Unknown. And we can vaccinate againstmost viral strains (tb included).
"Transcending nature"?
- Thread starter wynn
- Start date
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
That's not what I meant. We have transcended the limitations that nature imposed on us, by using our own ingenuity.
To have done it by growing more fingers or thicker skins or glands that don't secrete as many behavior-distoring hormones would have been natural.
This is why I also disagree with the remark that dogs have transcended nature. They have not. Largely through unnatural selection, they have evolved instincts that are significantly different from wolves. They're much more gregarious, have a much weaker alpha instinct, and they accept other species as not only pack-mates but pack leaders. Their physiology has also evolved from a predator's diet to that of a scavenger, so they're just as happy to eat poop (they need the bacteria for their ultra-short intestine) as kill something.
Indeed. We've kept Stephen Hawking alive! I don't know if he has actually contributed to a sperm bank, but I'll bet thousands of women have begged him to.
You bet. I'm from California and have been through several earthquakes. And of course now that I live in Maryland they followed me here.
I knew I should stay away from the Philosophy board! You guys have more fun playing with words than the people on my own board, Linguistics. I just happened to see my own quote in the directory so I couldn't resist finding out where you were going with it.
Nice discussion.
That's not genetic. Children get a better diet, which makes them a bit larger than their parents, and larger parents, statistically, have larger children. Japanese and Vietnamese people come here and their great-grandchildren are six inches taller. That's much too quick to be evolution.
I'm not excluding other species from the League of Transcendent Creatures. I've seen a macaw dismantle her cage from the inside. Even after switching all the nuts and bolts to left-handed threads!
elte
Valued Senior Member
You bet. I'm from California and have been through several earthquakes. And of course now that I live in Maryland they followed me here.
Thanks for letting me know. I remember that recent one there that cracked the Washington Monument a bit. I don't live too far from the New Madrid fault and really hope it doesn't let go because I am totally unprepared.
Then you are either using a watered down definition of "transcendence" or "the limitations of nature" because clearly human ingenuity has not so much as scratched the surface of surmounting the borders of nature.That's not what I meant. We have transcended the limitations that nature imposed on us, by using our own ingenuity.
To have done it by growing more fingers or thicker skins or glands that don't secrete as many behavior-distoring hormones would have been natural.
This is why I also disagree with the remark that dogs have transcended nature. They have not. Largely through unnatural selection, they have evolved instincts that are significantly different from wolves. They're much more gregarious, have a much weaker alpha instinct, and they accept other species as not only pack-mates but pack leaders. Their physiology has also evolved from a predator's diet to that of a scavenger, so they're just as happy to eat poop (they need the bacteria for their ultra-short intestine) as kill something.Indeed. We've kept Stephen Hawking alive! I don't know if he has actually contributed to a sperm bank, but I'll bet thousands of women have begged him to.You bet. I'm from California and have been through several earthquakes. And of course now that I live in Maryland they followed me here.
Instead you are simply talking about a variety of applications for the pursuit of sleeping, eating, mating and defending that occur within the parameters of birth, death, old age and disease in an environment that delivers insurmountable limitations on an individual, collective and environmental level
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Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
@LG
Well put. Despite of major advancements of human ingenuity in the last 100 years or so there are insurmountable odds against humanity individually and collectively there are some who hope we may be able to overcome these odds given that we manage to survive and continue to advance over a million years but a million years may or may not allow for us to surpass these limits and on top of that it's just a big unknown when it comes to what it means to overcome this much odds.
The key word is human what does it mean to truly not be human if that's what we have to pull off in perhaps a million years.
The key word is human what does it mean to truly not be human if that's what we have to pull off in perhaps a million years.
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This "better diet" also makes the menstrual cycle set in sooner and shorter, so instead of having her period for the first time around the age of 15 or 16 and about 4 times a year, women in the "modern world" are plagued by blood loss and are at greater danger for ovarian cancer and other complications.
So there - a revenge from "nature" for "transcending nature."
More like a mistake or oversight on our part. But yes, when a species revolutionises the world as much as we did, it is bound to mess up a few things.
Nature here isn't Mother Nature or the Natural world, rather it represents the contraints and ways of things in nature - like overriding instincts, making tools [co-option of the environment as external adaptations], overcoming physical barriers of strength, speed, exposure to extremes, mobility in environment we didn't evolve for [air, water, space], massive control over the life, death, use and reproduction of many other species, massive reduction of selection pressures by disease and predation, great collective learning and organisation through civilization and the use of over 35% of all the energy in the biosphere by a species that makes us less that 1/10th of a 1% of the worlds biomass.
In this sense we have indeed transcended nature.
Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
@aaqucnaona
Chimpanzees can use tools also we just have achieved much much much more than other creatures but there are essentially infinite odds against us still right in our face too.
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it means to go beyond that which we are made , physically
and then there is the spirit
our world
I agree. But we have come much farther than any other species - any other natural rulers - the dinosaurs ruled the earth for almost 200 million years, and all they did was eat each other. We were lucky to belong to a genus that evolved towards bigger brains - in 3 million years, we have already reached out into space. It is in this sense and limited to this sense only, that we have transcended nature.
That still doesn't follow, because nature gave us the tools to do the things at which you marvel. There's nothing transcendent about it.
Transcent - Be greater in scope or size than some standard. We are far above the normal standard of nature. There is nothing un-natural about it, but it as above the norm.
Transcent is not a word.
Transcend means to rise above or go beyond the limits of. We have not done that.
Interesting that you'd hold me to that standard, yet not Fraggle or aaqucnaona. I wonder why that is.
Speaking of ignorance, do you not know how to read?
http://sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2900655&postcount=11
http://sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2901011&postcount=35
http://sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2901003&postcount=32
Given your apparent eagerness for an explanation, why am I the one who has to direct you to my previous posts in this very thread? Maybe you should read the thread before you say something so appallingly stupid. You could have avoided the whole thing just by reading. And in fact there are plenty of other posts from other members, some of whom explain my side of the argument even better than I do. Have a look around.
Now where is your evidence for transcendence? Or were you just trolling?
@JDawg --
Oh I read your previous posts, quite thoroughly(and now more than once). However none of them actually evidence what you're claiming.
And I gave two examples already where humans have transcended their basic natures. Perhaps you should keep in mind that I'm not making the same argument that other's you're arguing with are.
Oh I read your previous posts, quite thoroughly(and now more than once). However none of them actually evidence what you're claiming.
And I gave two examples already where humans have transcended their basic natures. Perhaps you should keep in mind that I'm not making the same argument that other's you're arguing with are.
Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member