Being Human

[Philosophy Now]

by Rick Lewis

https://philosophynow.org/issues/167/Being_Human

[Gary Childress]

Being human (for me) seems to be a perpetual yearning for companionship with someone special of the opposite sex. Sometimes I wonder if others feel that way too or if there's something unique about my brain. Granted, it feels "unphilosophical" in some way. Sometimes I think, in order to be "philosophical," I'm supposed to be disinterested in romance and live in a monastery surrounded by books. I've failed pretty miserably on both accounts.

[mickthinks]

I've failed pretty miserably on both accounts.

But think! At self-pity you’ve had great success! You’ve made it into an art form.

[Lacewing]

Being human (for me) seems to be a perpetual yearning for companionship with someone special of the opposite sex.

Well, that's nice and all... but it's not the ultimate bliss... well, at least not for me. I think your yearning is tied to a certain idea in your head, and if you had it, you would likely see it as yet another torture of some sort -- especially since it appears that you tend to link a tortured dance to your very identity. How can anything rise above that?

The reality is that relationships are a lot of work and require a lot of balance within ourselves to balance with another. For example, I'm very independent and joy-oriented, while my partner might want to share being moody and dark at times... so, sometimes being in a relationship is very difficult for me.

Sometimes I think, in order to be "philosophical," I'm supposed to be disinterested in romance and live in a monastery surrounded by books. I've failed pretty miserably on both accounts.

I think a relationship is just another way/tool (of countless more) to practice and perfect your own experience in life. You can't lean on anything/anyone else that much... because that is in motion too. It all comes back to ourselves: what are we feeling and thinking and doing regardless of all kinds of factors around us? Can we be joyful and grateful and loving without needing anything or anyone in particular? That may seem very challenging at times... but what else do we really ever have? HOW we experience what we encounter and what occurs is up to us. (This applies to me too in my relationship partnership, of course. I'm continually working on it. )

We can be tortured or we can dance or we can do many things wherever we are.

[Lacewing]

by Rick Lewis

Enjoyed the way you write... and enjoyed thinking about this.

Off the top of my head, I'll respond that being human is intoxicating, and there are countless intoxicants.

A staggering and drunken experience of sensations and imaginings.

[Gary Childress]

I've failed pretty miserably on both accounts.

But think! At self-pity you’ve had great success! You’ve made it into an art form.

I suppose you're right.

[ThinkOfOne]

What is it to "be human"?

In the film "A Beautiful Mind" there's a scene where John Nash (who had suffered from schizophrenia) is asked how he overcame his delusions. He responded, " I've gotten used to ignoring them and I think, as a result, they've kind of given up on me. I think that's what it's like with all our dreams and our nightmares, Martin, we've got to keep feeding them for them to stay alive."

This is largely true of the unconscious mind in general. It can be "reprogrammed" to a much larger extent that most people seem to realize.

The past decade has shown that a very large segment of the "adult" population has the emotional and mental maturity of children which leaves them prone to demagoguery, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, believing in conspiracy theories, etc. The list goes on and on. They will believe pretty much anything that appeals to their self-centered views and simplistic views. Reason does not work with them, since their beliefs are not a product of reason; instead, they are a product of irrationality. Is this part of what it is to "be human"? Or is it part of what it is to "be an animal"?

[Age]

Being Human
by Rick Lewis
“Unhand me, grey-beard loon.”
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

In a clearing on the edge of the woods, a flying saucer stands on spindly legs among the still-smouldering vegetation. A door slides open, light spills out, and a green face with three eyes peers at the gaggle of fearful spectators below and asks them: “What is it like to be a human being?” This is also one of the main questions being asked in the themed section of this very issue.

You might protest that this is the one thing that you don’t need anybody to tell you. You’re the expert. After all, each and every one of us has first-hand experience of what it is like to be a human being. In some ways, possibly, it is the only thing of which we do have first-hand experience, since our experience of everything beyond ourselves comes to us through our bodies’ senses, filtered and neatly sorted and labelled by those senses and by what Immanuel Kant called the ‘categories of understanding’ in our minds.

1. Experiences, themselves, absolutely do not come through the body's senses, filtered, sorted neatly nor messy, nor labelled, by those senses at all. Experiences through a body's senses absolutely perfectly and Accurately, exactly as things are, outside of the animal body. It is only after 'the experiences' have gotten to 'the person', or 'being', within the human body, that experiences then become filtered, twisted, distorted, and/or foggy and not clear, whole being sorted and labelled.

