I got to thinking this evening..suppose, you were an alien scientist, and you came to earth to study the human race. How would you describe them?

I've heard people say 'Aliens would see WAR man and immediately get disgusted and go right back home'. Besides that just being ridiculous and silly, that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a dispassionate, objective description, the same way we might try to describe goldfish. That is universal and not based on any specific cultural context.

Here are some qualities that come to mind for me.

1) Imitative.

Humans are imitators. It's what we're best at. We see somebody doing something, we try to do the same thing. Just by instinct.

2) Territorial.

I don't really need to justify this one, do I?

3) Castive

Humans like to find a group or caste to identify themselves with, and define themselves exclusively as members of that group. Be it in the form of patriotism, cliquing, or religious warmongering. We like to say 'These people are in the group, and those people aren't.'

4) Reductionist

We form a mental concept for how things work...an algorithym, that can take any input to produce an output we can understand. When the input doesn't quite fit the algorithym, we have a tendency to reduce, simplify, and reshape the input into something that is consistant with said algorithym, rather than change the algorithym.

5) Familiarizers

Familiarity with a person, place or thing gives us an automatic sense of comfort and security.

6) Impulse driven rationalizers

We often act based on our cognitive or biological impulses, then come up with a socially acceptable story to explain why we do so. I'm not talking about just Darwinistic instincts or anything. If our first impulse is rage and confrontation, we might get in a fight and claim we were provoked. If our first impulse is to sympathize with somebody, we'll make up stories to justify their situation.

7) Anchorers

We form this idea of what we consider 'the norm' and define other things or other people in terms of how they differ from that 'anchor'.

I'm curious as to how other people would respond to this little mental excersize.

Silly.

I dunno Bob, I think the exercise itself is flawed since an outsider usually describes something different from him in a way that differentiates him from that group he is observing, so how could we know what traits an alien race would pick up on without knowing more about this alien race? When you describe your observations of humanity, you seem to be presuming that this alien race is more enlightened than we are and would first notice our flaws. What about spirituality? Initiative? Courage? Loyalty?

The human experience is optimistically pointless, sort of like a state of mind. We exist, but for what cause? To further our own hopeless existence? For some reason the word appendix comes do mind when speaking on life, Generally useless but occasionally it can be excruciatingly painful.

I've always thought the point of existence was to reason: to use one's mind to create for one's own happiness. I don't think that is pointless at all.

I certainly don't think life is pointless. I like to think of humans as animals with self-awareness. This idea has Judeo-Christian roots, but I'm sure it's also in other cultures and religions. I disagree with the belief that the flesh is sinful.

Although religion has been good in some ways, I believe that it has overall been damaging to humanity.

For what purpose does humanity exist? I can't say I'm objective, because I can only reason based on my experience and feelings. I don't think humanity needs to know why it exists. I agree with Pax that humans search for their own happiness. It's only natural. We want to be happy. Humanity should work so all people can search for happiness. The beauty is that their isn't one way to happiness or eternal life. Each life is unique and finds truth and happiness in it's own way. The search is the important thing, not the destination.

So what is humanity? It's animals covered with clothes that desire to find pleasure and to create.

I think the thread is a perfectly legitimate mental excersize...

I don't think humans exist for a specific predetermined reason, but now that they exist, I think they should choose their own reason to do so.

Maybe humans really have no real reason to exist. Perhaps we were brought here by a genetic need to survive. That if evolution and Charles Darwyn are correct, then the only reason we are here is because we managed to adapt to our surroundings and utulize what our ancestors gave us.
So maybe if an Extra Terrestrial(sp) were to study us, it would say we are an adaptive race of creatures, who have adapted far more than the regular animals that are around us.

quote:

Originally posted by Bobthespirit:
I got to thinking this evening..suppose, you were an alien scientist, and you came to earth to study the human race. How would you describe them?

I've heard people say 'Aliens would see WAR man and immediately get disgusted and go right back home'. Besides that just being ridiculous and silly, that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a dispassionate, objective description, the same way we might try to describe goldfish. That is universal and not based on any specific cultural context.

We form this idea of what we consider 'the norm' and define other things or other people in terms of how they differ from that 'anchor'.

I'm curious as to how other people would respond to this little mental excersize.

I am sorry dude, but you are forming own ideas about normality only in case if you are ignorant about something. Normality is not an idea, its a scientifically proven by rational mind, universal state of naturally existing facts that can only be argumented and defined, and does not need any kind of comparative knowledge.

Comparative knowledge is another thing that is a consequence of knowledge about norms and behavioral patterns of consciouis and material norms and normality by pragmatism.

And you don’t need an alien neither, because an alien on earth would be dissociated from comprehension of knowledge of normality, and would describe reality by using his own knowledge. Therefore he would not be able to describe this reality by objective evaluation between concepts of normality and abnormality.

