What do you think separates humans from other animals?
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It depends how you define "separate"? We're a sperate SPECIES with diffrent traits which are either less or more developped than traits of other species.
Our big brain, which allows us to comprehend way more than animals can, was already mentioned for example.
But we're still animals. We work the same way, have the same ancestors and we're developped by natural selection like any other animal on this planet too.
So statements like "We achieved stuff, the animal kingdom couldn't in millions of years" is toally bollocks because we're part of the animal kingdom. Currently at the top of it, but nontheless a part.
Also stuff like "animals don't have emotions" and what not are also completly bollocks. You can't generalize a friggin Elphant works diffrent than a worm, which works diffrent than a fish.
Emotions are changes of the neural + chemical state the body is currently in. Everything with a brain has them.
Animals mourn, get angry or can feel fear => emotions.
Our big brain, which allows us to comprehend way more than animals can, was already mentioned for example.
But we're still animals. We work the same way, have the same ancestors and we're developped by natural selection like any other animal on this planet too.
So statements like "We achieved stuff, the animal kingdom couldn't in millions of years" is toally bollocks because we're part of the animal kingdom. Currently at the top of it, but nontheless a part.
Also stuff like "animals don't have emotions" and what not are also completly bollocks. You can't generalize a friggin Elphant works diffrent than a worm, which works diffrent than a fish.
Emotions are changes of the neural + chemical state the body is currently in. Everything with a brain has them.
Animals mourn, get angry or can feel fear => emotions.
Well, not polluting our living spaces with feces is generally a good way to live longer.Wushu Panda said:
But they didn't choose to live there did they? And now they couldn't live anywhere else.Joccaren said:
But those wouldn't not be gorillas and orangutans, but a species with gorilla and orangutan ancestors. If evolution took its course, they would probably looking alot like humans. Like you said, we are still primates after all, but what seperates us from them is our science and culture. (I mean the exsistence of culture it self, none of the Lincoln Park, Jonas Brothers stuff.)Azahul said:
I think what you are referring to is the lady who sued McDonalds after having spilled hot coffee on her. The truth however is, that she suffered horrific burns that you don't normally suffer from having hot-coffee spilled all over you. Shit required medical attention, which in that case you can see why suing McDonalds was the sensible decision.Eve Charm said:
And secondly, natural selection didn't stop, its just changed. Instead of nature and your environment being the deciding factor it is social mechanisms and preferences. Not only are we much better of now (due to us overcoming this primitive state of natural selection), but we are also much, much more humane.
Think about all the people and inventions that we would have never gotten if it weren't for us saying "fuck you" to natural selection. Things such as the arts and science (95% of all scientists that have ever lived are alive this very moment) could not have come if we were to go back to natural selection. Hell, you couldn't be here, posting on a message-board if we were to revert back to our primitive nature.
Suggesting that we let natural selection choose who gets to live and who gets to die is simply heartless, cruel and sadistic. For we would all be less fortunate.
And that, there, is a big part of my point. We're no different from animals. The only reason we have all this technology and visible and obvious culture is because we evolved in a particular way. There's nothing innately special about humans that separates us from animals. We just evolved in a slightly different manner to the other species around us. Which isn't anything great in and of itself, if everything evolved the same way there would be only one species, which would be kinda weird.A Satanic Panda said:
Not chewing your leg off when caught in a trap, but waiting for the hunter to return and take out an enemy of your kind. (cookies if you get the reference)
arogance and stupidity, other animals live just fine while we find the need to further worsen our lives and destroy our world with new technologies, example? if i were a dolphin, i'd be living it up in the sea, having the time of my life, but i am a human, scrambling for a job so i can project the feeble illusion of meaning to my unpleasant existance, MERRY CHRSITMAS EVERYONE!
No, I believe animals can go to heaven if there is one, its just that my interpretation of a soul is bit different than the popular vision.JoesshittyOs said:
Bestiality Laws.
Glad to help move the debate forward and upward!
I guess we prioritise different things.
Animals generally want food,sex,shelter/safety. After that, they just want MORE of those three things.
Ask most humans and they'd sacrifice all three of the above things for an ipad. You'll never find a meerkat or seahorse willing to do that.
Also, I have no concrete figures, but I wouldn't be surprised if we spend more as a race on curing impotence, hair loss and weight gain, than three randomly selected fatal diseases.
Death doesn't seem to be nearly as scary as being a fat slaphead who can't get it up.
I wonder if there's been an experiment with 2 dogs, where both get everything they need and want, but one gets 50% more food. I wonder if the other dog would turn violent or be content knowing it was getting everything it could ever want.
I sense people tend to hate those better off, even if they have everything they need. I can't see that happening in the animal world.
