Where do we start in trying to understand human beings? There are many answers; for the sake of simplicity, let us introduce two.

Some hold we should start with ourselves, each of us individually: you with your knowledge of your idiosyncratic desires and dreams, and me with my knowledge of my needs and limitations. One might wonder where else I could start in a quest to understand humans if not with the human I know best. My intuitions about myself provide the first subject matter for study, the hard data, as it were, to be explained. Let's call people who share this view first-person subjectivists, or intuitionists for short. On one reading, Descartes was an intuitionist insofar as he believed he could be certain of one thing: that the person thinking his thoughts was him. Descartes believed any theory that did not honor this fundamental fact would thereby be proved wrong. Those who find their beginning point for understanding human nature in autobiographical accounts probably share some commitments with Descartes.

Others may not trust their intuitions and express deep skepticism about one's ability to form an accurate picture of oneself. Those folks--let's call them third-person objectivists--favor scientific accounts, especially evolutionary accounts. To begin sorting through the issues, we begin with an examination of our own understanding of what makes humans human. Is it our intelligence, sentience, consciousness? What do those things mean? Read Anderson's module 'What is a person?', being sure to complete the submodule it contains called 'Artificial Intelligence: Can a Machine Think?' where you will play two games. One is called 'Last one loses,' and you play it with a computer named Larry. The second is called "Larry Learner" and you play it with a different computer.