Human Nature

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!

I cannot see how luxury is a significant difference animal nature and human nature.
Another difference between animal and human nature is the degree of self-consciousness on a continuum.
If the highest degree of self-consciousness in animals (e.g. primates, dolphins, elephants, etc.) are say 10/100, then humans could be rated 60/100.

Many animals are driven to extravagance by their procreation impulses.
Some birds go to the extreme of decorating their nests and themselves to attract the other sex. As mentioned the alpha male/female will also engage in excesses as selfish indulgence in order to dominate.
They do not regard it as ‘luxury’ only because their degree of self-consciousness (self-awareness, ego, etc.) is significantly lower that those of humans.

Humans also engage in the same excesses like animals but the difference is due to their higher degree of self-consciousness and egoism. Where they do it to the extreme, that is not normal human nature but rather it becomes a mental disease of obsession, compulsive disorder behavior, addiction, etc.

It is true humans do not conform to Darwinian theory of adaptation in full.
However humans still conform to general evolution theory and the preservation of the species in terms of large numbers, i.e. 7 billion++ and growing. I think the human species is quite secure until the Earth is physically inhabitable* for all humans.
*Singed/charred by the Sun coming near to Earth or destroyed by a rogue meteor, etc.

Prismatic, please correct the quotations in your last post!

In the case of the humans self-consciousness with its epiphenomenon egoism is one aspect, yes, but the main aspect is the insulation (dissociation of nature) which leads to luxury and is naturally caused by the brain. So we have (1) the brain, (2) the insulation (dissociation of nature), (3) the luxury and also the self-consciousness with its epiphenomenon egoism and many other features, but it is more the luxury that leads to the self-consciousness than it is the self-consciousness that leads to luxury. Some animals have self-consciousness in almost the degree that human children in the age of 1 to 2 years have, but these animals do not have luxury in the degree that human children in the age of 1 to 2 years have. And human children become egoistic in that typical human way (you said: “extreme”) after that age, usually when they are older than 2 years. Luxury is more a communal than a personal matter.The human development is more a communal than a personal (“individual”) development. The human development is more a cultural than a natural development, because the natural development of the humans is more (about 98%; see above) an animal development than a human development.

Naturally you need a relative large and a very complex brain, if you want to become a human being, but then, when that brain exists, your further development is more a cultural than a natural development. The huge consciousness (with its accordingly huge self-consciousness), the huge knowledge, the huge and complex language, … were naturally caused by the brain but would be totally useless, if their development were merely a natural development. The humans are humans very much more because of their cultural development than because of their natural development. Naturally humans are 98%-animals, but culturally humans are 98%-humans.