What Makes Us Human: How Minds Develop through Social Interactions

Jeremy Carpendale, Charlie Lewis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000284102
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Developmental Psychology
• Index: Psychology

"How do you go from a bunch of cells to something that can think?" This question, asked by the 9-year-old son of one of the authors, speaks to a puzzle that lies at the heart of this book. How are we as humans able to explore such questions about our own origins, the workings of our mind, and more? In this fascinating volume, developmental psychologists Jeremy Carpendale and Charlie Lewis delve into how such human capacities for reflection and self-awareness pinpoint a crucial facet of human intelligence that sets us apart from closely related species and artificial intelligence.

Richly illustrated with examples, including questions and anecdotes from their own children, they bring theories and research on children's development alive. The accessible prose shepherds readers through scientific and philosophical debates, translating complex theories and concepts for psychologists and non-psychologists alike. What Makes Us Human is a compelling introduction to current debates about the processes through which minds are constructed within relationships.

Challenging claims that aspects of thinking are inborn, Jeremy Carpendale and Charlie Lewis provide a relationally grounded way of understanding human development by showing how the uniquely human capacities of language, thinking, and morality develop in children through social processes. They explain the emergence of communication within the rich network of relationships in which babies develop. Language is an extension of this earlier communication, gradually also becoming a tool for thinking that can be applied to understanding others and morality. Learning more about the development of what is right in front of us, such as babies' actions developing into communicative gestures, leads to both greater appreciation of the children in our lives and a grasp of what makes us human.

This book will be of interest to anyone curious about the nature of language, thinking, and morality, including students, parents, teachers, and professionals working with children.

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Chapter 1
The problem

What is it to be human?

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In which we describe human forms of thinking and discuss possible explanations.

We are what we are through our relationships with others.

—George Herbert Mead¹

When we look at the stars and wonder about the beginning of the universe, or ponder the origins of life, we rarely pay attention to the fact that it is our human minds that allow us to ask and attempt to answer such questions. How human ways of being and thinking develop is just as wondrous and fascinating. Explaining the subtleties and complexities of this process is still beyond our complete understanding. The nature and development of the human mind is the subject of this book, and it touches our lives much more than distant galaxies or ancient fossils. Perhaps it is because human ways of living and thinking are so familiar and taken for granted that they appear less mysterious than the key processes examined by other sciences. But attempting to understand the mind and explain the development of how we interact and think is an enormously complex and fascinating field of study. As developmental psychologists, we study the miraculous development of the mind that occurs in our own homes and under our noses. How is it that humans grow from young babies who are still learning to coordinate their reaching in order to grasp objects to adults who can have a conversation as well as wonder about the stars?

What is thinking and how does it develop? How is it that you can read and understand this sentence? How is it that those curious marks on the paper somehow convey meaning? How do we understand what others say? Furthermore, how is it possible to think about and reflect on these questions? We have a tendency to overlook the fact that we can even ask and attempt to answer questions such as “How did the universe begin and will it end?” Snails, mice and deer are not concerned with such matters. Even though dogs, ravens and chimpanzees show intelligent activity, they are not troubled by questions about how it is that they can solve problems. Why is it that humans, and not other species, can worry about the future and reflect on themselves? How did humans evolve and develop the capacities for looking backwards with regret or pride and forward in hope or fear? How is it that such capacities for imagination exist in humans, and tend to be taken for granted, yet do not seem to be present in other species?

Varieties of social species

To understand what it is to be human we first consider what humans are not. We contrast ants and humans, not to draw attention to similarities, but rather to point out how achievements, which may appear similar on the surface, are achieved through radically different means. Some might suggest that what is important about being human are accomplishments such as spreading across the planet, building large structures and living in cities, as well as developing agriculture and tending livestock. But for millions of years over 11,000 ant species² have been hunting, gathering, farming, tending livestock, and building huge structures relative to their size, even with air conditioning, where they live in groups of millions. Indeed there are thousands of species which conduct a range of these activities. They capture or kill ants from neighboring nests—activities that could be described as taking slaves and waging war. Whereas some species of ants made the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture 50 to 60 million years ago, humans experienced this shift not much more than ten thousand years ago. Ants have mastered the diverse environments in which they thrive, all without science, and without explicit awareness.³

Some ant species have even challenged human populations. In 1518 and 1519 Spanish colonists of Hispaniola were so overwhelmed by stinging ants that many families abandoned their homes. The horrified colonists, needing someone to plead with God on their behalf, used a lottery to select a patron saint, St. Saturninus, a third-century martyr, and they held a procession and feast to deter their tiny assailants.⁴ Rather than attempting divine intervention, the ants used more effective strategies against the humans, but the infestation did subside over a period of years.⁵

This appeal to a saint for divine protection suggests important differences between ants and humans. Ants don’t have systems of belief such as religions, or diverse forms of art from music to sculpture. Humans write books about ants, but ants don’t write about us, or indeed about anything. Ants don’t complain about working conditions and start unions or establish political parties. They don’t sing operas, form heavy metal accordion bands, or talk about the weather and organize picnics (although they may attend them). Of course, ants don’t talk at all. Ants may die doing what humans might describe as defending their nests, but they don’t get medals. The idea of an ant hero sacrificing her life in the way a human may for a belief doesn’t make sense in their way of life.

