(April 24, 2018 at 11:38 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: In every classification scheme, there are two camps. There are those classifiers who tend to find similarities between things and prefer to lump smaller groups into larger groups, and on the other hand those catalogers who tend to find differences and prefer to split larger groups into smaller groups. In thinking about human nature, too, there are lumpers and splitters.  Splitters like to emphasize the ways in which we are distinct from the other animals, such as our rationality, language, opposable thumbs, bipedalism, civilization, and so on.  Lumpers on the other hand believe that the most significant influence on the way we are is those ways in which we share traits with other animals.  This includes things like our social nature, the importance of sex and reproduction, our emotions, and so on.

Which do you think is more important for shaping what we are as humans today?  Are you a lumper or a splitter?

All different species are unique. I wouldn't confuse "unique" with "special". No life is "special" in the context of 13.8 billion years. But every different species is unique in it's adaptations.

We are not an apex merely a species with different adaptations. We also have a downside in that although we have deeper thinking skills and more complex language we are also fail to consider we are an invasive species in regards to our global ecosystem.

We cannot for example, do what South Pole penguins can do, and survive without clothing or shelter. We have not survived 5 mass extinctions like the water bear.

I think what is most important is for my fellow humans to stop thinking we are a separate species based on political economic or religious labels. I blame world leaders, not the no name person, for that.

(April 25, 2018 at 12:10 pm)Khemikal Wrote: If we went to some other planet covered in life we'd probably find a specific animal to focus on as well.

Maybe, but we'd be the only one that aliens would be able to express their thoughts and we'd be able to communicate back. Even a chimp can only express the most basic things.

Philosophy is what makes us different.

(April 26, 2018 at 12:16 pm)Hammy Wrote:

(April 26, 2018 at 11:35 am)Anomalocaris Wrote: Again, measurement of “special” has to have an stated objective to be meaningful.  98% of our genes may be the same as those of a chimp.  But what does that really signify?  To say that makes us basically the same as something which shares 98% is a rather fast and loose value judgement devoid of clear definition of what “special” is meant to inform.   You can no more fuck a chimp to produce an fertile offspring than you can with a sea anemone.   But you may be able to reconstruct lots of missing DNA in humans with the DNA from chimps without too much loss in fidelity.   Which is it that you are trying to do seem to inform whether humans ought to be regarded as special?  No?

The point is we're no more "special" than any other animal. We're creatures that evolved, and evolved intelligence.

It begs the question to merely define our specialness as the way we are, as intelligent beings.

What I mean is there isn't a sound argument for saying that we're special.

The most we could do is define ourselves that way for pragmatic reasons. There may be reasons for it to be useful to consider us different, or special, to split us. That's different to saying that we're actually special.

All creatures are unique and special in their own way. Like I said, there could have been other animals that developed the technology that we do if we hadn't killed and fucked them out of existence. Let's not compare apples to oranges: yes we can't breed with Chimps but we could breed with neanderthals.  And we did. And what makes us "special" compared to them could merely be the fact that we fucked and murdered them out of existence. If it were not for us, it could have perhaps been neanderthals that ended up going to the moon and inventing calculus instead of homo sapiens sapiens.

Quote:If you stand Gandhi next to hitler, you’d find they share far more then 98% of their genes, more like 99.99% of their genes. It is therefore informative for most purposes to say they are essentially identical?

That's a really bad analogy lol. And a strawman considering I'm not saying we're identical, or even essenially identical. It just makes no sense on an atheistic basis to say we're "special" for anything but pragmatic reasons. From a biological perspective we're just another species that has evolved.  Nature doesn't give a fuck about the fact we sent people to the moon. We give a fuck about it. It begs the question to define ourselves as special based on our own judgements about what it means to be special lol. It's total speciesism. And special pleading.

Whether nature gives a fuck means nothing.  We are we and not the rest of nature, nor are we spokes beings for nature. We likely owe our existence to our ability to defied nature in a manner other organism can’t.

We are certainly more special than any other animal for the our purpose of forming a working relationship to design a Tool.   You simply prefer an loose concept of similarity based on personal aesthetic reasons, and then pick working definition of similarity to support the aesthetic taste, rather than give weight to pragmatic reasons which raise the importance of dissimilarity.

