The dominant sentient life form* on planet Earth. Being merely sentient is what Gerald Edelman would call primary-order consciousness. Alfred Korzybski jokingly called it Fido-mind, since it's more or less the overlap of experience between us and a dog. Edelman's term for what humans (and dolphins, chimps and gorillas, yes, and I'd even add elephants) uniquely have is higher-order consciousness. Korzybski would describe this same phenomenon as the ability to perform abstractions, pointing to Bertrand Russell's concept of logical type. The pinnacle of such higher-order or rational consciousness is of course language.

Gorillas are only just barely rational creatures. You can teach them primitive sign language, and what they then have really is rational thought, but at the level of a severely-retarded five year old at best. An enhanced vocality is what projects humans (and dolphins) from other primates by leaps and bounds. With our more complex vocalisations and gestures (even this typing being an extention of my gestures), we have evolved to become profoundly social creatures. Which is why I kind of resent the notion that noding is a dubious distinction--to node is human! Seriously, neural networks make us conscious and social networks make us human. (Off my soapbox...)


(*Thank you, graceness, that tightens things up nicely! A wonderful example of how the social nature of humans enhances the quality of life of each of its members!)

For so long now I’ve been trying to discern and separate the ‘human’ thought from the biological instinct, constantly taking myself apart like some kind of machine, trying to find schematics that don’t exist.

Our instincts, biological compulsions, all of it. Rational thought is biological, as are emotions. Approach it any way you want, is no clear-cut divide between them that makes dualism or a philosophy of dichotomy convenient. And I know this. I’ve tried to deny this, but I’ve known it. Regardless, I use the dichotomy loosely, not dogmatically, not anymore; it helps me compartmentalize my desires, my needs. The humanity, it’s everything; the animal and the rational. In western culture we, as a species, seem to have compartmentalized the human and the rational to some degree, though this is not usually thought of on those terms.

There’s this idea that Humanity in some way bears the likeness of God. The Gnostics call it the Divine Spark, a fragment of god from when s/he was shattered into a million-million pieces. The Christians call it being “made in His image”. There’s the Christian dichotomy that our “sin nature” is the product of the fallen world and our fleshly bodies, while our “Godly nature” is the product of our sanctification (the degree to which we are like God.)

We’re stretching, reaching for the divine, for a perfection we can never have. Where the rising ape meets the falling angel, beneath the formation of identity, the guise of post-modern transhumanism, and the interpersonal connectivity that masks the individual nature of subjection and thought, it’s the ape. 

The part of me that wants and aches and hungers and longs and needs. It’s ancient. It’s primitive. It’s the monkey-brain, the ape. It’s me. Completely me.

Looking in the mirror, seeing the ape, it’s so… disheartening, I guess. Disturbing? Realizing the ape in me only sees the ape in other people. Reading other people’s faces, voices, bodies. I have never once seen a person; I’ve only ever seen the facilitation of the person through bodily faculties that supposedly act as representations of the person, though it seems that these faculties serve as representations of themselves and seeking/seeing the individual is just an excuse to allow this representation to exist. It’s biological. It’s disgusting. But I can’t stop. I realize this, I see this, I know this, and I can’t stop. I can’t stop reading the face and not the person. Like I said, ancient and primitive.

I can do it semi-successfully for maybe a few minutes, if I really try.

I want to say I believe in God, but it’s such a broad statement. Most people use it to communicate that they believe in the existence of God, or a higher power, or the Universe. Saying you “believe in” implies you also follow said higher power. Does it mean you accept what’s believed about the higher power? To what degree do you accept? And to what degree is a deviation from acceptance still “belief in” said deity?

I’ve recently come to the realization and acceptance that we (people) have constructed God in our image. There’s the argument that the “inspired” or “divine” element of the text was sieved through the subjection and corporeal understanding of the original writer, and that the text is both inspired and also to some degree a product of human understanding. There’s also the argument that what we have of the “inspired text” are manuscripts of manuscripts, a copy of a copy of a copy. Where is the boundary between the subjective and the divine? We have constructed God in our image. A sin. Unfathomably dangerous, a sin humanity has refused to repent of.

It’s brought me nothing but disgust and cognitive dissonance. Francis Bacon popularized the phrase “knowledge is power”, but knowledge is terror. Awareness of the subjection we’ve sieved God through. The inherent knowledge that I am completely naked. Stripped of my skin.

Physicists have calculated and confirmed the existence of at least ten mathematical axes, and I believe the number of potential (yet unproven) axes goes up into the 20s. We are only able to perceive three axes, but we can calculate mathematically higher axes. These have always existed. Math has simply discovered them. Humor me and imagine that, if a creator entity exists, that said entity exists outside of the axes. All of them. Able to perceive not only three axes, but four, five, six, and so forth. An entity able to observe the super-position of quarks, of all of them, at once. An entity that sees the energy state of all atoms, at every instant in time, across every point on the timeline, all at once.

If there is a God, and said God exists outside of the nature of human subjection (regardless of how well constructed our subjection may be), behind His gaze is the weight of the entire universe.

If God does exist outside of the nature of subjection, He (or It) carries with His gaze the weight of the entire universe. Which is a thought that terrifies me. Paralyzes me. Makes me sick to my stomach. It makes me want to puke and choke and cry and scream and bleed. I feel naked beyond naked, like someone hollowed out my ribcage and examined every organ. The fear. The desire to cover myself as Adam covered himself, the desire to hide from God as Adam hid from God. Perhaps that alone is the “divine” to be gleaned through the text, or perhaps the dichotomy between the flesh and divine really exists. All I know is that even thinking for a split second, an instance, about God, it makes me want to puke, to scream, to cry. It’s too much.

Where is the boundary between subjection and the divine?

It’s too much.

Hu"man (?), a. [L. humanus; akin to homo man: cf. F. humain. See Homage, and cf. Humane, Omber.]

Belonging to man or mankind; having the qualities or attributes of a man; of or pertaining to man or to the race of man; as, a human voice; human shape; human nature; human sacrifices.

To err is human; to forgive, divine. Pope.

 

© Webster 1913.


Hu"man, n.

A human being.

[Colloq.]

Sprung of humans that inhabit earth. Chapman.

We humans often find ourselves in strange position. Prof. Wilson.

 

© Webster 1913.

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