There is a specific line in the first Matrix movie, and I can't get my head around it.
One of the characters says : "To deny our own impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human."

It seems completely illogical to me. If this phrase is analyzed more thoroughly it results the fallowing:

- Both human and animals have the same intelligence, both are self-aware, have articulated speech, know right from wrong, have various religious and moral systems, and so on.

- Only humans have the impulse to eat, have sex, fight, etc.

- Animals can deny their instincts to mate, protect their young, fight or flight, etc.

- If I refuse to fallow my impulse to kill somebody, it means I deny my humanity.

I think that denying our impulses is one of the --many-- things that makes us human.
So what do you think about this phrase? Am I missing something?

It's just a throw-away Hollywood line- doesn't make sense.

I don't think we are any different form other animals.

What makes us human? erm.... our DNA- some of it.

Plus- the question these days is more- 'what types of homonids are we?' DNA evidence, backed up by analysis of DNA from new homonid specimens is pointing to the fact that Homo Sapiens Sapiens may not be what we thought it was. We are more of a mixure of identified (2-6% Homo Neanderthalensis in modern populations) and unidetified (Species X) 'species'. Plus our terminology must now change- by definition species cannot interbreed- but early homonids did interbreed, as has now been proven- so we must think of them more as 'breeds'.

So what makes us human? we don't know!

I know this sounds rather mentally unstable, but since earliest childhood until now, I've never once viewed or thought of myself as a human being.

Strange, but true, whether it's self-denial or a feeling, I don't know. I've never accepted my membership to the human race.

Opposable thumbs, and a foramen magnum that's farther underneath the head than in other great apes.

I disagree, there is no scientific prove of an articulated speech of animals. Animals are able to give signals, to express emotions, but they can't explixate a law for example. Researchers found out, that the conflicts in a group of chimpanzees are 100 times more often than in a human group. They reason it with the missing language of the monkeys. So humans have developed cultural institutions to control affects much better than monkeys do for example. The matrix deals with a conflict between human beeings and machines not with animals. The difference between human beeings and machines is emotion or impulses, but all this behaviour is embedded in a cultural context which needs a lot of discipline and control of impulses, which don't means that they disappear.

Who told you about religious systems of animals? To create a religion it needs an language and an degree of abstraction which never was discovered between animals. Do you think Lions lead philosophical discussions or what?

So to answer the question in three words, intelligence, language, culture / civilization - divides us from the aninmals and emotions from the machines.

Oh wow, you really misunderstood me. I just expressed the bogus conclusions that come from the phrase : "To deny our own impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human." Read my first post once again, pay more attention and you'll see that we have the same opinion.

Bees disagree with you.

Animals deny their own impulses just as often as we do.

For instance a young ape might see a very attractive young female and his drive will be to mate with her as soon as possible. Yet he knows big daddy the super chimp is twice his size and will pummel him if he tries to.

This. I believe the term is 'parlour game philosophy'.

*allows self to be drawn anyway*



True. It may not be spoken language, but google 'the waggle' sometime. It's a dance in which coded movements tell the other bees where a food source is, how far from the hive, etc. Rather like the Balinese dancing where gestures are used as a medium for storytelling.

Also the experiments may or may not be flawed, but apparently finches may use 'grammar' in their calls. Corvids too.

Smart ass Answer:

Our genetic make-up, which has been changed many times over through the process of evolution for thousands of years until the body took the current shape and the mind grew and expended to the point we now aresacks of water within a shell filled with genes and a large brain, causing us to be arrogant enough to believe we're the best things nature created.

Real answer:

I honestly don't know.

Perhaps our ability to live, feel, and think, and react despite the knowledge that all of us are destined to die and one day be forgotten. Living (or choosing not to live) in the greater understanding that life is essentially meaningless, yet we (most of us) try anyway. Our ability to feel and make sense of thing. Our minds, our emotions, even our spirituality (or lack thereof).

So, what makes us human?

I'd say our mind.

Is it because you feel ashamed by the human race's faults ?

Nature itself is faulted by our standards.

Our minds make us human. We may only differ by a couple of percentages from other primates(or a carrot!) but that is still a huge difference in the world of DNA.

I think that what they were discussing in the bit of dialogue was 'the woman in the red dress', right? Mouse was expressing the fact that it is only human to look and be distracted, IIRC.

Demon, you kill me! Do you think Lions lead philosophical discussions or what?

Abstract language, use of symbols, and we cook our food.

Most of what we are isn't that much different from our furry relatives, however, we do seem to take some of it to an extreme, like the complexity of our social interactions, our technology, the way we alter our environment (I don't remember if beavers have us beat in that category or not).

While some of the other animals may have some way of communicating with each other, through smells and pheromones, body language, and noise, they still lack abstract language.

Hey, ape, long time no see.

I think our ability to accessorize makes us human, and possibly our self-awareness.