Stephen, before you declare an idea “empirically ridiculous”, do be sure you thoroughly understand it. The way you use "catch personhood" sounds like what I have been discussing as the Great Leap Forward, a term that eminent paleoanthropologists use to describe the sudden appearance of human culture in the Homo sapiens species that had been relatively dormant for 100,000 years. This sudden change could NOT have been the result of “normal” genetic mutation. Richard Dawkins (who is an acknowledged expert in Darwinian evolution) readily admits that the GLF occurred, but his only explanation for it: “It was as if the Homo sapiens brain was programmed.” His metaphorical comparison of the brain’s neurocircuitry with a computer,while admitting a current state of ignorance, at least suggests where future research should be directed. Your comment that the GLF is like ‘catching Ebola’ is simply derogatory, and not at all helpful; likewise invisible and undetectable magic dust. We should all be careful when deriding the ideas of others that, sometime later, we are not caught in a “blow-back” when those ideas show merit.
The mechanism(s) that spread the GLF (through language and other communications) from the area it first appeared (probably Europe and/or the Mideast) to the far corners of the globe to which Homo sapiens had already migrated, does leave the possibility that racial bigots might try to utilize. I brought this up in a previous post with @beaglelady. It is my opinion that @AntoineSuarez , in trying to salvage something significant from the myth of the Great Flood, is being mislead in who (and what) survived. But when he proposes that the difference between us and the “non-personal human beings” that preceded us is epigenetic, I am in agreement.
Al Leo
No, I’m referring to the description of how a “non-personal Homo sapiens animal” gets converted into a “human person,” as described in this thread:
The GLF is an interesting topic worthy of scholarly consideration. The notion that a human being becomes a person in an instant, by undiscoverable supernatural means, on contact with previously supernaturally converted human beings, is both ludicrous and potentially dangerous.
[quote=“beaglelady, post:53, topic:27852”]
Al has already brought up the Australian Aborigines. They were living in Australia for thousands of years before white colonists arrived to make them personal human beings.
This is a worrisome part of my hypothesis, beagle lady, but you don’t have it quite right. I maintain that, from Homo habilis onward, the increase in size of the (unprogrammed) primate brain was an exaptation–useful enough for survival, but having a much greater potential than was being utilized. In relatively recent times (~100,000 years ago) three species of Homo-- Sapiens, Neanderthal & Denisovan-- lived here concurrently and were similar enough to cross breed to some extent at least. All three had large enough brains that, if “programmed” properly, could render them “fully human”. But only Homo sapiens had the other features (larynx, Broca’s area??) that allowed an initial “programming event” to be passed on to others vocally; i.e. not the slow route of passing a successfully mutated allele to the next generation sexually.
Currrent evidence strongly suggests that the initial GLF event occurred in Europe or the Mideast about 40,000 years ago (hello Adam). But 10,000 years prior to this, some Homo sapiens had already migrated to the Far East and to Australia. Question: How did the Australian aborigines become “fully human”? Two alternatives immediately present themselves: (1) A second initiating event (programming) occurred; or (2) later migrants from Europe carried the program with them during the long (probably many generational) trek. in either event, the ‘program’ that arrived in Australia probably was somewhat different than what left Europe–transmitting a definite level of humanity but producing a significantly different culture.
So……the first Colonists did not MAKE the aborigines human–they were already there. But I guess we can forgive them for thinking that they raised the aborigines to a Higher Level of humanity??? But that revives Rousseau’s argument of the Nobel Savage , a nobility that Modern Society seems bent on destroying. The Aborigines viewed their world in terms of Dream Time; we Moderns walk on the moon and dream of interstellar travel to other worlds. Which is more truly human? Which is more pleasing to our Creator?
Al Leo
This Forum is my first chance to trot out my Origins hypothesis for discussion by intelligent, thoughtful scholars. As a result, I have had to sharpen (even modify) some of my previous arguments. So I cannot fault you or any others for misunderstanding some of the points I am trying to make–I’ve yet to understand them completely myself. That said, I want to make clear that the process of “humanization” that I am proposing is NOT undiscoverable NOR supernatural. My guess is that it will be found to be an epigenetic action resulting from DNA-methylation unique to brain tissue. How long it took for ‘brain programming’ to accomplish humanization in the distant past may never be known, but it could have occurred within one generation. How long does it take in each of our lives? Not instantaneous, acting like some ‘On/Off’ switch–more likely it takes from late pregnancy to the age of five, on the average.
On another post, I have discussed the interesting case of Helen Keller, and how her case sheds light on the humanization process. At the age of 19 months a disease shut her off from contact with the outside world through sight and sound. At this age she had only the barest idea that symbols, like language, could be representative of reality. It was truly a miracle that once Anne Sullivan showed her that water and its wetness could be symbolized with sign language, it constituted a communication breakthrough that ‘baptized’ Helen into the human race. Without an appreciation of Symbols, Helen would have remained much like the Neanderthals–almost human, but not quite there yet.
At best, my hypothesis for the Origins of our humanity needs a great deal of modification. So I take my hat off to the author of Genesis who describes it as: ‘God took the clay of the earth to form Adam, and breathed into that clay the breath of Life’. That is not satisfactory science, but it still is close to the Truth. Perhaps both Science and Faith are necessary.
Al Leo
My comments are all about the original post by @AntoineSuarez and subsequent comments by him, which I quoted. I did not mean to imply that you have proposed anything like his idea.
The GLF is very interesting, and I can see why it is especially interesting in the context of a discussion on personhood in humans. I doubt whether a simple genetic/epigenetic switch accounts for it, but yes it’s interesting and perhaps even remarkable.
