Wesley Yang asks: “Homo sapiens were for tens of thousands of years one of several competing hominid species. Is there any cultural memory preserved of this phase of our prehistory in ancient myth?”
Here are some possibilities mentioned in the replies:
The myth of the ebu gogo: an ancient legend from the Indonesian island of Flores https://aeon.co/ideas/investigating-homo-floresiensis-and-the-myth-of-the-ebu-gogo
Orang Pendek: “In Indonesian folklore, the Orang Pendek (Indonesian for 'short person') is the most common name given to a creature said to inhabit remote, mountainous forests on the island of Sumatra.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orang_Pendek
“One telling of Hadza's oral history divides their past into four epochs, each inhabited by a different culture. According to this tradition, in the beginning of time the world was inhabited by hairy giants called the akakaanebee "first ones" or geranebee "ancient ones". The akakaanebee did not possess tools or fire; they hunted game by running it down until it fell dead; they ate the meat raw. They did not build houses but slept under trees, as the Hadza do today in the dry season.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadza_people
Genesis 6:1-4 might preserve the memory of Neanderthals interbreeding with Homo Sapiens https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephilim
“In Norse mythology, troll, like thurs, is a term applied to jötnar and is mentioned throughout the Old Norse corpus. In Old Norse sources, trolls are said to dwell in isolated mountains, rocks, and caves, sometimes live together (usually as father-and-daughter or mother-and-son), and are rarely described as helpful or friendly.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll#Norse_mythology
Is the Hindu monkey god Hanuman really Homo erectus? https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3048479/hindu-monkey-god-hanuman-really-homo-erectus
The following hypothesis is not really about culture but still fascinating: “The uncanny valley is a remnant of this. The almost-human triggers a much stronger emotional reaction than any animal.” (@shi_hongyi) Has evolution instilled a fear of the not-quite-human in us? Given millions of years of inter-hominid-species conflicts, this seems possible.
“Folk tales are full of anthropomorph tribes or monsters. Perhaps in these traces of the inter-hominid-species conflicts are hidden. However, I think that these prehistoric events were overlaid by later ones, which took place during the various waves of Homo sapiens migration. A nice example is the Irish saga of the Túatha Dé Danann, which conquered Ireland and expelled the Fomori, which were described as human-like but heavily deformed, and may represent the pre-Celtic people of Ireland.” — David Becker (Facebook comment)
See also: When Orcs were Real: The Ancient Struggle for Homo Sapiens to Rule the Earth https://treeofwoe.substack.com/p/when-orcs-were-real
Racism vs. Speciesism
I would love to see what a counterfactual world would look like in which another species of the genus Homo was still alive yet undeniably less intelligent.
In our world, people draw a sharp line between animals and humans and claim that those categories are incommensurable.
This is then used to argue against a wide range of positions such as vegetarianism and racism. But in such a counterfactual world, this distinction couldn't be made. There would be a clear example of something that's neither human nor animal.
If these beings were, say, 1 meter in height, with full-body fur, and a rudimentary language, then nobody would deny that they belong to a different species.
But note that we don’t really have to imagine such a world. Some people already believe that certain human subpopulations belong to a different species:
Pygmies, who separated from other humans some 130,000 years ago, have been suffering from centuries of systematic discrimination and to this day face genocide, enslavement, and also cannibalism by Bantu groups: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Pygmies?#Contemporary_issues_in_society
In the Republic of Congo, where Pygmies make up 2% of the population, many Pygmies still live as slaves to Bantu masters.
This highlights how dangerous it is for one’s definition of “personhood” to rely on the lucky circumstance that other members of the genus Homo are extinct. And the often hostile reaction to the possible creation of human-monkey chimeras supports this: people fear that their morality could break down when faced with such beings.
On the resilience of moral foundations
Those concerned about “scientific racism” remind me of the religious who fear that a lack of faith will lead to atrocities and of people who believe that without free will we cannot have justice.
They should instead be concerned about basing their morality on shaky foundations.
