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

[Edward]

If there is such a discrete boundary does it mean that a child could be somehow fundamentally different from its parents?

I guess the boundary is a bit fuzzy.

But I think, yes, child could be fundamentally different from its parents. I subscribe to the point of view that evolution occurs through random genetic mutations reinforced by breeding. So there will be the occassional mutation where the brain gets bigger and if that works out well for the individual, they get to reproduce. I'm sure you know all this!

When sufficiently complex brains first developed, i don't think those animals/people with them were instantly having all manner of strange thoughts, because a lot of thought and emotion and so on is taught. So to begin with, they would've just had the small advantage of being quicker-witted, having a better memory etc. At some point someone would learn how to imagine counterfactual outcomes of actions without actually trying them. By the time this happened, larger brains would probably already be the norm in the society and they could teach these techniques to others.

This is pure conjecture on my part of course.
But I imagine the "hardware" (big brains) would evolve first, just giving a qualititive evolutionary advantage to start with, and the "software" (imagining counterfactuals, self symbols etc) would develop later.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Moving away from language itself for a moment, I think there are arguments to be made about other things that language facilitates; specifically, culture. Humans aren't the only animals that display cultural traits: there are populations of chimps in the wild that have certain kinds of learned (rather than instinctual) behaviour that are not shared by other populations of the same species.

For instance, some chimp groups do a celebratory dance when it starts to rain, while I think there may even be technological aspects of some chimp cultures, like use of twigs to get insects out of logs, that sort of thing. But I think it's overwhelmingly likely that these behaviours have spread among a given population just by individuals watching and aping each other (ha ha ha), rather than by a verbal articulation of ideas. A bit like the way even very young babies will stick their tongue out at you if you do it to them.

I would very much doubt, for instance, that a twig-using chimp could communicate the idea to a non-twig-user without having a twig and a log handy to demonstrate the technique; humans could do this very simply by verbal communication, on the other hand.

 

[Edward]

I would very much doubt, for instance, that a twig-using chimp could communicate the idea to a non-twig-user without having a twig and a log handy to demonstrate the technique; humans could do this very simply by verbal communication, on the other hand.

yes this example nails it nicely.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I think this just confuses the issue really.
The difference between french words and neuron connections is that the neuron connections (or ants or bees) interact with one another and in sufficient quantities, behaviour emerges that is qualitively different to the behaviour of small groups.

Sure, I wasn't trying to draw a direct analogy between words and neurons or anything, I'm just supporting the point that differences of degree can lead to differences of order.

I think the stuff you've been saying about emergent behaviour is spot-on (as far as I know anything about the subject, which I don't really, but I agree with the central premise).

 

[Mr. Tea]

Further to the twig use example, I would say that humans are (I suspect) the only species whose languages have words for things other than emotional states. Plenty of animals have vocal sounds (I'll call them 'words' for the sake of convenience, although they're obviously not): anyone can tell the difference between a cat's hostile hiss, hungry miaow and contented purr, for example. We do it too, of course: 'mmmm' to indicate pleasure, 'AAARGHH!' to indicate fear/shock/pain (etc.) are going to be immediately understandable between people who don't share a spoken language. Even Nomad's example about bird calls doesn't quite convince me, because a call to indicate a large predator might just be louder or more urgent-sounding than one to indicate a smaller (and presumably less dangerous) predator. So our hypotherical Professor Of Getting Grubs Out Of A Log Using A Twig might make encouraging grunts to his student when the latter looks like he's getting the hang of it, but would not, I think, be able to verbalise a command that pertained directly to the process. Whereas a human could say 'wiggle it a bit more gently', or something. Or, indeed, describe the process to someone without physically using a log and twig.

 

[noel emits]

Bees do their dancing thing to describe exactly where the good flowers be at.

I suppose they'd come unstuck if they had to describe something that they'd never seen before but a human has limits in that respect too.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Bees do their dancing thing to describe exactly where the good flowers be at.

Ahh, I had bees in the back of my mind while I was writing that post about ideas vs. emotions, but I forgot about them. This is an interesting example, but as with any insect I would put it down to (admitedly very complicated and impressive) instinctual behaviour ingrained by evolution. I expect all honey bees (of a given species) do the same kind of dance, for instance: it's not as if some ancestral bee said "Hey, let's wiggle our abdomens in such-and-such a way to indicate that flowers are half a mile south of the hive" - for one thing, if bees could 'say' anything, they'd have no need of the dance in the first place...

 

[Mr. Tea]

I suppose they'd come unstuck if they had to describe something that they'd never seen before but a human has limits in that respect too.

How do you mean? New words are invented all the time. Who'd heard of a 'blog' or a 'podcast' even ten years ago?

 

[noel emits]

Ahh, I had bees in the back of my mind while I was writing that post about ideas vs. emotions, but I forgot about them. This is an interesting example, but as with any insect I would put it down to (admitedly very complicated and impressive) instinctual behaviour ingrained by evolution. I expect all honey bees do the same kind of dance, for instance: it's not as if some ancestral bee said "Hey, let's wiggle our abdomens in such-and-such a way to indicate that flowers are half a mile south of the hive" - for one thing, if bees could 'say' anything, they'd have no need of the dance in the first place...

Yes, indeed, except I don't think there's any need to make a distinction between verbal language and other kinds necessarily.

