Is there such a thing as human nature?

[jimmy button]

Is there such a thing as human nature? If we take evolution to be true, then man is defined by culture, or his ability to adapt to his environment through the use of tools, complex language, and other symbols. This culture, that is so important to the human developmental process is also shared, or defined by the whole of society, rather than an individual. That being said I think we can agree on this point based on the example of a child being raised by dogs or wolves, or any number of those situations we've heard of, of a child having this process of enculturation take place by other means than the human being. A hypothetical example could be if you had a child born on an island, and for whatever reason there were two boxes, one with food and the other with water, that were constantly resupplied without another human being present. If you had this child, who lacked no necessity of life (let's assume this island is storm free and safe, etc.) grow up on this island for twenty years, and then be reincorporated into our functioning society, this child would never be able to learn our shared culture by this point in time. Without this process of social development taking place, children are unable to function in our society.

So, we have this learned and shared cultural transmission of knowledge that defines our complex thoughts such as knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs and anything essentially that is acquired by human beings as a member of society. How can you say that man has a natural tendency towards anything at all? We are so equipped with the power of adaptation that it seems to reason there is no such thing as human nature at all, but what you could call human nature, and what I consider to be mistaken as human nature is just human beings reacting to their environment, and the reason that human nature is said to exist is simply because we've been so deeply enculturated from the beginning of our lives by this shared system of knowledge, that we assume we are examples of an entire species, when in reality we simply fail to see our true limited perception.

 

[Sunstone]

You seem to be overlooking a considerable body of scientific evidence that suggest humans have many innate, genetically based, behavioral tendencies.

 

[Willamena]

You seem to be overlooking a considerable body of scientific evidence that suggest humans have many innate, genetically based, behavioral tendencies.

Is that human nature?

I always thought of human nature as of the social construct.

 

[Willamena]

How can you say that man has a natural tendency towards anything at all?

What's the alternative? An unnatural tendency? That implies perversion. A supernatural tendency? I'd vote for that: man lifted above nature.

 

[ninerbuff]

Yes. Animals don't screw each over for a percentage or for fame and attention.

 

[InvestigateTruth]

Yes. Animals don't screw each over for a percentage or for fame and attention.

Yes they do!

 

[InvestigateTruth]

Is there such a thing as human nature?

Human is said to have a two-fold nature. One nature comes from the needs and wants of the human's body. That is the physical needs and wants, such as eating, sleeping, etc. in this sense human and animal are the same.
The other nature of human, is said to be spiritual. Those are the qualities of human, which are only specific to human, such as patience, generosity, forgiveness, love, ...etc.

 

[Where Is God]

Is there such a thing as human nature? If we take evolution to be true, then man is defined by culture, or his ability to adapt to his environment through the use of tools, complex language, and other symbols. This culture, that is so important to the human developmental process is also shared, or defined by the whole of society, rather than an individual. That being said I think we can agree on this point based on the example of a child being raised by dogs or wolves, or any number of those situations we've heard of, of a child having this process of enculturation take place by other means than the human being. A hypothetical example could be if you had a child born on an island, and for whatever reason there were two boxes, one with food and the other with water, that were constantly resupplied without another human being present. If you had this child, who lacked no necessity of life (let's assume this island is storm free and safe, etc.) grow up on this island for twenty years, and then be reincorporated into our functioning society, this child would never be able to learn our shared culture by this point in time. Without this process of social development taking place, children are unable to function in our society.

So, we have this learned and shared cultural transmission of knowledge that defines our complex thoughts such as knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs and anything essentially that is acquired by human beings as a member of society. How can you say that man has a natural tendency towards anything at all? We are so equipped with the power of adaptation that it seems to reason there is no such thing as human nature at all, but what you could call human nature, and what I consider to be mistaken as human nature is just human beings reacting to their environment, and the reason that human nature is said to exist is simply because we've been so deeply enculturated from the beginning of our lives by this shared system of knowledge, that we assume we are examples of an entire species, when in reality we simply fail to see our true limited perception.

I think the better question is "Is there something we can do that isn't human nature?"

I am very passionate when I argue that humans are a part of nature. So how can anything we do be unnatural?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Our biological drives and imperatives are fundamental to culture.

 

[YmirGF]

Our biological drives and imperatives are fundamental to culture.

Indeed. Without those individual drives and imperatives there would be no culture. Obviously, those drives and imperatives cross-over from individual to individual. We all want food. We all want to be safe and warm. We all want sex... well, when we are younger, lol. The combined effect of these shared interests forms the foundations of culture.

 

[Sunstone]

Is that human nature?

I always thought of human nature as of the social construct.

Do you think humans are born with any genetically-based behavioral tendencies?

 

[Willamena]

Do you think humans are born with any genetically-based behavioral tendencies?

I have no clue. But if they are, those stand beside the social construct.

