What makes us human?

[MGlBlaze]

What is a human? Easy;
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae
Tribe: Hominini
Genus: Homo
Species: H. sapiens

That isn't philosophical at all.

A philosophical question would be "What is a person?". There are a bunch of different arguments for what constitutes personhood, but ask anyone and chances are none of them will quite agree.

It's like people who ask what the meaning of life is when the question should be what its purpose is.

 

[manic_depressive13]

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It'd be nice if you provided an example of animals that use tools. Thanks for passively aggressively saying my answer was bad. You asked what makes us human, I gave an answer that you dismiss without justifying why, I hope it doesn't stay that way. Who are you to say what is a 'good' answer? You obviously made a thread asking, so I suspect you either have no idea but don't like my idea, or you already had thoughts in your head that you wanted to be reinforced rather than considering ideas that you don't like as much. I'd say that intelligence determines whether an alien race is on the same level as us.

Wow, chill out and scroll up. Merk didn't make this thread, he just disagreed with you. This is how discussion happens.

The Egyptian vulture breaks open ostrich eggs by smashing them with a rock. There are also several apes that use sticks to get food. It's been argued that this is an example of tool use, which is reinforced by the fact that if they find a good one they'll keep it for later.

The fact that we can kill the fuck out of every other animal on earth

And this person has stumbled upon the answer.

 

[crudus]

This is more of a philosophical question. What is that makes us human, what gives us humanity. Some say the just beaing aware of ourself, but some animlas are all so aware of them selfev. So what is that makes us human, what do you think?

Sentience and Sapience.

It is even in our name. Homo Sapiens(Latin for "wise man"). Ok, so I just opened a wikipedia article and started paraphrasing. However, hat I truly think makes a human a human is a sense of wonder. Sure we could say its the higher brain power or the sue of tools, but it would count for nothing if we weren't the curious bastards we are.

I'll say that the capacity to use tools is highly important in what a human is IMO.

Doesn't that come with the unfortunate implication that disabled(enough) people aren't humans?

You don't consider a wheelchair a tool?

What is a human? Easy;
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae
Tribe: Hominini
Genus: Homo
Species: H. sapiens

That isn't philosophical at all.

A philosophical question would be "What is a person?". There are a bunch of different arguments for what constitutes personhood, but ask anyone and chances are none of them will quite agree.

It's like people who ask what the meaning of life is when the question should be what its purpose is.

That doesn't tell anyone anything if they aren't familiar with taxonomy. It only tells you how closely related to another thing you know the classification of.

Spoiler: watch

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Tardigrada
Class: Eutardigrada
Order: Parachaela
Family: Hypsibiidae
Subfamily: Hypsibiinae
Genus: Hypsibius
Species: H. americanus

See? That tells you nothing about the animal. It is like a pointer in computer science. It tells you where to find your information, not what it is. Now our deoxyribonucleic acid and proteins makes us humans in a biological sense. What OP is asking is what separates us from the rest of Animalia or even Primates.

 

[FreakSheet]

I'd say that how we have a choice in how we act, our nature doesn't decide what we do.

 

[Leadfinger]

The ability to ponder the question, "What makes us human" distinguishes humans from all other species.

 

[Iron Mal]

Being born a human would be a good start.

Being able to acknowledge your humanity would be another important part (I would like to point out that's not the same as self awareness, being able to truthfully acknowledge that you are a human is different from simply being aware of your own existance).

The ability and wilingness to engage in thoughts and behaviours not thought to be capable of lesser creatures (like for example how I'm fairly certain that dolphins have never been to the moon and have never invented the printing press).

Those three things combined I would say makes a human human.

 

[Fanfic_warper]

I guess if this is a philosophical question then I pose that our ability to take understanding and apply it is what makes us human and our ability to create more than just the neccesities for survival.

 

[Delsana]

The ability to express and comprehend compassion towards others without selfish gain.

Once you lose that, you deserve to fall down a cliff in my opinion.

 

[ultimateownage]

Our genetic structure.

 

[FateOrFatality]

What makes us human is pretty simple. We are all biologically members of the species Homo Sapiens, hence we are human. What makes us civilized, which is what I think you mean to be asking, is probably that we are intelligent and self aware. We have long term memory, and think logically. Humans are one of the only species that can recognize themselves in a mirror, after all.

 

[Yopaz]

The fact that we want to distinct ourselves from other animals by asking "What makes us human?"

Love could exist within animals. There are animals that practices monogamy in the same ways humans do, by that I mean they're cheating if they can get away with it.

There are animals that use tools just like there are people who don't.

Animals may have rational thoughts, we just aren't able to understand their way of thinking.

not even our genetic code is unique. We're mostly chimps.

 

[Anti Nudist Cupcake]

It is no one single thing. It is many other things that cannot be put into words.

You cannot have one trait to define us without the others because we have many single traits that are shared by other animals/objects but that do not make THEM human.

I cannot for instance say it is our appearance, some robots have our appearance yet they are not human, that is because we happen to be fleshy too, but genetically mutated aliens could have our appearance AND be fleshy yet still not be human either because they lack other traits that we have such as human desires for instance.

This all comes from a guy who has The Illusive man, a pro human extremist as an avatar.

 

[Spectral Dragon]

We have the written language, and can learn from past mistakes that happened centuries ago if we like to. But more especially, I think our potential and ability to adapt and learn. Other animals have a lot of our abilities, but we can adapt and use anything in different ways. Wars, tools, language, emotions or anything like that. Maybe religion, and curiosity stronger than most animals?

 

[Tibike77]

The number of neurons in our brains, the number of connections between them, the chassis (thumbs and all that jazz) AND the bootstrap education we receive in the formative (heavy "synapse pruning") years of those said brains.
Seriously, that's it, and nothing more.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

A part of it would be the ability to make choices and decide for ourselves what is right and wrong. That's what free will is all about...

 

[wolf thing]

we are human because we can question are own humanity