The possibility of human biodiversity shows that the rules of how we treat each other need to be resilient enough to withstand an ontological crisis. We need to codify the rules that govern our peaceful coexistence in such a way that their validity does not depend on our ability to win a war against an uncaring universe.
Inalienable rights, human dignity, and equality before the law should not be based on the equality of individuals or groups but on our collective desire to live in a society in which we don’t have to constantly fight for power in order to protect ourselves and our loved ones.
The justice system shouldn’t be based on guilt and responsibility (free will) but on the protection of society from individuals that harm it by violating its rules. This can be done effectively by means of imprisonment, deterrence, and resocialization with or without free will.
My point here is not to defend moral realism but to argue that basing the validity of moral principles, rules, or laws on falsifiable assumptions about the world makes them vulnerable and that this vulnerability can be minimized. Indeed, it is possible to argue in favor of resilient moral foundations purely based on your personal goals.
Suppose, for example, that your objective was to invent a ball game and to maximize the number of people that will play it. You will need to come up with certain rules that define your game. Now the abstract space of ball game rules is infinite and if you could randomly choose one set of rules then the probability of people wanting to play by those rules would be small. For example, if you took the rules of soccer and added the stipulation that one has to knit a scarf before scoring a goal then it’s very unlikely that this game would become popular.
What if your objective was to prevent murder? How could you anchor a rule against murder in order for it to be taken seriously by a maximum number of people over time even when not being actively enforced? Here are three possibilities:
Murder is wrong because God commanded us not to murder.
Murder is wrong because the earth is flat.
Murder is wrong because it undermines our desire to live in a peaceful society.
One can, of course, reject all three. But, in the long-term, the last one is much more resilient and compelling than the first two rules.
How does this relate to concerns about scientific racism? Those concerns are caused by implicitly anchoring inalienable human rights and dignity on the assumption that everyone is equal. What if it turns out that we are not all equal? We need to adopt a rule that mandates inalienable human rights and dignity which is not based on the assumption of equality.
Is there a general strategy to make our rules compelling and resilient? Yes.
We all have goals that we want to achieve, some of which clash with the goals of other people. But we also have *instrumental* goals, which are goals that we need to pursue in order to achieve our terminal goals, which are goals that we pursue for their own sake. The codification of instrumental goals can be a basis for the rules that define how we treat each other because many of them are conducive to a lot of terminal goals and therefore shared by a lot of people. A prosperous, peaceful society that allows us to focus on more than just survival of the fittest is one such goal that is instrumental to a wide range of human terminal goals.
Even despicable people can be granted civil rights on this basis. Because atrocities happen whenever they don't have them.
Take the worst group you can think of right now. How you feel about them is similar to how people felt about Jews, Tutsi, or Bosnian Muslims just before the killings started.
You might object that, unlike those other groups, the group you thought of is obviously and objectively bad. And maybe you are right. But the fact that genocides did happen in the past tells us that most people are not like you, that most people cannot tell apart groups who are objectively bad from groups that they were just told are bad. And this is why we grant all groups certain inalienable rights: we don't trust most people with granting those rights on a case by case basis.
In practice, people already follow this approach to morality but tend to hide it from themselves.
Think about it this way. Who would you choose to bootstrap the first Mars colony? A random set of people? Of course not. You would choose tough and smart engineers. The same would be true during an existential crisis. We would first save agricultural engineers and scientists.
When it comes to medical triage, very few people would help a serial killer over a scientist who is about to invent a cure for cancer, even if the serial killer is younger and has much better chances of survival.
This idea that everyone is equally valuable is a deontological rule we subscribe to because we know that we are collectively too stupid and irrational to decide who is valuable on a case-by-case basis.
In other words, it is rational to believe that every human life is of equal worth because believing something else would corrupt society. But that doesn't make it true. It's a collective delusion.
Slavery in a world of cognitive diversity
Finally, let’s go a step further and ask what “human” rights could look like in a world populated not only by different species of talking humanoids but also artificial beings such as sentient artificial neural networks.
Here are, for example, some preliminary and rough criteria that we might use to decide whether we would enslave another being in the same way that we currently enslave horses.
