We are complex entities, complex organisms, and it’s possible to talk about a human being at different levels. At one level, we are autonomous agents with thoughts and desires and beliefs with fundamental rights and dignity. At another level, the medical level, we’re a collection of organs and tissues, and, if we want to cure the body, then we have to talk about the person at that level. And at an even more fundamental level, we are a collection of elementary particles. And these different ways of talking about people are not mutually incompatible – it depends on who we are, and what we are trying to do.
Julien Musolino, PhD Associate Professor, Rutgers University
We are understanding subjects, not merely objects; we act in the world by forming goals and making choices. These capacities that we have simply cannot be understood as the mere resultant of non-purposive and non-conscious interactions of the neurons that make up the complex architecture of the human brain. But such brain mechanisms clearly make our conscious life and activity possible. So, for this reason, we need to recognize that we are actually psychophysical unities.
Timothy O’Connor, PhD Mahlon Powell Professor of Philosophy, Indiana University
Scientists are oftentimes eager to do whatever it is that science allows them to do. But sometimes we need to ask questions about our own human nature, what flourishing looks like and how we can enhance or detract from that flourishing. And once we begin to ask those questions, we’re asking questions that scientists aren’t equipped to answer.
Michael Murray, PhD President, Arthur Vining Davis Foundations
We’ve only got this one planet, and we’re destroying it. While we have become extremely intellectual, we’ve lost the wisdom of living in our environment in a sustainable way. All the major religions share the Golden Rule: do to others as you would have them do to you. If we can apply that to animals as well as to each other, then I think we shall come closer to being able to define ourselves as Homo sapiens.
Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE Founder, the Jane Goodall Institute and UN Messenger of Peace
Rev. Terrence P. Ehrman, CSC, PhD Visiting Assistant Teaching Professor, Department of Theology, University of Notre Dame As humans, we have a kinship with all of creation. We are all, in fact, creatures—from the dragonfly to plants to animals to oxygen and water and mountains. We’re all creatures of God. We’re all part of God’s household.
We have a lot of correlations between neural activity and conscious experiences. What is remarkable is that despite all of the brilliant work, there is no scientific theory that can start with brain activity and explain how it relates to a specific conscious experience like the taste of chocolate, the smell of a rose or the sound of saxophone.
Donald Hoffman, PhD Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine
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