# Are people the same or are there differences?



## GiveMeATicketToWork

Are we all the same or are there differences in people?


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## OldLady

There are real differences in personality, how we perceive and react to our world.  But there are fundamental commonalities in being human.  Why do you ask?


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## Pogo

Yes and no.  Or the other way around.


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## there4eyeM

Each person is unique. Each life is the beginning of the universe, and a big bang of perceptual reality springs into being. Each death is the end of the universe. 
Remember, nothing can be proved to exist except consciousness.

*“We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.” (Mencken)*


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## Dogmaphobe

There is one of me.

There are over 7 billion of you.


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## Bruce_T_Laney

No...

Human genetic variation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This should be the starter of your quest to understand why we are not all the same...


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## there4eyeM

Dogmaphobe said:


> There is one of me.
> 
> There are over 7 billion of you.


Prove it, without resorting to hearsay from beyond personal perception.


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## Hugo Furst

I am NOTHING like this guy


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## Dogmaphobe

there4eyeM said:


> Dogmaphobe said:
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> There is one of me.
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> There are over 7 billion of you.
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> Prove it
Click to expand...


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## Hugo Furst

Dogmaphobe said:


> there4eyeM said:
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> Dogmaphobe said:
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> There is one of me.
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> There are over 7 billion of you.
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> Prove it
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> Click to expand...
Click to expand...



41


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## Dogmaphobe

WillHaftawaite said:


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> there4eyeM said:
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> Dogmaphobe said:
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> There is one of me.
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> There are over 7 billion of you.
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> Prove it
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> Click to expand...
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> 41
Click to expand...



Life?  Universe? Everything?


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## Hugo Furst

We are all unique, each unto ourselves


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## OldLady

WillHaftawaite said:


> I am NOTHING like this guy


It takes amazing talent to make your hair do that.  Are you sure that's a guy, though?


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## there4eyeM

Dogmaphobe said:


> WillHaftawaite said:
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> Dogmaphobe said:
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> there4eyeM said:
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> Dogmaphobe said:
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> There is one of me.
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> There are over 7 billion of you.
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> Prove it
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> Click to expand...
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> 41
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> Click to expand...
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> Life?  Universe? Everything?
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> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


Anything other than consciousness, using the criterion of the original quote, "Prove it, without resorting to hearsay from beyond personal perception."


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## Dogmaphobe

OldLady said:


> WillHaftawaite said:
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> I am NOTHING like this guy
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> It takes amazing talent to make your hair do that.  Are you sure that's a guy, though?
Click to expand...



 I was thinking that was probably  a vaginal-American, too.


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## GiveMeATicketToWork

OldLady said:


> There are real differences in personality, how we perceive and react to our world.  But there are fundamental commonalities in being human.  Why do you ask?



Just interesting to me.

Thank you so much for answering.


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## there4eyeM

Belief is choice. Whatever input about whatever subject we may experience, other than direct perception, believing the truth of it is a choice. What is sad is that we learn to accept without realizing that choice.


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## PK1

WillHaftawaite said:


> I am NOTHING like this guy


---
And yet you eat and shit like her.
.


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## Hugo Furst

I eat and shit like Obama does, that doesn't make me president.

I eat and shit like Hitler did, that doesn't make me a mass murderer.

I eat and shit like Bill Gates does, that doesn't make me a multimillionaire

I eat and shit like you do, that doesn't make me an idiot.


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## PK1

WillHaftawaite said:


> I eat and shit like Obama does, that doesn't make me president.
> 
> I eat and shit like Hitler did, that doesn't make me a mass murderer.
> 
> I eat and shit like Bill Gates does, that doesn't make me a multimillionaire
> 
> I eat and shit like you do, that doesn't make me an idiot.


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Just pointing out that we ALL have basic human behaviors in common, as well as many differences.
We focus on what we like usually.
Like "seeing" glass half full or half empty.
.


