Human Nature

I want to know more, can you go into great detail?

Probably far more than you would want to study. :sunglasses:

A fundamental life form has three fundamental properties or essences;

  1. Awareness
  2. Analysis
  3. Influence (affectance)

A conscience life form has a special form of awareness called “perception”. And that perception ability yields the property of remote recognition (being able to realize/perceive the remote sources of a sensed affects). And through that property, an internal subjective map (an updating understanding or ontology) of the terrain called “reality” forms its consciousness.

As any conscious life perceives affects upon it, it automatically classifies, by a variety of criteria, a “Perception of Hope and Threat”, PHT, or “threat assessment” value relating to a variety of potential concerns. It is from such PHT assessments and values that the life form chooses its conscious actions. PHT guides all life.

The homosapian has an unusually high (for the animal kingdom) ability to mentally work with his internal map. He can not only remember actual perceptions, but also remember his own guesses and deductions of what might be true of his environment. He can intentionally or inadvertently alter his PHT map and even his perceptions through interdependent algorithms (not always accurate). And that poses a unique problem.

Homosapian has the ability to alter his own perception of reality. That makes his actions more independent of reality. But of course, it does not alter the real consequences of those actions. Thus he has the ability to fool himself into tragedy. He can cause himself to believe and behave as if he is independent of causality and consequence.

In addition to fooling himself, he has the ability to influence the perception of others and thus fool them as well. The others need not alter their perception very much because he is giving them directed, intentional affectance. He is intentionally altering their internal map, their perception and PHT. He does this so as to gain greater influence through their influence that is guided by their PHT. He can become a “Puppet Master” of others.

A homosapian can figure out how to use a horse to carry him, to use a cow to plow for him, a bird to see for him, a dog to hunt for him, and subjects to fight and die for him. He is a user of tools that often include other living creatures.

So homosapian is half blind from his altering of his own perception and half blind from having his perception altered by others. Thus he has affect upon the Earth through using misguided perception in mass - a Perception Driven Affectance upon the Earth, most often self-deluded by his attempts to be even more influential, a Godwannabe.

When it comes to distinguish the nature of human beings from the nature of other living beings, then human nature is human culture/s. Although it is difficult to say whether there is one human culture or several human cultures, I would say, if I had to refer to merely one human culture, that a human being is a luxury being. In another thread I said:

The luxury is a very special phenomenon, especially for human beings. Human beings are luxury beings. They make their artificial island of luxury in the sea of nature. Evolution is not just about adaptation to nature, but also about distancing from nature, thus about the luxury islands.

Only human beings (thus no other living beings) are able to distance or disassociate themselves so much from nature. Humans live on islands of luxury. They have their human bubbles like hulls / shells, caves, huts / cottages, houses, beyond that: castles, churches / cathedrals, cities, city states, states, nations, empires, global empires … and so forth. Because they are much more spiritual / mental / intellectual than other creatures, they have not only a bodily but also a spiritual immune system. This spiritual immune system is the main cause of the enormous luxury and the characteristic feature of human culture/s. Because of the fact that there are many different spiritual immune systems of humans possible, one should rather speak about several human cultures and not about one human culture.

Erik_

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Haven’t they been, Erik? :evilfun: Space is not the final frontier - humanity is.

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Can one actually give an abridged definition of something so vast, so panoramic, so deep, so like the iceberg? Erik, you insult humanity by even suggesting that one could abridge a definition of our human natures. I need coffee.

So you’re a Freudian? Is this what you think? It is all about the fear of death? What about human evolution. What does that tell you - perhaps that human nature ALSO strives to become more, to transcend, to re-create, to transform, not out of a sense of fear and oblivion but out of sense of Is this all there is and then proceeds to prove otherwise.
Why does it always have to be about defying death? Why can’t life and death walk hand in hand together, kind of like friends, death teaching life - the wise old teacher - death is.

Define power and how is that power utilized, Erik? To destroy humanity or to create and to build up?
Of course, I will grant you that that is or may be the other side of the coin BUT let’s not forget that the will to power also becomes the will to love and to affirm and to transcend, et cetera, within the right hands - and hearts and minds.

There ares Mufasa and there are Scars and each of us are both - it is in knowing this that we become more human.
Consciousness is the bridge between the animal world and the human world but we are also wonderful animals at the same time. I have no problem with that. lol

Of course they have, dear little angel :evilfun: Buttt lets not throw water-balloons on my parade.

Ggrrrrrr! I see your readings have sharpened your critical-analysis abilities. It has made you a bit more bold, more daring in your prose. :evilfun:

Is that necessarily a Freudian thing? I think Freud was a myopic jackass, buttttt that’s a whole different story. I was a bit hasty in my response to the OP in this regard and should have elaborated. Nietzsche thinks that the fear of death, as the ultimate drive of an organism was too cowardly a designation. He thought " will to power " did more justice and made more sense. I agree with Freddy on this. And it kind of seems like you do too, hence your use of " strives to transcend, to-recreate, to transform ", which Nietzsche would label as characteristics of the WTP.

