Is there a major objective difference between our species and every other animal?

[Martin Dust]

But how can anyone really tell that, without speaking Bird?

And is Bird likely to have pronouns, articles, moods, cases, tenses...? Not that complexity = sophistication, exactly, but the two are often related.

And even if you could, would you understand the frames of reference?

 

[Mr. Tea]

Um, the Universe is, by definition, all that exists. At least, that's how I'd define it - without going into megaverses and extra dimensions and other ideas which remain, at this stage, highly speculative. It's certainly a closed system from a thermodynamic point of view, in that no external system exists which can do work on the Universe and consequently reduce its entropy.

I'm not sure what relevance the fluctuation theorem has to cosmological entropy.

 

[tryptych]

In my view the ontological premis of the question is flawed cos, y'know, objective?

Well I'd call it a pretty objective fact that humans build houses and live in villagaes, towns and cities (and are the only species to do so). Yes, blackbirds build nests and termites build mounds, but they're just acting on blind instinct: those structures are not designed by architects but by evolutionary pressures.

Mistersloane OTM - there's no such thing as a view from nowhere. From the point of view of humans, of course we appear majorly different from other species. From the point of view of an animal, or a hypothetical advanced alien species, the differences between humans and other animals are probably negligible.

It might be an objective fact that humans build buildings, but definitely not objective that this is a different "kind" of thing to any other animal social grouping/nest building. The point is that they're both designed in some way. The wording of your posts suggests you assume that architects designs are in no way guided by evolutionary pressures, and that their designs come from some sort of emergent "free will" perhaps. Which rather makes this whole poll/question redundant.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Mistersloane OTM - there's no such thing as a view from nowhere. From the point of view of humans, of course we appear majorly different from other species. From the point of view of an animal, or a hypothetical advanced alien species, the differences between humans and other animals are probably negligible.

I'd very much disagree with your assertion about these aliens. If they could reach the Earth from another star then obviously they'd have technology far in advance of our own, but I think it'd be very obvious to them that we're the only terrestrial species with any technology at all (to speak of). I mean, I'm pretty sure the technological gap between a space shuttle and a twig-used-to-get-grubs-out-of-a-log is bigger than that between the shuttle and our aliens' interstellar space-ship.

It might be an objective fact that humans build buildings, but definitely not objective that this is a different "kind" of thing to any other animal social grouping/nest building. The point is that they're both designed in some way. The wording of your posts suggests you assume that architects designs are in no way guided by evolutionary pressures, and that their designs come from some sort of emergent "free will" perhaps. Which rather makes this whole poll/question redundant.

It's the purpose and thought processes behind the design that marks out the big difference here. Human structures are designed by humans; animal structures are not designed by animals, but by unthinking, impersonal evolutionary pressures - Dawkins' 'blind watchmaker'. So it's a totally different use of the word 'design'. Furthermore, the evolutionary pressures that dictate what sort of structures humans build have moved far beyond 'mere' biological evolutionary processes, and into the realms of human culture; technology, economics, aesthetics etc. Which helps explain why termites build termite mounds and blackbirds build blackbird nests, but humans build mud huts, pagodas, castles, terraced houses, flat blocks, skyscrapers, cathedrals...

To put it simply: a bird builds a nest because it needs somewhere to lay eggs and raise young. It doesn't know that's why it's building a nest, it just does, according to instinct. This is why any two birds of the same species will build more or less the same kind of nest (regardless of whether they've ever encountered each other, which makes no difference because they can't communicate conceptually like we can). Humans build houses for ultimately similar reasons - shelter, somewhere to raise young - but there is a huge variety in what constitutes a 'house' because the design is the result of conscious choice on the part of the architect. Someone has sat down and thought "Right, there is a problem, i.e. people need somewhere to live, so how can we best solve this problem, i.e. design and build houses...". The end product will be the result of not only millions of years of biological evolution, but also millennia of cultural evolution.
I think this would be pretty obvious to our hypothetical alien visitors.

 

[tryptych]

I'd very much disagree with your assertion about these aliens. If they could reach the Earth from another star then obviously they'd have technology far in advance of our own, but I think it'd be very obvious to them that we're the only terrestrial species with any technology at all (to speak of). I mean, I'm pretty sure the technological gap between a space shuttle and a twig-used-to-get-grubs-out-of-a-log is bigger than that between the shuttle and our aliens' interstellar space-ship.

You assume that technology could be the only possible marker of what makes us interesting? I am trying to suggest that there might be other criteria beyond current human understanding. To sufficiently advanced visitors the difference between our technology and animal tool use might be very little, and they might not even be interested in it.

It's the purpose and thought processes behind the design that marks out the big difference here. Human structures are designed by humans; animal structures are not designed by animals, but by unthinking, impersonal evolutionary pressures - Dawkins' 'blind watchmaker'. So it's a totally different use of the word 'design'. Furthermore, the evolutionary pressures that dictate what sort of structures humans build have moved far beyond 'mere' biological evolutionary processes, and into the realms of human culture; technology, economics, aesthetics etc. Which helps explain why termites build termite mounds and blackbirds build blackbird nests, but humans build mud huts, pagodas, castles, terraced houses, flat blocks, skyscrapers, cathedrals...

