Original Sin?

Quote: pew

Neanderthals are homo sapiens.

I really don't feel like looking into this
because I don't care, but I think I'm
talking about the mutation before
them. Before the cave painters.

Quote: Evenbob

I really don't feel like looking into this
because I don't care, but I think I'm
talking about the mutation before
them. Before the cave painters.

I don't think self awareness has been shown to be a function of brain structure.

Quote: pew

I don't think self awareness has been shown to be a function of brain structure.

You can test whether an animal has self-awareness by placing a mirror in front of it and seeing if it figures out that it's not another animal. Primates manage to do this. Dolphins do as well. Some dogs manage, most don't. No cats ever do (but they'd rather nap anyway). So self-awareness, sometimes referred to as "sentience," is on a continuum and isn't confined to humans, let alone one type of human.

I don't know what EB is referring to as "the" mutation, but homo sapiens has been constantly undergoing mutations for millions of years. There isn't any fossil evidence of a mutation that happened all of a sudden to a large segment of the population, if for no other reason than we can't date fossil evidence that precisely (as in, down to individual generations) and that any mutations spread slowly through what was a very dispersed homo sapiens population until quite recently.

Quote: stinkingliberal

You can test whether an animal has self-awareness by placing a mirror in front of it

What follows next, an existential crisis for dolphins?
The point is, humans are self aware to the extent
that they can see themselves as mortal, and have
the capability of inventing gods to fill in the gaps
of coming to grips with that mortality. I have yet
to see elephants hold a religious ceremony. They
seem more concerned about crapping where they
stand or rolling in the mud.

Human beings are religious beings. Even if we ridiculously don't believe in God we replace Him with ourselves or the state or some other ideology that helps us make sense of why we are here and where we are going? As Evenbob points out this is very unique to us and perhaps the biggest reason we are so different than the animal world.

Quote: FrGamble

Human beings are religious beings.

You seem to be confusing, or falsely equating, religion with philosophy and theology with ideology.

Quote: Nareed

You seem to be confusing, or falsely equating, religion with philosophy and theology with ideology.

I will rephrase; human beings realize there is something more to life than themselves.

Quote: FrGamble

I will rephrase; human beings realize there is something more to life than themselves.

Well, some of us look up and realize there is a universe billions of light-years across. That's a bit more than me, my career and my kitchen.

Quote: FrGamble

I will rephrase; human beings realize there is something more to life than themselves.

Which means what, exactly. What are you
talking about.

Quote: Evenbob

Which means what, exactly. What are you
talking about.

Just building and fleshing out a bit what you were talking about saying human beings were self-aware. Our self awareness is grounded in realizing our limitations, not only in regards to the knowledge we will die, but also that there are limits on our knowledge. Yet even as we acknowledge our limitations we also are filled with this inability to accept them. We feel we are called to more, to live forever to learn more and to be better. This is the human condition that sums up what we mean by being self-aware. We are aware that we are both a creature but something more as well.