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## Bleipriester

Given that there is limited choice on how to act and react, we can classify human behavior in types. I am saying behavior because one can tend to be that type in this situation and to be this type in that situation. Our behavior is not fully predictable because - despite all scientific claims - our choice is free and not bound to a set of scripts. Ultimately, we are all individuals and not the same.


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## Asclepias

We are the same fundamentally and where its important. We are different in our experiences and perceptions of the world around us.


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## PK1

Bleipriester said:


> Given that there is limited choice on how to act and react, we can classify human behavior in types. I am saying behavior because one can tend to be that type in this situation and to be this type in that situation. Our behavior is not fully predictable because - despite all scientific claims - our choice is free and not bound to a set of scripts. Ultimately, we are all individuals and not the same.


---
Huh?
Why did you say "_despite all scientific claims_"?
Me thinks you are blowing out your ass again.

Animals, including the human kind, behave in genetic & learned (ontogenetic) patterns, and those behaviors, including beliefs, are often subconscious.
However, if the situation has some complexity & the animal has opportunity to contemplate choices, then yes, their decision is "free", including not making a choice beyond their learned pattern.
.


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## Bleipriester

PK1 said:


> Bleipriester said:
> 
> 
> 
> Given that there is limited choice on how to act and react, we can classify human behavior in types. I am saying behavior because one can tend to be that type in this situation and to be this type in that situation. Our behavior is not fully predictable because - despite all scientific claims - our choice is free and not bound to a set of scripts. Ultimately, we are all individuals and not the same.
> 
> 
> 
> ---
> Huh?
> Why did you say "_despite all scientific claims_"?
> Me thinks you are blowing out your ass again.
> 
> Animals, including the human kind, behave in genetic & learned (ontogenetic) patterns, and those behaviors, including beliefs, are often subconscious.
> However, if the situation has some complexity & the animal has opportunity to contemplate choices, then yes, their decision is "free", including not making a choice beyond their learned pattern.
> .
Click to expand...

There was a documentation stating there is no free will - as the accepted reality. As example, they took a thirsty man who wakes up and goes to the refrigerator to have a drink. There was a drink he likes best and another he does not like so much. So he takes the drink he likes best and that´s the "scientists´ proof" that we have no free will.
But we have. The guy is not bound to his drink and nothing forces me to reply to you.


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## PK1

Bleipriester said:


> PK1 said:
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> Bleipriester said:
> 
> 
> 
> Given that there is limited choice on how to act and react, we can classify human behavior in types. I am saying behavior because one can tend to be that type in this situation and to be this type in that situation. Our behavior is not fully predictable because - despite all scientific claims - our choice is free and not bound to a set of scripts. Ultimately, we are all individuals and not the same.
> 
> 
> 
> ---
> Huh?
> Why did you say "_despite all scientific claims_"?
> Me thinks you are blowing out your ass again.
> 
> Animals, including the human kind, behave in genetic & learned (ontogenetic) patterns, and those behaviors, including beliefs, are often subconscious.
> However, if the situation has some complexity & the animal has opportunity to contemplate choices, then yes, their decision is "free", including not making a choice beyond their learned pattern.
> .
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> There was a documentation stating there is no free will - as the accepted reality. As example, they took a thirsty man who wakes up and goes to the refrigerator to have a drink. There was a drink he likes best and another he does not like so much. So he takes the drink he likes best and that´s the "scientists´ proof" that we have no free will.
> But we have. The guy is not bound to his drink and nothing forces me to reply to you.
Click to expand...

---
_First of all, *"free will" *_is a philosophical "problem", a concept that does not have agreement on its definition.
Once a conceptual definition is chosen, then & only then, can it become a scientific question, and is described as an "operational definition" in research.

There will be no scientific consensus on "free will" if philosophers can't agree on its conceptual definition.
.


