What do you think separates humans from other animals?

[SD-Fiend]

Unmitigated arrogance and a god complex.

This.
And the ability to spout astonishin' nonsense in this topic void of any logic and/or use of basic biology or evolutionary theory, which you should learn in school.

Just because we're on top of the food chain for a nanosecond of our worlds history, we think we're something special, something unique.
We're not. We're young, we're arrogant and we're going to vanish without a trace like thousands of species before us.

We're not seperable from animals, since we're an animal. We're nothing transcendent, no super-being.

I understand that you can say that we are arrogant and everything but I don't see how you can say that we are nothing special.i'm telling you this from miles away in a few seconds this is proof enough that we are in a way "special"

 

[DarkRyter]

What do you think separates humans from other animals?

I think that the only thing separating humans from animals is technology and religion. you take these away, and we are no different, and even animals have their own technology because many of them like elephants, birds, an otters use tools too, they just don't need as many as we do and don't fully depend on them because of their evolutionary state. they understand survival comes first, yet they do help others of there own species out. humans can show animal instincts, like territorialism, which is basically "this is mine, i own it." and this is something humans do every day. humans are animals, i think that most of us are in denial or reject the fact, or are just oblivious to it. animals show a dislike of pain, this shows they have emotion, and they can be happy, or angry too, or any other emotion we feel, as do they.

So, what's your opinion? anything you have to say is valid. there are no stupid answers, because as a human, everything you do will prove a point for any argument made, as you are exerting human behavior, one of the things that will probably be discussed.

Enough difference in genetic material to ensure infertile offspring between the two parties.

I'm sure you wanted some bs about civilization or intelligence or technology or whatever. But fuck it, I took Biology for a raisin!

 

[Da Orky Man]

On an intellectual level, I'd say humans are identical to animals. I mean, really, what the hell is the difference? Genetically speaking we're almost identical to most of the mammals on the planet. What on Earth is unique about us that makes us the only species of being creative, imaginative, rational? There's nothing that leaps out unless you subscribe to a religion that tells you otherwise. As, I like to think, a fairly rational human, I choose to side with the evidence and state that animals are just as sentient as any human until someone gives me evidence to the contrary.
.

This:

http://wordlesstech.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/iss.jpg?w=640

Tell me when the chimpanzee's have got one too. Until then, I'm rather content with this one.

 

[I-Protest-I]

The difference is pants.

Nothing else wears pants.

First post in 2 days of lurking to make me laugh, I tip my hat to you sir.

 

[Eventidal]

What separates humans:

-The need for the inventions of others to survive
-The need to completely alter the entire environment just to be able to survive
-Thinking we're superior because of it

We think we're smart, but only because we're the ones writing the test, so to speak. It's hard to say what in our brains makes us think and act the way we do, so it's hard to say if any other animals share our tendencies for "othering", misdirected ideals of morality, superiority complex, or even how we think in general.

Yeah, I don't think too highly of my species. Only because many of us tend to be asshats to nature and never stop to appreciate our actual place in the world and what we take for granted. I respect that we're pretty poorly suited for survival, and I also don't discredit the possibility that animals may be smarter than we think.

/What if animals all speak a common language, and WE're the odd ones out? /Keanu

 

[Azahul]

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.

We weren't the first primates to start making tools. As for planting crops, there are species of ants that do that...

Not really the point though. We're not different. We were handed a lucky card when it came to evolution, something that has allowed us to alter our environment on an unprecedented scale, yes. That still doesn't make us anything more than animals. Many animals alter their environment, make use of the same primitive tools we once did.

I'm not going to state that we're not smart animals, but to try and say that because of technology we're somehow above, superior to, or separate from animals seems the height of arrogance. We have what we have because of a fluke of evolution. It's a combination of intelligence and the hands to make use of it.

 

[Wushu Panda]

he never really said that HE was a great artist and that elephant did not just pick up a brush and start painting it's TRAINER taught it to make the painting by getting too memorize the movements and unless it picks up the brush again and paints something new without instruction you will then have a semblance of a point.

tell me, when was the day you sporadically picked up a paintbrush and started painting?

where in the video did it say the trainer come right out and say they made the elephant memorize lines? even if they did, how is that different from teaching a kid how to paint who never had before?

I find it funny how people are getting so defensive over proof animals can create art as well. and proves my point stated earlier in the thread. the second another species shows signs of creativity, most humans will instantly jump at the chance to disprove and rant on how "it doesnt count" because the animal didnt pull painting utensils out of its ass and started making something.

its an animal painting a picture and showing other species can in fact make art. the INTERNATIONALLY RESPECTED ARTIST in the video says herself that she will be working with the elephant to see its full potential and see if the creature can make art to stand against a UK gallery.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Animals can be trained to make art. But they dont just go and make it. Monkeys do to a degree, but it seems to be random scrawlings, never even the most basic renditions of ANYTHING that they can see or feel or are.

