Can you really define "Human"?

Question:And I mean going into the hypothetical as well. For instance you might say humans have 46 chromosomes. Well, does that make those born with more or less not human?

You might say being humans means to have feelings. Animals have feelings. What about a race of aliens who were capable of feelings? Would that then make them human too?

You see what I am getting at? Can you, really and truly define human being to where the definition would solely apply to only human beings?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: And I mean going into the hypothetical as well. For instance you might say humans have 46 chromosomes. Well, does that make those born with more or less not human?

You might say being humans means to have feelings. Animals have feelings. What about a race of aliens who were capable of feelings? Would that then make them human too?

You see what I am getting at? Can you, really and truly define human being to where the definition would solely apply to only human beings?

Ironic, today in ethics this exact question came up. This question is also central to the question if a fetus is a person or not. Anyways, I really can not say what it is to be human. There is no testable criteria that includes all and only what we as a world consider to be human. If you say that the requirement for being a human is simply to experience, then almost every animal is a human. This is absurd. If you say it has to be able to think logically, well than your saying bush isn't human (kidding of course). Seriously though, there are people (mentally handicapped) that can not think logically, are they not human? Maybe it requires us to have self consciousness. This seems to be the best criteria I can think of, but there is no test for self consciousness. And if we every created strong AI, they would be human. I think we should leave the definition of human to biology. A human is human when it's DNA is human. Then the question becomes are all humans unlike animals? Very nice question, I throughly enjoyed it.

Being human is being a dude or chic as opposed to being a dog or an eagel, or a dragon, or a fairy, or a unicorn, or a hobit, or vampire.

Well, our DNA would finitely define us solely as humans. Aliens would not have it exactly as us, and animals have parts of what we have but not completely. Animals do feel emotions like depression and anxiety so that cannot be used. Horses have individual personalities much the same as humans. If other aliens have the same sick infatuation with others pain (animals or plants) and suffering (reality T.V.) that we do, then that could be canceled. Our based compounds of carbon are shared with other creatures on this planet. So really, its only the DNA that separates us from everything else and identifies us as being human.

The best definitions right now use what philosophers of science call "reference by misdescription". You specify what picks out those things we want to call humans as opposed to those things we don't want to call humans, knowing that such methods are error prone. Eventually, there may be some more precise genetic definition, but there may not.

Here's a good example. Water was once defined as a clear wet liquid. But that doesn't distinguish it from alcohol. More specific terms could be added, like it's ph 7, it's liquid at room tempurature and has a particular boiling and melting point, but those things can change when it's saturated with other elements and it's still water. Eventually, these misdescriptions gave way to the underlying characterization of water as H2O, which then proves all the other characteristics.

It is not at all clear that everything has a more precise definition, in fact it would be unlikely. Emergent phenomena, like hurricanes, for example, cannot be well explained by those exements which give rise to them. Hurricanes have a precise definition, but it is really a very artificial one, defined by the rotation and wind velocity. A storm 1 mile per hour too slow isn't essentially different, but it's not a hurricane. Humans may be like that. We may be able to pick out a definate set of genetic markers that define human pretty well and give rise to the misdescribed characteristics, but during the process of evolution these essential characteristics change and the point at which the species became human or will no longer be human necessarily vague, according to the evolutionary process.

"Human" is anything predicable of life; of hominids; of "qua Man."

Without listing the thousands of choices, could it have been made more simple?

its is jest bening your self beening a person