Power is the potential of an entity to have an influence upon alterity. Creation and destruction are intertwined aspects of this two-fold voluptuous delight. And I agree with you on the latter part of your post here.

Yes, I agree with you here too, Arc. The Faustian divided soul is within us, a voluptuous contradiction.

Fear of death defines the herd animal. A full fledged human sees death as just another fact of glory.

I like that; has a Spartan ring to it. Nice.

I like that ‘BUMP’ gif.
As a male, it aligns and synchronizes with my human nature [btw not in the porno sense].
There has been a lot of research showing the first sight the male set on the female is the cleavage.
That is probably as assessment of the lactating ability of the female to nurture the next generation.

Thus it is the will to live and procreation of the next generation within the human framework & environment that are the main leverage of human nature.
The avoidance of premature death till the inevitable is a subset of the above in the establishment of human nature. Note the conscious fear of death is a different psychological problem termed thanotophobia.

Try to fill my memory bank

Do you believe that humans have more intellect or conscious strength than any other animal? Is there an animal equal or superior to humanity?

So culture is the same as nature?

Can you say more about humans being defined apart from animals because of luxury?

But some humans can foresee or predict death, while other humans cannot?

I am happy that you appreciate the irony of the bump

Hmmm but that’s not necessarily true, is it? Not all of us are warriors who think that dying for a cause is the greatest glory that there is.
Perhaps the “truest” warrior might also be the one who chooses to live for a cause. Yes, I know you didn’t mention cause.
I think that it’s impossible, being that we’re humans, not to, at times, fear death…unless we simply do not value our lives, hold not much meaning for them. But it’s how we respond to that fear which is important. We can learn from it, value its place, live in harmony with it. I suspect that even the truest warrior has fear in his heart, fear of death but he’s the one who transcends it in the name of something greater than himself and greater than death…whatever that might be for him.

We might even say that a fear of death, at least a rational one, is an evolutionary strategy for staying alive. One could say that, couldn’t one?

I don’t think in terms of “superior” when it comes to species (nor genders for that matter). There is a level and type of intellect that causes foolishness to the point of extinction. Prior to that event, anyone might think of that creature as superior.

Homosapian has the collective strength and intellect to design his own replacement as a species and thus willfully bring about his own extinction. Is that a “superior” creature?

Hello, Project (Machine Project?).

No. Culture it is not the same as nature, but it is a part of nature. I said: “When it comes to distinguish the nature of human beings from the nature of other living beings, then human nature is human culture/s.” That does not mean that nature and culture are the same. They are similar, not the same. There are analogies between them.

Naturally humans beings are animal beings, but culturally human beings are not animal beings but human beings (just becaue of their culture). Of course, there are feedbacks between nature and culture, thus also between human nature and human culture. But if it comes to distinguish the nature of human beings from the nature of other living beings, then human nature is human culture/s. And one of the main features of human culture/s is luxury.

Yes. I can.

Human means the “Hue-of-Man” wherein Man is the higher order of the species of homosapian. Animals do not have that higher order (national, world, and eugenics governments) that creates human cultures.

In another perspective;

If human nature is 100%, it can also be represented as the combination of,
98% animal nature + 2% specific human nature.
Despite the significant difference in the external expressions of humans as distinct from other living things, I think the above combination is applicable to describe human nature.

For example, if we were to transplant that 2% of human properties to our nearest primates, they would like to be very similar to humans in time.
At present primates/dolphins already have some degree of culture that are similar to humans, i.e. the use of tool, games, language, deliberated evil, etc.

That is also my estimation and assessment. But these 2% are not really few - we know it, especially from genetics.

The use of tools that do not belong to the own body are alrerady a prestage of luxury; the use of language, if it is close to the value of the human language, as well; games do all mammals have (maybe it is a pre-prestage of luxury). B.t.w.: Luxury can be measured by the degree of insulation. The more living beings are able to live on an own “island” (meant as a metaphor!), the more they are luxury beings. Or, in other words, the more living beings are able to behave against the Darwinistic evolution, the more they are luxury beings. Insulations give those beings a relative (!) independence of adaptation to nature. The adaptation to nature has not vanished but has been added by dissociation of nature. And the only living being that has achieved this independence in a sufficient extent is the human being.

The question is how we value this relative (!) independence. This relative independence is caused by insulation or dissociation of nature with the main effect: luxury. And this insulation is (a) natuarlly caused by the relatively huge brain and (b) culturally caused by the huge consciousness, awareness, knowkedge, language of human beings.

That’s an interesting theme.

That’s not true, alpha males and their mates get the first resources in almost any species.

What is not true?

Whether “alpha males and their mates get the first resources in almost any species” or not is obviously not important for luxury beings. Are Occidental humans alpha males and their mates? Do they have the most descendants? No! The reverse is true: They have the least descendants. Do the humans with the most descendants (thus currently the Black humans in Africa) get the first resources? No!

Humans do not completely fit in the scheme of the Darwinistic evolution theory!