What do you think separates humans from other animals?
- Thread starter CulixCupric
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not really. an animal may adapt to it's environment but not right away, any species that has lived in an environment may adapt to it over a period of time but that's probably a long ways away.and who says animal don't destroy their own environments? have you ever heard of locust swarms?satanslawer123 said:
Oh my god, 11 pages of posts. Good work setting off a postvalanch.CulixCupric said:
I'll chime in, though.
I can sit around my house doing something, and I can think about what I'm doing. Then I can think about the idea that I can think about thinking about doing something. Then I can think about thinking about thinking, and so on, and so fourth.
There is no evidence that any animal is capable of even one layer, while the human consciousness is in principle capable of infinite layers.
A monkey can figure out how to find a treat in a puzzle box. But the monkey will never, ever be able to improve the puzzle box to make the treat more difficult to find.
There's no actual dividing line, we just happen to be smart enough that we made technology. And civilization, but that and most of the other things that flow from that are more or less the same thing in these terms. They're tools created by humans, with the help of that big, bulbous bag of neurons, to better themselves in some way or other.
You could say that, but it would be misinformed, which is typical of the misanthropic tilt of so many on this forum. The vast majority of population growth, and the large risks to future planetary sustainability, comes from all the developing countries. Western europe and japan have already began to decline in population due to fewer children being born.chadachada123 said:
The only thing keeping the united states population increasing steadily is immigration, and the babies born to immigrants, which is far more characteristic of the developing world than of the developed.
We tend to consume more resources each in the developed world, but at the pace the undeveloped are reproducing, they already have zero chance of being able to uplift themselves to western standards of living in a reasonable timeframe.
And then you get goons on forums like this who blame science for all of society's ills. Ugh. Im with you, bud, science is innocent here.
Sentience separates us from most, and what separates us from other animals with sentience, is a huge cerebrum, particularly the cerebral cortex and developed frontal lobes.
I mean, you could debate this physiologically, and philosophically, and psychologically for decades upon decades, and not get a much more final answer, and of course, people have, and continue to do.
Sentience is not as simple as having or not having either. Degrees of sentience have been established, wherein we can put arbitrary values to it. It raises a lot of ethical and philosophical problems though. I consider self-awareness to be of particular importance, and at the moment will not eat nor condone the farming or hunting of anything that can exhibit it.
I mean, you could debate this physiologically, and philosophically, and psychologically for decades upon decades, and not get a much more final answer, and of course, people have, and continue to do.
Sentience is not as simple as having or not having either. Degrees of sentience have been established, wherein we can put arbitrary values to it. It raises a lot of ethical and philosophical problems though. I consider self-awareness to be of particular importance, and at the moment will not eat nor condone the farming or hunting of anything that can exhibit it.
Well, I don't know of any other animal that can consent to sexual intercourse.
At least outside of fiction.
At least outside of fiction.
Self-awareness. Notions of morality. Yearning for the transcendant.CulixCupric said:
(A whole lot of words and concepts so that I can say, "God gave us a soul but not them" in a world that wishes to pretend there is no God)
Which animals have a legal system, and adjudicate transgressions? Which animal recognizes the rights of other animals? Which animals employ worthless bits of metal or paper as currency? Which animals worship?kittii-chan 300 said:
Obviously, there are *vast* differences between humans, and the rest of the animals on Earth. Obviously.
The omnivore who, by design, is supposed to eat animals as well as plants. Yet he won't, due to some unusual sense of right and wrong that only humans possess. No other animal cares what it eats, it just eats it.NezumiiroKitsune said:
We are vastly different. We have souls.
The total fertility rate in America is 2.79, and replacement fertility rate is roughly 2.1.thiosk said:
Thus, American population would continue to grow even in the total absence of immigration. We do not yet suffer the inevitable extinction that our European cousins face.
If a people goes two generations with a fertility rate below 2.1, they become extinct. There is no precedent for any people or race ever recovering. Every nation in Europe has been below replacement fertility for longer than two generations.
Your claim is applicable to them, but not to us.
Currency, eh? There was a study to teach monkeys a system of currency. You know what they found? They behave exactly as humans. A researcher noticed that some monkeys were paying others for sex.AladdinSane said:
http://www.diggersrealm.com/mt/archives/001105.html
It was intended, it wasn't part of the original experiment. But once monkeys learned the concept, they started abusing it. Similar studies have been conducted. Monkeys also showed the ability to figure out that it's beneficial to buy products when it's priced low, and after the prices rise again...sell it back just under market value.
We really aren't all the different.
And here's a dog that risks its life to save another dog. Explain that.
Yes, that's at the moment. If you gave them a few billion years then they probably could.AladdinSane said:
And we already did the currency thing and apparently monkeys can. How would you know if animals worship or not? Animals do recognise the rights of other animals, I believe, such as rights to territory and stuff. Ants might have a legal system. Or bees. Do you watch animals constantly? Do you know what they are thinking? no.
And everything has a soul, not just humans.