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Child's burial 78k years ago in Kenya was a Homo sapiens milestone

reuters.com

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Re: Child's burial 78k years ago in Kenya was a Homo sapiens milestone

#51

Post by zaat »

wombatmobile wrote: post #47
throwaway3699 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The great trend of the day is abject materialism, a philosophy that sees humans as just clever bipeds. I'm not too keen on it. There is clearly something different about humans.

> There is clearly something different about humans. That's not what this debate is really about. The proponents of "humans are different" are actually thinking "humans are superior". They can make a case for that, but only in terms that confer advantages and entitlement to humans. Take this example: > Are aware of the existence of good and evil and have the capacity for moral reasoning and apply it to an encounter i…

Your example is out of place. A snake is amoral, it cannot act in a moral or non-moral way. Morality is by definition a trait that only humans posses, as we believe that human could or should act in certain ways, despite natural instincts.

Re: Child's burial 78k years ago in Kenya was a Homo sapiens milestone

#52

Post by wombatmobile »

zaat wrote: post #51
wombatmobile wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is clearly something different about humans. That's not what this debate is really about. The proponents of "humans are different" are actually thinking "humans are superior". They can make a case for that, but only in terms that confer advantages and entitlement to humans. Take this example: > Are aware of the existence of good and evil and have the capacity for moral reasoning and apply it to an encounter i…

Your example is out of place. A snake is amoral, it cannot act in a moral or non-moral way. Morality is by definition a trait that only humans posses, as we believe that human could or should act in certain ways, despite natural instincts.

> we believe that human could or should act in certain ways

Are you referring to the voices in your head?

Have you noticed there are more than one voice, and sometimes they point you in different directions?

Assuming you don't speak French, Greek or Estonian, and have never read a translation of any writing by a French, Greek, or Estonian human being, how do you know whether French, Greek and Estonian people also have multiple voices in their heads like you do?

How can you know that non-human animals don't also have voices in their heads?

If non-human animals also have multiple voices in their heads suggesting different actions to them, and they make choices from those voices, how can you define them as "amoral"?

Re: Child's burial 78k years ago in Kenya was a Homo sapiens milestone

#53

Post by redis_mlc »

wombatmobile wrote: post #44
redis_mlc wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say that. We can see the Great Wall of China from space. And we can also see beaver dams from space. (Note the Great Wall was built for a mundane reason - the Han people couldn't defeat the Mongols on horseback, but they could keep building walls until the horses could no longer enter. Byzantium/Constantinople also adopted that strategy, which worked for over 1,000 years until the Ottomans built the wo…

We can see water coloration from algae in space. If you weren't impressed when you read the above sentence, imagine how algae feel when they read your sentence about the Great Wall of China.

Both of the structures I mentioned were deliberately created by mammals.

Are the algaes deliberately creating "water coloration" in a pattern?

Re: Child's burial 78k years ago in Kenya was a Homo sapiens milestone

#54

Post by zaat »

wombatmobile wrote: post #52
zaat wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your example is out of place. A snake is amoral, it cannot act in a moral or non-moral way. Morality is by definition a trait that only humans posses, as we believe that human could or should act in certain ways, despite natural instincts.

> we believe that human could or should act in certain ways Are you referring to the voices in your head? Have you noticed there are more than one voice, and sometimes they point you in different directions? Assuming you don't speak French, Greek or Estonian, and have never read a translation of any writing by a French, Greek, or Estonian human being, how do you know whether French, Greek and Estonian people also hav…

> Are you referring to the voices in your head?

No. I guess you refer to debating moral dilemma in your head, but that's only one aspect of morality.

Not all people share the same moral code, but we do expect all human cultures to have a moral code, and we expect humans to act on it's basis, despite their natural instincts and the rather arbitrary moral rules specific to their culture.

Meanwhile we expect animal to behave according to their natural instincts.

When humans break our exceptions, we judge them, since we know humans can and often are better than that. When animals break our exceptions, if ever, we are surprised, as this is rare and unnatural.