What you need in reality is a Psychiatrist. Only a psychiatrist due to his profession must be a certified mentally sane person, and have the skills to remain neutral and make objective descriptions of reality and evaluations, by explaining it in terms of normality and abnormality, or even by concepts of anomalies or paradoxes.

In order to evaluate and describe reality in terms of normality and abnormality, human mind must be in a state of consciousness, and therefore being able not only to understand but also to comprehend the reality in first place. Because basic unconscious description cannot lead to an evaluation of reality.

These are the basic patterns of normality on planet Earth:

Snow is cold - therefore normal

Water is wet - therefore normal

Rock is solid - therefore normal

Human is attractive and rational - therefore normal

Human is repulsive and irrational - therefore abnormal

You cannot really comprehend what is written above by yourself, you need to know what is human mind, and only after you have become aware about your mind, you will be able to understand that what your senses are telling to you is true.

Anyway there is a huge paradox that exists on planet earth, which is caused by humans social anomaly that were in control of society but were not mentally sane, and because the majority of humans were completely ignorant, these mentally insane people while being in a state of complete unconsciousness managed to ruin 90 percent of human societies on earth.

Let’s see what is going on right now on planet earth:

Human normal society for being safe and free must have a natural social structure which is a Democratic Republic - which is normality

Naturally rational basics of naturally normal Republic are Nationalism and Federalism - which is normality

Naturally rational basics of naturally normal Democracy are Meritocracy and Technocracy - which is normality

If you know for sure that besides of the USA, there are no other countries that were able to achieve something adequate to a normal society, and that today the USA are almost a perfect normal country in theory, does it mean that USA is just another country, or it must be evident that other countries that do not have the social normative basics like USA in theory, must be considered lead by mentally retarded people ?

If you are a regular mentally sane person, you will know easily by your own rationality, that outside the USA there are no countries that were founded by normal people, but by mentally retarded schizophrenics, and therefore dangerous degenerates.

And vice - versa, if you are somehow retarded, you will live your irrational life considering other countries to be just differently developed by people with same mental capacity as American founders fathers were.

Let’s see what is going on in USA:

The whole social system was elaborated from the beginning, therefore in presence of the basics of real democratic republic the system was only progressive towards the normal condition of human nomrla society.

There is only one thing that is the main concern of the who league of psychiatrists, it is about the state correctional system wrong and atavistic state of dangerous inadequacy.

If someone is evil, and dangerous to the other pacific members of human community, he is defined a criminal or a terrorist by the law.
But anybody who is defined a criminal or a terrorist is also defined Criminally insane by the psychiatry.

USA have several institutions that deal with degenerated members of human society unable to care about themselves:

State correctional penitentiary – was invented by the American Quakers community

State criminal lunatic asylum – was invented by the psychiatrists league of America

State civil lunatic hospital - was invented by the psychiatrists league of America

In case of dangerous elements of human society, anybody who committed a crime against other human beings or their own property, is to be considered evil, and therefore a degenerated human, otherwise defined as criminally insane, or informally called brain-dead.

All the criminally insane or otherwise called brain-dead cannot be redeemed by simply holding them inside a penitentiary, simply because they are obviously in a mental unconscious state of mind. And therefore it is a rational move to close all the useless State penitentiaries and transfer all the dangerous humans to the State Criminal Lunatic Asylums, where those who still can must be cured form madness, and those who cannot be cured must be disposed in a not violent bets possible way.

If the modern politicians still continue to ignore the obvious fact that State correctional penitentiaries must be closed because of their inutility, and all the criminals or terrorists should be disposed in State criminal asylums, the only answer to this situation is that the modern politicians are equally brain dead and therefore inadequate to guarantee the constitutional rights of citizens to live in a free and safe state of the United States of America.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ALPHAKNIGHT,

Actually Aliens may not need to examine us because they may "all ready know."

We may be too boring to bother with.

quote:

Originally posted by Nathan25:
Although religion has been good in some ways, I believe that it has overall been damaging to humanity.

I'd say it isn't the religion itself that has harmed humanity, but the people who abuse the religion as a means of furthering their own power and control. The people who do so give the said religion a horrible name, and thus misrepresent what the relligion actually stands for.

Humans, the only creatures that do not operate only on instinct. Humans, the only creatures capable of discerning the difference between, and choosing right and wrong. Humans, the only creatures capable of love. Humans, the only creature capable of sin.

quote:

Originally posted by chaos:
Humans, the only creatures that do not operate only on instinct. Humans, the only creatures capable of discerning the difference between, and choosing right and wrong. Humans, the only creatures capable of love. Humans, the only creature capable of sin.

This was the most pathetic piece of pseudo-poetry I've ever read.

Wow.