To put it simply: a bird builds a nest because it needs somewhere to lay eggs and raise young. It doesn't know that's why it's building a nest, it just does, according to instinct. This is why any two birds of the same species will build more or less the same kind of nest (regardless of whether they've ever encountered each other, which makes no difference because they can't communicate conceptually like we can). Humans build houses for ultimately similar reasons - shelter, somewhere to raise young - but there is a huge variety in what constitutes a 'house' because the design is the result of conscious choice on the part of the architect. Someone has sat down and thought "Right, there is a problem, i.e. people need somewhere to live, so how can we best solve this problem, i.e. design and build houses...". The end product will be the result of not only millions of years of biological evolution, but also millennia of cultural evolution.
I think this would be pretty obvious to our hypothetical alien visitors.

Of course from our point of view our range of architecture looks impressive, imbued with meaning as it is. Just as subtle differences in nest might appear meaningless to us, but might carry a whole weight of meaning for animals, so from an "objective" view point the meaning of things to humans might be totally irrelevant.

How can you get an idea of whether there is an "objective major" difference when your criteria are those of humans (technology = good/important, "conscious" design > instinctual design... ).

Trivially, of course there are big differences between our species and others. It's just when get into this value assignment of what makes one difference more "major" than the other and then start claiming objectivity that it all falls down..

 

[Mr. Tea]

Perhaps my use of 'objective' in the title was unwise, since everyone taking part in this debate is themselves human (unless there are some seriously fancy chatbots out there). But using again our hypothetical visitors, I don't think they'd be very 'advanced' if they failed to notice the differences in, say, tool use/technology - or any other kind of behaviour, such as social organisation - between humans and other animals. I mean, let's say for the sake of argument that these aliens are as far above us (on some arbitrary 'evolution scale') as we are above slugs; yet it's not hard for human scientists to see that slugs are in turn more advanced than amoebae or bacteria.

I would say that it's not technology per se that makes us different (after all, some human societies have developed next to no technology), but the ability to communicate conceptually. This allows humans to impart specific information to other humans, rather than simply emotions or physical feelings ("Im hungry"/"I'm horny"/"I rank higher (or lower) than you", etc. etc.). The result of this is that every human can access the intelligence and knowlegde contained not just within their own brain, but within a sort of transpersonal 'metabrain' consisting of the accumulated memories, discoveries and inventions of everyone in that society who has lived before, handed down by oral tradition. Of course, this is the most primitive and inefficient way to do this, and it can be vastly increased in scope by the invention of writing, the printing press, electronic communication etc., but it all starts with language.
This is what allows human culture to be accumulative, so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel every time we make a journey, or re-discover fire when we want to cook dinner. As far as I'm aware, this ability to store and transmit information, via verbal and conceptual language, is unique to our species.

I think this uniqueness would be apparent to aliens no matter how advanced they were, even if there were another (perhaps even bigger) 'major objective difference' between us and the aliens.

 

[Eric]

Presumably there is a major objective difference between every individual species and every other animal; this is why they can be differentiated as a species, right?

That said, I think it is well established that other animals do not have human language-like communication systems at all. The bird results mentioned by nomadologist are not really related either. The difference is the presence or absence of combinatoric systems at the grammatical level. The bird thing only shows that particular symbols become associated with particular contents in other species (as I understood it anyway). This is not too surprising.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Hi Eric,
yes, of course there is a difference between any two given species, otherwise they'd be the same species - but if you read a few more of my posts you'll see that my thesis here is that there exists a difference between humans and every other animal that is not found between any other pair of animal species.

For example, consider slugs, chimps and humans. Obviously the difference between slugs and chimps is far larger than that between chimps and humans, in terms of the complexity and intelligence of the animals themselves. However, slugs and chimps share in common the inability to communicate verbally and conceptually, whereas humans have this ability, so this is why I think there's a 'major objective difference'.

 

[nomadologist]

how do you know how chimps communicate?

how is bird language any different? just because you lack the ability to appreciate its nuances ("combinatory"? ones) doesn't mean they don't exist

 

[nomadologist]

what we share with birds is our "vocal-learning" gene:

http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/life_sciences/report-27655.html

no other primates have it

 

[nomadologist]

\ The result of this is that every human can access the intelligence and knowlegde contained not just within their own brain, but within a sort of transpersonal 'metabrain' consisting of the accumulated memories, discoveries and inventions of everyone in that society who has lived before, handed down by oral tradition. Of course, this is the most primitive and inefficient way to do this, and it can be vastly increased in scope by the invention of writing, the printing press, electronic communication etc., but it all starts with language.
This is what allows human culture to be accumulative, so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel every time we make a journey, or re-discover fire when we want to cook dinner. As far as I'm aware, this ability to store and transmit information, via verbal and conceptual language, is unique to our species.