Leave a person a paper and pen and they will draw something to express a relationship with themselves or something or a deeper feelings, even a feral human will attempt to draw something they have seen, even in the crudest sense. Millions of years of dinosaurs meritted NOTHING.

I mean cave men were spending 99% of their time fleeing from predators and trying to survive with barely any intelligence and they STILL scribbled renditions of real world objects and situations, i mean animals dont even make the attempt. Its always clumsy and really just an attempt to play with the pretty colours. If one dog somewhere made an attempt to scratch a dog into the dirt or some wood (it has the motor skills, why doesnt it) id buy your arguement. Not one dog has in the history of dogs. And yet we just never stop doing it. Difference.

Humans are trained in art too, wtf do you think art SCHOOL is? a place where ppl crap out a marble statue are sent to learn how to pass more through their bowels?

As as arrogant as you are, not all humans will just randomly pick up shit and start making works of art. If incomprehensible scribbles in a 1st graders notebook is art, then why isnt a monkeys?

By the way, can you please post some of your great works of art? if you want to back up your argument on how humans can create such creative works then please show us yours.

until then heres a video that does indeed prove other animals can make art.

Dont think anyone was trained at school to paint these. Please read the post, i was saying, with the example, a feral human with no training produced this. Why cant a feral animal even attempt to create art without our "help".

Basically i argue that if animals are JUST (and i mean JUST) as creative as humans, and have the motor skills to produce images with claws or limbs (they can move them meaningfully) why do they never naturally attempt art, or to draw what is seen naturally? Even in the crudest manor. And scribbling in a childs book isnt art. It has to be drawn with purpose. I can thrash a pencil on paper and it isnt art. I feel art has to convay something, and hell you can argue that elephant is showing elephant feelings. But i dont think it is, i think its just been trained to put the brush on the paper. An artist is trained how to do this, but their creations are soley personal and display everything from within. The elephant is mindlessly mimicing an action its been taught. And since neither of us can tell for sure what its doing and both our opinions are objectively equally valid lets stick to facts. The fact no animal has drawn any physical object it can see naturally without our intervention. With claw or blood or even crap it hasnt attempted it.

I mean sure we provided the paint the elephant but is it really painting something its seen or something its been trained to paint? Why doesnt any animal in the wild ever do this? Why do we need to "help" to get animals doing any art at all? It all points toward the "art" being a trained mindless action or a play kind of thing with no meaning behind it.

I never said our art was any good. Im just saying humans have been making it for no apparent reason in VAST quantities since before history records. Yet VERY VERY VERY few animals ever produce anything that could be considered art, none without our help. It isnt arrogance, its looking at facts. We drew shiz we saw like crazy, animals rarely ever try. Difference. There is one. Doesnt matter what that difference means persay, but thats a difference right there.

EDIT: The elephant might be drawing something it sees, ill grant you, and not just parroting. Even then how come we spew art out the wazoo at every oppertunity and this is the ONLY example of an animal drawing art like this around?

Im also not arguing we are better than animals. Im just pointing out that when it comes to art we are different. I say nothing about who is "better" than whom.

 

[Azahul]

This:

Snip

Tell me when the chimpanzee's have got one too. Until then, I'm rather content with this one.

Second time someone's linked me a picture of a space ship as evidence of our superiority. I don't see it. Whoopdee doo, we have a big, complicated tool. I never tried to deny that humans weren't smart. That we are able to build stuff like that doesn't make us more than animals.

 

[Alssadar]

Well, let's see what we have in common;
-Organization and Hierarchies; check
-Survival abilities, and to kill; check
-Tools; Uncheck
-Rational thought; Check
-Buildings; Primitive, but nonetheless, check
-Language; Check
-Art; Uncheck (Maybe?)

So as much as I can tell, we just have tools and artistic vision to guide us towards a future in which was have pursued.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

Unmitigated arrogance and a god complex.

This.
And the ability to spout astonishin' nonsense in this topic void of any logic and/or use of basic biology or evolutionary theory, which you should learn in school.

Just because we're on top of the food chain for a nanosecond of our worlds history, we think we're something special, something unique.
We're not. We're young, we're arrogant and we're going to vanish without a trace like thousands of species before us.

We're not seperable from animals, since we're an animal. We're nothing transcendent, no super-being.

I understand that you can say that we are arrogant and everything but I don't see how you can say that we are nothing special.i'm telling you this from miles away in a few seconds this is proof enough that we are in a way "special"

This is proof? No, it's not. We're just another path of evolution, probably already happend, happening or going to happen somewhere else in the universe.
With a big fat chance of becomin' extinct without a trace of our technology left in a few million years.