(April 26, 2018 at 12:31 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:

(April 26, 2018 at 12:16 pm)Hammy Wrote: The point is we're no more "special" than any other animal. We're creatures that evolved, and evolved intelligence.

It begs the question to merely define our specialness as the way we are, as intelligent beings.

What I mean is there isn't a sound argument for saying that we're special.

The most we could do is define ourselves that way for pragmatic reasons. There may be reasons for it to be useful to consider us different, or special, to split us. That's different to saying that we're actually special.

All creatures are unique and special in their own way. Like I said, there could have been other animals that developed the technology that we do if we hadn't killed and fucked them out of existence. Let's not compare apples to oranges: yes we can't breed with Chimps but we could breed with neanderthals.  And we did. And what makes us "special" compared to them could merely be the fact that we fucked and murdered them out of existence. If it were not for us, it could have perhaps been neanderthals that ended up going to the moon and inventing calculus instead of homo sapiens sapiens.


That's a really bad analogy lol. And a strawman considering I'm not saying we're identical, or even essenially identical. It just makes no sense on an atheistic basis to say we're "special" for anything but pragmatic reasons. From a biological perspective we're just another species that has evolved.  Nature doesn't give a fuck about the fact we sent people to the moon. We give a fuck about it. It begs the question to define ourselves as special based on our own judgements about what it means to be special lol. It's total speciesism. And special pleading.

Whether nature gives a fuck means nothing.  We are we and not the rest of nature, nor are we spokes beings for nature.   We likely owe our existence to our ability to defied nature in a manner other organism can’t.

We are certainly more special than any other animal for the our purpose of forming a working relationship to design a Tool.   You simply prefer an loose concept of similarity based on personal aesthetic reasons, and then pick working definition of similarity to support the aesthetic taste, rather than give weight to pragmatic reasons which raise the importance of dissimilarity.

Ask the meteor that killed off the dinosaurs how special it thought they were. Ask the dinosaurs that are still alive how they mastered the planet.

Yes, we have a cognition to invent very complex tools. YES. BUT NO, sorry, even with our advanced knowledge it will not make us infinite. Humans ARE NOT superior. We simply have different adaptations and those 'tools" we invent, can lead to both good and bad. Oil created our industrial revolution, but it is now coming back to bite us in the ass in climate change. Not just harming other species but us as well.

(April 26, 2018 at 12:51 pm)Brian37 Wrote:

(April 26, 2018 at 12:31 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: Whether nature gives a fuck means nothing.  We are we and not the rest of nature, nor are we spokes beings for nature.   We likely owe our existence to our ability to defied nature in a manner other organism can’t.

We are certainly more special than any other animal for the our purpose of forming a working relationship to design a Tool.   You simply prefer an loose concept of similarity based on personal aesthetic reasons, and then pick working definition of similarity to support the aesthetic taste, rather than give weight to pragmatic reasons which raise the importance of dissimilarity.

Ask the meteor that killed off the dinosaurs how special it thought they were. Ask the dinosaurs that are still alive how they mastered the planet.

Yes, we have a cognition to invent very complex tools. YES. BUT NO, sorry, even with our advanced knowledge it will not make us infinite. Humans ARE NOT superior. We simply have different adaptations and those 'tools" we invent, can lead to both good and bad. Oil created our industrial revolution, but it is now coming back to bite us in the ass in climate change. Not just harming other species but us as well.

Again, loosely picking facts to support an aesthetically motivated view.   We certainly are superior to all those species we brought to extinction in our pursuit of our own convenience.   We have reasonable hopes of being able to thwart another Dino killing asteroid in the extremely near future in geological terms, ask the dinosaurs what they had on the drawing board.

In the interest of fulfilling the aesthetic desire to say humans are no different from animals, you’ve shifted the goal post effectively from humans have to have unique traits and capabilities to be considered different from other animals  to humans have to be all powerful and eternal gods to be considered different from other animals.

(April 26, 2018 at 12:56 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:

(April 26, 2018 at 12:51 pm)Brian37 Wrote: Ask the meteor that killed off the dinosaurs how special it thought they were. Ask the dinosaurs that are still alive how they mastered the planet.

