Why is human life considered special?

Sam Vimes

Tim Robbins wrote: »

I think it's because of sentinence and conciousness. The human can feel a wide range of complex emotions and experiences compared to other entities in the universe.

The human is also the only entity (thus far) capable of understanding the universe.

Sentience and consciousness aren't measures of success with evolution. There is no "best", just "best suited for the environment". If the ice caps melted and all the land was under water we'd die off pretty quickly but it'd be great for dolphins. And crocodiles have been around for millions of years longer than us almost unchanged. Looks like they're pretty successful at what they do.

Overblood

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYr7hFjs3wo

towel401

positron wrote: »

The endless debates goes on about abortion, soul, this and that, and the question always seems to revolve around the moral dilemma if abortion is killing a human being or not.

My question is, why such a fuzz about taking a human life, while majority turns a blind eye to millions of other living beings? Vast majority of the people involved in the abortion debate is probably fueled (literally) by meat obtained by killing many animals - and we know that animals are intelligent, they enjoy their life, they form bonds with other animals or humans etc.

I am trying to understand what is the basis of the 'moral highground' the anti-abortion folks, and also why other living things never comes into picture?

Is this another distorted logic inflicted upon us by hundreds of years organized religion, or may be the an evolutionary feature supported by a survival instinct? Is that why some societies have more vegetarians than others?

(Disclaimer: While I prefer vegetarian food, I tend to eat more non-veg than veg myself, so I am not pushing vegetarianism here).

Don't think human life is special? Just do the rest of us a favour and take a long walk off a short pier. Ever try to have an intelligent conversation with a goat? If you did it probably didn't work right? No they just wander around the field aimlessly looking for their next meal/shag. Anyone who claims to have an intelligent conversation with a goat is a 'believer', fraudster or whatever you want to call them.

you dont need to be some religious wacko to be anti abortion. people believe the baby is just a smaller version of themselves without the capability to stand up for themselves. i don't know how someone can for instance be against child molestation and for abortion. whats so special about having left the womb? those paedophile priests were opportunistic and they got away with it, now the church is paying and they are having a laugh. good for them you could say. maybe a child is just another worthless automated pile of molecules living out a meaningless existence.

Flamed Diving

towel401 wrote: »

No they just wander around the field street aimlessly looking for their next meal/shag.

Sounds like most humans I know.

Zillah

towel401 wrote: »

i don't know how someone can for instance be against child molestation and for abortion. whats so special about having left the womb?

The special thing about having left the womb is that you're no longer living inside the body of another human being who does not want you there.

positron

I am impressed by the thought provoking replies here.

I can understand the 'gene prorogation' aspect of humans as a species. This indeed is what urges humans to protect their own gene pool (immediate family, tribe) while waging wars against foreign humans (other tribes, families) or other predators like lions etc

So when they say the 'world is shrinking' or 'global village' etc, other than the 'easy communication', we are also talking about 'accepting larger gene pool' as part of our "tribe" - less threats and more to protect? So that would mean in last 3-4000 years or us humans are slowly changing what's hardwired onto us from millions of years of evolution as we are evolving into living in larger and larger communities!

I need to think about this, but keeping the above in mind, its plausible that one day, given the right alternatives, humans could evolve to not want to eat other living things?

towel401 wrote: »

Don't think human life is special? Just do the rest of us a favour and take a long walk off a short pier. Ever try to have an intelligent conversation with a goat? If you did it probably didn't work right? No they just wander around the field aimlessly looking for their next meal/shag. Anyone who claims to have an intelligent conversation with a goat is a 'believer', fraudster or whatever you want to call them.

you dont need to be some religious wacko to be anti abortion. people believe the baby is just a smaller version of themselves without the capability to stand up for themselves.

I have been enjoying the replies in this thread till I came across this. You are contradicting yourself in so many ways. Based on the above text, a few questions:

* Are you saying goats can't "communicate" at all? They don't communicate hunger, affection etc to other goats? Also, don't you think my (or your) inability to communicate to a goat is only because goat and us does not have a common method to communicate.

Walk down a different 'pier' with me to central Mongolia. How would you have a 'intelligent discussion' with a nomad mongol who doesn't speak English and you don't speak a word of 'mongol kele'. He owns and manages a heard of 1000s of sheep and he can follow the stars in the sky to map his landscape of a thousand sq. kilometers - where as you or I could get lost in Phoenix Park without sign posts!

You might argue that if you puff up and scream, he will get the idea that you are angry. Sure. But even your goat down the pier knows that much!

I guess what I am trying to say is, its extremely preposterous to suggest that only humans have 'intelligence', and other species don't. They all have their own share of intelligence to suit their life style. For an amoeba it might not be a lot compared to us humans, but it obviously is sufficient for what they want to do in this world we share.

I don't want to open a can of worms here but, if 'intelligent conversation' is the criteria, I am fail to see how a fetus, or a newborn baby (and even some grown people) deserves any special regard than a chicken/goat?

I guess I really do have a thing against killing something for food. If there is alternative food source out there, why kill something that you don't need to - after all, killing is denying someone/thing the right to live, and its not hard to imagine animals do enjoy their surroundings and the company of other animals of the same species or otherwise and humans and animals have a lot of emotions in common!

