Talk:Human/Archive 16

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Contents

innate need for happiness

Thats a POV. I tend to agree with Poe when he wrote The Imp of the Perverse. I think the evidence supports the contention that humans have a greater predisposition to sado-masochism and self-abuse than to hedonism. Sam Spade 01:46, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Sado-masochism and self-abuse ARE hedonism. Whatever floats your boat. WAS 4.250 02:48, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't agree, but what's the desire to be unhappy then? The urge to do wrong. Sam Spade 13:06, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Robin William's character in the movie,'Moscow on the Hudson', explains to his friend one night: "When I was in Russia, I did not love my life... but I loved my misery. Do you know why?.... because it was MY misery.... I could hold it, I could caress it. I loved my misery." [1] WAS 4.250 15:30, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Human ethologists talk about hedonic and agonistic social structures, in which the environment strongly influences which genetically predisposed social structure predominates. From this perspective, the full range of behavioral potential is innate, but the type of behavior that actually manifests is an iteraction between nature and nurture. It's been over thirty years since I've studied this area, so I don't have any current references to offer, but maybe putting the "innate need for happiness" within a section on ethological perspectives might be a more balanced way to present these often apparently contradictory behaviors. — RDF talk 17:21, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Great suggestion, thanks. Sam Spade 20:49, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
I disagree that human's innate need (and pursuit) of happines can be reduced to a psychological subject, and much less Ethology. ≈ jossi ≈ 21:51, September 11, 2005 (UTC)
I agree spirituality cannot be reduced to a simply ethological perspective, and that wasn't my point. For an article like this, I believe it's helpful to pick a level of discourse and go with it. At the physical level, I do believe many of the ethological distinctions between nature and nurture are useful. At metaphysical and esoteric levels, this innate need takes on a much deeper meaning. Perhaps one way to address the topic is to pick one level per paragraph and highlight pertinent distinctions, linking to broader coverage of the discourse-level issues elsewhere. — RDF talk 22:54, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
That is an excellent idea. Would you care to get that section going? I have some material that I gathered a few months back. ≈ jossi ≈ 00:18, September 13, 2005 (UTC)
It depends on your time frame and amount of material. If you could give me an idea of the scope you're looking for (smaller is better ;-), either here or on my talk page, I'd be willing to help out. Personally, I like the organization of key distinctions I mentioned in the Cosmology article as a model. — RDF talk 02:44, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

FAC

I am thinking of submitting the article for featured article status. Thoughts? Sam Spade 17:03, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

That is a great idea, Sam. We need to first get it through Wikipedia:Peer Review. This will bring good comments from other editors that have not participated as yet. Nothing better than a few fresh eyes and good feedback to improve an article. ≈ jossi ≈ 21:44, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

Summary of suggestions from Peer review

  1. Merge "The word people" into the longer "Terminology" section
  2. Rewirite "Mind" and "Psyche" so it is less reliant on psychoanalysis theory
  3. Religion and philosophy - use lead sections from religion and philosophy
    new proposed section by user RDF added ≈ jossi ≈
  4. Check for image copyvios
  5. Shorten TOC
    Is this possible? ≈ jossi ≈ 03:03, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
  6. igher resolution images
  7. Diagrams in SVG
  8. -
  9. -

Religion and philosophy

The intro to this section (Culture) implies this subsection should be broader than "simply" religion and philosophy: "Culture is defined here as a set of distinctive material, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual features of a social group, including art, literature, lifestyles, value systems, traditions, rituals, and beliefs." Nowhere does that intro mention "religion and philosophy." I hope this subsection doesn't get reduced to only the lead sections from those two articles.

I looked at some other lead sections, but didn't see anything I thought could be directly lifted for here. The closest I found was in the Cosmology article, in which distinctions are made between physical, religious, methaphysical and esoteric cosmologies. These four perspecitves seem to more closely reflect the full range of how humans address the core questions of religion and metaphysics, e.g., "Why are we here? How did we get here? and What happens to us when we check out?" I believe the Disciplines section of that artice could be reworked a bit to expand the discussion about "Spirituality and beliefs" (a possible broader heading?) beyond an unnecessarily restrictive viewpoint. — RDF talk 02:32, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

I made a user talk page to show a possible replacement for Human: Culture – Religion and philosophy. Please take a look at User talk:RDF/Human-Culture-Spirituality and beliefs and let me know what you think. — RDF talk 17:23, 16 September 2005 (UTC)


