranton]

I think we become more human by asking that question.

[dewonthegrass]

Humanity is an achievement of the self-organizing matter of the universe - not teleologically though. There was nobody who made an achievement in creating humanity.

We should be happy with that, and try to achieve a lot ourselves.

[Professoranton]

We are that part of nature where teleology manifests itself.

[MarkoKraguljac]

If acorn growing to a tree is achievement, yes.

Too much mystification.

[thesunshon]

or lack of! i challange you to disect the word magic and its origin to the best of your research?infact to start it should be spelt MAGIK MAJIK MAGIC LOL?

[RandomEdge]

one word...psilocybin

[Damienf77]

I wonder would our consciousness be missed if suddenly gone from the earth. We are like mirrors for the natural world, creating music and art and technology closely or loosely based on the world around us, and we have realised the mathematical structure of things. Who would be the observer if we were not here? Who would appreciate the nature of things? Would the world exist if there were nothing conscious to appreciate that it does (fossil records aside haha)?

[alchemistra]

I like that answer : ) thank you!

[AnomalousDataPoint]

2.

Feral humans deprived of learning language normally apparently, in brain scans, show a radically abnormal neural development. Are they less 'human' (or, as I prefer, less of a 'person'), less conscious? Maybe, if you think of consciousness as primarily an epiphenomenon of language acquisition.

[AnomalousDataPoint]

1.

Well, I read that chimpanzees (or gotillas, I don't remember) which have been taught sign language are able to lie, this would be managing awareness of multiple perspectives wouldn't it? Is it that these animals are only able to do this becasue of their non-natural 'human' cultural inheritance, or are there analogous wild behaviours? Maybe it is better to think in terms of 'personhood' rather than 'humanity' to include non-human persons, does becoming a person require a culture? Likely so.