I don't identify as Homo sapiens sapiens. I'm not the first autistic person to feel this way. But how can I justify that in conversation with another person?
My belief that I'm not a modern human isn't scientific. It isn't a full flight of fancy either, nor is it just another way of saying that I feel like an outsider. I have no intent to prove that there is another subspecies of H. sapiens beyond modern humans and that I'm one of them, but I can at least try to describe my ontology.
Biologically, what does it mean to be human? I assert without evidence that Homo sapiens sapiens has certain traits that are definitive of the subspecies. You would be right to dismiss this assertion. Here anyway are those traits as I see them.
Humans are tribal. I use tribal here rather than social very deliberately. Humans aren't simply gregarious; they are specifically warlike. They invariably form tribes that war with each other. Isolated from any groups, forced into social exile, a human will become unhappy. And the purposes of human groups are exclusion and competition. I believe tribalism to be atomic to humans. That is, I believe it's essential, ubiquitous in every population, and nearly universal across the whole species. Humans need to engage in competition, politics, and exclusion for their psychological well-being.
Opportunism is another atomic human trait. No matter what laws or obstacles are in place, humans will try to get what they want by any means necessary. They don't like to be finished. They want to pioneer. A human without any recourse to new experiences will become bored or even miserable. Humans want to avoid feeling stuck or trapped. A trapped human will become self destructive. In order to feel as free and as happy as possible, humans need the space and the choice to explore and expand.
Humans are emotional. They can also be logical, but they prioritize emotional reactions over logical ones. I consider this the weakest of the assertions I'm making here. Motivation is emotion's only advantageous function, but humans tend to apply it as a reasoning tool. In this way, they often build their understanding back to front, placing reason behind emotion in the apparatus that drives their consideration of what is happening and what they must do. This may be cultural; my limited social experience must admit of all skepticism toward the point I'm making here.
I don't share these traits with modern humans. If tribalism, opportunism, and strong emotionality are traits that are essential to and inextricable from H. s. sapiens, then what is a Homo sapiens who doesn't have them? Perhaps an aberration, perhaps merely a variance, or perhaps a subspecies of that primate. The third option has far less explanatory power. Nonetheless, when I regard humans, I see none of myself beyond simple physiognomy. I appear human, and I am definitely of the genus Homo. But I feel separate from Homo sapiens on many levels, and I am diabolically compelled to wonder if that separateness, which seems so important, is better called quale or quantum.
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