 

[jimmy button]

I appreciate where this topic has gone, however it was not my intention to bring up the Nature vs. Nurture debate. That train of thought tends to lead to a very closed discussion of man and his grasp on himself, rather than, where I would like to venture, into the discussion of man and his grasp on his community. This perspective is different in that instead of focusing on individual motivations the patterns of behavior among many are taken into account. This to me is a more accurate representation, since the topic is human nature, not individual nature.

I will clarify my original post. Is there such a thing as human nature? Others in this topic have brought up such subjects as "fame" or "supernatural tendencies". Fame is surely not in the nature of a human being. Fame, or the want of fame, is an ideology imposed on a group of people, that there are people that are more valuable than other people. This is easily recognized as a construct of society when you look at smaller scale societies which are egalitarian and have no social stratification. A comment on my use of the word "natural" has brought it to my attention that this was a bad choice of vocabulary. "natural tendency" was interpreted as something to do with the laws of this physical world, when what I should have said to get my point across was more along the lines of "How can you say man has a predisposition to anything?" This is will stand behind, as, aside from extreme cases of abnormal biology, we are all the same. A study I cannot seem to find a source for (at least I tried) determined that an English child and a Chinese child will, when in the same environment, both learn Chinese at the same rate during their infancy. This denotes the concept of predisposition in man, which is sometimes argued for by the use of psychological concept of the collective unconscious. See with this theory, the baby born to Chinese parents should have a predisposition to learn the language because in his or her collective unconscious mind, there are generations of family members who were speaking it. However, in the English born child's mind there are generations of people speaking English, and therefore no predisposition to Chinese.

To say that man has a "natural tendency", or should I say predisposition, to war, accumulation of wealth, fame, or anything is incorrect. And the worst part of this misinformed stand on the concept of human nature is that it is created by an ideological system under which the person with the idea is raised (which by definition must exist to perpetuate themselves). It is not even an original thought.

 

[Sunstone]

You don't think an animal evolved to have an instinctive sense of territory and to instinctively defend that territory against others not in its tribe -- you don't think that animal has a natural predisposition to war? How do you account for the universal human practice of defending ones groups territory? Through culture? Through everyone reading the same children's books? How?

 

[jimmy button]

The behavior you are describing is a defense mechanism, as you said. In that case the next logical question is what is there to defend against, no? The answer to that is enemy tribes or foreign animals that are threatening. Why then, are these other animals out to take over other territories? Scarcity. Limited resources are the root of all of this defensive behavior we are discussing here. Now, this argument is not sound in stating that abundant resources would rid animals of their defensive behaviour and territorialism, due to complex social structures surrounding mating. To be honest this area is out of my range of knowledge, however, we are talking about human beings here and in our case, we have no mating issues that lead to violence because the process has become highly sophisticated. So therefore in our case, without the predisposition to violence caused by scarcity of resources, then I see no logic in thinking man would have defensive ideas such as "property" and "territory" or the need for such a thing to be honest.

 

[Sunstone]

The behavior you are describing is a defense mechanism, as you said. In that case the next logical question is what is there to defend against, no? The answer to that is enemy tribes or foreign animals that are threatening. Why then, are these other animals out to take over other territories? Scarcity. Limited resources are the root of all of this defensive behavior we are discussing here. Now, this argument is not sound in stating that abundant resources would rid animals of their defensive behaviour and territorialism, due to complex social structures surrounding mating. To be honest this area is out of my range of knowledge, however, we are talking about human beings here and in our case, we have no mating issues that lead to violence because the process has become highly sophisticated. So therefore in our case, without the predisposition to violence caused by scarcity of resources, then I see no logic in thinking man would have defensive ideas such as "property" and "territory" or the need for such a thing to be honest.

I'm afraid, I cannot accept your reasoning as rational. Therefore, I will no longer be debating you.

 

[Madhuri]

Yes, there is such a thing as human nature. Creating and being influenced by culture is part of human nature.

 

[doppelganger]

There's nature. Humans are part of it. Whatever humans do is natural.

 

[jimmy button]

I'm afraid, I cannot accept your reasoning as rational. Therefore, I will no longer be debating you.

I understand your position very clearly, however I don't see why you would put up a defense mechanism for yourself such as you have, as it seems the whole point of this forum is to gain another perspective. If you don't think my reasoning is rational then you should ask me to explain myself. At least i'm pursuing the causes of my arguments. You are merely stating widespread preconditioned ideas about culture and war that have no basis from what I see other than the five monkeys logic, which is completely ridiculous, especially in a scientific analytical community such as this. You have no reason to stay in this topic obviously, but don't give yourself an out like that it's not mature. Why don't you just say that my hair looks funny and you don't like it, and leave.

 

[ninerbuff]

The yearning to learn, discover and CREATE new technologies and ideas. Don't think animals do much more than eat, play and procreate.