popeye1945 wrote: ↑January 18th, 2024, 6:23 am Better at what, it could only make sense as meaning better at being human, and this involves intelligence and compassion, and who is going to be doing the measuring?"Better at what ?" is the right question.
If you take any activity (weightlifting ? computer programming ? nursing?) the answer to what makes one person better at it than another is a mix of
- innate talent (genetic inheritance)
- practice (at the activity itself, or similar activities that develop the same muscles and rehearse the same skills)
- conscious learning (because in many cases there are techniques that can be learnt. And learning requires intelligence motivation, opportunity).
If that is true for any human activity, why would it not be true for whatever you mean by "being human" ?
"Being human" doesn't seem well-defined. You probably mean by it more than "having human DNA"....
And those who have a more jaundiced view of humans as a species might doubt that "being human" is a worthwhile activity....