Yes, we have a cognition to invent very complex tools. YES. BUT NO, sorry, even with our advanced knowledge it will not make us infinite. Humans ARE NOT superior. We simply have different adaptations and those 'tools" we invent, can lead to both good and bad. Oil created our industrial revolution, but it is now coming back to bite us in the ass in climate change. Not just harming other species but us as well.

Again, loosely picking facts to support an aesthetically motivated view.   We certainly are superior to all those species we brought to extinction in our pursuit of our own convenience.   We have reasonable hopes of being able to thwart another Dino killing asteroid in the extremely near future in geological terms, ask the dinosaurs what they had on the drawing board.

In the interest of fulfilling the aesthetic desire to say humans are no different from animals, you’ve shifted the goal post effectively from humans have to have unique traits and capabilities to be considered different from other animals  to humans have to be all powerful gods to be considered different from other animals.

No we are NOT superior! PERIOD!

We merely have DIFFERENT ADAPTATIONS.

Cockroaches and bacteria cannot write Shakespeare or build a nuke, no, but they damned sure outnumber humans and have been around far longer.

I'd only agree that if HUMANS pick the right path, and stop our tribalism view, we can delay our finite ride and extend it. But it is still finite.

(April 26, 2018 at 1:12 pm)Brian37 Wrote:

(April 26, 2018 at 12:56 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: Again, loosely picking facts to support an aesthetically motivated view.   We certainly are superior to all those species we brought to extinction in our pursuit of our own convenience.   We have reasonable hopes of being able to thwart another Dino killing asteroid in the extremely near future in geological terms, ask the dinosaurs what they had on the drawing board.

In the interest of fulfilling the aesthetic desire to say humans are no different from animals, you’ve shifted the goal post effectively from humans have to have unique traits and capabilities to be considered different from other animals  to humans have to be all powerful gods to be considered different from other animals.

No we are NOT superior! PERIOD!

We merely have DIFFERENT ADAPTATIONS.

Cockroaches and bacteria cannot write Shakespeare or build a nuke, no, but they damned sure outnumber humans and have been around far longer.

I'd only agree that if HUMANS pick the right path, and stop our tribalism view, we can delay our finite ride and extend it. But it is still finite.

Screaming doesn’t lend weight to any argument of any type, especially ones based on aesthetically selected criteria.

(April 26, 2018 at 1:14 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:

(April 26, 2018 at 1:12 pm)Brian37 Wrote: No we are NOT superior! PERIOD!

We merely have DIFFERENT ADAPTATIONS.

Cockroaches and bacteria cannot write Shakespeare or build a nuke, no, but they damned sure outnumber humans and have been around far longer.

I'd only agree that if HUMANS pick the right path, and stop our tribalism view, we can delay our finite ride and extend it. But it is still finite.

Screaming doesn’t lend weight to any argument of any type, especially ones based on aesthetically selected criteria.

No sorry, if you think humans are superior to all other species that makes you a narcissist. 

ALL life is interconnected and as smart as we are, we depend on other life for our stability. 

Our species "adaptation" is that we have more complex brains and language. BUT that does not make it a given in 100% of the time that our species will use that adaptation to the advantage of our planet. We far too often use our cleverness to dominate resources and other rivals within our species. We ignore the pollution that in turn affects our own food resources. 

All you are saying is that we have more developed brains, that DOES NOT MEAN, nor has ever meant we use those brains to do the right thing.

Nor does it mean any life for that matter will continue on earth after the sun dies billions of years from now.

Solve the problem of the death of our sun, then I will call you a God.

Just because a statement can be perceived as narcisstic does not imply to it not true.

Would you rather learn from true and informative statements or pretend to be arbiter of social graces while remaining ignorant?

(April 26, 2018 at 1:29 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: Just because a statement can be perceived as narcisstic does not imply to it not true.  

Would you rather learn from true and informative statements or pretend to be arbiter of social graces while remaining ignorant?

If you stupidly think humans are an apex, sorry cannot nor will ever agree with that.

Religion already corners the market on the fictional "forever" that does not exist. 

Huimans DO have a superior capability for making tools, but the problem has always been, and will be, that we DONT always use them for mutual benefit of our planet much less the other resources and life we depend on.

We can be and are very destructive and can DO exploit other fellow humans and the resources around us.

We like to think we are different and we are, but not in the aspect of being  finite. If we don't face that collectively as a species our ride will be shorter, not longer.