I'm as human as a person who obsessively watches nature documentaries and imagines himself being a lion is a lion. I don't really experience being human, I just observe humans doing human things and larp as one in my skinsuit. I feel like an alien who was sent here to gather data on humans, but fails terribly at it, because I can't pull the "hello, fellow humans" shtick convincingly with the data I have.
I don't really experience being human. I don't really have memories, there's nothing worth remembering in my life. I just kinda started existing and went along with it, because my body discourages killing myself. I know what a friend is, I have a vague concept of what you're supposed to do with one, I kinda can imagine what experiencing a sleepover should feel like based on the data I've gathered (from conversations, media etc. ), but I've never actually experienced friendship or a sleepover -- they're just abstract concepts that exist in my brain.
If someone asked "how is being human like?", it'd be impossible for me to respond. I've never really been human. I can tell about what I imagine being human feels like, but I'm just presenting the data I've gathered, not talking about my experiences, because I don't have any. If you wanted to know what being e. g. a rural Pakistani goat herder feels like, you could consult either a villager who has actual experience (although limited mostly to his direct surrounding and possibly basic understanding) or a scholar who never actually experienced being one, but he has all the data and little details about customs and such. Both answers could be useful in their own way, but it's obvious that merely learning about something is not the same as experiencing it.
I don't really experience being human. I don't really have memories, there's nothing worth remembering in my life. I just kinda started existing and went along with it, because my body discourages killing myself. I know what a friend is, I have a vague concept of what you're supposed to do with one, I kinda can imagine what experiencing a sleepover should feel like based on the data I've gathered (from conversations, media etc. ), but I've never actually experienced friendship or a sleepover -- they're just abstract concepts that exist in my brain.
If someone asked "how is being human like?", it'd be impossible for me to respond. I've never really been human. I can tell about what I imagine being human feels like, but I'm just presenting the data I've gathered, not talking about my experiences, because I don't have any. If you wanted to know what being e. g. a rural Pakistani goat herder feels like, you could consult either a villager who has actual experience (although limited mostly to his direct surrounding and possibly basic understanding) or a scholar who never actually experienced being one, but he has all the data and little details about customs and such. Both answers could be useful in their own way, but it's obvious that merely learning about something is not the same as experiencing it.