The most important criterium is that this being does not desire not to be enslaved and did not desire this before this desire was altered against its will. There are primarily two ways in which this can be true:
(A) Weak case: There currently is no preference not to be enslaved and if this preference existed in the past then successive versions of this being’s self (implicitly) agreed on the removal of this preference.
(B) Strong case: There is an uncoerced desire to serve (e.g. a de novo AI that's programmed to desire enslavement).
Yet, although necessary, A or B are not always sufficient:
(C) If the being possesses conscious experience, it needs to either enjoy to serve or at least not dislike it. It's not enough to want to serve.
(D) If it is possible for a being to evolve, i.e. change its mind, this being also needs to have the ability to retract consent at any time.
If these criteria are satisfied, I would consider enslavement an option.
P. S. Just to give you another example of non-obvious causality (like with the former killer who might, or might not repeat a crime), imagine that you killed someone in one lifetime, then you would be killed in another life, in return, so that you know `how it feels to be killed`, and be more thoughtful in the future. But that was about a `young soul`, only starting to learn about `the laws of the universe`. In the case of `an old soul` you might be killed multiple times - in many lifetimes, until you understand how, on earth, you keep getting caught in vulnerable situations. So that you learn the hard way why that was and how to avoid it in the future.
As in the proverb - a smart man can always find a way out of a difficult situation, while a wise man will never be caught in a difficult situation. Sense the difference.
I couldn't find a better link to illustrate the above, may be you find a better one https://www.thelawofattraction.com/12-spiritual-laws-universe/.
I love these laws, they resonate with what we know in physics, yet have a larger applicability.
See #8 The Law of Compensation
According to the Law of Compensation, you will receive what you put out. This is similar to the Law of Attraction, but with a focus on the idea that compensation can come in many forms.
For example, if you win a large amount of money then you might think you're getting a reward.
However, depending on how you have lived, your vast amount of wealth could lead to a worse life rather than a better one. This law reminds you to be careful about how you treat others, and indeed the planet.
Indeed people are free to interpret the laws as they can, there should be no monopoly on this. (I found someone who wrote 72 pages on them https://www.desarrolloconsciencia.org/eng/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/2_The_Laws_of_Universe_and_Life_PROTEGIDO.pdf).
Many just cut & paste them, very few reflect on them.
To me it is important that they resonate with what we know from physics - it appears that they manifest similarly, depending on the `plane`/dimension (physical, spiritual).
I prefer to say ethics instead of morals, because morals depend on the society and its historical period, while ethics is something more durable in time, and more general, like `Don`t do to others what you do not want to experience yourself`- otherwise one gets into double standards and all sort of hierarchical reasoning.
Similarly, I almost blinked when I read that `Enslavement could be an option.` To me it sounds like, if I enslave someone, then the other person would have the right to enslave me as well. An analogy to energy conservation and equilibrium laws in physics. One might use me for his purposes, but then I have the right to also get something in return.
It sounds different to me, if you say service instead - as I believe there is no equality in the world as such - we exchange what we have all the time, trying to make the best out of we get. Moreover, it could be the only way we can learn something in the world.
Also, on murder - simple logic tells us that if someone does it once then he might repeat it, yet it could be the opposite - some people regret their deeds so profoundly that they would never repeat them again. There is no obvious sign to know for sure what happens next - it could be that the one who never committed anything despisable may do it later, as for the first time.
My father was teaching me how to forgive in general: `Imagine the way you regret something, so others do.`
To me the question of free will and liberty lies in achieving my goals, yet not at the detriment of others, and I would expect the same in return. There is no other way to close this issue, otherwise we need a sort of hierarchy to define who gets what, and as you mentioned, it is all shaky.
But serving sounds just about right, similarly as we do our jobs and get something in return. No objectification, everyone is a subject - it is the way to preserve dignity to all. Abuse and violence appear where this balance is broken.
My father would say that one can not avoid problems in his life `You solve one problem and move to the next`, we can only choose them - so, everything is a kind of service, we should be diligent in what we invest our efforts.
I can think of `enslavement` only in terms of AI and robots, as they do not have their own will, and hence there is no infringement.