Glad to help move the debate forward and upward!
I guess we prioritise different things.
Animals generally want food,sex,shelter/safety. After that, they just want MORE of those three things.
Ask most humans and they'd sacrifice all three of the above things for an ipad. You'll never find a meerkat or seahorse willing to do that.
Also, I have no concrete figures, but I wouldn't be surprised if we spend more as a race on curing impotence, hair loss and weight gain, than three randomly selected fatal diseases.
Death doesn't seem to be nearly as scary as being a fat slaphead who can't get it up.
I wonder if there's been an experiment with 2 dogs, where both get everything they need and want, but one gets 50% more food. I wonder if the other dog would turn violent or be content knowing it was getting everything it could ever want.
I sense people tend to hate those better off, even if they have everything they need. I can't see that happening in the animal world.
And that "particular way" is what I think separates us. We were the first primates to start making tools and planting crops. No other animal has spread its influence as far we have. THAT is separates us. And it is all that great because that "particular way" is what drives us to land on the moon, build skyscrapers, engineer microchips. Because that slight change altered the behavior of the whole species.Azahul said:
I'm pretty sure there's like a checklist with 7 things on it you need to be considered sentient.Nouw said:
Only one I can remember is "fear of death" in an abstract sense.
self awareness might be on there as well. Or I could just be entirely wrong.
OT: I'm gonna say that there are a lot of things that separate us from animals. Cruelty is one. Animals do what they do to survive, even those that hunt when they aren't hungry are just following their instincts. Humans alone among the animals have the capacity to be willfully and consciously cruel.
That's a big one actually, the power to choose. We do have instincts, but we don't have to follow them, animals do. We can choose to ignore our instincts and act on logic or emotion instead.
or "Man is an animal which, alone among the animals, refuses to be satisfied by the fulfilment of animal desires."
~Alexander Graham Bell
There's nothing that really separates humans from other animals except our ability to become more intelligent by experience, which is abnormally great for an animal. That's all. You mentioned technology and religion, but even you acknowledged that some animals use some forms of "technology". This leaves religion, and for that, think about dogs. Don't you think that they worship us as some sort of semi-divine figure? Or, maybe chimpanzees, although *probably* aware of death by seeing other chimpanzees die, believe in something after death?
I suppose the major one (aside the most obvious lateral thinking explanation of "different gene sequence") would be the ability to conceptualise the intangible. In slightly more comprehensible terms, the ability to build and sustain an idea in our heads, and to then extend on it and draw abstract or intangible conclusions from it. For example, a monkey couldn't come up with Marxism. A dolphin wouldn't be able to comprehend the Higgs Boson particle. You couldn't explain to an ourang-utan the startling similarities between our DNA makeup and his.
It seems that humans, unique of the life on this planet, are able to perpetuate ideas which do not relate directly to any practical physical operations. Orcas, for instance, can learn the beaching technique off of each other, in order to reach seals beyond the waters edge, an extremely risky tactic, as if it goes wrong the whale can be left stranded. However, by observing adults of the pod, and learning from their demonstrations, juveniles can learn the technique for themselves. But what good is a fiction novel to a killer whale?
For another example, octopi are one of the most intelligent invertebrates on the planet. They can navigate mazes, unscrew jars, totally alien man-made objects, and be aware of their surroundings and adopt appropriate camoflague. But what use is music or philosophy to an octopus? Although it may only have been in the last few thousand years or so that Homo sapiens sapiens has progressed to the point where such examples as I've given above have become luxuries, rather than required for the passage of knowledge and so forth, the fact that they exist at all requires the ability to think abstractly.
It seems that humans, unique of the life on this planet, are able to perpetuate ideas which do not relate directly to any practical physical operations. Orcas, for instance, can learn the beaching technique off of each other, in order to reach seals beyond the waters edge, an extremely risky tactic, as if it goes wrong the whale can be left stranded. However, by observing adults of the pod, and learning from their demonstrations, juveniles can learn the technique for themselves. But what good is a fiction novel to a killer whale?
For another example, octopi are one of the most intelligent invertebrates on the planet. They can navigate mazes, unscrew jars, totally alien man-made objects, and be aware of their surroundings and adopt appropriate camoflague. But what use is music or philosophy to an octopus? Although it may only have been in the last few thousand years or so that Homo sapiens sapiens has progressed to the point where such examples as I've given above have become luxuries, rather than required for the passage of knowledge and so forth, the fact that they exist at all requires the ability to think abstractly.
Ok correct me if I'm wrong here but I thought that both humans and animals were both classed as mammals, not animals. But the first thing that springs to mind is that humans can speak.
