Humanitisherologisticpatheosis

[ioxles]

I feel compelled to put my thoughts into words, though I fear they will make as much sense as the title of this thread.

This morning, walking to the doctors I asked my mum "what is it to be human?" Sure I wasn't in my right mind (hence the visit to the doctors) and expected offhand dismissal but surprisingly I got the response:

"To be alive."

Now that got me thinking, to be alive... is to be human... what? What is it to be alive? Is that what it is to be human?

Taking the word human, it's definition and ever evolving symbolical meaning in the living information that is language, any language, it is deconstructed into meaninglessness, streams of knowledge become truths as "human" becomes the truth and not the symbol. To be human in living information is symbolic purely as language can be, given meaning through time and present only in the moment. Human becomes what all words are, are word given truth by language, we are human because we say we are.

Life becomes what it is, constant revelations of nothing, that there is no meaning to anything, and that everything is given meaning assigned by language. Living information becomes irrelevant. Everything is everything as meanings go, given to them by the stream of consciousness that is the living language of humanity.

What is it to be alive?

What is it? Is it to breathe? To have the scientific signs of life? To be alive is to be alive, to be human is to be human? Is this a mystery to be unraveled? Can our hacksaws of language cut away at this and make it free and understood? Do we need some higher understanding to understand this?

bleuuuuuuuuurgh...............

 

[Dogstile]

to be human is to be made of of a certain number of cells in a certain form

edit: i meant this in a very broad sense, to be human is to be just that, human
you have very recognisable human characteristics, to be human is simply to have roughly the same genetic code that gives us the human thought, brain, whatever. this means that sure, you can still be deformed, but you're still human because of that genetic code is practically the same as each other

I'm not being 100% specific, because you can't. everyone is slightly different, and if you honestly think that i think you have to be exactly the same as say, me or, your sister or even that homeless guy in the park, then you are wrong

(now i guarantee someone mentions chimps)

 

[Cpt_Oblivious]

That's rather deep and also depressing ("there is no meaning to anything")

I say to be human is to have the following qualities:
1: A human being
2: A mind and free will (arguments aside for now)
3: Morals and emotions

I may have missed some stuff off there.

 

[7moreDead_v1legacy]

Too be human is to embrace the daily grind, and too enjoy the sweet release of the weekend.

Work until we're too old to do anything good...My expression is of pure joy.

 

[Toners]

anthropomorphism shows what it means to be human, because it shows how something we see as more human is derived from something inhuman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropomorphism
personally i reckon it's something to do with opposible thumbs, barely controllable urges to screw the other sex, a civilised social structure and to be fiercely territorial yet live together in harmony(ish). we're fairly messed up as species go, which is probably why we're so successful

 

[Pimppeter2]

The ability to control your actions

 

[Xorghul]

To be human is to be of the race Homo sapiens.
But that's some deep nonsense you have there.

 

[Tatrion]

It's an interesting question...

First of all, I'd say being human has nothing to do with the body.
One could be terribly deformed.
- Missing all limbs(Thus not having thumbs either. The thumb being one of the homo sapiens characteristics).
- Having other abnormalities (Examples: Elephantiasis, Epidermodysplasia verruciformis).

We still recognize people which such conditions as being human. Which allows me to draw the conclusion that being human has something to do with the state of mind. (Unless anyone can point out a flaw here).

If I had to point out a single aspect of our reasoning which makes us human I'd say it would be having opinions.

The world is nothing more and nothing less than the world. Though we add something using our opinions. One could say the world we live in is great, or one could say the world is horrible.
The world isn't really great or horrible, it's just the world. The human perspective makes it so.
Furthermore, opinions allow us to self reflect. Was it wrong to yell at that guy, or not?
So opinions allows us to improve, but only in our human-world. For the world is simply the world. Opinions only matter to humans.

Just my two cents.

 

[Spacewolf]

well to be human you have to be able to breed with other humans and have similar physical and biochemical properties, so basically you have to be a Homo sapien sapien

 

[FastFoot92]

To be human is to be able to effect the enviroment around you

And to have a sense of humour

 

[DND Judgement]

watch bicentennial man... it's a really good movie and has some really good points to make on this topic...

