As a species, are we special, or not?

RumShams said:
Objectively ? Is there really such a thing? I don't think so,but tha's anothe subject.
Anyway,we're talking here only about man's specialness and uniqueness on earth,that is.
I was clear in saying that man is above and more valuable than all other species , on earth,that is, despite the materialist evolutionary non-sense on the subject.

Man is special , in the sense that man is unparalleled and above all other species .


Well, if that was not the case, you would have seen other species having a hisory, building civilizations, producing and enjoying music, literature and other art , building systems of thought, practicing science....and a lot more...

A non-physical non-local separate human mind and consciousness the nature , function and level of which are the ones that have been enabling us to do , think, feel, imagine,create ,say .....what other species cannot : that's mainly what makes us human , not our physical part , biology or DNA....

Evolutionary ethics has been shaping the modern world through Darwinism that led to Nietzsche's ethics , to utilitarianism, contratarianism and other liberal ethics , .....not to mention to nazism and other fascism,Marxism, communism ....

Ok, deal.Thank.Cheers.
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I don't know that we're on the same page with this. Man is above other species? What does that mean? What's the missing piece of the puzzle here? You're talking about the non physical. Are you saying that human kind transcends the physical, but every other species exist in a purely physical state?
 
bishop said:
I don't know that we're on the same page with this. Man is above other species? What does that mean? What's the missing piece of the puzzle here? You're talking about the non physical. Are you saying that human kind transcends the physical, but every other species exist in a purely physical state?
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No, all i am saying is that the above described non-physical side of man is mainly what makes man special and above other species, especially when that enables man to transcend the physical side of our nature.
The materialist narcissistic modern civilization is the anti-thesis of the latter.
 
RumShams said:
No, all i am saying is that the above described non-physical side of man is mainly what makes man special and above other species, especially when that enables man to transcend the physical side of our nature.
The materialist narcissistic modern civilization is the anti-thesis of the latter.
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So let me know if I have this correct: Man transcends the physical side of his nature through things like art, imagination, intellect, etc etc. And because other living beings do not do these things (they do NOT transcend the physical), they are not as special as human kind. Is that the gist of it?
 
bishop said:
So let me know if I have this correct: Man transcends the physical side of his nature through things like art, imagination, intellect, etc etc. And because other living beings do not do these things (they do NOT transcend the physical), they are not as special as human kind. Is that the gist of it?
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Not just that .Man's non-physical side is more special ,is higher and more unique than those of other species .
 
RumShams said:
Of course they have .They are conscious too, so .
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Ok. Humans and non-humans both transcend the physical. So humans are not special because of the transcendence itself. Rather, they are special because they transcend the physical in such a way (a special way) that they have more value and are above other living things. Is that it?
 
World’s oldest tools found near Africa’s Lake Turkana
http://www.breitbart.com/news/worlds-oldest-tools-found-near-africas-lake-turkana/
SAN FRANCISCO, April 16 (UPI) — A group of archaeologists say they’ve uncovered the world’s oldest tools. At 3.3 million years old, the newly unearthed tools predate the evolution of modern humans.
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Chimpanzees Hunt With Spears, Hone Tips to Peak Sharpness With Teeth
http://www.universityherald.com/art...rs-hone-tips-to-peak-sharpness-with-teeth.htm

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/wild-chronicles/chimp-spear-wcvin

http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/4/140507
 
bishop said:
Ok. Humans and non-humans both transcend the physical. So humans are not special because of the transcendence itself. Rather, they are special because they transcend the physical in such a way (a special way) that they have more value and are above other living things. Is that it?
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Look, my friend : nobody said anything about any alleged animal capacity to transcend its physical dimension.
In short : it all comes down to the consciousness hard problem in science.
That's the key to understanding the issue of man's unparalleled uniqueness and specialness.
If one would assume that the mind is just brain activity or just the product of the brain, then one cannot say that man is that special or unique.
The problem is : the materialist mainstream "scientific world view " is false , and hence the mind is no product of the brain, for example.
It follows from that that the mind is a separate non-physical and non-local process that is irreducible to brain activity or to biology , let alone that the mind and consciousness can be equated with brain activity or biology , or that they can "emerge " from biological evolution.
We can discuss the implications of the above regarding our current discussion, if you want to.Cheers.
 