Humans, in contrast, live for beliefs and die in the name of causes. Aspects of human cultures from the Egyptian pyramids to Stonehenge to the carved cedar memorial poles of the Haida of Haida Gwaii don’t seem to be essential for physical survival, and yet they somehow are vital for the belief systems people depend on. Status, traditions, family crests, and how others think about us are foundational aspects of being human, yet they seem to be missing in other species. Humans have diverse cultural belief systems—we live in social worlds based on justifications; we give each other reasons for our action. We are a story-telling species; we need purpose and meaning in our lives.⁶ We have histories. We reflect on the past, and wonder about the future, whereas ants live only in the present. Although we can describe their activity as preparing for the winter, that form of awareness is not needed for their lives. Ants have what we might describe as brutal campaigns against their neighbors but they don’t reflect on the morality of these raids, whereas we humans may. What are these differences due to?

Perhaps being human has to do with self-awareness. Jeremy’s son, Max, was 8, when he asked the fascinating question: “Do animals know they are alive?” Of course, other animals are alive, but they do not seem to be aware of this in the way that humans are. We humans know we are alive. Can we explain how humans—a part of nature—have evolved to the point of being aware of themselves and of nature? The Dutch poet Cees Nooteboom put it in a way that has been familiar to developmental psychologists since the 1920s, and within Tibetan Buddhism_⁷ “We are nature’s method of thinking about itself.”⁸ Humans, it seems, are the only life form on this planet, the only part of the universe as far as we know, that is aware of itself.

This self-awareness means that humans are most likely the only species on the planet with the understanding that we are alive, and, therefore, can become aware of the implication of this knowledge, which is that we will die. This awareness of the future and of our death is the knowledge that got humans kicked out of the blissful ignorance of Eden.⁹ Knowledge of others’ view of ourselves is shown in the biblical story of the Garden of Eden, with its roots in The Epic of Gilgamesh,¹⁰ a 4000 year-old poem from ancient Mesopotamia. This serves as a metaphor for the implications of our self-awareness and of humans’ eternal quest to avoid death. Our ability to imagine the future can potentially fuel our search for purpose and meaning in life. Humans are a species with the ability to ask questions about where we come from, and we need stories to provide a secure, comfortable place for us in the otherwise inhospitable and overwhelmingly vast universe.¹¹

We argue that an understanding of the “self” develops within social relations through becoming aware of others’ view of ourselves. This makes us so vitally concerned with how other people think about us—others’ respect is important for our sense of who we are. We live in webs of interpersonal commitment to each other based on trust. Our friendships and relationships are fundamental to our lives. We construct identities around how others view us. We have selves in the sense that we can reflect on ourselves from others’ perspectives. Pet owners might claim that their animals also have selves, but although they may be selves in the sense of having particular ways of acting and interacting—a personality, in a way—they don’t have selves in the sense of being self-aware. This, we argue, develops through taking others’ perspectives. We develop as persons because we grow up being treated as someone rather than something.¹²

We focus on the differences in the ways in which ants and humans learn to live within radically differing environments because to understand what it is to be human, to recognize the human mind, it is vital to notice the crucially different ways in which ant societies and those of other species work compared to human social groups.

We both come from a school of developmental psychology which holds that human social interaction is the key to what makes us human. We contend that the differences between our species and ants are a consequence of the nature of our social relations. The ability to master these social processes leads each of us as individuals to develop a human mind. You might think that other species also interact with each other, but there is an important difference. Ants follow trails marked by pheromones, chemical signals, left by other individuals, but laying a trail does not require understanding how others respond to the chemicals left behind. This simple form of communication has made possible the incredibly complex organization in the societies of social insects. Although we can also see this form of unintentional communication in human interaction, most human communication works in a crucially different way. We are aware of the meaning that our actions or words have for other people. Of course, misunderstandings do occur, requiring repairs to achieve mutual understanding. Such awareness of how others understand us is not necessary, or at all in evidence, for the forms of communication used by ants and many other species. It is difficult to convey the importance of this difference and its far-reaching consequences.

It is this awareness of others’ view of us that we are concerned with in this book. We focus on how such awareness originates, and we are interested in what humans can do with this form of communication that arises first, and gradually, in social interaction.¹³

Many other animal species are skilled at engaging with their world in flexible and intelligent ways. Ravens, chimpanzees an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 The problem What is it to be human?
• 2 The baby in the social cradle
• 3 Wittgenstein’s baby: How do words work?
• 4 A brief history of babies: How do babies get the point?
• 5 Thinking about the social world: How do children understand others?
• 6 Becoming a moral being: Early development, emotions, and neuroscience
• 7 Knowing right from wrong: Or, how does morality develop?
• 8 From molecules to minds: Can genes determine thinking?
• 9 The myth of the desert island minds: Can genes determine thinking?
• 10 Social relations and reason: What are the implications of self-awareness?
• References
• Index