According to Korzybski, the unique quality of humans is what he calls “time-binding”, described as “the capacity of an individual or a generation to begin where the former left off”.
I hate this definition. At its simplest level, it suggests any creature capable of remembering long enough to do as their parents did, and the capacity to improve on their parent’s choices is a human, but that’s clearly not what Korzybski means as it would include many animals. A stronger interpretation might be people capable of building up over several generations, but wouldn’t this require a writing system of some kind soon enough? African and Native American societies never developed a writing system, and seemed to never get much past very basic agriculture. Indeed, humans prior to 5,000 BC were going nowhere for hundreds of thousands of years. Does that mean they’re not human? If we break it down, I bet the majority of progress in our society was achieved by a tiny minority of the population. If say, the top 5% most productive individuals in history were removed, would we as a society have ever reached industrialization before going extinct? I’m not so sure.
I like Robert Sussman’s definition mentioned by ScottL better, but I’m still not satisfied. His three are:
Symbolic behaviour—the ability to create alternative worlds, to ponder about the past and future, to imagine things that don’t exist.
Language—the unique communicative venue that enables humans to communicate not only in proximate contexts, but also about the past, the future, and things distant and imagined, allowing us to share and pass our symbols to future generations.
Culture—the ability found only in humans for different populations to create their own shared symbolic worlds and pass them on. Although chimpanzees can pass on learned behaviour, they cannot pass on shared and different world views.
There are over 7 billion humans on the planet. 7 billion! That’s a lot of room for variation. There are humans in history who never learned a language. Does that make them not human? Then there are many other variations. There are humans who can’t remember anything. There are humans who can’t count to 10. There are humans with no vocal function to speak with. There are humans who cannot read. There are humans in a permanent coma with barely any brain function kept alive only by machines. How do you create a definition that encompasses all of them?
It’s a problem I’ve thought a lot about, and I don’t think there is an answer to it; at least not one that fits normal people’s perceptions of humanity. If we investigated, I’m sure we could identify a DNA sequence or group of possible sequences that all humans have at least one of and no animals do. But what if a human is discovered with a mutation that doesn’t fit? What if an ape is discovered who has one of those sequences? Does the human lose his/her rights? Does the ape legally become a human?
This problem will become less transparent over time. The population is growing, and our ability to modify people is increasing. The solution is to stop thinking about it in binary terms: humans are 1, not humans are 0, but this is so radical that it’s doubtful such an idea will become mainstream any time soon.
I hate this definition. At its simplest level, it suggests any creature capable of remembering long enough to do as their parents did, and the capacity to improve on their parent’s choices is a human, but that’s clearly not what Korzybski means as it would include many animals. A stronger interpretation might be people capable of building up over several generations, but wouldn’t this require a writing system of some kind soon enough? African and Native American societies never developed a writing system, and seemed to never get much past very basic agriculture. Indeed, humans prior to 5,000 BC were going nowhere for hundreds of thousands of years. Does that mean they’re not human? If we break it down, I bet the majority of progress in our society was achieved by a tiny minority of the population. If say, the top 5% most productive individuals in history were removed, would we as a society have ever reached industrialization before going extinct? I’m not so sure.
I like Robert Sussman’s definition mentioned by ScottL better, but I’m still not satisfied. His three are:
There are over 7 billion humans on the planet. 7 billion! That’s a lot of room for variation. There are humans in history who never learned a language. Does that make them not human? Then there are many other variations. There are humans who can’t remember anything. There are humans who can’t count to 10. There are humans with no vocal function to speak with. There are humans who cannot read. There are humans in a permanent coma with barely any brain function kept alive only by machines. How do you create a definition that encompasses all of them?
It’s a problem I’ve thought a lot about, and I don’t think there is an answer to it; at least not one that fits normal people’s perceptions of humanity. If we investigated, I’m sure we could identify a DNA sequence or group of possible sequences that all humans have at least one of and no animals do. But what if a human is discovered with a mutation that doesn’t fit? What if an ape is discovered who has one of those sequences? Does the human lose his/her rights? Does the ape legally become a human?
This problem will become less transparent over time. The population is growing, and our ability to modify people is increasing. The solution is to stop thinking about it in binary terms: humans are 1, not humans are 0, but this is so radical that it’s doubtful such an idea will become mainstream any time soon.
Maybe we shouldn’t be calling those people human… “superhumans”