« The meaning of "the great unbundling" | Main | Why are food prices rising? » April 14, 2008Being humanThe Edge asks whether human beings are unique, via an excerpt from the book Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique by Michael Gazzaniga, a leading neuroscientist and professor of psychology at the SAGE Center for the Study of Mind at the University of California Santa Barbara. There's quite a bit to ponder. Early on Gazzaniga says "We humans are special. All of us solve problems effortlessly and routinely." I'm not sure where he's been looking, but I find that problem-solving is seldom "effortless." But this is interesting: Although we are made up of the same chemicals, with the same physiological reactions, we are very different from other animals. Just as gases can become liquids, which can become solids, phase shifts occur, shifts so large in implications, it becomes almost impossible to think of a foggy mist being made up of the same stuff that makes up an ice berg. And yet the different substances have the same chemical structure. In a complex relationship with the environment, very similar stuff can become quite different in its reality and structure. Indeed, I have decided something like a phase shift has occurred in becoming human. There simply is no one thing that will ever account for our spectacular abilities, aspirations and capacity to travel mentally in time to almost the infinite world beyond our present existence. Even though we have all of these connections with the biologic world from which we came, and we have in some instances similar mental structures, we are hugely different. While most of our genes and brain architecture are held in common with animals, there are always differences to be found. And while we can use lathes to mill fine jewelry, and chimps can use stones to crack open nuts, the differences are light years apart. And while, the family dog may appear empathetic, no pet understands the difference between sorrow and pity. Also interesting is the suggestion that, by studying these differences, we learn so much more about what it means to be human. jon posted this at 8:29 AM |
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