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## numan

'
'
I am a determined determinist who has always found the notion of "free will" to be a remarkably confused notion.
*De nihilo nihil fit* : "Nothing comes from nothing" -- the basis of Leibnitz's *Principle of Sufficient Reason*



> In fact Leibniz opposed fatalism and had a more nuanced and characteristic version of the principle, in which the contingent was admitted on the basis of infinitary reasons, to which God had access but humans did not. He explained this while discussing the problem of future contingents :
> *We have said that the concept of an individual substance* [Leibniz also uses the term haecceity] *includes once for all everything which can ever happen to it and that in considering this concept one will be able to see everything which can truly be said concerning the individual, just as we are able to see in the nature of a circle all the properties which can be derived from it. But does it not seem that in this way the difference between contingent and necessary truths will be destroyed, that there will be no place for human liberty, and that an absolute fatality will rule as well over all our actions as over all the rest of the events of the world? To this I reply that a distinction must be made between that which is certain and that which is necessary.*
> Without this qualification, the principle can be seen as a description of a certain notion of closed system, in which there is no 'outside' to provide unexplained events with causes.


The notion of "infinitary causes" may be adumbrated by considering the Earth during the Age of Dinosaurs as a closed, deterministic system. Then, *from outside the system,* comes an unpredicted and possibly unpredictable event : an asteroid that hits the Earth and throws the predictable future history of the Earth into chaos.
Of course, in a larger frame of reference, the asteroid may be an entirely deterministic, predictable phenomenon -- but unpredictable events may intrude upon that system from a yet wider frame of reference, and so on.

Perhaps the real question is : does this chain of systems proceed to infinity, or does it somehow "curve back in on itself" in a finite system of unpredictability --  as in Jorge Luis Borges'  "The Library of Babel" ?
.


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## numan

'
In 1901 the German writer, Kurd Laßwitz, wrote a short story entitled, "Die Universalbibliotek." Here is a link to an on-line copy:

Die Universalbibliothek von Kurd Laßwitz - Text im Projekt Gutenberg

His story of a Universal Library was improved upon by Jorge Luis Borges in his short story, "The Library of Babel," on-line version at:

The Library of Babel

In the Library of Babel, every book is a random jumble of letters, spaces and typographical symbols. Any possible combination of symbols will occur on some line, page or book somewhere in the library. One must travel light-years to discover a single, grammatical sentence of English. Yet not a single sentence in the library is without a clear and distinct meaning. For there are an infinite number of possible languages, and the grammars and manuals of instruction for those languages must all exist in an infinite library, and each sentence in the library will have one or many meanings in certain languages. Even a sentence consisting of "*aaaaaaaaaa....*" will have a meaning in some cryptological code, and that code will be explained in one or more volumes somewhere in the library.
It is a corollary of the mathematical proofs of Georg Cantor that although the Library consists of an almost infinite number of books distributed in a disorder of infinite extent, this infinity is exceeded by the hyper-infinity of the languages and codes which explicate even a single volume of the Library ---- and this hyper-infinity is "enfolded" in the relatively small infinity of the volumes in the Library!
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## Bleipriester

PK1 said:


> Bleipriester said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> PK1 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Bleipriester said:
> 
> 
> 
> Given that there is limited choice on how to act and react, we can classify human behavior in types. I am saying behavior because one can tend to be that type in this situation and to be this type in that situation. Our behavior is not fully predictable because - despite all scientific claims - our choice is free and not bound to a set of scripts. Ultimately, we are all individuals and not the same.
> 
> 
> 
> ---
> Huh?
> Why did you say "_despite all scientific claims_"?
> Me thinks you are blowing out your ass again.
> 
> Animals, including the human kind, behave in genetic & learned (ontogenetic) patterns, and those behaviors, including beliefs, are often subconscious.
> However, if the situation has some complexity & the animal has opportunity to contemplate choices, then yes, their decision is "free", including not making a choice beyond their learned pattern.
> .
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> There was a documentation stating there is no free will - as the accepted reality. As example, they took a thirsty man who wakes up and goes to the refrigerator to have a drink. There was a drink he likes best and another he does not like so much. So he takes the drink he likes best and that´s the "scientists´ proof" that we have no free will.
> But we have. The guy is not bound to his drink and nothing forces me to reply to you.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> ---
> _First of all, *"free will" *_is a philosophical "problem", a concept that does not have agreement on its definition.
> Once a conceptual definition is chosen, then & only then, can it become a scientific question, and is described as an "operational definition" in research.
> 
> There will be no scientific consensus on "free will" if philosophers can't agree on its conceptual definition.
> .
Click to expand...

