There is no separation between human's and animals. Humans are animals and beholden to the same basic paradigms as all complex organisms.

There is no difference in the human animal severe enough or abberrant enough to make any meaningful distinction between man and animalia. We are simply smarter. We are nature's greatest expression of survivability, and through our increased mental capacities we have developed many interesting little gimmicks to keep ourselves from dying, but to call what we do sentience and label what an ape does instinctual is to fall prey to an equally abstract malady: hubris.

In short, you're assuming to much.

I believe I have an understanding of how profound this is. If only because it's the foundation of every argument I agree with in this thread.

I did a quick search and found a reference to other animals burying their dead, or at least throwing leaves over them. However, that isn't the main issue to be pressed.

Saying that we have a fear of death is making an assumption of all humans throughout time. For example, early burials have been explained as a way for humans to dispose of bodies, so as to not attract scavengers to their den. In other words, it can be explained as a rationale planned maneuver.

As far as early ornaments go, revering the dead is not the same as fearing it. Revering just takes a rationale understanding of what certain members in a society contribute.

On a similar note, I'm pretty sure certain animals (could be wolves or something) have some way of revering their dad. It obviously wouldn't be as elaborate as ornaments in a burial ground, but that's a function of humanities increased artistic ability through increase intelligence.

I'm very sure that's a lot more societal than part of being human. I could probably reference feudal Japan or other Eastern Asia countries where death is very much an accepted part of life, as well as many other parts of the world.

That doesn't strike me as intentional.

Actually, we don't know that we know anything. And neither do animals. In either case, we have a belief in the fact that our senses or brain is telling us true. So both have a belief in what our senses tell us.

For one example, when you pretend to throw a stick for your dog and hide it behind your back, the dog believes you threw the stick. He then acts on it.

For a second example closer to the issue, let's talk about a domestic dog. When a robber comes into a house, a dog may bite the robber. Why does the guard dog bite the robber? Because the dog believes that that is the right thing to do. He believes the robber may bring harm to his house. He believes his master is worthy of his protection. For all he knows, his master may have rightfully deserved being robbed, but the dog acts on blind faith.

On a similar note, what about an animal in a trap? When a human comes along to free the animal, the animal lashes out at the human. The animal believes that the human is trying to do him harm, and acting on it.

However, the quote that you mentioned could also be taken in a larger sense. Not necessarily that humans act on beliefs, but that humans act on a belief larger than themselves. I would say this is very similar to tribalism, which occurs in nature elsewhere. Such as with wolves. And lions. The fact that we can "reason out" that it's a belief greater than ourselves would solely be due to greater cognitive ability.* It wouldn't be an entirely different thing from animals, just an expansion on something that was already there.

*To satisfy Funka, we really have no way to know that certain animals, like dolphins and chimps, can't reason that out.

On a similar note, from trying to for this thread, it's obscenely difficult trying to work out a distinction between instinct and rationale thought. At least when it comes to interpreting why other animals do what they do.

The human 'fear of death' is merely survival instinct, which is common throughout every species of animal that I've ever heard of... ever.

I'd say every species of animal in the world, but I'm sure there's some obscure retarded animal out there that lacks the survival instinct.

Also: I'd agree that an ape may be sentient. I don't know. I can't have a philosophical discussion with an ape. They might even be sapient or even self-aware. Probably are. I mean, they can figure sign-language and ask for food and what have you.

However, I do know that new born humans aren't self-aware. They perceive themselves as being a part of their mother instead of a separate and distinct individual. Thus I find it hard to believe that animals such as dogs, wolves, bees, or ants, are truly self-aware/sapient, as opposed to seeing themselves as one with the pack/hive/whatever.

I'd also like to take a moment to point out that sentience and sapience are taken to mean the same thing as self-awareness quite often. They are both distinct.

Sentience is simply the ability to use your sensory organs and make judgements on their inputs subjectively (as opposed to objectively). Sapience is simply the ability to think something through. Apes obviously have sapience (they use sticks to get termites to eat, that's thinking things through), and probably have sentience. Are they self-aware? Well, again, I can't have a philosophical discussion with one, so I can't be sure. I'd guess so, though. I mean, they're smarter than a newborn, in general.

However, Apes are so closely related to us, they're like half a step down the evolutionary ladder. It's really unfair to use apes as our 'humans are just like animals' animal. How about the common mouse? Are they self-aware? I highly doubt it.

As to what actually makes us different than animals?

Twenty four things, made up of combinations of four other things:
http://darwin.nmsu.edu/~molbio/diabe...es/karyo-2.GIF


Eat it animal kingdom. My gattaca beats your gattaca. Also: Guns.

I have to agree with you in some degrees. For the most part I have often contemplated this in my mind many times before, and I have come to the conclusion that what actually does separate humans from animals is quite simply the broad and definitively defining word - humane. Humans are simply humane and as vastly broad of a subject and definition it is - it is at the same time the most simplistic definition.

