To Be Uniquely Human

What does it take to be uniquely human? What is it that differentiates the species of homo sapiens from each and every other creature?  What makes one human uniquely different from one to another? To attempt to address those three questions, let alone get to some kind of easy answers, will be impossible within the limited format of an essay in a blog; it will be one audacious undertaking for one mortal to even try, if one were to write a thesis or a book on it.  To expect a facsimile of an answer is fair but it will not be justly proper to expect an explanation to everyone's satisfaction.

However, one should not be discouraged to try because only we, homo sapiens, are properly equipped mentally - to at least make such an endeavor, to understand even just a tiny bit, a sliver, of our humanity.  So, here it goes.

Memory (To Remember)

Every animal species is capable of remembering,  studies and experiments proved that certain plants even exhibit the ability to remember as well. Of course, to compare the ability to remember among animals and plants to our own would be like comparing a boulder to the entire pyramid of Giza. But strictly speaking, genes of every living thing are packets of memory codes, full of information on when to "switch on" at specific times, parts or groups of parts, often in synchronicity, towards putting together what would eventually be a physical copy of  creatures distinct from one another.  Every living thing's fate and survival depends ultimately  on bits and pieces of information that individual cells "remember".

Where we, homo sapiens, differ from all other living things, is that memory, to us, goes far beyond the basics of simple survival. What does this mean?  Distinctly different from all other living things is that our memory has taken us far beyond the confines of the natural physical world. We remember  for pleasure. Sometimes it pleases us more just to remember. In fact, people, deprived of the basic necessities of food and water, or freedom during forced confinement, or worse - imprisonment, will rely on memories of joyous past in order to survive the next few moments, the next few hours, days or longer.  The human brain may even hallucinate as a last resort to conjure happy moments, urging the physical body to cope and to keep on, thus ignoring physical pain momentarily.

Homo sapiens have learned to use memory beyond what animals and plants are capable of doing.  We remember for the sake of merely remembering.  For no other reason than to derive pleasure from a repository of data deep within our conscious brain.

A lion or tiger or barracuda, even a "smiling" dolphin, does not remember a perfectly cooked steak or lasagna, the charcoal and smoky aroma of barbecue or the tangy but sweet taste of strawberry.  Our memories are not only far too complex, there are layers upon layers of them - as if each layer in a Baklava is one distinct flavor from among an infinite number of layers. 

  

See?  The above photo has already triggered your salivary gland into action.

Our memories of over a trillion layers is what makes us distinctly human.  Every layer of them that we lose over time, or injury, or disease, is a bit like losing part of our humanity. Until that last moment when it will all be gone.  Or, is it? More on this later.

But we have another thing going for us, meanwhile.

Memory (To be Remembered) 

To remember is matched only by this one other uniquely human phenomenon -  our desire to be remembered.  It is indeed uniquely human to want to be remembered.  From our first day in school, from the very moment we met someone we liked, someone we loved to be with into as yet to be fleshed out future, we want others to remember us.  Reunions were invented precisely for reasons that we value our past as the present moment. We also long to be remembered. A truly human trait.

That favorite teacher of ours in elementary or high school will continue to live on in the memories of the twenty or so students in her class.  The thing is, unbeknownst to her (or him),  she is twenty different people in the minds of the students. Each student will remember her based on their interaction with her, how she affected them, and those views of her changes with time as well. Her influence on them changes as each student goes through his or her phases in life, how long ago it had been, how they turned out, etc.  Depending on how long that teacher taught, she will be many people to all the students she taught.  She lives on as a memory in every student's mind. She too will remember many of her students.  Come to think of  it, apart from our memory, our knowledge of who we are, we actually exist as diverse memories in other people who know and remember us. Such memories can be compiled into holographic images of us as we exist or have existed long after we are gone. Such is the power of memory.

Let's for a moment think of some kind of artificial intelligence (AI) software with special algorithm that can collate every bit of memory of the teacher from each student who went through her class over as many years. Not only will we see as many different persons as there are students' memories of the teacher but that she continues to exist in other people's minds. Even long after she is gone.

Each individual life can be summed up in the end as, "What and how we remember" and "How and what others remember us for". 

I've read of this heart-warming story a long while back. A man who regularly visited his wife, ailing with Alzheimer, in a nursing home was asked by a friend, "Why do you still want to visit her so frequently and are you not frustrated that she does not even know or remember who you are?"  His reply was, "She may not remember me or know who I am but I still know her and I still remember what she was and who she is."

Let's get back to that software and allow it with even more power, and it is able to collate memories of and about every human being who ever lived.  As you know, 99.999 ..% of people who ever lived are no longer with us.  That software has all the story of us, purely based on how every human being is remembered by everyone else.  Too fanciful?  No.  That is what we call civilization.  Keep in mind that every story of people, of individuals, of nations, of every era, is a collation of everyone's memory.  Not all of the stories may be real; in fact, for the most part they are almost all the recollection of those who managed to remember.  Yes, there are artifacts and records, but our story is mostly how every generation is remembered, how each  one is influenced and affected by the preceding ones.

Civilization is all about a compilation of memories - people eager to remember and being remembered.  That is what makes us human.

Speaking of that powerful software, is that not what humans have all along yearned for?  Well, perhaps it is not right to use the word software. Think carefully about this.

Whatever your faith is, whatever your inclination or persuasion, we will always come to that point where we run out of answers to questions (humanly answerable, that is).  Do we not in the end need to believe in an all knowing Entity who has all the data? Is it not then possible that how we've come to be who we are today, is because we are a compilation of data collated from all the memories of and created and held onto by generations upon generations of people who relied on software - we call the mind - being constantly updated by a Universal All Knowing Entity?  Call it what you want.  But is that not what God is? 

(Let me remind the reader that this is what this blog's sub heading at the top says, all along ..

"When you find yourself having to take a break from those that keep you on edge and stressed out, you can take the time to ponder with me some of the un-ponderable and the whimsical and lightly thought provoking issues you did not have the time to consider but now you may want to look into because you have a moment or two to spare or you just want some of your brain cells to be tickled out of slumber".)