Homo suicidus
Humans are defined as rational animals. I believe homo sapiens means rational ape. This definition, on first pass, looks accurate. I mean rationality, as an ability, seems to have reached its peak in the human form.
However, quite surprisingly, this definition is not as good as it sounds. Animals are perfectly capable of rational thought. They wouldn't survive if they were NOT rational.
Looks like I'm saying the definition is too broad, including more than it should. Owls are rational for example and we do say "as wise as an owl"
So, I would like to know if the definition can be improved or even perfected.
Personally I think one only-human ability is symbolic thinking. No other animal is capable of it except for chimpanzees/dolphins/etc. This ability too is unable to make the distinction between humans and animals.
How about suicide? I'm quite serious about this. Suicide hasn't been observed in non-human animals as far as I know. We could define humans as homo suicidus. This is surely the best definition of humans.
However, quite surprisingly, this definition is not as good as it sounds. Animals are perfectly capable of rational thought. They wouldn't survive if they were NOT rational.
Looks like I'm saying the definition is too broad, including more than it should. Owls are rational for example and we do say "as wise as an owl"
So, I would like to know if the definition can be improved or even perfected.
Personally I think one only-human ability is symbolic thinking. No other animal is capable of it except for chimpanzees/dolphins/etc. This ability too is unable to make the distinction between humans and animals.
How about suicide? I'm quite serious about this. Suicide hasn't been observed in non-human animals as far as I know. We could define humans as homo suicidus. This is surely the best definition of humans.
Comments (24)
But how much of the time are they irrationally driven by emotions both conscious and repressed? I think the rational capacity of our species is over-rated. In fact, I'd define rational more along the lines of ability to survive and guarantee the survival of one's species, and we're not doing well at all in that capacity.
What of the insects?
How about homo intellect (or whatever the latin for intellect is). There is an idea that intellect is the capacity to 'know that you know'. It's not just about awareness or thinking, but also recognising the awareness or thoughts. For example, an animal can apply rationale to some degree (I have cats and I have seen it happen), but they can't know what rationale is. So, probably, they can think (make certain considerations) but they can't think about or reflect on those thoughts. And I think it also applies to animals which can mimic human expressions.
Suicide in insects or rationality in insects? Tou probably mean the latter. I think insects are capable of simple logic bu which I mean we might find it relatively easy to program a robot to mimic an insect. Insects are simple logic machines.
Thanks for the link. It appears that the cases of non-human suicide are caused by parasitic brain infections. The believable stories are anecdotal so dubious.
What do you understand rational to mean? The understanding I have of the word makes me surprised that you would say this. Clams survive, and they are certainly not rational in any sense that I understand the word. They don't even have a central nervous system! Could their behavior be said to be rational? In other words, would a rational agent in their circumstances act as they do? Perhaps! But evolutionary forces may simply have selected for behavior that serves their survival interests. It likely has nothing to do with rationality on the part of the clam itself.
Ok. Then, the only real difference left that I can note would be that humans can reflect without the impetus of an external influence, kind of like meditation. Our defining factor would be that we can interact through abstract forms, e.g. ideas, ideals, etc. So, that would make us something like homo philosophicus :grin: - I know, it's like there's a joke in there somewhere.
I think our species' uniquely distinctive characteristic - functional defect - is Stupidity, that is, the path-of-least-cognitive-effort reflex of
(a) answering the wrong questions or
(b) solving pseudo-problems or
(c) pretending to know what isn't - can't now/ever be - known or
(d) pretending not to know what is demonstrably - even ineluctably - known or
(e) playing lose-lose games "to win" (e.g. scapegoat violence) or
(f) (other yet-to-be-defined varieties of oblivious self-sabotage ...)
(g) some combination of (a thru f)
- perhaps as a spandrel of language-instinct/use (i.e. discursive rationality). "Suicide", as has been pointed out, is clearly a more common - natural - occurrence across many species than the 'human, all too human' meta-cognitive vice of Stupidity (i.e. folly); so it seems to me more proper, or precise, - and honest - to define our species as homo insapiens instead.
And if so, what use to ourselves (or, charitably, as exemplars) are 'we philosophers' if, fundamentally, we're not ironic fools committed (via reflective study & creative critiques) to life-long withdrawal & recovery from folly ... i.e. to be a gadfly or a Gump? - that's the (right?) question, or so it seems. Or maybe this quixotic 'fixation' expresses - exposes - nothing more than my own peculiar folly ...
The rationality of clams may not be so obvious as that of an ape but that doesn't matter. Apes are rational and if we define humans as "homo sapiens" then apes are included in that definition. That's a bad definition.
Again the word "rational" includes animals like apes and dolphins, etc. It may be that language ability has peaked in humans but notice I say "peaked" because whales and birds vocalize too. Isn't that language too? Basically, using an ability that has developed maximally in humans can't be used as part of the definition because the definition is not as exclusive as required.
I think we shouldn't use any characteristic that is supposedly highly developed in humans but still present, to some degree, in others. Cheetahs are the fastest land mammals but we don't define cheetahs as Acinonys "fasticus"
I'd like to say "that's beautiful" but that would downplaying the suffering of the many who've ended their lives, unable to face pain.
Where have insects committed suicide?
Do you know what the pain is? A friend killed herself 2 nights ago and I don't know what to make of it..
Yes, I think that's a better name for humans. Humans, being rational and yet, "exclusively" capable of stupidity, must stand out from the rest. How ironic that is since we've used our brains to discover that we actually don't have brains.