Humane can easily be defined as tenderness, compassionate, symphathetic to the world, benevolent, and simply kindhearted. This stems easily from the fact that our mental capacity has granted us the ability of not just foresight, planning, invention, creativity - no no no - but the ability of awareness in the universe. Our humane minds have made us open to the world, and thus we aren't "savagely" single-minded animals. However, vis-a-vis to an animal that is curious and does express kindness is still primitive in mind as an animal for their mind is not different from a human child - primitive, kind, and curious.

Then again, what seperates us is also what makes us so much the same. You may reason that animals cannot reason the differences between good and evil - then again you are arguing that animals cannot differentiate the subtle differences between good and evil. Yes, killing someone is wrong, because it's takinga nother life; then again LIFE still moves forward with time - animals kill each other for pride and right to say I am the king. Is that not no different from a country singlehandedly using military force into another country to take it over and say the same thing - OR EVEN FURTHER overpowering a lesser countries' economy and taking IT over and ruling the country through the demographics of economics just to say it "I am the king" again but with different means? Good and evil is shaded by the blood of not the innocent but the blood of those who die for good & evil. Animals take it on the most simplistic approach - an approach that BECAUSE of its simplicity has worked for millions of years.

My final word on this is that humans and animals are only separated by our humane side. When we start to express emotions of anger and hostility are we not giving into an animalistic sense of agression, BUT our humane side calms us down telling us there is another way. Animals can plan, they can think, MANY can invent; but they're just primitive because of how simplistic their minds are.

Viruses and Bacteria FTW? If ya can't beat 'em...

I like Agent Smith's remark in the Matrix.

In any case, pack animals generally express similarity to "humane"-ness in terms of what they know. They interact with each other, often going so far as to provide for the pack at a detriment to themselves - why on earth would you drag a kill back to the pack otherwise? Certain canine subspecies mourn, although I'm not gonna look for citing material.

Squirrels forage, and just plain aren't physically strong enough to sow in a similar fashion to what we consider agrarian. I'd say there's evidence that animals can plan (depending on their food type) for the future. Grass and berries don't really save, so most grazers wouldn't really develop that ability. Most animals in a tropical climate also don't have to worry so much about climate changes killing them every year, and so don't have a need.

Generally, the most telling difference for me between abilities that separate humans from other species ends up being that we have coherent language. Although other species are capable of being taught to communicate in a manner of similar significance, they have no species-inherent version of complex communication. Sure, you can do a lot with emotional inference, but being able to communicate the abstract does a lot for development. That way, if one member of the species has a crazy idea about how to develop (say) better lodging, s/he can communicate why before its necessity is derived (if ever). Developed vocal ability is relatively unique.

There are definite reasons why vocal ability would allow language before something visual as well... in immediate cases of protection or warning, sound almost always affects the situation and the visual only works if something can see you. More opportunity is generally equivalent to better chance of development.

Anthropology maintains that humans possess and react to social symbolism and abstract concepts (available largely through language), while other animals simply respond to concrete, immediate stimuli. Thus, while both might experience the physical sensation of hunger, a human only learns through culture that a) it means that they should eat, b) delicious sandwiches are good to that end. Presumably, a human without this social grooming would be at a loss -- there's a lability that allows a certain amount of freedom from pure instinct but also has basically neutered it. A cow, on the other hand, just goes to eat grass because that's how it's programmed. Furthermore, a cow won't anticipate being hungry at some point down the line and specifically plan for such an event; it will respond to that situation when it gets there. It has no developed language and can't apprehend events except through direct experience; it can't know of or learn from the lives of cows past. Because it has little in the way of alternative methods of understanding and cannot directly experience the perspective of other cows, it has no way of developing a sophisticated sense of empathy.

It makes a lot of sense, but I don't think it's quite that clear-cut. Thing is, humans or not, we tend to believe that if we can't see it in a form that we recognize easily, it isn't there, and I think that we underestimate other species a lot. What they have are not exactly like human characteristics, but ultimately, humans are still complex animals who have taken animal tendencies to a different level. My friend's dog gets upset at certain sounds, but only when he believes or can see that you're making them; if the same sound doesn't seem like it's coming from a living creature, he doesn't respond. So essentially, it's not the stimuli itself that he appears to react to -- it's the idea that another being is producing it, presumably intentionally. One of my other friends has a cat who periodically soils his sheets, at which point the cat is banished from the bedroom for a week. After a while, the cat would proceed to withdraw immediately following an "accident" and reemerge, ready to socialize, after exactly 7 days. The cat apparently is capable of anticipating how things will be for days in the future and planning for it, at least after a specific event.