Ah, i just understood where we probably have a misunderstanding. Of course, we're special, so is every other species with their own special traits. People in this thread make it sound like we're "more special" or somekind of super-being.

 

[senordesol]

Humans are trained in art too, wtf do you think art SCHOOL is? a place where ppl crap out a marble statue are sent to learn how to pass more through their bowels?

As as arrogant as you are, not all humans will just randomly pick up shit and start making works of art. If incomprehensible scribbles in a 1st graders notebook is art, then why isnt a monkeys?

By the way, can you please post some of your great works of art? if you want to back up your argument on how humans can create such creative works then please show us yours.

until then heres a video that does indeed prove other animals can make art.

Humans may be 'trained' in art, but they are 'trained' by other humans. I haven't seen an elephant 'train' another elephant in art (or a human, for that matter), just elephants trained by humans.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

I don't see how being an aethistic luddite makes is more animal or even less human. Religion and technology aren't things we were born with, they're things we've created to try and answer questions only humans consider. What's in the sky, how do birds fly, what happens when we die?

You've got the wrong perspective on it. We're not human because of religion and science. We're human because we ask questions and try our best to find the answers. Science tries to answer the "how." Religion tries to answer the "why." Yes, that makes religion and science tools for humanity to answer its own questions. Sometimes one tries to answer a question it isn't fit to, like religion trying to explain evolution or science trying to explain the afterlife. Trying trying to pound nails with a chainsaw.

 

[Ragnarok185]

Nothing. Humans ARE animals.

 

[SD-Fiend]

he never really said that HE was a great artist and that elephant did not just pick up a brush and start painting it's TRAINER taught it to make the painting by getting too memorize the movements and unless it picks up the brush again and paints something new without instruction you will then have a semblance of a point.

tell me, when was the day you sporadically picked up a paintbrush and started painting?

where in the video did it say the trainer come right out and say they made the elephant memorize lines? even if they did, how is that different from teaching a kid how to paint who never had before?

I find it funny how people are getting so defensive over proof animals can create art as well. and proves my point stated earlier in the thread. the second another species shows signs of creativity, most humans will instantly jump at the chance to disprove and rant on how "it doesnt count" because the animal didnt pull painting utensils out of its ass and started making something.

its an animal painting a picture and showing other species can in fact make art. the INTERNATIONALLY RESPECTED ARTIST in the video says herself that she will be working with the elephant to see its full potential and see if the creature can make art to stand against a UK gallery.

about six months ago when I tried to draw a tree outside my window. and I am in an art class but my teacher doesn't just make us remember how to draw the a plant she let's us do it ourselves and she just rates us on how much effort we put into it and it's similarity to it. I also never said that it didn't count as art i'm saying that it (probably) didn't really think of what art was it was just taught what to do without knowing what it was really doing other than putting pretty stuff on the paper.

 

[Talshere]

Largly its the fact we have aposeable thumbs and to do with the fact that relative to our body mass we have a significantly larger brain as a fully grown adult than any other animal. Its one of the reasons our children are so dependant for so long, the relative brain development we go through as kids is unique amoung life as we know it. This has a special name but I cant remember what it is (Mass:brain size ratio) and is known I believe to reprisent intelegence.

This is what I have been told anyway. Im actually a Geologist/Oceanographer/Engeneieer so take it at a pinch of salt.

 

[NotSoLoneWanderer]

Rational thought, Philosophy, and pants.

 

[Dr Pussymagnet]

Other animals don't have an internet forum where they can ask these questions.

 

[DalekJaas]

The thing that separates us from animals and was our biggest evolutionary advantage was developing the ability to imagine. That is the legit answer, it is not opinion.

I mean it is because we were made in God's image... I'm joking I am not retarded.

 

[A Satanic Panda]

I'm not going to state that we're not smart animals, but to try and say that because of technology we're somehow above, superior to, or separate from animals seems the height of arrogance. We have what we have because of a fluke of evolution. It's a combination of intelligence and the hands to make use of it.

But unlike animals that evolve to best fit their environment, the environment is now adapting to us. Moths have changed color to blend into urban areas, and trees grow faster because of the increased CO2 levels. Bacteria is evolving to become immune to antibiotics. All of that happens because of us.

Evolution now has (almost) no control over us. We can preserve our lives so well that what is considered best fit for the environment has become blurred. Therefor even with genetic disorders that would normally kill a human and remove them from the gene pool, we can treat (some) of the disorders and allow them to pass the bad genetics on to their off-spring. I think that we have very effectively separated our selves from animals.