are you kidding? many species of animals *instinctively* know to take incredibly long journeys south for the winter, and they somehow keep the same route every time. not to mention a million other ways animals use knowledge to repeat tasks and do them often and well to survive

 

[Eric]

yes it's just this notion of `instinctiveness' that differentiates `us' from `them'---birds know their migration routes (apparently) without being taught them, but we require teaching to learn how to build steam engines or whatever, which is enabled by language.

but I'm not convinced that this counts as any more of a major difference than anything else. very likely if one asked a bird, it would reply that its innate knowledge of migration routes etc make its species different from every other and special for that. isn't it natural to think your group is best?

 

[Eric]

how is bird language any different? just because you lack the ability to appreciate its nuances ("combinatory"? ones) doesn't mean they don't exist

it's a structural property---complex signals built up from smaller, simpler ones, each of which has its own meaning and function, in ways that are specified by `grammar'. no one has been able to find such things in communication systems other than the human ones.

 

[Mr. Tea]

are you kidding? many species of animals *instinctively* know to take incredibly long journeys south for the winter, and they somehow keep the same route every time. not to mention a million other ways animals use knowledge to repeat tasks and do them often and well to survive

You're talking about information, not knowledge. Yes, lots of animals *instinctively* perform all sorts of behaviour, but only because it has been hard-wired into their nervous systems by evolution. They don't know 'why' they do it. Humans can tell each other about new discoveries or inventions, because they have language. Come on, it's not a difficult or especially subtle distinction, is it?

Suppose a population of birds follows a certain migratory route year after year, but that one year a particular bird gets lost and accidentally discovers an easier route, or a better place to stay for the winter, or something. Can that knowledge ever be of any use to the other birds? Of course not: a) it can't pass on the information to its fellows and b) its own offspring, if it has any, will follow the usual route just like all the others because that's what they're 'programmed' to do.

 

[Mr. Tea]

yes it's just this notion of `instinctiveness' that differentiates `us' from `them'---birds know their migration routes (apparently) without being taught them, but we require teaching to learn how to build steam engines or whatever, which is enabled by language.

Yeah, that's just what I'm getting at.

but I'm not convinced that this counts as any more of a major difference than anything else. very likely if one asked a bird, it would reply that its innate knowledge of migration routes etc make its species different from every other and special for that. isn't it natural to think your group is best?

a) I'm pretty certain it would say nothing of the sort, on account of not having any concepts of 'innate', 'knowledge', 'migration', 'route', 'species' or indeed anything else. And in any case, hundreds of species of birds follow long migration routes (as do salmon, bison etc. etc.) so any claim to be different on that count alone would clearly be mistaken.
b) It's not about being 'better' or 'best' - several people have said things like this in this thread so far, and it's starting to annoy me. There's no moral or quality-based judgement going on here - at least, I'm certainly not making one.

 

[Eric]

a) I'm pretty certain it would say nothing of the sort, on account of not having any concepts of 'innate', 'knowledge', 'migration', 'route', 'species' or indeed anything else. And in any case, hundreds of species of birds follow long migration routes (as do salmon, bison etc. etc.) so any claim to be different on that count alone would clearly be mistaken.
b) It's not about being 'better' or 'best' - several people have said things like this in this thread so far, and it's starting to annoy me. There's no moral or quality-based judgement going on here - at least, I'm certainly not making one.

-->(a) Agreed. But suppose some species other than ours could answer such a question. Then surely it would be able to hit on some point of distinction from other species? What I was really getting at was this: while it may be true that language distinguishes humans from other species, what does this really mean? (That said, it does seem to have done us pretty well.)
-->(b) OK. I should have said `special.' I didn't intend a claim that you were trying to say `humans are top of the heap' in so many words. But the claim of specialness for humans based on language does imply some kind of more general specialness if only pragmatically. It's not hard to see why this confusion would arise.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I'd definitely say we're 'special', and to talk in explicitly moral terms for a moment, a result of this is that we have unparalleled power of life and death over so many other species: consequently (and fortunately), many people feel that this power entails a certain responsibility. This is why we have campaigns to Save The Whales and Save The Gorillas, which I am of course in favour of (although those crazy pigeon-lovers can fuck right off).

 

[Mr. Tea]

-->(a) Agreed. But suppose some species other than ours could answer such a question...

Then by being able to answer it - indeed, by being able to communicate verbally at all - such an animal would disprove human uniqueness and I'd be forced to vote No in this poll.

 

[Eric]

Then by being able to answer it - indeed, by being able to communicate verbally at all - such an animal would disprove human uniqueness and I'd be forced to vote No in this poll.

yes, well, this was supposed to be counterfactual

 

[mistersloane]

Been thinking about this one alot and the only differences I think I would definitively state are the abilities to make fire and to cook food.