Of course, it doesn't entirely stop her from what results in that situation in the first place. I might argue that humans possess a will and capacity for impulse-control that other animals tend not to have --they do what their gut tells them to do, even in some cases when they know the consequences. But that's not entirely right, either. Humans are still subject to impulses and I've seen other animals go against what they want at the time. My cats, for example, are willing to humor me, even though it offers no clear reward to them and they are not pack animals with strong instincts toward mollifying others; e.g., if I call them to my lap and they don't particularly feel like being there, they will come and sit anyway for a few minutes. They're not very good at acting excited about it, but they still sort of try in the form of obligatory rubbing, headbutting, and purring.

I feel that humans are different from animals because we are capable of higher thought, we can understand abstract ideas, and virtues. I have never heard of apes believing in things like truth, dignity, or hope. I don't think that it is because we were made any different, but I think that it has something to do with our genes, intelligence was a mutation is a gene a million years ago and nature decided that it would be a good thing to keep around. From there it became part of all humans and we worked our way up from there.

This doesn't mean that other species cannot become intelligent. As far as I know apes might be sentient, but they have not developed it as far as we have. I also believe that all living things have got something beyond their basic body and brain. Call it a soul, call it whatever, but I think it is there, giving every being whatever spark it is that initially gives it life. This same thing also gives it the potential to become intelligent, and also connects it with all others of that species and whatever force controls the world.

It is sort of a balance. Aquatic animals know when there are going to be hurricanes and stuff. It is also how all ants know that they are supposed to dig and what pattern they are supposed to dig in, then every ant digs the part that they are supposed to without ever planning or consulting one another. On the other hand we seem to be getting even more out of touch with nature and each other as our species gains more knowledge. Oddly enough, it seems to me that most people are getting less intelligent.

Rediculously far fetched
 

/agree

In all honesty I think the only thing that does separate us is *drum roll* - hubris

I think simply put (and I understand the irony of this argument) we all assume that we are sentient and animals are not. How are we to know that we are in fact smarter than wolves or any other animal. Maybe we are seen as this earth's little retard (pardon anyone who takes offense to that term). I mean hell for all we know animals actually do communicate with each other, and effectively, we're simply left out of the loop because of our destructive nature, and they put on a ridiculously elaborate show when we can see them just to make us feel better...

Sound stupid enough for anyone? good... I admit, I don't want to believe any of that, I want to believe it's because we are simply better. That the difference is that we are smarter, we can create and destroy, we can use reason and logic (though most people seem not to), and we are just plain better than anything else on this planet. In the end, I think that is the difference: we want to be better, and we perceive ourselves as better. Other animals just don't give a f*** because they're still getting along just fine.

What seperates humans form animals? Simple. Our own arrogance. We don't like to think of ourselves as animals.

Funka has it dead on, though I think calling us nature's greatest expression of survival is an insult to the species which far out number us. The distinction between humans and animals is no more than that between cow and dog.

To say that we are seperated by our ability to think/plan and whatnot is to say that bats have highly advanced echolocation systems to such a fine degree that it's mind boggling, allowing them to chasewalk insects at high speed with interfering 'sonar' from other bats. We, as humans, can't emit up to 200 pulses of high frequency noise per second, adjusting our ear sensitivity to not blow up on each sound emission then prick it up for the incoming signals. In that sense, bats could happily make "What seperates bats from animals" discussion topics and laugh up about how those chumpish animals (especially humans) can hardly navigate around massive objects in the darkness, let alone chase small insects. Yes, my entire bad example is inspired by the blind watchmaker go away. The point is, we happen to have evolved in the direction of a bigger brain and thought capacity which lets us have a chat about why we're so special. All the other incredible distinctions other animals have that we don't don't, incidentally, allow them to marvel at how incredibly distinct they are.

It is merely evolutionary chance that we have no surviving intermediate species for humans, like there are with many species of other animals. Had they survived though, our distinction between ourselves and chimps wouldn't be a clear line, there'd be an extremely fuzzy grey area with our chimp/human compatible interbreeder, blurring the lines hugely.

So again, there's nothing that seperates us from other animals in any meaningful way. We're self aware, which was merely a direction our genes went in as the best survivors propogated that also happens to allow us to do more than replicate our genes and survive our hardest.

Anyway, this is merely a poor iteration of what you could find in The Selfish Gene or The Blind Watchermaker. Richard Dawkins speaks a fair bit about our distinction, or lack of distinction, from animals.

Edit: Oh, I forgot to reply to this.

Again to pull an example straight out of the selfish gene, there are birds which will eat their own young, or eat another bird of the same species young. Why they do this and much of what goes on in nature is extremely hard to grasp without knowing that it is gene's that're the core replicator being passed on. Animals don't look out for their species, or their group even. Well, at the very least the evidence heavily suggests that behaviour like this (and instances where it appears an animal is looking out for the species) is in fact readily explainable with genetics and gene selection.