Or one day science will breed a pig that has no survival instinct - like in the Hitchhikers Guide to Galaxy - the pig will consciously offer itself for your dining pleasure!

eoin5

towel401 wrote: »

i don't know how someone can for instance be against child molestation and for abortion.

Comparing the two is like comparing manslaughter with miscarriage.

MrPudding

Sam Vimes wrote: »

In what way are we more successful?

Duh. Human heaven is better than spidey heaven, therefore we are more successfuly. Seriously, sometimes I wonder if you guys are just pretending not to understand this stuff...

MrP

JC 2K3

towel401 wrote: »

Don't think human life is special? Just do the rest of us a favour and take a long walk off a short pier. Ever try to have an intelligent conversation with a goat?

Ever try to have an intelligent conversation with a foetus?

Flamed Diving

JC 2K3 wrote: »

Ever try to have an intelligent conversation with a foetus?

I know, they are such bores...

Seeing as we measure specialness with intelligence now. Have you ever had a intelligent conversation with a mentally retarded person?

Hence...

Goat = Mentally Retarded Person = Foetus = Not special

Bravo, towelie. Try to lay off the dubey, eh?

Húrin

Sam Vimes wrote: »

In what way are we more successful?

We control the parameters of ecosystems. We have eliminated our predators. We have learned to harness much of the world's energy and we already use so much of the world's land to feed ourselves.

Húrin

Zillah wrote: »

The special thing about having left the womb is that you're no longer living inside the body of another human being who does not want you there.

Hold on, if the specialness of human life has been removed, and the point of becoming an individual has been branded as "arbitrary" in the naturalist narrative, how on earth has the concept of individual rights survived?

Zillah

Húrin wrote: »

Hold on, if the specialness of human life has been removed, and the point of becoming an individual has been branded as "arbitrary" in the naturalist narrative, how on earth has the concept of individual rights survived?

I was responding to his retarded comment that molestation and abortion are the same thing.

Could you perhaps explain the context of your question in more detail? I'll try to respond, tell me if I've taken you up wrong. Humans are not objectively special. We can still consider them special, however. We give them special rights because we consider them special.

Flamed Diving

Húrin wrote: »

We control the parameters of ecosystems. We have eliminated our predators. We have learned to harness much of the world's energy and we already use so much of the world's land to feed ourselves.

So we use the environment to sustain ourselves, while simultaneously failing to sustain the environment we so depend on to survive.

Geniuses.

eoin5

Húrin wrote: »

We control the parameters of ecosystems. We have eliminated our predators. We have learned to harness much of the world's energy and we already use so much of the world's land to feed ourselves.

What about the AIDS virus? At least the monkeys can resist that. And when we wreck the worlds ecosystems prematurely the spiders will have a much better chance of surviving than us without harnessing diddly squat of the worlds energy.

Anyways this kind of discourse is a bit silly if you dont give success a fixed criteria. The one I'd use is how long weve lasted. According to wikipedia modern spiders have been around for 200 million years. If you generalise us to our order (primates) weve been around for 65 million years.

Flamed Diving

eoin5 wrote: »

What about the AIDS virus? At least the monkeys can resist that. And when we wreck the worlds ecosystems prematurely the spiders will have a much better chance of surviving than us without harnessing diddly squat of the worlds energy.

Anyways this kind of discourse is a bit silly if you dont give success a fixed criteria. The one I'd use is how long weve lasted. According to wikipedia modern spiders have been around for 200 million years. If you generalise us to our order (primates) weve been around for 65 million years.

Simplistic, myopic thinking for simplistic, myopic Christians. Anytime I wonder how anyone could believe what is written in the Bible, I remember this.

Zombrex

Húrin wrote: »

Hold on, if the specialness of human life has been removed, and the point of becoming an individual has been branded as "arbitrary" in the naturalist narrative, how on earth has the concept of individual rights survived?

The concept of individual rights is a human one. It doesn't exist in nature.

To nature a book is just a bit of dead wood. To us it is much more.

positron

Húrin wrote: »

We control the parameters of ecosystems. We have eliminated our predators. We have learned to harness much of the world's energy and we already use so much of the world's land to feed ourselves.

First part of that post is totally incorrect.

To the second one, please let me quote Agent Smith from Matrix:

I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure.

Húrin

Zillah wrote: »

I was responding to his retarded comment that molestation and abortion are the same thing.

Could you perhaps explain the context of your question in more detail? I'll try to respond, tell me if I've taken you up wrong. Humans are not objectively special. We can still consider them special, however. We give them special rights because we consider them special.

Sorry. I was thinking of Sam's thread, where numerous posters were commenting from a naturalist perspective. They were trying to refute Sam's statement that a human life started in the womb, and that thus abortion was the killing of a human. They asserted that his point to mark where a new life starts was "arbitrary", and some also said to the effect that the preservation of human life itself was an arbitrary value. So I don't see how that line of thought does not also exclude humanist ideas about the inherent rights of men and women.

Flamed Diving wrote: »

So we use the environment to sustain ourselves, while simultaneously failing to sustain the environment we so depend on to survive.

