What seperates humans from animals?
 

I've put a lot of thought into this recently, and I thought it would make a good discussion topic. Anyways, in my opinion, there are two main things that make humans different from animals: Capacity and moral reasoning.

Capacity
What is meant by capacity? Well, two things actually.

First is emotional capacity. I am not going to argue about whether or not animals have or have not such emotions as love and hate. However, regardless of whether they do or not, they cannot feel these things on the same level as we do. A human being is capable of so much love, and of loving so many people, as well as loving animals, and beauty in nature, art, and the human world. At the same time, no other creature is capable of hating so much and so many. No animal is capable of feeling so much love, or of feeling the hate needed to want to destroy another race, or group of people. Animals have neither the emotional or mental capacity to grasp ideas such as genocide.

Which brings me to my second point, mental capacity. Humans are capable of planning, forethought, invention, as well as awareness on levels that animals don't come even close to. Apes and monkeys, while possessing the same rudimentary body structure and brain capacity as our ancient ancestors, have yet to advance to a level even remotely close to ours. If taught by us, they can perform small feats of intelligence and creativity, but it isn't so much theirs, as ours that we put into them. Other animals have had as much time on the planet as we have, and yet they have failed to evolve past the point of infants and toddlers when mentally compared to us.


Moral Judgment

No animal has the ability to judge good from evil, right from wrong, like we do. We see evil, even if it doesn't directly affect ourselves, and we punish it. We reward good. We may not always use this ability, but we all have it for the most part. And, for the most part, we all agree on the basics of what is right and what is wrong. It is right to help an elderly neighbor with something he/she can't do. It is wrong to murder someone. Most arguments of what is good or evil are just in relation to finer details. Does self-defense justify murder? Does protection of property justify murder? Or, as some believe, regardless of excuse, is murder wrong? However, even these arguments into the finer details of good and evil further prove our superiority to animals.


Anyways, that's all from me for now, hope this gets an interesting discussion going.

I'm going to go with the ability to rational thought. Lab mice have some difficulties navigating a maze or learning through shock therapy, and humans were able to build pyramids with nothing but simple tools and loads of slave labor.

Think about it, without the ability to reason, all culture is impossible. Economics, written language, science, and history can be generally defined as the cornerstones of most civilizations, and they all rely on rational thought.

Capacity and moral judgement came after.

I disagree with moral judgment between good and evil. We're the only species that does it, yes, but we're also the only one who has need of such arbitrary values. We're the only ones who DO either one. It stems entirely from excess. WE ARE THE ONLY SPECIES IN EXCESS! And it's because we were big, had thumbs, and managed to make weaponry to fuel our predatory tendencies. Gorillas are largely browsers and have no need for the likes of spears and bows. Everything else is much smaller and built, with the exception of orangs, for quadripedal movement. Which are also largely herbivorous. Otherwise, we'd probably be living side by side.

Have you seen some monkeys? They are violent as all get out. Some mother dogs will eat others babies if they get the chance. These are just a few examples. Animals aren't as tame and sweet as children's television would have you believe.

And I'm quite aware of that. But they don't do evil for evil's sake or good for good's. They take what action they need to best ensure their own survival, and are frankly better at it than we are. As in they leave some behind. But they don't generally "murder" save for other primates, and that's usually in the form of clan infighting, which we're just as guilty of.

Have you seen some humans? I need not delve into the nigh-infinite list of atrocities, both rational and irrational in nature.

If you don't mind, I'd like to draw a distinction, since the title might be construed as a little ambiguous. The difference between:

What separates humans from animals?

and

What separated humans from animals?

It gets a little evolutionary, but it's more of a tense thing. The top is where we are now, and what the separation is, and the bottom is what took us to where we are now. In my eyes, the two are different. I wouldn't mind knowing people's thoughts on both, instead of one or the other, or mixing the two up.

What currently separates us from animals, aside from an appreciably larger frontal lobe relative to body size, and in terms of practical capabilities, would be the things already listed above. Capacity is a pretty good one; so is moral reasoning. Rational thought is just moral reasoning at its most primitive, so maybe that's good too (though the above justification is a little wishy-washy).

What separated us from animals, which I think bluestarultor started to touch on, is our significant mammalian tendency towards offspring care, and our sophisticated means of communication. Really, I think a core, basic, human stripped of the immense benefits of society and civilization would be about as impressive as the other higher mammals cited so far (that is, compared to us, not overly so).