I don´t care. I can figure out myself if I have a free will or not. Come on, it is easy.


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## PK1

numan said:


> '
> I am a determined determinist who has always found the notion of "free will" to be a remarkably confused notion.
> *De nihilo nihil fit* : "Nothing comes from nothing" --
> ... the principle can be seen as a description of a certain notion of closed system, in which there is no 'outside' to provide unexplained events with causes. ...
> The notion of "infinitary causes" ...
> *from outside the system,* comes an unpredicted and possibly unpredictable event ... an asteroid that hits the Earth ... from a yet wider frame of reference, and so on.
> 
> Perhaps the real question is : does this chain of systems proceed to infinity, or does it somehow "curve back in on itself" in a finite system of unpredictability --  as in Jorge Luis Borges'  "The Library of Babel" ?
> .


---
Your relativistic notion on *causation *vs* unpredictability* seems one-sided;  you can go "small" as well as "big ".

The eminent philosopher, John Searle, has written extensively on the problem of consciousness and often reflects on the problem of "*free will*". Recently (more or less), he proposed *quantum* *indeterminism* as a factor, and maybe a requirement for consciousness in his *2-stage model*:
1) At the neural/physical level, some quantum indeterminism is involved at "a lower level", then
2) at the "higher-level" of consciousness, which inherits the indeterminism without inheriting the randomness, decisions are made.
These "conscious" level decisions often reflect learned/deterministic behavioral patterns. Hence:

* First "*free*," then "*will*." First chance, then choice.
Our thoughts come to us freely. Our actions go from us willfully.

Closed belief systems, such as religious dogma, are very deterministic, i.e., do *not* respect "free will" at the conscious decision level.
However, agnostic scientific methods, based on open-minded logical philosophical thought, may represent some "free will" ... beyond choosing which conscious thought you want to follow with overt behavior.
.


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## numan

PK1 said:


> numan said:
> 
> 
> 
> '
> I am a determined determinist who has always found the notion of "free will" to be a remarkably confused notion.
> *De nihilo nihil fit* : "Nothing comes from nothing" --
> ... the principle can be seen as a description of a certain notion of closed system, in which there is no 'outside' to provide unexplained events with causes. ...
> The notion of "infinitary causes" ...
> *from outside the system,* comes an unpredicted and possibly unpredictable event ... an asteroid that hits the Earth ... from a yet wider frame of reference, and so on.
> 
> Perhaps the real question is : does this chain of systems proceed to infinity, or does it somehow "curve back in on itself" in a finite system of unpredictability --  as in Jorge Luis Borges'  "The Library of Babel" ?
> .
> 
> 
> 
> ---
> Your relativistic notion on *causation *vs* unpredictability* seems one-sided;  you can go "small" as well as "big ".
> 
> The eminent philosopher, John Searle, has written extensively on the problem of consciousness and often reflects on the problem of "*free will*". Recently (more or less), he proposed *quantum* *indeterminism* as a factor....
Click to expand...

All of science functions on the basis of the Principle of Sufficient Reason --- *EXCEPT* for the glaring contradiction of quantum indeterminism.

I think this should be a red flag that, as Einstein thought, quantum mechanics is incomplete, and something  much more subtle is going on.

We have had our Copernican Revolution with respect to space, but I thing we are still waiting for the equivalent revolution with respect to time.
.