How do you mean? New words are invented all the time. Who'd heard of a 'blog' or a 'podcast' even ten years ago?

OK, maybe humans are infinitely adaptable eventually but then given infinite time so would bees be. By definition I can't give examples but I suppose poetry and nonsense indicate where the limits of language lie.

Maybe something like alien abduction phenomena is an example of this - something happens but there doesn't seem to be adequate language or understanding to interpret and communicate it for most people. The same experience can happen to humans from other cultures and they can interpret it in a different way.

I really don't want to get sidetracked into discussing the nature of 'alien abduction' - it's just a really bad example of aberrant experience.

 

[Mr. Tea]

OK, maybe humans are infinitely adaptable eventually but then given infinite time so would bees be.

Only through (biological) evolution - and if they evolved too far away from bees as we know them today, they'd no longer be bees.
Humans adapt through cultural (and especially technological) change, which is many orders of magnitude faster.

 

[noel emits]

So evolution has taken a quantum leap in humans by progressing through cultural change rather than genetic mutation.

 

[Mr. Tea]

So evolution has taken a quantum leap in humans by progressing through cultural change rather than genetic mutation.

Yes, I'd put it very much like that. Other animals adapt to their environment by evolving genetically; human cultures evolve memetically, through the evolution of languages, customs, beliefs and, increasingly, technology. Not to mention politics and economics.

 

[IdleRich]

"Humans adapt through cultural (and especially technological) change, which is many orders of magnitude faster."

But only because they've gone through the evolutionary change already. I stil don't see why that makes them fundamentally different rather than further along the curve?
I guess there has been no satisfactory definition of the "major" difference in the original question but to me even though I recognise the differences there seems to be nothing that can't be smoothed out over time.

 

[noel emits]

I think it might be that meme's evolve humanically. We are just a step on the way to purely information based lifeforms.

 

[Edward]

So evolution has taken a quantum leap in humans by progressing through cultural change rather than genetic mutation

That's part of it.

Language, and the possibility of imagining counterfactual things, and the idea of a self made this possible.
The evolution of beings with large brains containing many neuron connections made that possible.


Of course it's arguable whether or not one ought to use the term evolution in this context but people do use it. It's obviously distinct from genetic evolution.
Perhaps development is a better term.

 

[noel emits]

If you consider genetics to be information (which I think it is) then there isn't really much difference.

In terms of culture we don't exactly seem to be progressing in pragmatic terms at all, so maybe it really is 'information' that is in charge here and in a way serving its own ends. Is that what Dawkins talks about in The Selfish Gene? I haven't read it.

 

[Edward]

But only because they've gone through the evolutionary change already.

Yes you are right, and I think you are using the term "evolution" more rigorously than others - ie. to refer to genetic evolution.

I stil don't see why that makes them fundamentally different rather than further along the curve?
I guess there has been no satisfactory definition of the "major" difference in the original question

I find the "more is different" line very persuasive and satisfactory.
I think "major" differences can emerge in this way. Whether you call the differences "fundamental" is a question of semantics but the differences between humans and other animals are strikingly hard to deny.

but to me even though I recognise the differences there seems to be nothing that can't be smoothed out over time.

yes but, once again, we are discussing things as they stand now, not what might happen through evolution over the next few million years.

Nobody is suggesting we are fundamentally different because we have a soul or anything mysterious like that, just that we have evolved more powerful brains and that has made us qualititively (spelling?) or if you (don't) like "fundamentally" different to other species.

Yes, otters coulf evolve in a way that makes them fundamentally different to the otters of today and a lot like us, but they probably wouldn't really be recognisable as otters other than perhaps physically.

 

[Edward]

Tea.

Other animals adapt to their environment by evolving genetically; human cultures evolve memetically

I think comparing how a society changes with how species evolves genetically is not comparing like with like. Our society can only develop (or as you would have it "evolve") in the way it does because we have already crossed a (genetic) evolutionary threshold that allows us great communication and imagination skills.

 

[noel emits]

Information is killing us! Delete all data now! Erase your memory before it's too late!

And for fcuk's sake don't use gmail!

Ahem, sorry.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I see what you're saying Rich, in that we're 'further along the curve' than any other animal, but I don't think that invalidates my point. I think we're so much further along the line even than apes that we've crossed a threshold into being a fundamentally different sort of creature. Any given human has at their disposal not only their own intelligence and remembered experiences but those of literally millions of people who have gone before. If I'd been brought up by a troupe of chimps I'd probably be, well, a bit smarter than fairly smart ape. But the *potential* to be a human being, thanks to the ability to communicate verbally and conceptually, would be there (albeit in a stunted form, perhaps). And it's this that allows people to learn not just from their own experiences but from others, and to use technologies not just that they've invented (after all, most people don't 'invent' anything) but have been invented by other people.

I think the first and biggest breakthrough here was verbal language, which allowed ideas to be communicated 'vertically', i.e. handed down orally from generation to generation. Then came writing, whereby someone could impart knowledge to you without being physically present. Step two-and-a-half would be printing, which allowed the mass distribution of printed material for the first time, and the third great revolution, which started with telegraphy and is still ongoing, allows the instantaneous transmission of information over arbitrarily large distances.

Well, you all knew that, anyway. Back to Rich's point: if any other animal got as far along the curve as us, I would say we would no longer be unique in this respect. But seeing as we're on our own out here, I'd say we're unique.