Humanity is special, and why we should not forget it...

[koshergrl]

"...we do have problems, and the struggle of subjective humanism against roboticism is one of the most important.

"The moral claims urged on man by Judeo-Christian principles and his other religious and philosophical traditions have nothing to do with Earth’s being the center of the solar system or having been created in six days, or with the real or imagined absence of rational life elsewhere in the universe. The best and deepest moral laws we know tell us to revere human life and, above all, to be human: to treat all creatures, our fellow humans and the world at large, humanely. To behave like a human being (Yiddish: mensch) is to realize our best selves.


"No other creature has a best self.


"This is the real danger of anti-subjectivism, in an age where the collapse of religious education among Western elites has already made a whole generation morally wobbly. When scientists casually toss our human-centered worldview in the trash with the used coffee cups, they are re-smashing the sacred tablets, not in blind rage as Moses did, but in casual, ignorant indifference to the fate of mankind.


"A world that is intimidated by science and bored sick with cynical, empty “postmodernism” desperately needs a new subjectivist, humanist, individualistworldview. We need science and scholarship and art and spiritual life to be fully human. The last three are withering, and almost no one understands the first."


« The Closing of the Scientific Mind Commentary Magazine

 

[koshergrl]

"The sanctity of life is what we must affirm against Kurzweilism and the nightmare of roboticism. Judaism has always preferred the celebration and sanctification of this life in this world to eschatological promises."

"At first, roboticism was just an intellectual school. Today it is a social disease. Some young people want to be robots (I’m serious); they eagerly await electronic chips to be implanted in their brains so they will be smarter and better informed than anyone else (except for all their friends who have had the same chips implanted). Or they want to see the world through computer glasses that superimpose messages on poor naked nature. They are terrorist hostages in love with the terrorists."

« The Closing of the Scientific Mind Commentary Magazine

 

[koshergrl]

"All our striving for what is good and just and beautiful and sacred, for what gives meaning to human life and makes us (as Scripture says) “just a little lower than the angels,” and a little better than rats and cats, is invisible to the roboticist worldview. In the roboticist future, we will become what we believe ourselves to be: dogs with iPhones. The world needs a new subjectivist humanism now—not just scattered protests but a growing movement, a cry from the heart." @AvgJoe

« The Closing of the Scientific Mind Commentary Magazine

 

[Coyote]

"A world that is intimidated by science and bored sick with cynical, empty “postmodernism” desperately needs a new subjectivist, humanist, individualistworldview. We need science and scholarship and art and spiritual life to be fully human. The last three are withering, and almost no one understands the first."

I agree - we need all to understand and appreciate the richness of our world and what it means to be human. They don't have to be in opposition either.

 

[koshergrl]

Actually, that is not what is being said.

What is being said is that we need to appreciate ourselves, first...and in doing so, we become better...and better equipped to enrich our world.

 

[koshergrl]

This article was written by a Yale computer science professor. It's almost a work of art in and of itself.

 

[Coyote]

Actually, that is not what is being said.

What is being said is that we need to appreciate ourselves, first...and in doing so, we become better...and better equipped to enrich our world.

I just finished reading the entire article - very thought provoking. What I got out of it is that a mechanical explanation of our inner life can't explain everything and it's dismissing of subjectivity and consciousness as either irrelevant or explainable through superimposing a software paradigm over biology diminishes what it means to be human. I would go further and say it diminishes what it means to be a living sentient being much like Skinner's theories of behaviorism that viewed animals as nothing more than biological machines governed by instincts. There's something more that comes with life.

But I see what you are saying also - and agree.

 

[Coyote]

This article was written by a Yale computer science professor. It's almost a work of art in and of itself.

Yes - it was very well written and fascinating - I'll have to let it percolate in my mind for a bit

 

[koshergrl]

He has written a book that is due out....he definitely knows how to turn a phrase. And his case is very well presented.

 

[Coyote]

He's a very good writer - he knows how to make a complex ideas very readable and understandable - I was totally caught in it

 

[Moonglow]

After becoming disable I have had the time to finally smell the flowers and again enjoy life and the planet.
Finally free of the inner anger that ruled my life for so long which blinded me to the richness of family, a jocular character and renewed sense of God and the ability to forgive myself and others..

