are we alone human uniqueness and philosophy about life out there
Post on 18-Feb-2017
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ARE WE ALONE? HUMAN UNIQUENESS AND
PHILOSOPHY ABOUT LIFE “OUT THERE” By Dr.Mahboob Khan Phd
When we look to the night sky and ask “are we alone?” we imply two questions.
The first is the most basic: Is there anything out there that we could call
“life”? The second, and more interesting to those of us who study humans,
is: If there is life out there, is it anything like us?
But how would we know if life “out there” were like us?
Getting the general biology of extra-terrestrial life forms, how they look and the
basics of how they live, would not do it—if they looked a lot like us, they would
also look a lot like most primates. If they gave birth to live young with extended
childhoods, had large brains, and complex social lives, they still could be as much
like an ape, or even a whale, as a human.
It turns out that the best way to develop a litmus test for assessing whether alien
life (if it exists) would be human-like is to figure out not what is basic to humans,
but rather what is distinctive about humans. That is, what are the distinguishing
characteristics that help define humanity?
Humans evolved just like all life on earth. That means that we share most of what
we are with other organisms, especially those closest to us on the evolutionary tree.
But evolution is as much about discontinuities as it is about continuities….and the
discontinuities give us the most insight in to why, and how, any given species is
distinctive.
So what is distinctive about humanity?
There are three key capacities, and three outcomes from those capacities, that
distinguish humans from other forms of life on earth. The capacities are: shared
intentionality, pervasive hyper-cooperation, and our ability as master niche
constructors. The outcomes are: systematic compassion, ubiquitous use of symbols
and imagination, and the potential for immense cruelty.
Shared intentionality is when multiple minds get together to be jointly directed at
objects, contexts, goals, or values. This creates the opportunity for collaborative
interactions, working together, in ways where individuals share psychological
states with one another- how we feel, think, and hope. This is more the capacity to
reason strategically or to have a strong sense of what other individuals perceive--
many species of animal can do that well. As the psychologist Michael Tomasello
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says, what “makes human cognition different is not more individual brainpower,
but rather the ability of humans to learn through other persons and their artifacts,
and to collaborate with others in collective activities.” We can share beliefs,
conduct mutually planned and agreed upon collective action, have social and
instructed learning—and of course, we develop and use language.
Humans are wired to cooperate. Our brains, our hormone systems, and our
behavioral patterns are all interconnected and geared towards working with
others—more so than in nearly all other species. This enables humans to deploy
their biology and behavior to collaborate, and think together, in ways alien to other
life on earth.
All organisms react when the environment places them under stress-- this is how
much of evolutionary change happens. Some organisms react by reshaping the
pressures of the environment—like beavers building dams, birds constructing
nests, or earthworms changing the structure of the soil in which they live—and this
is called niche construction. But humans go further, working together we can (and
do) reshape ecosystems, and evolutionary pressures, as they are happening—and
on a major scale. Think about agriculture, houses, fire, clothing, tools…all
elements beyond our bodies, or even our immediate surroundings, that we take,
manipulate, and reshape to better serve us and alter the pressures the world puts on
us.
We know that cooperation, coordination, and niche construction are important in
human evolution and there is evidence that these patterns have resulted in the
emergence of a particular kind of compassion for others deep in our species’ past.
As much as 2-300,000 years ago (maybe even more) we see evidence of extended
care for injured and the elderly, and emotional investment (including burials) and
substantive effort in the well-being of others, likely at the expense to the self. The
emergence of commonplace deep caring for others, even beyond those who are
your offspring or your genetic kin, has become a core part of the human experience
and derives directly from our capacities for hyper cooperation and shared
intentionality.
Many species live in a world full of signs, but only humans populate their world
with symbols. For us symbols can maintain stability and meaning even in the
absence of their objects of reference—symbols and their associated meanings are a
fundamental part of human life. Think of our faiths, our nationalism, our art, our
use of myths and stories to teach and learn about morals and ethics, etc... We live
in a world where communication and action can potentially involve, and be
influenced by, both past and future behavior, perceptions, ideas, symbols, and
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history—we have an imagination. We can experience the world “off-line” from the
current moment and physical experience, and we can imagine ideas and concepts
and share them with others.
What we currently know about the fossil and archeological record, and modern
behavioral, neurological, and physiological systems provides a robust
understanding of how humans perceive and experience the world. If we think about
what humans do so well--cooperation, shared intentionality, teaching, learning,
extensive caring for others, niche-constructing, the creation and use of symbols and
imagination, we get a picture of what it is to be human: we are distinctively
collaborative, cooperative, imaginative, caring, and even metaphysical, creatures.
This has a down side--one that we need to be aware of if we discover that there are
indeed others “out there.” Especially if they turn out to be like us. All of the
elements that have enabled humans to beat the evolutionary odds and be such a
successful species also enable another truly distinctive facet of humanity: cruelty.
Other animals kill and eat one another, at times in the most gruesome of
fashion…sometimes with premeditation and even elation. However, nothing else
is capable of deploying hyper-cooperation, coordination and imagination towards
the end of making others suffer. We can, and sometimes do.
So what do we look for in those “out there” if they do exist? If they are like us,
then we can expect complex cooperative, collaborative and imaginative beings
who have amazing capacities for caring, understanding, and reshaping the world(s)
around them. But they would also have the same capacity we do for cruelty and
destruction.
In our quest to know if we are truly “alone” in the universe it behooves us to keep
at least part of our gaze right here on earth. We need to continue to develop better
understandings of why we do what we do, how we interact with one another, and
how we can predict, even alter, our trajectories/actions…just in case we encounter
someone “out there” and they really are like those right here.
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Author Dr.Mahboob ali khan MHA,CPHQ,HQM Harvard Phd
Email-mahboob804@yahoo.co.in
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