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

[Mr. Tea]

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.

So there are animals that can drive cars, use computers and make cups of tea, then?

Seriously, humans aren't born with the ability to make fire or cook food, are they? The only reason we do this is because it's been discovered long ago and passed down throught the generations - in other words, it's a form of technology. And I can only 'make fire' if I have a lighter or a box of matches to hand; it's not as if I can get a roaring blaze going with some sticks and bits of flint.

I'm talking about innate differences here. One of which would the intellectual capacity to discover fire, and then pass on that knowledge to other people.

 

[mistersloane]

One of which would the intellectual capacity to discover fire, and then pass on that knowledge to other people.

Yeah. I think fire's the major difference.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Yeah. I think fire's the major difference.

OK, that's a pretty major one, and I expect it's one of very few technologies to be universal among all known human cultures - maybe even the only one - but I would still maintain it's the ability to verbally encode and pass on any kind of invention or discovery that lies at the root of this.

 

[you]

this thread is really good, however im still not convinced there is a particular fundamental difference, monkeys have a very small form of technology in the tools they use for food, they bang rocks about to break into food and what not ( i know im being vague ), I dont know if this is something each chimp learns for himself or something each chimp learns from other chimps.... say if fire was an accident at first, was this a case of each human slowly learning a specific act ( firemaking ) or was it a skill that spread from human to human, after an initial accident??? Id guess at the latter...... in which case, I think its similar to how I presume chimps use of 'tools' has came about, one chimp happened to be gripping a rock while he was smashing a coconut, coconut broke, he and other chimps put 2 and 2 together and so they all started using tools and whatnot..... yknow????

I think one physical difference is that humans have opposing thumbs which allows us to be kinda nimble and gentle with our hands.

I think we are just animals who with a couple flukes ( fire and whatnot, the pretzel ) and some nimble hands managed to flourish, and from there evolved into a species with some "next level shit" communication and technology.

Errrr mr tea - yeah just read your post, yknow I think your right, our cave drawings may be what seperates us, our reflexivity to communicate through language/ code ways would be our advantage that means any fluke or occurance we learn from ( making fire, noticing displacement when we get in the tub etc..) would be preserved ready for the rest of our species to capitalise on and take advantage of.

 

[mistersloane]

( fire and whatnot, the pretzel )

fire and pretzels then.

I say fire cos I'd wager that cooking our food has led our brains to develop different structures through the intake of cooked protein, which must change shit on a profound level, linguistically etc.
I don't know that for sure, I was just drunk the other night and thought of it.

 

[nomadologist]

Let's say our language is somehow more "complex" than that of other species. Just because we have different traits than other species doesn't mean we aren't properly and simply "animals", though, does it?

 

[nomadologist]

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?

how do women know how to breastfeed? or why does everyone instinctively know to hold babies younger than 1 year old about half a meter from their faces in order for babies' eyes to be able to focus on their face?

people live according to instinct as well as any other species

 

[nomadologist]

wow heidegger would love this thread. being able to drive cars and brew a cup of tea makes us especially human which is especially not animal?

it's like he always said about techne

 

[noel emits]

Driving cars, using computers and brewing tea all equal using fire essentially. Just an observation.

 

[mistersloane]

Driving cars, using computers and brewing tea all equal using fire essentially. Just an observation.

Yeah, it all gets a bit Luciferian once you start thinking about that route.

 

[zhao]

wow 9 pages and this has not been derailed yet? i don't know if I'm impressed or dissapointed

 

[Eric]

how do women know how to breastfeed? or why does everyone instinctively know to hold babies younger than 1 year old about half a meter from their faces in order for babies' eyes to be able to focus on their face?

people live according to instinct as well as any other species

you want to say that knowing how to walk is the same as knowing how to build a TV? well if that's the reduction you want to make I have nothing more to say :slanted:

seriously no one is saying that humans lack instincts. mr tea & myself are saying that humans have other, linguistic ways of passing knowledge along as well. he claims this makes humans unique; I don't agree. but this is separate from what you are saying. surely you must agree that humans have also noninstinctual knowledge?

re breastfeeding: there is some learning involved even here as it turns out, the nurses show you these tings in the hospital after you have the new baby.