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## PK1

numan said:


> PK1 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> numan said:
> 
> 
> 
> '
> I am a determined determinist who has always found the notion of "free will" to be a remarkably confused notion.
> *De nihilo nihil fit* : "Nothing comes from nothing" --
> ... the principle can be seen as a description of a certain notion of closed system, in which there is no 'outside' to provide unexplained events with causes. ...
> The notion of "infinitary causes" ...
> *from outside the system,* comes an unpredicted and possibly unpredictable event ... an asteroid that hits the Earth ... from a yet wider frame of reference, and so on.
> 
> Perhaps the real question is : does this chain of systems proceed to infinity, or does it somehow "curve back in on itself" in a finite system of unpredictability --  as in Jorge Luis Borges'  "The Library of Babel" ?
> .
> 
> 
> 
> Your relativistic notion on *causation *vs* unpredictability* seems one-sided;  you can go "small" as well as "big ".
> 
> The eminent philosopher, John Searle, has written extensively on the problem of consciousness and often reflects on the problem of "*free will*". Recently (more or less), he proposed *quantum* *indeterminism* as a factor....
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> All of science functions on the basis of the Principle of Sufficient Reason --- *EXCEPT* for the glaring contradiction of quantum indeterminism.
> 
> I think this should be a red flag that, as Einstein thought, quantum mechanics is incomplete, and something  much more subtle is going on.
> 
> We have had our Copernican Revolution with respect to space, but I thing we are still waiting for the equivalent revolution with respect to time.
> .
Click to expand...

---
The space issue has more to resolve, both big & small, along with time and various forces interacting between matter types.
.


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## Gracie

We are all the same. The "learning" to become what you are, what you believe, your morals, your convictions, your loves and hates, etc. all starts at home right after your birth.

A poor family in a 3rd world country can raise a person to be the kindest, most generous, most moral, most loving, etc and a rich family can do the same...or teach their child all that is at their disposal is earned, should be appreciated, etc....or both spectrums can be taught the opposite. So yes...people are the same. It's how they are raised and what they are taught.


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## emilynghiem

GiveMeATicketToWork said:


> Are we all the same or are there differences in people?



Dear GiveMeATicketToWork
Each individual is unique. But we follow common patterns.
We all have a conscience that carries influences from past generations to the future.
We follow patterns from our mother's side of the family, and our father's -- both physically, psychological and spiritually
although we can change how we deal with and manifest what we inherit.

We all have three levels, body mind and spirit,
or individual/physical life experiences, collective humanity on a spiritual or abstract scale,
and psychologically by conscience or relationships connecting individual will to collective will.

The laws of human nature governing this relationship between the individual and collective
are what inspire our different cultural traditions, laws, and religions.

So these all have a common structure and process of growth and development,
but culturally all lineages and generations experience their own version of these patterns,
and each individual goes through their stages and process in life.

NOTE: if you look up the stages of grief and recovery, you might recognize universal
patterns that each individual and all humanity goes through to reach full maturity and peace.
However, not every person or every culture goes through the same phases at the same time.
Some cultures already went through their slavery and war phase and have moved on to later phases of political and social/spiritual development; some are just now coming to full fruition with the tribal wars and genocide.  We can't compare directly, but if we look at things relatively we can see the common patterns, where they are coming from and where they are going.


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## PK1

emilynghiem said:


> Each individual is unique. But we follow common patterns.
> We all have a conscience that carries influences from past generations to the future.
> We follow patterns from our mother's side of the family, and our father's -- both physically, psychological and spiritually
> although we can change how we deal with and manifest what we inherit.
> 
> We all have three levels, body mind and spirit,
> or individual/physical life experiences, collective humanity on a spiritual or abstract scale,
> and psychologically by conscience or relationships connecting individual will to collective will.
> ...


---
I agree that "we" (mammals, etc) follow patterns that are related to species/DNA and cultural/family ontogenetic development.
However, i would simplify and say we all have one "level": *body*.
The mind is part of the body, and so are emotions ("spirit").
.


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## yiostheoy

Reading history tells me that people have not really changed very much over time.

For anyone not really good at history I recommend:

"History Of The World" by J.M. Roberts, Penguin Books (2002).


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