Sun 17 Oct 2004
Being Human
Posted by admin under General |Our screening of Blade Runner on Saturday prompted many deep thoughts and questions about what it means to be human. The replicants that Harrison Ford is called upon to kill are artificially created humaniods that have nearly everything in common, physiologically, with normal human beings. What is it, exactly, that makes us human?
Some of the possibilities we discussed:
Genetics - being genetically human
History - having a story, telling stories
Art - creating things for aesthetic, rather than practical, reasons
What do you think? What would you add to this list? What clarifications or caveats would you add?
October 17th, 2004 at 10:09 pm
Ideas: (this is understanding that some humans have medical issues that keep this from occurring–I am not saying that they are not human–they are just limited due to the illness)
This is also assuming that there is not just one part that makes us human, but rather a collection of attributes.
reflection/metacognition
remorse
compassion–taking care of another human or being that does not benefit us in any way to be doing so (injured people, the elderly, etc.)
October 18th, 2004 at 8:19 pm
I think it’s membership in a group that can do these things that makes us human. No individual always does all of the things we use to determine whether something is living (reproduction, respiration, energy use, waste elimination, response to stimulus, growth), but they’re still alive because each species can do them.
November 28th, 2004 at 5:00 pm
One aspect that may be more salient than humanity is personality or personhood. A human can be incapable of interacting with its environment or communicating (or even dead) and still be a human, but the thing that compelled me to empathy for the replicants was their potential for and ability to exhibit personality. Because of this, the film highlights issues surrounding prejudice and human dignity, and—for me—abortion, not simply because abortion squelches life, but because it ends a being that has potential for human personality.
November 29th, 2004 at 1:56 am
Empathy.