RumShams said:
Look, my friend : nobody said anything about any alleged animal capacity to transcend its physical dimension.
In short : it all comes down to the consciousness hard problem in science.
That's the key to understanding the issue of man's unparalleled uniqueness and specialness.
If one would assume that the mind is just brain activity or just the product of the brain, then one cannot say that man is that special or unique.
The problem is : the materialist mainstream "scientific world view " is false , and hence the mind is no product of the brain, for example.
It follows from that that the mind is a separate non-physical and non-local process that is irreducible to brain activity or to biology , let alone that the mind and consciousness can be equated with brain activity or biology , or that they can "emerge " from biological evolution.
We can discuss the implications of the above regarding our current discussion, if you want to.Cheers.
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I think it would be productive if we could not discuss the materialist position any longer, whatever it may be. If we agree for the sake of this conversation that the materialist position is wrong then it has no bearing on why or why not humans are special. Agreed?

So. You said earlier that animals have a non physical component. That component is that they have consciousness, correct? And is the reason humans are above and more valuable than other species (and hence, special) because this non physical component, consciousness, is higher or more advanced in humans than in all other animals? Is that what you are saying?
 
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="bishop, post: 64587, member: 64"]I think it would be productive if we could not discuss the materialist position any longer, whatever it may be. If we agree for the sake of this conversation that the materialist position is wrong then it has no bearing on why or why not humans are special. Agreed?
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Sure.That's what i implied above.
Problem is : mainstream science has been materialist since the second half of the 19th century at least and counting.
Worse : materialism has been taken for granted as science or as the scientific world view by the majority of scientists and other people , all that time and counting.
Science must thus abandon or reject the false reductionist naturalist materialist world view ,if science wants to remain a credible ,a valid or a reliable source of knowledge.
The consciousness hard problem in science is mainly the one that has been breaking the false and dry neck of materialism .

So. You said earlier that animals have a non physical component. That component is that they have consciousness, correct? And is the reason humans are above and more valuable than other species (and hence, special) because this non physical component, consciousness, is higher or more advanced in humans than in all other animals? Is that what you are saying?
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Human consciousness is unparalleled , special , unique and above those of all other species living on earth, at least.
That's what makes us human mainly , not our physical bodies , biology or DNA...
Even the bombastic human genome project , or the so-called decade of the brain project cannot refute the above.

The mystery of consciousness does thus hold the key to understanding ourselves ,this universe and our place or role in it .

Problem is : we can't understand ourselves and this universe without consciousness, even science itself cannot exist , let alone function or progress , without consciousness.

The subject has to study the subject thus , itself ,to make sense of itself and this universe.


Better still :


Andrei Linde: “Will it not turn out, with the further development of science, that the study of the universe and the study of consciousness will be inseparably linked, and that ultimate progress in the one will be impossible without progress in the other?”
 
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bishop said:
Huh. Odd question! Do you think it's our DNA that gives us consciousness?
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Yes, because it specifies the development of my brain. Even if mind /= brain, the brain is instrumental in producing consciousness.

I suppose one might believe that the brain has nothing to do with consciousness.

~~ Paul
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
Yes, because it specifies the development of my brain. Even if mind /= brain, the brain is instrumental in producing consciousness.

I suppose one might believe that the brain has nothing to do with consciousness.

~~ Paul
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It's one step too deep. But why not just take it all the way? Isn't it the big bang that gives us consciousness? Because it specifies everything that eventually, through a chain of direct specifications, specifies DNA that specifies the brain that specifies consciousness.
 
bishop said:
It's one step too deep. But why not just take it all the way? Isn't it the big bang that gives us consciousness? Because it specifies everything that eventually, through a chain of direct specifications, specifies DNA that specifies the brain that specifies consciousness.
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What's the step above DNA to which you're attributing consciousness?

Sure, you could say that all the precursors of consciousness contribute to consciousness. But that only works if the universe is strictly deterministic, which it does not appear to be. The whole consciousness thing might be a happy accident. Or it might be inevitable even in an indeterministic universe.

~~ Paul
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
Oh, you mean a step below DNA. You said that DNA is "too deep," so I thought you were talking about something hierarchically above it.

It got where it is today by evolution. Consciousness is useful, so it stuck around.
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Yeah, I guess my point is that saying "________ is where we get consciousness" doesn't really help when it's any number of steps along a chain of physical events. Because you can logically track it back throughout creation, whether the cosmos is deterministic or not. Do you think perhaps that consciousness had a definitive starting point?
 
bishop said:
Yeah, I guess my point is that saying "________ is where we get consciousness" doesn't really help when it's any number of steps along a chain of physical events. Because you can logically track it back throughout creation, whether the cosmos is deterministic or not. Do you think perhaps that consciousness had a definitive starting point?
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I don't think you can track it back if random events were involved. Also, I'm not sure you can track it back even if the universe is deterministic, since you cannot reverse time. But anyhoo, I suspect some proto-consciousness evolved by accident and proved quite useful. My guess is that simple self-awareness helps with planning, since you can model the world as "me versus them."

~~ Paul
 
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