 

[Bludge]

to be human is to be conscious. consious of your surroundings, conscious of yourself, conscious of the fact that you have no idea where your consciousness came from or why you have it.
Its to be conscious of that fact that you are one day going to die, yet fighting to preserve your life in the face of danger anyway.
To be human is to question. Question why you are here, and for what purpose. To question your creation, and your inevitable demise.
Its to question the very nature of reality, to wonder if everyone sees the world in the same way.

Those are my thoughts, although im crazy, so that may be what it is to be crazy, rather then what it is to be human!

 

[Tucker154]

To be human is
1.To be a living organism of the Human species
2.to have the job(if this is your religion)to worship god
3.to have no meaning in life but to live,reproduce and then die
4.to constantly learn more
5.to be bound to be searching for something that doesnt exist,a meaning of life

 

[Motti]

Deep thoughts

I don't think language can describe what it is to be human and what it is to be alive, simply because we don't know anything different. Suffice to say that to be human is to be irrational and to be alive is amazing.

 

[Mookie_Magnus]

well to be human you have to be able to breed with other humans and have similar physical and biochemical properties, so basically you have to be a Homo sapien sapien

To be human is to be of the race Homo sapiens.
But that's some deep nonsense you have there.

I disagree. What if there were people in the world who were descended from Homo neanderthalensis in the world? They were a separate species of Human(ie, Homo sapiens was a separate branch of human.) would these people descended from them not be human?

Note: This is a hypothetical situation. If you start quoting me about there being different types of humans still around, I will quickly refute you.

 

[bluepilot]

`These are the things that make a man:
Iron enough to make a nail,
Lime enough to paint a wall
Water enough to drown a dog,
Sulphur enough to stop the fleas,
Poison enough to kill a cow....
Potash enough to wash a shirt,
Gold enough to buy a bean,
Silver enough to coat a pin,
Lead enough to ballast a bird,
Phosphor enough to light a town,

Strenght enough to build a home,
Time enough to hold a child and
Love enough to break a heart.`

Terry Prachett, Wintersmith.

 

[The Maddest March Hare]

`These are the things that make a man:
Iron enough to make a nail,
Lime enough to paint a wall
Water enough to drown a dog,
Sulphur enough to stop the fleas,
Poison enough to kill a cow....
Potash enough to wash a shirt,
Gold enough to buy a bean,
Silver enough to coat a pin,
Lead enough to ballast a bird,
Phosphor enough to light a town,

Strenght enough to build a home,
Time enough to hold a child and
Love enough to break a heart.`

Terry Prachett, Wintersmith.

The poor Wintersmith, never hearing the last 3 =[

So close, yet so far away.

 

[King Crab]

I must say, from a crabs point of view, a human is just a pink slightly mushy blob that floats around tethered to the ground by only two unseemly legs. as a crab, human is as human as.

 

[Xorghul]

well to be human you have to be able to breed with other humans and have similar physical and biochemical properties, so basically you have to be a Homo sapien sapien

To be human is to be of the race Homo sapiens.
But that's some deep nonsense you have there.

I disagree. What if there were people in the world who were descended from Homo neanderthalensis in the world? They were a separate species of Human(ie, Homo sapiens was a separate branch of human.) would these people descended from them not be human?

Note: This is a hypothetical situation. If you start quoting me about there being different types of humans still around, I will quickly refute you.

But there aren't. So I don't have to worry about that.

 

[ioxles]

Opiates can only help in these situations.

Purposlessness seems to be the trend in the quest for humanity (is it something to be achieved? that brings up a whole other train of thought of whether babies who have no values imbued are human or not) and being so I have reached a station.

Still as I can be I breath, listen and hear the heartbeat, feel the pulse and tremble in the air, as light filters through the blinds and my closed eyes. It gets louder and I feel the pulse in my fingers, then my hands and arms and slowly my whole body pulses I can trace the race around from both the start and the end.

What am I made of? We have given everything names, face, skin, hair, heart, lungs. Do they become them? Protein, 36 kinds, the building blocks of life. All the strings of different shapes make the code. Interact with cells, turn then on and off. Life is Binary. We are biomachines understood through technology, making metaphors with the present. We are the computer, we run on binary and perception O/S.

Deoxyribonucleic acid, the blueprint but not the control. Ignore it. The skin is the brain. The membrane IS the brain. You can take out the nucleus and it wont change a thing.

To be a human is to be a robot.

Robot....... Robota.... Slave.