Long parental care (and a relatively long life too) means a lot of time to learn. Learning is essential to all of us and to most animals too, but I believe it was very essential in our "ascension" to where we are now. Advanced communication gave us the means to transfer knowledge from individual to individual, and therein lies the key. We're really more of a superorganism of the amassed human knowledge, and that is what makes our species so great in the present. Without that knowledge, we're just shaved monkeys.

The difference is evolution adding some extra mass to this thing called the brain and it all went downhill from there.

Moral reasoning is not that uniform. Although most people agree that, for the most part, murder is wrong, it's because that's over simplifying the point. The question usually is: murdering who is wrong? Most people agree that murdering people in their village/country/group is wrong, but in many cases outsiders have not been given the same luxury. Who is defined here as an outsider depends on the group defined.

And it's not like this reasoning is entirely unique to humans.

Lions may murder each other, but in their prides they work together. I can't imagine thinking of a situation where lions in the same pride would murder each other, unless some mistakes happened or a male tried to gain dominance in the pride. Which totally hasn't happened in human society.

Humans do similarly violent things when given suboptimal conditions. See: criminals.

From a purely psychological standpoint, there are only two primary qualities that separate human beings from other animals. These are that human beings need to believe, and that human beings fear death. All other differences stem from these.

To clarify, no other animal fears death. They fear pain and suffering, but they don't fear dying. Other animals accept death as a natural part of life, human beings do not. A perfect example is this: in the original story of Little Red Riding Hood it ended with Little Red Riding Hood being eaten by the wolf. There was a purpose to that story, a meaning behind it. It taught that even family members can hurt you and not to trust people's facade. But that meaning was destroyed in subsequent rewrites of the story which lead to a hunter cutting Little Red out of the wolf, or even saving her before she was eaten in the first place. These changes destroy that meaning and clearly show a human fear of death.

Human beings need to believe coincides with the collective unconscious. Animals have a collective unconscious among their species as well, but it's greatly simplified into what we would call instincts. Human beings, on the other hand, are much more complex than that. Human beings and animals share a need for spirituality (yes, even atheism is a form of spirituality), but a need to believe is different. The distinction is that spirituality is an individual, personal quality whereas belief is part of the persona. Another distinction is believing in something, which is a strong outpouring of emotion and opinion and does not always include facts or even evidence.

I unfortunately have to leave for my fist class in just a bit, so I'll try and expand on these ideas later.

It is true that humans fear death. But what about animals? What about that mouse that got stuck in the mouse trap and will do anything to get out of it? I've seen it. They've fought to the very end.

This is not saying all animals fear death (although one would think a species would have to to survive), but that unless you call mice humans, that isn't the deciding factor.

I'm going to admit I have a hard time understanding this argument.

If you're looking at belief in the purely spiritual sense (such as why we were created, etc) the animal part is a little harder to grasp.

If you're looking at belief in the being able to have a strong opinion on something, I can imagine animals can have strong opinions too. They just usually can't express them, due to deficient brain mass. However, certain animals, like domestic dogs, are much better at expressing their emotion.



Also, I should probably expand upon my own personal belief as to what makes humans different.

First, by random chance, extra mass was added to the brain. From this mass, humans gained an increased ability to think and to plan. Because of this, humans learned how to both gather, grow, and store food. This caused what we now call the agricultural revolution. From there humans had the free time and ability to develop a social caste and most importantly a history. All of human history since then has been expanding upon what previous generations have learned and bettering ourselves from it.

In summary, humans have greater cognitive ability and a greater foundation of ideas and knowledge to be born with from this greater cognitive ability.

I should have been more clear about what I meant by fearing death. Fearing death isn't the same as fighting to survive. As a further example, no other animals besides humans bury their dead in boxes so they don't decompose into the natural life/death/life cycle. Remember the Lion King? Now granted, if we didn't bury our dead we'd likely have some serious health issues, but that's more a function of there being entirely too many human beings than of death itself. We started burying our dead long before that would have become a problem.

Human beings hide death, we deny it. How many times have you heard someone say to a child that a dead person is just sleeping or taking a long trip? We don't tell them the truth because, as a whole, we don't want to answer the question ourselves.

Now of course other cultures handle things differently in many ways. I'm primarily speaking about average American culture. That isn't to say, however, that there aren't parallels between our and other culture's fear of death.

Another thing that came to mind is that human beings are the only animals that intentionally commit suicide. Now, you might think that this would indicate not fearing death, but I disagree because most people who commit or attempt suicide are not thinking rationally. However, another facet of suicide is that we work ourselves to death. Heart attacks are still, last I knew, the most common cause of death in America. And it's not because of poor health habits, at least not directly. It's largely due to the chronic stress of working 40+ hours per week.