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Humanity is no more special than any other organism this planet's evolved. It's our ego that make us believe we're special. Objectively though, many life forms have existed far longer than us. Sharks come to mind and their hundreds of million of year reign. By comparison we're newbies. Just because our brains enable us to do things other things can't (as far as we know) doesn't mean we're inherently special or better than everything else. We're just different. In an objective analysis of better/worse humans are among the worst animals on this planet. No other animal but us destroys it's own habitat like we do or fights among it's own kind to he extent we do, or for our reasons. Many species are vastly superior to humans in terms of objective worth and overall asset or liability considerations.

 

[Agit8r]

This idea of "roboticism" sounds like the division of labor--and it's fruit.

 

[koshergrl]

Humanity is no more special than any other organism this planet's evolved. It's our ego that make us believe we're special. Objectively though, many life forms have existed far longer than us. Sharks come to mind and their hundreds of million of year reign. By comparison we're newbies. Just because our brains enable us to do things other things can't (as far as we know) doesn't mean we're inherently special or better than everything else. We're just different. In an objective analysis of better/worse humans are among the worst animals on this planet. No other animal but us destroys it's own habitat like we do or fights among it's own kind to he extent we do, or for our reasons. Many species are vastly superior to humans in terms of objective worth and overall asset or liability considerations.

Thank you for pointing out your inability to even begin to grasp the point of the article.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

What point? That you reprinted copyrighted material? Since when is that a point? Nothing from you in the OP, just a buncha quotes from someone else. If we wanna read such material we'll go to the source and do so. If you wanna discuss such articles, discuss them. Don't just regurgitate them on a discussion site then presume you're discussing anything.

 

[koshergrl]

Oh I'm perfectly willing to discuss the article.

Sadly, you seem incapable of that.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Yes, I'm wholly incapable of discussing things and simply resort to personal insults.

 

[koshergrl]

As a matter of fact, yes.

This article points out that being wholly objective, and oblivious to our unique gifts and superiority, to suspend morality for the sake of equality for ALL, regardless of their nature, is to in fact guarantee that we are nothing special...when you can't see the specialness then you deny the humanity of humans.

And that is to be, in effect, nothing more than an animal. It's our ability to recognize our specialness and to distinguish between good and evil that makes us human. If you take that away, you have nothing except very smart beasts.

 

[Coyote]

Humanity is no more special than any other organism this planet's evolved. It's our ego that make us believe we're special. Objectively though, many life forms have existed far longer than us. Sharks come to mind and their hundreds of million of year reign. By comparison we're newbies. Just because our brains enable us to do things other things can't (as far as we know) doesn't mean we're inherently special or better than everything else. We're just different. In an objective analysis of better/worse humans are among the worst animals on this planet. No other animal but us destroys it's own habitat like we do or fights among it's own kind to he extent we do, or for our reasons. Many species are vastly superior to humans in terms of objective worth and overall asset or liability considerations.

I agree, humans are no better (or worse) than other living things - but we have no way of knowing the inner worlds of other creatures and because of that we use ourselves as the yardstick by which to measure their worth.

What I took out of the article was less that humans are special (though I think that was the author's intent) but rather that not everything can be measured and explained by objective means and in attempting to do so we are dismissing a huge chunk of what we are - we are unable to see the indescribable wonder. What I see as truly special and the key to all these complexities is Life.

 

[Coyote]

As a matter of fact, yes.

This article points out that being wholly objective, and oblivious to our unique gifts and superiority, to suspend morality for the sake of equality for ALL, regardless of their nature, is to in fact guarantee that we are nothing special...when you can't see the specialness then you deny the humanity of humans.

What exactly do you mean by that? All people? All living things?

And that is to be, in effect, nothing more than an animal. It's our ability to recognize our specialness and to distinguish between good and evil that makes us human. If you take that away, you have nothing except very smart beasts.

To distinquish between Good and Evil. But how we define good and evil varies considerably amongst humanity.

The one thing I keep finding is the more we seek to define what is is to be Human, the more we have to redefine it because we find another species is found to share that characteristic.