In the spirit of being bold, I have replaced the section on Religion and Philosophy with RDF's version, which I I consider superior. What do editors think? ≈ jossi ≈ 02:32, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Do you have any images you can add to this section? — RDF talk 04:05, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
I was thinking of creating an image with a dozen or so religious symbols. What do you think? ≈ jossi ≈ 15:16, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
That would be cool. I recently added as many symbols as I could find to the List of symbols. My one request would be to go beyond the "Big Four" or so religions for the symbols you use. Thanks! — RDF talk 20:18, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
Done. Let me know what you think. ≈ jossi ≈ 21:45, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
It's a nice layout. You probaly can't win from the list of what's not there, but looking at the number of adherents from Religion#Present day religious adherence and trends, I would at least add the Khanda from the Sikh religion. If you used a 3X3 layout, it would be a little more compact too. — RDF talk 00:27, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Excellent idea. I have added the Kahanda on a 3 x 3 layout ≈ jossi ≈ 02:45, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
- I like it! :-) Now for the nit-pick. It's cropped so tight some of the symbols are bleeding into the border on my display. Can you add a few more pixels around the outside? — RDF talk 04:32, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Added 50 px border ≈ jossi ≈ 05:59, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Images copyvio checks

≈ jossi ≈ 01:11, September 13, 2005 (UTC)

  • Media:Plato's allegory of the cave.jpg Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2
  • Media:7BrahmanMH.jpg Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 — RDF talk 05:48, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Dang, that kinda sucks. It would be nice if we found some replacement images of similar or better quality... Sam Spade 23:53, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Not to worry, Sam. I am already on the case. A chance for me to put my graphics skills to use :) ≈ jossi ≈ 02:09, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

A much larger, more detailed image of the plaque on Pioneer 10 is available at a non-NASA site. Frankly, a photo of this quality of an object of historical significance (or a copy thereof) is a better image than a crude SVG reproduction. The page on which it appears has a Creative Commons tag on it, suggesting the image would be available for Wikipedia. Even better, the image on the Pioneer plaque article links to this excellent NASA drawing. Replacing the real thing with an SVG imitation is offensive from a scholarly perspective. (SVG is fine for original drawings.) --KSmrqT 14:21, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I have replaced the image with a close-up cropped version on the pair, from the NASA original.. ≈ jossi ≈ 15:45, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
That's an incomplete description; you also threw away a great deal of resolution, which is undesirable and unnecessary. Simply by requesting an image at a fixed pixel width the original will be reduced and served smaller automatically. This provides two benefits: (1) images displayed on screen do not consume excess bandwidth, and (2) images printed — typically at six to twelve times screen resolution — have all the detail they need to look great. One of the arguments for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is that it achieves both benefits in a tiny, readable, editable, accessibility-friendly form. We don't want to use the SVG substitute that was proposed here because it is a scholarly distortion; but that doesn't mean we need to accept resolution reduction of the original, which would also be a distortion (as well as graphically undesirable for printing). So crop, but don't reduce the original; the {{taxobox_image}} argument already says "200px", which is all that's needed. --KSmrqT 02:18, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
OK. I have re-uploaded at full resolution 1400px x 1776px @ 300 DPI. ≈ jossi ≈ 03:54, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
Eh, I thought the intended purpose of the image here is a dispute free image to show what a human is, not a historical rendition of the pioneer 11 plaque. Which was why I replaced the image here and not the one on pioneer 11. As it stands the extra detail is distracting from the purpose of the image in the article, and I think another image should be found. --Gmaxwell 11:31, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
I see. I will remove the extra details from the image. I think that it is a great image for that box. ≈ jossi ≈ 15:14, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
It is an excellent image. After all, it was intended to depict all mankind to the cosmos. The proportions of the figures were carefully chosen as a statistical average, thus really do represent "typical" humans. Additionally, the Pioneer 10 and 11 missions on which these were used exemplify the higher goals and achievements of humanity, a nice way to start the article. --KSmrqT 15:33, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

New photos/images added

  • Hominid photo added to Classificaton and evolution section
  • Photo of elderly lady added to Life cycle section
  • Diagram of the diuble-helix structure of DNA added to Genetics section
  • Drawing of Rodin's "The Kiss" status added to Sexuality" section
  • Photo of geishas and a popular tattoo added to Body section
  • NASA photo of city lights from space (see it in full-res, pretty amazing) added to Habitat section
  • Human head with lines connecting to senses from Gregor Reisch's Margarita philosophica nova cui insunt sequentia for section on Consciousness'
  • Artist's rendering of Rodin's "The thinker" (replacing copyvio image) for Self reflection and Humanism section
  • Color corrected Sigmund Freud's portrait (wiki commons image)
  • Picture of written language of "Human" in English, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Hebrew and Greek, for Language section

I am trying to find an image to replace the diagram of "Freud's concept of the mind", but I have not succeeded as yet. Maybe will be best to delete for now. Still to do: find appropriate images for Religion (will not be easy...) and for the Artefacts, technology and science sections. ≈ jossi ≈ 05:17, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

  • Replaced image for human skeleton, with vintage engraving in high-resolution, as per Peer review request. ≈ jossi ≈ 16:36, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Added Illustration of Plato's cave to Philosophy, metaphysics and ontology
  • Added Man meditating to Esotericism and mysticism — RDF talk 05:37, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

"Mind" and "Psyche" rewrite

Does any one has the ability/knowhow to rewrite "Mind" and "Psyche" so it is less reliant on psychoanalysis theory? That was requested on the Peer Review, and it is needed to complete the review before wec an submit to FAC. ≈ jossi ≈ 03:05, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I extensively edited that section. Sam Spade 20:49, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Human need/pursuit/quest for happiness?

