Memento Mori
Remember, we all die. No man is a god. No matter what he claims.
What makes a human? What does it mean to be sentient? What is self?
Is it the ability to love? Laugh? Cry? Or is it a sense of morality?
When you ask somebody “What makes us human?” they might well say our DNA. In a sense they are correct, our DNA defines us as the species ‘Human’. But our DNA is not the only part of us, we have feelings, thoughts and emotions. The question is not one of biology. It is a question about ‘Self’ and about our humanity.
All across the world, where culture has evolved all humans have come up with a set or rules. A set of morals for us to follow in life, normally these come attached to a religion. But, even those of us to claim no religious subscription have this same set of rules. They are law in most countries now, but before all the world was joined, when most people never left their village. We had a set of values. The same set, almost, as our neighbours across seas we never knew existed. You can see it today, choose a religion and strip it down to the values it teaches you to live your life by, they are the same. Does this suggest that this set of rules is hard-wired into us, that it has existed since the beginning?
A biological moral compass.
Emotions. An emotion is a mental state that rises spontaneously, a feeling we have no control over. Many believe that emotion defines humanity. It is true that one lacking in emotion is often described as inhumane. However, we are not the only beings on this earth to have emotions. Parrots have shown to exhibit the signs of depression after a one of its owners dies. Many animals mate for life. Are these animals capable of love? Is an animal capable of love, by extension, capable of hate? And therefore a range of emotion? Does this make them human?
Or maybe it is our intelligence that defines us. The taxonomic name for humans is “Homo Sapien”. In Latin meaning, literally, Wise Man. Does this show that society sees intelligence as the measure of humanity. However, this comes with some more questions. What is intelligence? Generally it is understood to be the capability to learn and make connections between what we see and the things we have learned. If we use these definitions, is somebody with a brain injury and incapable of learning no longer human?
In the end, I think it is the mixture of all these things, our sense of morality, our emotions and our self awareness that defines us. Our ability to love and be aware we are doing it. Most of all, the instinct that exists in all of us.
The instinct to respect life.