2. Human beings do not have minds. There is, obviously, a Mind, but this One Mind is certainly not owned nor had by human beings. The Mind, which by the way is always open, in conjunction with a brain, which just works exactly like a computer a does, is just what allows you human beings to keep learning, and discovering.

you human beings do not have nor own those brains neither. 'you' are, because of those working computers continually collecting and storing 'new experiences', from and through the body's senses, and it is from the taking on of those new experiences from the Truly open perspective how and why 'you', a person, came to exist.

It is from the brain and the Mind 'you' exist. So, it could be said and argued that 'they' own or have 'you', and that 'you' do not have nor own the brain nor the Mind, themselves.

In any case, you yourself have fought in the muddy trenches of human life, whether literally in Ukraine or metaphorically in any corner of the world. You yourself could write an epic about human experience – and many have.

'Being human', and, being a 'human being' are two different things.

Being 'human' is like being 'cat', being 'elephant', or being 'fish', for example. These animals all just do what these animal bodies do. That is, only seek out what is needed in order to live, and keep surviving.

Being a :human being', however, is different. What separates 'human beings' from all of the other animals on earth is 'human beings' have the ability to learn, understand, and reason absolutely any and every thing, including how to teach any and every thing. 'human beings' can be curios, to wonder and to ponder any and every thing, and with the open Mind is how, and why, human beings, collectively, are continually learning, uncovering, discovering, and creating more, and anew.

However, it is one thing to experience life in all of its glory and pain, and another thing to find a quiet place to stand and reflect upon that experience. Socrates famously claimed that the unexamined life is not worth living. Our columnist Ray Tallis, at the recent launch of his book Prague 22, remarked that on this point he disagreed with Socrates. When he was a medical doctor, he said, he had had untold numbers of patients with no interest in philosophy whatsoever – yet many of them he considered to be moral giants, for uncomplainingly enduring the greatest afflictions and challenges. Their lives were certainly worth living, examined or not.

What was just meant was, every experience is worth having, but, if, towards 'the end', those experiences are not examined, then what is, 'the purpose', exactly?

Or, in other words, what is 'the worth' of living, if one's 'lived experiences' are never even examined?

Their lives were full of effort and sacrifice and success and failure and full of meaning, whether philosophically dissected or not.

If they were were 'full of meaning', then what was 'that meaning', exactly?

Obviously, until 'this' is examined, what 'the meaning' is, exactly, will never be known, for sure.

For example, until the 'meaning of life' is examined, 'the meaning' will never be known.

Nonetheless, reflecting on and understanding human experience adds depth and clarity and can help us in a thousand practical ways. And what better time to do that than the crowded present?

From human beings evolved creation into Existence, Itself, there is no better, nor worse, time to examine, reflect upon, and understand you human beings than in ''eternal present'. In other words there is no 'better time'.

Sometimes it seems like the bombardment of our senses with new experiences and new possibilities is increasing exponentially. We are paper boats in a storm.

So out of this broad and deep expanse of human experience, what aspects will our contributors examine? Firstly, Vikas Beniwal will delineate the broad headings under which we might consider humanity, and recount what a range of historical philosophers have had to say about them. He talks of humans as rational beings (though some would say the jury is still out on that); humans as part of nature (though we have a habit of seeing ourselves as apart from it and putting nature into well-marked reserves where it can be visited by vacationers); and, of course, humans as part of society. As he says, Aristotle called humans ‘social animals’, and this is certainly one of the most fundamental aspects of our lives. A big chunk of ethics concerns our dealings with one another within society, and some ethicists such as Adam Smith and David Hume, have said that sympathy is the true basis of all ethics. What then is sympathy? Behold James Robinson’s article on sympathy and on how you can tell it apart from its similar-looking cousin, empathy.

Who cares what 'others' think or say? It is what 'you' think, and know for certainly, only what Truly matters, here?

The rich tapestry of human experience contains so many threads woven together, but our contributors expertly unpick some of them and examine them separately.

'Expertly' is a term like 'rational', in regards to the contributors, here, 'the jury is certainly still out on this', as some might say.

We have an article on guilt and one on love (both of which again have to do with our relations with others), one on pain, and one on hope. Will reading them enhance your human experience? I would love to think so, and I hope it does, but if not I might feel sympathy, pain and guilt. In any case, happy reading!