Having reread that portion of my post two or three times, I must say I agree with you. I don't even know what I was trying to say there. I don't think it came across well. Let me have another go at it.


Well, I can already tell we're working from different definitions of spirituality, as mine would consider that an unimportant question. But let's save that for the big big religion thread.


As I said before, this didn't come across like I had hoped. Having thought about it some more, I'm not even sure I can fully articulate the meaning I'm trying to get at. It's sort of like this: animals either know or don't know. Human beings either know, don't know, or believe they know, or believe they don't know. That's not exactly a sound, or even very clear, distinction.

There's a quote by Ian Malcolm in Michael Crichton's The Lost World that may shed some light on what I mean. It goes:

For right now, I'm not sure I can explain better than that.


This is actually more profound than you might think. Human beings do have better developed frontal lobes and it is the area primarily responsible for planning actions. Planning actions is a very global kind of cognition process. This leads to a lot of other things similar to what you were talking about.

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.

Wow, that's pretty interesting in itself. I think it's rather a nice example of degrees of intelligence. You know, so and so animal has no ability to act other than instinct, humans are self aware, crows lie somewhere on the line inbetween with many other animals. Just a nice example of intelligence being an analogue curve rather than a digitial leap from smart or not.

The honey bee waggle dance can be interpreted as about as robotic as the description of intraspecies young-slaying. Of course, a bee's sense of direction is pretty incredible for an insect. Consider the size of its brain; it simply doesn't have much room for processing centers. Still, the dance is very cool!

As for a lack of pseudo-human primates roaming the Earth, well I haven't studied the unwritten human history going that far back, but given how warlike we are, I imagine there's such a distinctive gap because, well, we long ago genocided any close competitors. Now, having no competitors, we genocide ourselves and random species that get in our way. Go team!

The Wizard who did it- I apologize for taking forever to reply, but I've only just finally gotten a few free minutes to sit down and think through a reply.


I did a little checking myself and found a couple references also. The distinction is that throwing leaves over a corpse isn't going to prevent decomposition, embalming does.

I quote Dr. Irvin D. Yalom, from his book Existential Psychotherapy.

and

and

The purpose of these quotes is to show that death anxiety is a well established concept.

I'd call this example anthropomorphizing. Here's how I would interpret this situation. The dog attacks the robber because the robber violates the dog's territory without the sanction of the alpha member of his pack (the master). It's a simple case of a dog protecting a pack member.

I'm sure you've heard stories from people about how their cat often brings dead animals to the person. This is because the cat sees that the person is not hunting for themselves and thus need food brought to them.

Violence is a reaction to pain, belief has nothing to do with it. This is called respondent aggression. You can read a little bit about one experiment with rats Here.

I think that I've found a more concrete example of belief existing only in human beings and not in animals and I'm somewhat surprised that I didn't think of it before. It's known as the placebo effect. The primary application is used in pharmaceutical trials in what's called a double blind study. Several groups of patients take a pill that is supposed to treat a condition, only some of the groups receive an inert placebo instead of the actual medicine. Some people on the placebo show improvement similar, and occasionally greater, than the actual medicine. The key here is belief. The placebo affect has to my knowledge never been shown in animals outside of instances of severe observer bias.

My take on it is that humans have "sentience" whereas animals operate solely on instinct. Some higher intelligent animals may sort of approach something that SEEMS LIKE sentience, but they still lack the idea of "I" and the forming of right/wrong ideas, or should I say the ability to even rationalize about right/wrong.

Lions in a pride work together due to an instinctual wish to protect 1. mates and 2. relatives/young. THAT is why they attack outsiders, not because they actively reason about it. A pride is usually formed of one (and possibly two or more males, but there is an alpha male), a bevy of lionesses for mating, and the young. If a male other than the pack leaders defeats the lead male, he will uniformly kill the young because they do not share his genes, but he will not kill the lionesses because he wishes to breed. Nowhere in any of this is a reasoning about what is right or wrong (since most humans would probably consider killing the young wrong)--it's entirely based around advancing his gene pool and being the leader of the pride. It's instinctual. So I disagree with The Wizard... on this being any sort of rationalizing behavior, or, if it is, the rationalizing behavior doesn't extend to any sort of cause-and-effect or higher-level thinking and is entirely attuned to a self-centered advancement.