Re: Child's burial 78k years ago in Kenya was a Homo sapiens milestone

#55

Post by whatever1 »

stareatgoats wrote: post #5

Interesting as this is, the article nurtures an old misconception (with roots both in religion and classical philosophy) that there are some traits that distinctly separates humans from other animals, and by extension, finding the time when humans developed that trait is when we became truly humans. In reality the evidence reveals that all such traits, be it burial, toolmaking, artistry, abstract thinking etc, is som…

Look no further than human babies. There is no single point in their lives that you can definitely say that "hey exactly now (s)he is a complete human but 1 second ago (s)he was not". It is a continuous progression

Re: Child's burial 78k years ago in Kenya was a Homo sapiens milestone

#56

Post by Karrot_Kream »

logicchop wrote: post #37
stareatgoats wrote: post #5

Interesting as this is, the article nurtures an old misconception (with roots both in religion and classical philosophy) that there are some traits that distinctly separates humans from other animals, and by extension, finding the time when humans developed that trait is when we became truly humans. In reality the evidence reveals that all such traits, be it burial, toolmaking, artistry, abstract thinking etc, is som…

"an old misconception (with roots both in religion and classical philosophy)" There is also a new misconception (with no real roots except egalitarianism taken too far) that everything is the same as everything else "to varying degrees." That isn't very interesting though. I live in the US. To "some varying degree" I live on the east coast; but that degree is nil because I live far west of the mississippi. Human lang…

How is this relevant to the poster? This just feels like your own pet peeve tacked onto the parent comment. I don't think we really need to start the culture wars on an article looking at anthropological records and a post about historical misconceptions.

Re: Child's burial 78k years ago in Kenya was a Homo sapiens milestone

#57

Post by andrewflnr »

FridayoLeary wrote: post #30
stareatgoats wrote: post #5

Interesting as this is, the article nurtures an old misconception (with roots both in religion and classical philosophy) that there are some traits that distinctly separates humans from other animals, and by extension, finding the time when humans developed that trait is when we became truly humans. In reality the evidence reveals that all such traits, be it burial, toolmaking, artistry, abstract thinking etc, is som…

writing.

Which as far as we can tell, only arose in the last handful of thousands of years. Not super useful for discussing what made humans unique 78k years ago, much less when our lineage diverged.

Re: Child's burial 78k years ago in Kenya was a Homo sapiens milestone

#58

Post by wombatmobile »

zaat wrote: post #54
wombatmobile wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we believe that human could or should act in certain ways Are you referring to the voices in your head? Have you noticed there are more than one voice, and sometimes they point you in different directions? Assuming you don't speak French, Greek or Estonian, and have never read a translation of any writing by a French, Greek, or Estonian human being, how do you know whether French, Greek and Estonian people also hav…

> Are you referring to the voices in your head? No. I guess you refer to debating moral dilemma in your head, but that's only one aspect of morality. Not all people share the same moral code, but we do expect all human cultures to have a moral code, and we expect humans to act on it's basis, despite their natural instincts and the rather arbitrary moral rules specific to their culture. Meanwhile we expect animal to b…

What do you mean by "moral code"? Is it something like "thou shalt not kill" or "do unto others as they would do unto you"? More generally, is it some rules of behaviour to which a human submits to obey? If so, is a person's moral code something they choose to enrol in, or is it something given from above e.g. by a god, without choice of an individual, in your understanding?

I am trying to understand what you are saying in your last para:

> When humans break our exceptions, we judge them, since we know humans can and often are better than that. When animals break our exceptions, if ever, we are surprised, as this is rare and unnatural.

What do you mean by "unnatural"? Can you give examples for

(a) humans

(b) poodles

(c) jackals

Re: Child's burial 78k years ago in Kenya was a Homo sapiens milestone

#59

Post by wombatmobile »

zaat wrote: post #50
wombatmobile wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Human language, use of tools, artistry etc. are so massively remote from the animal cases What do you mean by the term "massively remote"?

I'm unaware of any other animal with writing abilities. The differences between human and animal languages are widely discussed and the accuracy of the distinctions are contested, but in general the properties of being generative and recursive are considered to be unique to human language.

> in general the properties of being generative and recursive are considered to be unique to human language.

For a scholar to make that claim, he or she would have to have studied the bulk of other languages. Since there are more than 70,000 species of vertebrates alone, none of whose language has been deciphered by humans, and we know that other types of animals e.g. honeybees rely on language to function, it is difficult to imagine any scholar qualified to make the claim.

Moreover, 99% of humans wouldn't even understand the statement, even after you'd explained what you mean by "generative" and "recursive". So I'm not sure what your statement is, other than yet another example of a human giving himself or herself a justification for the belief that humans are superior to animals, achieved through the mental gymnastic of a truism wrapped up in an academic paper.

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