I think you’re creating a really dangerous equivocation here between cultural development and human dignity. Yes, the Aborigenes were less technologically advanced than colonists, but that doesn’t mean they were less human. I think the option that must be avoided in these discussions is a sliding scale of human dignity depending on some measure of cultural advancement.
Antoine, we seem to be in agreement in postulating that ‘Homo sapiens animals’ became ‘personal humans’ by some non-genetic process. We seem to part company on what happens afterward. I believe that the mechanism will eventually be understood in naturalistic terms, terms that even an agnostic could agree with. I believe that all processes in Nature depend on God in this way. But I would be very wary of declaring that “God would do this or that” because we think he should, for example, "ensure that the human body is the observable basis for assigning rights". That not only presumes we know what God knows, but it opens up a can of worms in making the ‘observable human body’ so important in assigning rights.
I do enjoy our conversation, tho. I learn more from folks I disagree with than from those I am in total agreement. Let’s keep it going.
Al Leo
As you and @BradKramer have both noted, I am skating on some pretty thin ice here. That bothers me. But perhaps it may help clarify what some of the opponents in the “human vs. subhuman” debates really mean. Take Helen Keler’s case as an example:
As a 19 month old girl, Helen was on her way toward becoming “fully human”. Did her disability rob her of humanity? Certainly NOT. But did it change the type of human she seemed destined to become? Certainly! If I am not mistaken, beaglelady considers Neaderthals to be human. I would like to spend some time trying to communicate with one, but after many failed attempts to find subjects for conversation, I would hate to be married to one. The movie “The Miracle Worker” may have exaggerated somewhat, but one could not have had a conversation with Helen as a teenager. Living with her was a sort of Hell. (True with some teenagers today.) To a real extent, Anne Sullivan was her “birth mother”, allowing Helen to become a operational member of human society. That, after all, is a significant milestone of ‘becoming human’.
PS Do you have a reference to back your belief that Neanderthals understood symbolism?
Al Leo
Many thanks to all of you for this vivid discussion: In my view it reveals that we are debating something important and contributing with novel arguments to clarify the origins of humanity. I thank in particular Stephen for his definite commitment
I fully share this commitment.
I also completely agree with Brad’s remark:
With this common ground I think it is worth continuing this conversation: I am convinced that we can achieve a “GLF” in the task of giving a coherent account of the Origins integrating Science, Scripture and Theology. As Denis Alexander says: “If all truth is God’s truth, as Christians believe, such a task should surely be possible”
On my part I ask for your understanding if I cannot always immediately answer but I have a deadline for a submission on “quantum contextuality and divine omniscience”. Nonetheless, during the weekend I should be able to post a comment taking account of the last (really stimulating!) objections that have been posted.
Dear Antoine,
Thanks for taking the time to respond. As it seems that finding time to respond is hard, I’ll try to be brief –
You mentioned: “Assuming that there is biological discontinuity along with this “spiritual transformation” looks like invoking a “miraculous intervention” of God, somewhat in line with Intelligent Design. I think one can consistently explain things without invoking such a “miraculous intervention”
Embuing a body with a spirit is a miraculous intervention of God any way you look at it, and therefore not anything susceptible to useful argumentation. From my vantage point and for all practical purposes evolution the best available scientific explanation on the origin of species, a process of nature which I would wholeheartedly call an intelligently designed process by which God had His creation unfold in time. I assume this is not a point we disagree with.
Where we possibly disagree is in the origin of homo personalis. It seems to me after these discussions that the gist of your argument is: you observe the elimination of intermediate varieties, and assign “personhood rights” based on clear differences between the varieties that remain. If this is so, you are dodging the question, are you not? Evolution may have removed for you the cases that are tricky to decide, but you encounter the tricky cases again when you go back in time before written records of law allow “certification” of personhood, and closer to the point where the varieties were not all that different. And as we discussed, technology could likely pose the problem again in the future by “blurring the boundaries between humanity and non-human species and destroy evolution’s work.” (also in your response to Mervin_Bitikofer) Silly that might be, but how do we answer when that happens?
This is why in my opinion we need to look for characteristics of personhood that are do not exclusively depend on genetic closeness to clearly accepted persons, or to a particular way of expressing “law”, or ultimately, to the point in time of existence. Hence my comment on the importance of self-awareness. That seems to me like one essential characteristic of all persons. [And it may also be part of a different discussion.]
Sorry, I thought it pretty well known that the Homo sapiens larynx had decended lower in the throat than in ancestral primates, thus allowing a much larger range of vocal sounds. This, as well as changes in the Broca’s area of the brain might have been essential in acquiring effective communication thru language. The best presentation of this hypothesis (that I am aware of) is in in Tattersall’s “Becoming Human,” a book you would enjoy, beaglelady.
Al Leo
Al, with all due respect, I am not aware of that evidence, and would love to see a source. As far as I know (and I am not an expert) the Upper Paleolithic Revolution, or the GLP began in Africa, and one of its results was the migration out to the Middle East, then Europe and Asia and Australia. So, all H. Sapiens, including Australians are “children” of the same UPR event, if that’s what it was. My understanding of the date was something between 70,000 (around the time of a major volcanic event leading to climate change) and 50,000 ya. Some anthropologists even doubt there was even a sudden event at all. I dont know, but would love to see the references you mention.
I realize that I am taking up too much space on this Forum, and so I skipped a full explanation. So very briefly: As you probably know, a baby is born with its larynx high in its throat so it is easy to breathe and suck milk simultaneously. At about age two it has descended so that its vocal range is much increased, enabling the child to modulate sounds to the degree required for speech and singing. There is good evidence (but perhaps not overwhelming) that this did not occur in any Homo species prior to sapiens. So, in addition to the “brain programming” I have postulated, these two developments seem to have been necessary before the GLF could have been spread so rapidly through language. Make sense?
Al Leo