In a way it's better just to say this is instinctual than to say that lions (and other animals) lack empathy, I think, because they lack a LOT of what we would call reasoning.

What separates us from animals? Simple: pants.

Seriously though, I believe what separates us from animals is the simple fact that we believe we ARE separate from animals. A lot of you mentioned our belief in good and evil. Good and evil are purely relative, however. Do you think the Nazis thought it was evil to murder 11 million people? Or if Charles Manson thought it was evil to kill all those people? No, of course they didn't, because they thought they were completely JUSTIFIED.

(a serious post from ME? :shock:!)

I'd say that the urge to cover our "naughty bits" comes from the sense that "sex is a sin, cover ye shame!" imbued by religion (mainly the Jesus-based ones), but it's not like everyone was naked before Christianity came along. Aside from that, I'd have to say that during evolution, in a sense we traded warm hair for the intelligence to take other animal's warm hair and make it into clothes.

You said it on crows. The ravens at my university have learnt to use rocks to open harder nuts, I even saw one balance a harder nut in a wedge in a tree and chisel it open using a sharp rock, a bit later most of them seem to have learnt the trick, so they can use tools and teach other ravens what they know. And the ones at my high school could operate zippers to find food in your bag. I've also heard the ones in Queensland have begun to figure out how to eat Cane Toads while avoiding the poison sacs.

The reason for this is pretty simple, they fill the same niche we do, highly intelligent generalists with the ability to live almost anywhere.

Been there, done that, myself. Then I quit Tae Kwon Do class and actually learned how to fight.




About the clothing thing, many tribes in Africa and South America wear little if any clothing. Some hold the fashion of attracting attention to one's bits by tying on brightly colored ribbons.

Or wearing low-cut shirts, low-rider pants, and a thong. Of course this initiates the ages old mating ritual, beginning with the female of the species acting disgusted that a male would actually be attracted to her exposed skin.

I guess I just don't understand why there has to be the whole disgusted phase. And even if they do wear low cut/belly top/thonginess, they're still covering the key bits. I'm pretty sure we don't need exterior covers to show our willingness or unwillingness to mate. We have the bitch slap for that... I dunno. It just seems overcomplicated to me.

Okay those people are damned awesome.

Apparently everyone is wrong; the answer is concealed ovulation.

Hey alls I know is what dey tells me.

On that note, there's actually a line of argument that asserts that large breasts (unique in humans) - and the male preference for them - evolved because they suggest ovulation (even when it's not happening; however, she can still get pregnant). That's probably the least outrageous theory on the topic, which is in itself on shaky grounds trying to connect current cultural attitudes with an evolutionary basis. It's suspect, at best -- there's no relation between size and fertility or ability to sustain baby's needs. Most likely just there's some survival benefit to having a fat reservoir like that; male attraction is secondary, if not incidental.

Having read a lot of evolutionary psychology theory, it's hard for me to take it seriously as a science. It makes for some entertaining reading, though. My favorite hypothesis: "more successful" mating (whatever that means) can occur face to face, but sex from the back has been our history. Thus: much rounder mammary glands developed as a "frontal counterpart," if you will, to the backside.

More on topic, I suppose that we can and do have sex at any time, and that any of these times could potentially result in offspring, is a distinguishing feature.

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins and many of his other books (I recommend the God Delusion) cover this topic very well. There is a Darwinian explanation for all of the "differences" between animals and mankind (remember, we aren't like apes. We ARE apes). Why are we moral? A gene that programs individual organisms to favor their genetic kin is statistically likely to benefit copies of itself and propagate throughout the population.
The theory of memetics also comes into play, but that's probably for a different thread.
Natural selection favors genes that predispose individuals, in relationships of asymmetric need and opportunity, to give when they can and to solicit giving when they can't. It also favors tendencies to remember obligations, bear grudges, police exchange relationships and punish cheats who take but don't give when their turn comes. This behavior can be easily observed in humans, bats and hummingbirds to name a few. This works in tandem with deontological imperatives and is the basis of what we call "morality."

While I don't personally believe that common sense and mental capacity is a universal human trait, it is easy to see how an ability to critically analyze the world has evolutionary advantages.

So what separates us from animals? Semantics.

We can go on back and forth on this subject with every example. For greed, e could say how my dogs fight over the toys and for mental reasoning one could mention how animals can solve problems/make tools and it will just bring us around in circles.

Now perhaps that may be our defining trait - overcomplicating superficial details.




nothing really to do with my post, I just love that line..