>>Humans are animals.
>>Humans are not animals.
>>
>>Doesn't it depend on context and interpretation?
>
>Good question... I'm not sure both can be true in the same context. For
>example, if you believe the first statement, I don't think you can believe
>the second one. Or at least, *I* couldn't. I mght be able to say that
>humans are "special" animals, or that they have capabilities beyond those
>of most other animals, but offhand I can't think of a situation in which I
>would say that humans aren't animals. Can you think of a context in which
>both statements are true?
Humans seem to have a dual nature. We certainly share a lot of
physical characteristics with animals, and in many cases behave
like animals. However the thing that makes someone human is
language-based consciousness (the substrate of memes). I can
imagine a conscious agent (perhaps an artificial organism) that
is human for all intents and purposes, but not an animal.
Maybe the alleged level-3 ability of being able to hold two
contradictory beliefs simultaneously true is just a realization
that definitions and categories are necessarily fuzzy. The
paradox goes away when you elaborate the statement "Humans are
[not] animals" to "Some humans are [not] animals" or "Humans
are often [not] like animals".
Which are the following statement are true? Or put another
way, how true are the following statements?
I have a body.
I am hosted by a body.
I have a mind.
I host memes.
My mind hosts memes.
My brain hosts memes.
I am a meme.
I am a set of memes.
-- David McFadzean david@lucifer.com Memetic Engineer http://www.lucifer.com/~david/ Church of Virus http://www.lucifer.com/virus/