Geniuses.

Yes, it is incredibly stupid, and it is something I melancholically think about a fair bit. But we are a very successful species. For our size, our population is enormous and we have colonised most of the world's land area. We have apparently cheated natural selection, at least for a time. No other species has done this.

Flamed Diving

Húrin wrote: »

Yes, it is incredibly stupid, and it is something I melancholically think about a fair bit. But we are a very successful species. For our size, our population is enormous and we have colonised most of the world's land area. We have apparently cheated natural selection, at least for a time. No other species has done this.

I'm going to entertain your notion of evolution being some kind success mechanism, for a moment. Why are humans more successful than bacteria, who can survive just about anywhere on the planet, at the most extreme colds/heat, are the most populous, are able to evolve the fastest, and have been here the longest?

PS: I could go on listing these.

Zombrex

Húrin wrote: »

Yes, it is incredibly stupid, and it is something I melancholically think about a fair bit. But we are a very successful species. For our size, our population is enormous and we have colonised most of the world's land area. We have apparently cheated natural selection, at least for a time. No other species has done this.

There isn't a single bit of that which isn't biological nonsense, but keep trying I'm sure you will get it eventually

JC 2K3

/facepalm

Cheating natural selection? Really?

robindch

JC 2K3 wrote: »

Cheating natural selection? Really?

A sperm bank.

Goduznt Xzst

Húrin wrote: »

We have apparently cheated natural selection, at least for a time. No other species has done this.

You do better at rhyming off -isms, I'd leave those half-baked ideas about natural selection at the door in future :pac:

The only way humans appear to do better than other species is when you define "better" from a human standpoint. You can't hold all species to the same standard, nature doesn't.

Yes, we are more successful than spiders if you define spiders by attributes unique to humans that we imagine define success. I personally go by numbers and reproduction rates. Spiders are very effective at this, and go through iterations a lot faster than humans can.

enniscorthy

positron wrote: »

The endless debates goes on about abortion, soul, this and that, and the question always seems to revolve around the moral dilemma if abortion is killing a human being or not.

My question is, why such a fuzz about taking a human life, while majority turns a blind eye to millions of other living beings? Vast majority of the people involved in the abortion debate is probably fueled (literally) by meat obtained by killing many animals - and we know that animals are intelligent, they enjoy their life, they form bonds with other animals or humans etc.

I am trying to understand what is the basis of the 'moral highground' the anti-abortion folks, and also why other living things never comes into picture?

Is this another distorted logic inflicted upon us by hundreds of years organized religion, or may be the an evolutionary feature supported by a survival instinct? Is that why some societies have more vegetarians than others?

(Disclaimer: While I prefer vegetarian food, I tend to eat more non-veg than veg myself, so I am not pushing vegetarianism here).

watch the lion king mate circle of life heheheheahahahaahahahhohohhoho:P:D

Hivemind187

At 3:01 Carlin launches into his take on the origin of the myth of the "sanctity" of life. It, amongst many other things the man said before his "soul" was flung up on the roof (he was a committed frisbeetarian), explains away this nonsensical obsession of putting any exceptional value on the issue of "life".

"why is that when its us its an abortion but when its a chicken its an omlette?"

Tar.Aldarion

positron wrote: »

The endless debates goes on about abortion, soul, this and that, and the question always seems to revolve around the moral dilemma if abortion is killing a human being or not.

My question is, why such a fuzz about taking a human life, while majority turns a blind eye to millions of other living beings? Vast majority of the people involved in the abortion debate is probably fueled (literally) by meat obtained by killing many animals - and we know that animals are intelligent, they enjoy their life, they form bonds with other animals or humans etc.

I am trying to understand what is the basis of the 'moral highground' the anti-abortion folks, and also why other living things never comes into picture?

Is this another distorted logic inflicted upon us by hundreds of years organized religion, or may be the an evolutionary feature supported by a survival instinct? Is that why some societies have more vegetarians than others?

(Disclaimer: While I prefer vegetarian food, I tend to eat more non-veg than veg myself, so I am not pushing vegetarianism here).

In my view either all life is precious, or all life is not.

I think your abortion point is mentioned here, well he mentions poeple eating meat while being anti abortion as far as I remember from it. Along with a lot of topics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYYNY2oKVWU

Weidii

Jesus, this is a refreshing thread to read. I've always questioned why we see ourselves being so much more special than non-human animals.

It's true that mammals are highly evovled and specialised, but why should that mean our consciousness is worth more than that of any other animal? I remember in secondary school I once casually referred to humans as being animals and I was laughed at and ostrecized by my peers for thinking something "so rediculous" (As a side note, all of my friends were very religious people.)

We need to start looking at ourselves logically, and pop the old ego bubble which has grown so large through ignorance. We may be the most intelligent animal (in our own opinions), though we are not the fastest, the biggest, the strongest, etc. and since our intelligence could potentially be the cause of our demise, perhaps it's not such a successful trait to harbor afterall. We'd probably be better off being able to build webs :P

Tar.Aldarion

Spiders are more successful than humans after all.

I did enjoy listening to that Dawkins debate above as it covered many topics.