Isolating the Universals

[Obi Wan Asterix]

OK m'lords.

State below what you think are human universals, concepts or matter which are true and present in the life of all people regardless of race, class, origin, geopolitical conditions etc.

Here is my first:

Procreation and Creation

Definition: The pursuit of leaving a continuitiy on earth after death. The desire to leave a mark, no matter if positive or negative as perceived by society, on the conscious world*

*Conscious world = The literary or oral trail of conciousness that is preserved in some cases across generations in the majoritarian concious rational mind of a significant group or population.

[Bonheddwr]

I don't have much to add right now, but you may be interested to know that there is a book on this very subject. The idea that there even are human cultural universals is making a big comeback. Much of it is inspired by the Chompskyan idea of language universals gaining so much creedence in the past few decades. This has led people to speculate that if this mental facility, previously viewed as hoplessly lost in environmental conditioning (à la the Whorfian view), is closely connected to 'hard-wired' patterns then perhaps common 'instincts' are much more influential on the human condition than previously thought. The idea stems from Chompsky's view that there is a specific 'area' or 'module' (or modules) to the brain responsible for the processing of language. By extention then there may also be modules in the brain for other 'faculties' (it is hard to say how specific or general they are) that set up how we learn. The extention of this theory is that all humans learn and grow at least in the same manner, though environment may shape what they learn and in what directions they grow. Much of the previous thought in anthropology in particular and social science in general has focused on the environmental aspects of culture to the point of discounting the idea of true cross-cultural understanding (of course not all social scientists are this extreme). But the idea that there even are cultural universals makes the case once again for the existence of inalienable rights like Mill and other enlightenment thinkers wrote about that many post-colonialist thinkers like to criticize for being merely ideas specific to western culture that were declared universal (not that that point of view is completely invalid).

And to now be too off topic I'll add one from the Donald Brown book that I think is pretty neat:
The presence of poetry in the form stories in verse with repeating metrical elements.

[Spiff]

im not sure, there are those crazy asexual people.

The most obvious human universal is the certainty of death.

Im pretty sure all people sleep too.

Perhaps fear of the unknown to a greater or lesser degree could be one?

Or the desire to be socialble or communicative to a degree?

[Obi Wan Asterix]

im not sure, there are those crazy asexual people.

The most obvious human universal is the certainty of death.

Im pretty sure all people sleep too.

Perhaps fear of the unknown to a greater or lesser degree could be one?

Or the desire to be socialble or communicative to a degree?

Is not certainty of death a prerequisite for certainty of life then?

[Spiff]

well maybe, but as the saying goes.. every man dies, but not every man truly lives.. think that was in Braveheart.

Should probably not be on the list anyway as we're talking about Humans in particular, not life in general

[O'brien the Protector]

self existnace- many people doubt that other exist, but every person knows that he himself exists.

after that everything elses existance can have doupt cast over it via logic ( damn nihilists).

[TheWayOfZen]

everyone farts

[Obi Wan Asterix]

everyone farts

Everyone has physical limitations then.

[O'brien the Protector]

Human knowledge comes from experience , meaning that we arent born with any knowledge of our world. This leads to skeptisism, that there is no single thruth.

[Obi Wan Asterix]

Human knowledge comes from experience , meaning that we arent born with any knowledge of our world. This leads to skeptisism, that there is no single thruth.

I concur. But there is a grey area that feels like single truth to humanity in whatever isolated corner of the world they might find themselves.

For example, assuming its possible physically, preferentially etc.

Any man on the planet is capable of finding himself in attraction of any woman on the planet. Is this not a grey area that certainly seems to be founded on the universal of gender?

As above I say physical limitations are in fact universals, could this not be gender then as well?

[Darth Wong]

It is extremely difficult to come up with non-superficial universals for human behaviour. Even something as basic as the desire to survive can sometimes be lost, as demonstrated by teenagers who commit suicide over emotional problems. However, if one loosens the requirements to behaviours which are common to the vast majority of humans, it becomes much easier to come up with "universal" behaviours. These would mostly come from basic biological imperatives such as survival and procreation, combined with learned social "pack animal" traits such as empathy.

[O'brien the Protector]

I concur. But there is a grey area that feels like single truth to humanity in whatever isolated corner of the world they might find themselves.

For example, assuming its possible physically, preferentially etc.

Any man on the planet is capable of finding himself in attraction of any woman on the planet. Is this not a grey area that certainly seems to be founded on the universal of gender?

As above I say physical limitations are in fact universals, could this not be gender then as well?

ofcoruse there is a certian instinct that is built into the brain. Things like how to move muscles, or how to breath, or on a more complicated note, how to read body language, or how to interpret certian sounds or visuals, or how to socalize. But what I meant, speaking about humans not on a universal scale, is that the idea that everything outside your mind isnt real stems from the piont that what you know comes from experiace. So america cant be the best country simply becuase I learnt it, which means that I could have learned something else and it would have been just as true.

another universal ( be it a shaky one): leader/follower universal. Whenever a group of people are put together they will always break up into a leader and followers ( there dosent have to be one leader). Think back to when you were at school and were assigned a group of people you didnt know to work with. From the time that you shake hands with them everyone begins to slide into their roles. Someone takes charge, others start to take orders.

[Eird-Way]

Human knowledge comes from experience , meaning that we arent born with any knowledge of our world. This leads to skeptisism, that there is no single thruth.

Actually, I'm happy to tell you (and I imagine you might be happy to hear) that you are entirely wrong!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014...Fencoding=UTF8

You guys give me no choice but to sell the bejeezus out of this book. Read it.

Darth has intuited the beginning of the truth, but hard anthropological study shows reality to be much more severe.

From the appendix of THE BLANK SLATE:
Donald E. Brown's List of Human Universals
(I'll pick a letter at random . . . how about aitch?)

. . . hairstyles, hand (word for), healing the sick (or attempting to), hospitality, hygienic care, identity (collective), incest taboos . . .

[Ummon]

The main characteristic of universals is: they cannot be isolated. Infact, they have blurred borders, and all trespass into one-another.

[Tom Paine]

Body language is actually learned; different cultures have different body languages... same with interpretation and socialisation.