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look at complexity versus volume ratio. as the number of "chemical equations" increase, in both different types and quantities, the object tends to look more alive. single celled organisms, the first classification of life, have their own classification. Then we add complexity to life forms and give them classifications.
you are basically saying that human have reached a level of complexity that separates them from the animal kingdom. we are just to close to animals to make that distinction.
I look at it this way, what subsets are working together to form the "life form"? Are humans a confluence of of previous life forms?
i don't see it. I see humans as just a complex protein working with other complex proteins to react homeostasis in the biosphere. as proteins increase in complexity they don't need to "bump into" raw material to carry out life functions. They basically, with the next degree of freedom, can go to the resources to carry out life.
for example, hemoglobin, can carry oxygen to the reaction site. In less complex life forms, oxygen is used directly (diffusion) due to the smaller volume it has to travel through. evolution has added layers of complexity.
I just don't see humans as that much more complex and using the other classification to "form it".
In a sense I see humans as more complex than other organisms...but in many senses I don't. It's not about the volume of chemical equations. It's about the vast amount more options one organism called a human has than any other single organism. That's why I see humans as separate from other organisms. I can, literally, change the world, dramatically. Now...it would be very difficult to change things noticeably for the better...but I could probably blow up several buildings filled with innocent people, spray paint poems all over the rubble, and be remembered for the next century without much trouble. No other creatures than humans can do that.
(Note that I'm not saying we're better than other organisms. The ability to be terrorists isn't exactly a source of pride for our species...but it's there, nonetheless)
I get what you're saying, and you're right, but I don't think you got what I was saying.
It could make a lot of sense to perceive humans as something separate from other animals because:
1. If we look at one member of any other species, they can accomplish far less in terms of influencing the world than one human.
2. If we look at one member of any other species, they are much less adaptable to most forms of change than the average human.
This, of course, is not the only sensible way of looking at things. The official scientific classification of humans exists as it does for good reasons. Perceiving humans as something separate from everything else...something new, can be a very sensible way of perceiving things though.
Just look at our structures. Nothing else alters their environment the way we do...unless you start comparing us to multiple species interacting, or multiple types of cells in a body.
All I was getting at with my prior comments was that it certainly can make sense to perceive humans as in the same category as other organisms...but in many ways it can make a lot of sense to perceive us as something different.
I get it, you are saying life has emerged such that we can classify human as "something else". i understand that but I don'r agree with that. humans are just to close in basic operation, physiology speaking, to animals. we do have one trait that makes different, the brain, but that's why we are the human animal.
lmao, I guess we could say all animals differ in the brain, but you get what I mean. I also agree, distinguishing "life" from non life gets tricky.
also, because of what you point out, I classy the biosphere as life and we are part it. I use a complexity vs volume ratio and a measurement to show that the biosphere actually matches "alive" more than it matches "not alive". A claim that the more militant atheist denies. but, to my dismay, its a denial based on not liking theist more than fact. That's why I classify that sect as more religious than not.
I would say...ignore biology. Look at our behavior, which is drastically different than every other organism on Earth, so far as I can see. That's why we're different. Much more of what we are exists in our memes than exists there for most organisms. We can't find that information in our DNA. That's the only reason we appear so genetically similar to other organisms. Our DNA is missing the information that separates us from everything else. That other information is carried in our memes, so far as I can see.
But again, you're quite correct about us being pretty physically similar to other life. Even our brains aren't that dissimilar. Brains are quite common. Mechanical brains called computers aren't built by anything else though...and that sort of ability can't be seen in our DNA. It's contained within the memes of our species, and in that sense, I could look at it like the genetic classification for humans as just another animal is obsolete in some ways, because that genetic classification doesn't take into account a huge part of what it means to be human.
I would probably classify androids built by humans, who were sentient, had the ability to make choices, and could use language as closer to humans than the vast majority of other species...at least all non-social organisms, despite those androids lacking traditional DNA completely, for example. I wouldn't mind there being some new classification of life that includes only organisms with language, who also have a kind of human-like free will that comes from the ability to roll different options around in one's mind, and consider large amounts of information, and make choices based on abstract concepts like ethics. This classification would include humans, perhaps some ancestors of humans and other hominids, spacefaring aliens, self-aware androids, and other such beings.
Chimpanzees...at least according to many to...I think most experts...don't use language. So far as I am aware nothing on Earth uses the communication method we call language, which is a system of communication humans use to communicate a nearly infinite amount of possible meanings through the usage of a much smaller number of symbols.
Bret Weinstein is an evolutionary biologist that suggests that animals might be meme-users too, though.
Going back to this again, I just thought up something else separating humans and other organisms.
If you had sufficient knowledge of the DNA and environments of any group of organisms, except for humans, you could presumably predict their behaviors.
Humans rely much more on memes than most organisms though, as well as our physical inventions, that trying to predict how humans would behave knowing only their DNA and environments would probably be much, much more difficult.
We have a lot more information relating to what we are stored in our memes than most organisms, I'm thinking. Like I mentioned in a prior post, that information stored in our DNA is probably why we can behave so differently from other organisms despite having such similar DNA. That's why I'm wondering if the scientific classification of humans we currently have is obsolete, and perhaps we need a new categorization for us. Just looking at our DNA is ignoring most of what makes us what we are. I would say that for most species, most of what they are is stored in their DNA. For humans, a much larger percentage of what we are would be invisible if we only looked at our DNA. Now a great many animals can learn and are taught by their parents...but for humans, we can compare the behaviors of stone age humans to the behaviors of modern humans typing on their laptops, and the separate society's they built. Those vast differences in behavior are all invisible, if only the DNA would be looked at.
But going back to the original topic...I would say that the answer to the question If Human Beings Are Only Animals, Why Do We Care About Morality? is simply that there's nothing about being an animal that necessitates the organisms not caring about morality...which we can see because humans are animals. We're of the kingdom Animalia. We're therefore animals.
I do believe research has proven that Chimps have a language... through gestures. They are also capable of learning sign language.
I think it is pretty darn arrogant to assume that another animal has no language simply because we don't understand their language. Kinda reminds me of stupid people that assume another person is dumb simply because they don't speak the same language.
But going back to the original topic...I would say that the answer to the question If Human Beings Are Only Animals, Why Do We Care About Morality? is simply that there's nothing about being an animal that necessitates the organisms not caring about morality...which we can see because humans are animals. We're of the kingdom Animalia. We're therefore animals.
yup. to say "if we are animals we don't need morals." is just, well, flat silly. because we are animals doesn't mean i have to mistreat other animals. Human are have the ability to not be our next thought.
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