Title: Who are human beings?

Name of the Student: Rufat Guliyev

Outline: Introduction, Body Paragraph 1, Body Paragraph 2,

Conclusion, Reference

Date: April 12th, 2021

Introduction

“Who are human beings” is a profound topic that has disparate answers
dependent on what type of perspective to approach on this topic.
Anthropologically speaking, humans also known as Homo Sapiens, are the only
extant member of a branch of the Hominini tribe belonging to the family of great
apes. The two main determinants that make human beings are consciousness
and culture. Humans are the only species that are constantly applying
consciousness and culture in their lives, whereas other species operate solely on
a biological level. Although some scientific findings claim that animals do have
consciousness, however, the level of consciousness that humans possess is
incomparable to other living species. In general, animals are understood through
Zoology which is a scientific study of animal behavior and animals are only
described in terms of their genes. In contrast, humans are being understood
through genes and memes that include non-biological information such as
culture, belief systems, modes of behavior, etc. Scientists have used empirical
evidence to substantiate that humans are creatures evolved from great apes. On
the other hand, religion answers this question with a dogmatic attitude claiming
human beings were created by God in the divine image and God formed them
from the dust of the earth, gave them a special dignity among all the words of
creation. However, from a philosophical perspective, it is necessary to approach
this subject with skepticism by having a doubtful and critical attitude. Therefore,
after researching from multiple credible sources, the most logical and rational
answer is humans are creatures that operate and being influenced by
consciousness and culture.
Body Paragraph 1

It is essential to elaborate on the concept of consciousness and the level of

consciousness a human being has and how it differs from other species.
Consciousness is the state of being aware of and responsive to one’s
surroundings which allows humans to reflect, analyze, and systematize reality.
Humans apply consciousness to plan future events and transmit knowledge
using semiotics. This is how humans can predict an outcome of a certain event,
for instance, humans can predict the world’s future economics crisis by using
data, statistics, and formulas to conclude this. Fortunately, humans can plan and
take actions to alleviate the situation, planning future events that could occur in
any type of circumstances in human life. Besides, in the earliest centuries when
language was not invented, humans could communicate with each other through
semiotics including gestures and signs to convey their messages. Understanding
human consciousness requires brief knowledge of how it operates. According to
Kotchoubey (2018), consciousness is split into three components of play,
communication, and tool. Each component is responsible for a certain type of
behavior and studies have shown that animals do have the same base level of
consciousness as humans. However, the key difference is that humans can
combine all three components and apply them at the same time and a much
higher capacity than animals. Kotchoubey (2018) mentions that consciousness is
a tool used by humans to progress and get where we are right now,
consciousness has assisted humans to modernize and develop the current world
we live in with great technologies and inventions. As a result, consciousness is a
crucial component of being a human because everything is revolved around
consciousness which allowed humans to be in control of this planet and
dominate other living species using their superior level of consciousness.
Body Paragraph 2

Another main determinant that makes a human being is culture. Culture is a set
of symbols, values, traditions, ideas, customs patterns of social behavior. Culture
enables humans to distinguish between good and bad, moral and immoral,
correct and incorrect. Cultural evolution has tremendously transformed humans
which resulted in changes in behavior and beliefs according to the type of
culture. Since humans are combinations of genes and memes. Therefore, it can
be assumed that culture is an additional component of what makes a human
being. Although culture is not inherent in humans’ physical bodies, it still plays a
major role as it controls our behavior patterns. In contrast, animals or any other
species do not have cultural influences on them hence, their behavior does not
alter. As a result, this also becomes a major determinant to why humans are
different from other living species. However, culture is artificial, in other words, it
is solely based on human phenomenon. Hao (2015) mentions that culture has a
significant impact on how humans behave, for instance, Western culture tends to
increase their children’s level of arousal by playing and chatting whereas mothers
in East Asian culture were more likely to rock and lull their babies to reduce their
level of arousal. This indicates that from early on, children were impacted by their
parents through cultural aspects result in a different type of social behavior.
Moreover, Han (2015) conducted an experiment mainly to discover the brain
activity between East Asian and Western culture, results have shown that there
are differences in the cognitive and affective process, the findings showed that
East Asians have a stronger social cognitive process where Westerns have a
stronger affective process. Both cognitive and affective processes include some
of the fundamental regions in the human brain such as perception, attention,
semantic relationship processing, music processing, and mental calculation, etc.
Thus, culture also contributes to one’s consciousness and it can be altered
dependent on the type of culture you live in. This implies that humans are
complicated creatures since consciousness and culture can be intertwined and
correlated according to science. Behavior in humans is greatly influenced by
culture that cannot be neglected and an essential component of what makes a
human being.

Conclusion

In summary, human beings are creatures that constantly apply consciousness

and culture in their lives which makes a majority of our behavior and different
from other species. Although humans share some similar features with animals
on a biological level. however, humans contribute much more to better and
progress to humanity by the gift of their consciousness and cultural influences
which improves the morality of society. Humans are more complicated to study
and observe their nature compared to animals because of higher-level
consciousness and cultural influences. Studies and researches have proved that
human consciousness is highly advanced in comparison to animals, and cultural
difference in human behavior is present which can be concluded that
consciousness and culture are two determinants that make a human being.
Humans are far more capable than what can animals do in terms of inventions
and creations such as music, art, intellectual studies, etc. Although religious
scripture claim that humans were created by God, there is no evidence to
support this argument, whereas scientists have researched and proved that
humans and great apes share a common ancestor, genes are more than 90% in
similarity. This greatly empathizes that humans are a result of the evolution of
great apes. Human evolution should be the knowledge to be referred to because
it is based on empirical evidence to substantiate the origin of humans, unlike the
religious scriptures who only claim but lacks evidence.
Reference:

1) Han, S. (2015). Understanding cultural differences in human behavior: a

cultural neuroscience approach. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 3, 68–

72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2015.01.013

2) Kotchoubey, B. (2018). Human Consciousness: Where Is It From and What Is

It for. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00567

3) Notes from Lecture 1