 

[Eric]

Let's say our language is somehow more "complex" than that of other species. Just because we have different traits than other species doesn't mean we aren't properly and simply "animals", though, does it?

well thats my argument.

 

[Mr. Tea]

For the record, I have never claimed humans aren't animals (what else could we be - plants? fungi?), that's why the title says "...every other animal", not simply "...animals".

And of course humans have instinctual behaviour - I argued vociferously for this position in the Human Nature thread - I'm just saying we also have learned knowledge and behaviour that is passed on by means other than direct imitation, as in the case of You's coconut-bashing chimp (i.e. verbal language).

 

[nomadologist]

not all animals learn solely by imitation

if you're saying we're just another animal in the question, then why ask it??

 

[nomadologist]

well thats my argument.

why are we other than animal just because we have distinct traits? all animals do

 

[Mr. Tea]

not all animals learn solely by imitation

Well obviously animals learn by direct experience, too - in fact this must be much more common than learning by imitation. But several posts ago I made clear my position on this, i.e. that only humans (I'm fairly sure) can learn by a third method: listening to other humans talk about their own experiences. I'm pretty certain a chimp could not pass on some food-gathering technique he'd discovered himself (or learnt from another chimp by example) without having the necessary materials to hand, in order that his 'pupils' could see him doing it.

Verbal communication of this sort would be impossible without having words for 'grub', 'log', 'twig' etc., and as far as I'm aware, chimps - along with all other non-human animals - don't have words at all, just different sounds associated with certain emotions and possibly, in some species, certain individuals.

if you're saying we're just another animal in the question, then why ask it??

I'm saying we're animals, but not "just another animal".

 

[nomadologist]

I'm saying we're animals, but not "just another animal".

what does this even mean? that we have special traits? i can think of tons of species with better ones (i.e., ones i like best)

 

[Mr. Tea]

what does this even mean? that we have special traits? i can think of tons of species with better ones

*sigh*

A pushbike, a skateboard, a pair of skis and a car are all modes of transport, but the car is the only motorised one. So it's fundamentally different from the others, yet still a mode of transport, right? In the same way, there is no contradiction in my assertion that humans are animals, but that we nonetheless have unique characteristics of a fundamentally more unique nature than the unique characteristics of any other animal.

If you look back over my posts in this thread, you'll see I've made it pretty clear what I mean, and exactly what sort of 'special traits' I think humans have that other animals don't have.

So what are these 'better' unique traits? What *single* species can you name that is different from *all* other species in a more important way than having verbal langauge and conceptual reasoning?

 

[you]

Um - I agree not all animals learn by imitation, but id feel confdent in saying most animals learn through percieving/experiencing consequences and copying actions so as to avoid or gain said consequences, nethertheless this is experience and direct, however we tend to learn an enormous amount of things from/through our language, from our scribbles on the cave walls, fables, maeve binchy etc..... I think this requires a degree of concious reflexivity, to draw actions for others to see and what not....

This reminds me of ( piaget I think, maybe???) the developemental test of a child -comprehending that some psychologist standing the other side of the sculpture does not see the same view.

Do chimps and dolphins perform tasks in order to teach others??? I dont know. Its tricky because they would be trying to get into the coconut regardless of the younger chimps anyhow.

I have a suspicion and a vague idea its our realisation of who we are, our 3rd person awareness, our reflexivity that would prompt us to draw instructions on cave walls, after all it takes some grey matter to imagine oneself hunting a woolly mamoth (sp? throughout..) that has taken our language to "some next level shit".....

This could also be the cause of why cartesian questions of ourselves and reality bother us, or rather why we can even think of asking them in the first place......although I dont know if dolphins get down about these sorts of matters....

Is "concept" what sets us apart???