5. "good question. me and my boy go back and forth on this all the time" In response to Reply # 0
i (for the most part) believe "yes". my homie, says not really and that we're basically born "neutral" and learn to respect human life if our circumstances/environment allow.
20. "I'm with you because how do we know what respect is if it's learned." In response to Reply # 5
The environment can't teach you to respect another person's humanity Situation and environment may teach you to value someone's skill as a support or need, but not their humanity.
21. "That's tricky because animals like Elephants, whales and seem to" In response to Reply # 6
have some greater capacity for respecting order and each other, but I don't think they value life as humans do, on out level of understanding. It's tricky because I've seen instances that challenge my thoughts on this matter. Like a Mother Elephant or whale that mourns the loss of a calf. . . .
7. "not sure, self-preservation as a species is pretty obvious" In response to Reply # 0
but "respect" makes that tricky because i also think violence (or in this context active disregard of human life) is an innate quality of humans as well
i think how much we "respect" or disregard isn't even dependent upon resources either...
i don't have a good answer...i do think it weird that typically children have to develop the ability to respect human life to a certain extent so i think it's something we developed alongside the innate need of self-preservation as a species
Let me sport my Air Hyperbole 2010s in peace. (c) ansomble
Atillah Moor Member since Sep 05th 2013 13825 posts
Thu Oct-15-15 06:42 PM
13. "There's a mathatical equation proving humans are not selfless" In response to Reply # 0 Thu Oct-15-15 06:45 PM by Atillah Moor
we make our decisions on who we care about based primarily on genetic relevance. An example being if one had to choose who they could save from certain death a sibiling would have priority over a cousin. This is because the sibiling carries more closely related DNA than the cousin so in effect one is choosing a type of self preservation making the act less than selfless. So scale that up and there you have it.
George R. Price was his name and he committed suicide in part or entirely because he could not disprove this formula.
14. "yes respect in the sense they innately fear bigger scarier humans " In response to Reply # 0
just like apes or monkeys. a 100 lb monkey isn't going to put feces in the face of a 200lb monkey because he knows he'll get beat down. give the monkeys guns though and it's all bets off just like with humans.
stravinskian Member since Feb 24th 2003 12698 posts
Thu Oct-15-15 08:07 PM
15. "So how did you establish this?" In response to Reply # 0
>It's not something that can be found in human DNA,
The obvious answer is that it's necessary for the survival of the genome, and therefore selected for, and most likely passed down in DNA. The details are not known at this point, but at this stage there's no reason to doubt this very simple hypothesis.
stravinskian Member since Feb 24th 2003 12698 posts
Fri Oct-16-15 10:53 AM
26. "RE: If Morality is passed down through DNA then so is Criminal Behavior " In response to Reply # 24
And that ^ is so unfathomable to you, why?
"Passed down through DNA" might be a misleading phrase. The idea is NOT that the children of criminals will be criminals, or that the children of humanists will be humanists. The idea is that we have an innate and very complex system of ethics and urges, encoded in our genome, transmitted in DNA, and trained by millions of years of selection pressures.
29. "So do you think that Black men are born Criminals? " In response to Reply # 26
Because that's what out Criminal Justice System says based on the incarceration results. Maybe you think that Black boys are aggressive, disorderly, slow learners, and hypersexual because that's what the Educational Systems says. Or maybe you think that Balck women are born to hate Themselves and Black Men, because that's what the social images say.
That's what white racist folks in power seem to think. They think we are born that way, which means that all of what I said is housed within our DNA. Oh, and if that's the case then people are Born to be Racist, because that's in their DNA too.
But I bet you don't think any of that because that's just plain stupid. Just like thinking that Criminal Behavior is in our human DNA.
TheAlbionist Member since Jul 04th 2011 3306 posts
Fri Oct-16-15 03:50 AM
17. "Yes." In response to Reply # 0 Fri Oct-16-15 04:01 AM by TheAlbionist
It's called empathy and is the root of all socialisation and the ability to empathise and moralise about our effect on other humans is ABSOLUTELY written in our DNA. As shown by numerous famous experiments on babies:
We've been social much longer than we've had the language to describe it which is why we formed villages and shared technology before we had words for any of it. Hundreds of thousands of years longer. We have been showing respect for each others lives for far longer than we've had philosophers, prophets and gurus.
Humans are not alone in this - monkeys have even been documented giving each other crude CPR and your dog likely will try to save your life if it realises you're in danger. Respect for life isn't uncommon in the animal world - it's just much harder to talk to them about it.
TheAlbionist Member since Jul 04th 2011 3306 posts
Fri Oct-16-15 10:47 AM
25. "We're intelligent enough to know not everything/one can be trusted." In response to Reply # 18 Fri Oct-16-15 10:53 AM by TheAlbionist
You *could* spend your whole life trusting every dog and would be fine 99% of the time, but eventually one would rip your throat out for shits and giggles. Same is true of humans as it is of sharks, chimps and lions... intelligence comes with a certain amount of unpredictability and so requires a certain level of scepticism to work en masse.
You have to be naturally open to trust and empathy through socialisation in order to create a civilisation than extends further than the number of people you can know/trust personally (something like 150 animals). I have a baseline level of trust in almost all of the 7 billion humans on Earth.
As a result all remains of human settlements show that technology was shared widely and that the disabled and sick were healed and cared for. People unable to hunt/gather were nursed into old age and not just by their immediate families.
You have to be equally sceptical of socialisation in order to reliably protect an immediate family and your personal genetic line. I have a baseline scepticism whenever my immediate family are put at the mercy of humans I know little about.
All remains of humans settlements show that war between tribes with differing approaches to life has always been a fact of human life (as it is part of modern Chimpanzee life).
We're a massive collection of compromises and contradictions... as you'd expect being the result of 3.8 billion years of random chance meetings and genetic coin tosses.
I opened this on holiday and within a couple of weeks it had disappeared - probably the best book on humanity I've ever read.
I'd highly recommend it. This isn't an anti-religious post either - I don't think you'd have any troubles with your beliefs, but it really squares the circle on a lot of these seemingly difficult questions.
32. "Well, I don't think that the Bible is the Only Source of Morality. " In response to Reply # 28
>i assume this is a post to get us to realize or perhaps admit >that pre bible there was no such thing as morals > >but what Im curious about is logistically how does that pan >out. > >If the bible is only source for morality then that would mean >only some people would have been exposed to it. > >What about remote cultures or people who were not exposed to >the bible? Where did they get their morals from?
But, I do think that our morality is just one of the creative and governing facets that God has placed within Humanity. As for the Bible, it is the word of God. I don;t think life began with the Bible or Morality. But I do think that the Bible tells us how life began and how to live. I do believe that the Bible is God's roadmap for humanity in all areas of life. And in it we can discover how God created humanity, why, and what he gave us both internal and external.
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