Letter to Ansh — 15: Being human

Dear Ansh

It is 22nd March 2020, you are in India with your grandparents and enjoying. The Coronavirus is raging around the world, and unfortunately I expect things to only get worse in the mid term.

The only silver lining I see is it does not impact children as badly, which is a huge relief to me. I have still asked your mother to pay particular attention and care.

I am under a self imposed lock down, but am in perfect health. I intend to step out only for groceries once a week for the next few months.

A number of plans that people had are going to go straight out of the window. However there is one thing I am certain of is that while this epidemic might be the end of the road for some people and it might end up hitting hard very close, it will not be the end of the world for everyone.

This too shall pass.

In the meantime it is well worth contemplating what is life and what does it mean to be human?

I gave you my perspective on what is life in the last letter, you can weigh it as per your own judgement.

I would now like to share with you what I believe it means to be human.

Again as per the cardinal rule, I will avoid any metaphysical mumbo jumbo. Rather it will be based on what is verifiable as objectively true.

We humans are a subset of all living things here on earth. But we are fundamentally distinct and are a significantly advanced life form that is in itis own league.

At its very basic we discussed that life self preserves and self replicates or self propagates. All living things do that.

All living things have genetic code, or a set of internal instructions that aid it on the path of self preservation and self propogation.

At its very basic form, life is like a preprogrammed bot that will act upon its internal instructions. A wound up car toy that will go in a straight or curved lines based on its configuration.

Such life does not take in account external circumstances and is very primitive.

The next stage of life is which can take in account external stimuli. Consider again one of your toy robots, that goes in a straight line till it hits a bump. When it does that it reorients itself to move in a different direction. It will continue repeating this process.

This is an example of an entity that acts on pre-programmed instructions along with external inputs.

However your toy might go in circles and keep hitting the same bump again and again.

A smarter animal will remember where the bump was and will then consciously avoid it a second time. We now have the first signs of memory.

Most animals have some degree of memory which they will use in their quest for self preservation. They do not go and get stuck in the same hidden hole again and again. They will remember where it was and avoid it the second time around.

Memory + external inputs + internal instructions = first signs of intelligence.

However at this stage we are only talking about very simplistic intelligence.

The next stage of intelligence involves deduction and correlation.

A smarter animal will start seeing patterns. If he got stuck in a hole one time around, he will remember the circumstances. May be the soil surrounding it was a bit flush. May be it was a certain type of rock. There will be tell tale signs which preceded the danger, and next time around the animal will recall the patterns and will be aware of the upcoming danger.

A significant number of animals are adept at pattern recognition and use it to self preserve.

Memory + Pattern recognition + external input + internal instructions = a higher form of intelligence.

But this is where the road ends for most animals.

And the next level of intelligence is what makes us truly human.

We humans are able to understand the rules of logic and apply them. We go multiple levels beyond just pure pattern recognition.

We can understand why a certain thing works a certain way and make conjecture on what it will do next.

We understand the “Why” of things.

And once we understand it “why” we are in control of the situation. We are able to foresee what is likely to happen next and base our actions accordingly.

The further you can foresee, the more better positioned you are in the quest of self preservation and self propogation.

However to get there you need two fundamental things.

The first is the willingness and ability to ask “Why”.

If you take everything that is told to you as the truth without testing it against your own reasoning ability then you put yourself in a weaker position.

Societies that avoid and discourage the asking of why under the mask of respect (for elders, culture, deities, etc etc) invariably fall behind societies that encourage free thought and are willing to question the assumptions.

The second key item you need is data, the more well read you are the more information you will have which you can then apply against the rules of logic. If you do not have enough information, logic will only get you so far.

Often you will discover new rules of logic by sifting through more data.

Make sure you read and consume as much information as possible.

Humans use rules of logic and wider data consumption to question their own assumptions and modify them if necessary if logic and data tells them to do so.

We adapt and recode our internal instructions.

Keep an open mind, be firm on applying reason but be willing to recognise and accept the outputs if they go against your initial assumptions.

Logic + Data applied to Internal instructions = new internal instructions

This ability to adapt based on logic and data is what separates us from the rest of the animal world, and makes us truly human.

Your loving father

Moresh