Are we writing that section? Anyone brave enough to attempt it? ≈ jossi ≈ 21:01, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

I also thought we should have something on music. Sam Spade 21:14, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I did all that and more ;) Sam Spade 00:42, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
Motivation section is a nice addition, but we still something on happiness. An article about Humans cannot be without it. ≈ jossi ≈ 01:19, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
And love! I don't know if I'm impressed that you remembered it, or disgusted that we all forgot it for so long. What is life without love, after all? Sam Spade 13:25, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Are we ready?

!re we ready for FAC? User:Jossifresco just asked me that. I can see room for improvement, but that will always be the case. What does everyone else think? Sam Spade 21:03, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Looking at Wikipedia:What is a featured article, this article is simply not stable. Shame, really. Banno 21:14, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure I agree about the instability. Do you think that could ever change? Sam Spade 21:19, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
Are there still any sections that are disputed? If it is not "stable", let's make it so... If an article on human beings cannot achieve FA status in WP, we should all pack and leave... ≈ jossi ≈ 22:26, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Sexuality and Emotion

Does anybody still feel these sections need expanded? Sam Spade 13:26, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I think we have enough emotion, but we need more sexuality :) ≈ jossi ≈ 15:02, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I think thats a very human sentiment. ;) Sam Spade 21:59, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Descartes is hideous

Can someone find another image for Philosophies of mind? I used to have Adi Sankara, and would argue he looks way better... but he was removed.

Adi Shankara
Enlarge
Adi Shankara

Sam Spade 10:52, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

The ones that are as important as Descartes and Shankara are Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Kant, and John Locke. --goethean ॐ 14:49, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
None of these humans are included in that section. If they're as important, they should be added, along with a summary of their contributions. — RDF talk 14:57, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
The Adi Sankara image has a ten month old seven-day notice on it for unverified copyright. Is that why it was removed? — RDF talk 15:04, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm not saying we should use that particular image of Sankara, but I would like something more attarctive. How about people put images here they like, and we'll try them out in the article. Also, I agree that Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Kant, and John Locke all deserve mention. I placed a sentance there about them, but ment it more as a stub to work from than anything sufficient. Sam Spade 17:03, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I looked at the images the wiki has handy, and Kant and Aristotle seemed best to me. I put in Kant because I liked the image best, but I don't know enough about him to make a good addition re: his philosophy of mind. Sam Spade 17:17, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Here is a link I found regarding Kant's philosophy of mind. Sam Spade 17:22, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Here are two paintings by Raphael I find interesting...what are they thinking? :-) — RDF talk 17:29, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Those are both details from a single painting [The School of Athens]. --goethean ॐ 17:31, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Would that or a larger detail work? — RDF talk 17:34, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I would love to use the Plato painting, but it is very low res for the article. We need 1200px wide minimum. Let me check in commons. ≈ jossi ≈ 17:46, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
In commons there is a hi-rs verson of Raphael's "The school of Athens". I would suggest using that. ≈ jossi ≈ 17:51, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
Raphael's "The school of Athens"
Enlarge
Raphael's "The school of Athens"
I like the full size "School" too, but it's so hard to pick out the detail. How about this?

— RDF talk 18:11, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

That works... ≈ jossi ≈ 19:28, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Shortening table of contents

I have some major edits in mind which I feel should be discussed. One problem w this article is the redundancy of certain sections. I propose some mergers. For example, I propose:

I also see some other possibilities, like merging sexuality and emotion, and also merging Unique human characteristics into Self-reflection and humanism, or perhaps eliminate it entirely (it doesn't seem a very strong section), but I feel less interested in these last two than the others.

Sam Spade 17:04, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and just to be clear, I don't don't intend to do any of this w/o some clear consensus, and each of these ideas can be weighed on its own merits, it is by no means a package deal. Sam Spade 17:06, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
I support merging sections along the lines you propose, cutting redundant content, and keeping unique content. — RDF talk 19:48, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
I support as well. Simpler is better. Go ahead, Sam. ≈ jossi ≈
Go for it. WAS 4.250 16:33, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

ok, I'm done, have a look, and feel free to make any adjustments you think are needed. Practically no content was lost, but we might want to hunt for weaker or unneccesary bits to trim. As a side note, I am very happy w the pic of wheeler I put in, I think it helps the article, showing a clear example of an adult male, but I also think its fun to have a wikipedian in the article. Sam Spade 23:42, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

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