A Question for Everyone?

Question

Elephants remember and mourn their dead...
Primates care for and emotionally bond to their young...
Horse herds have rules that are enforced by the matriarch...
Dolphins and whales have complex communication methods...
Wolf packs have strict heirarchies and leaders...
Primates live in family groups and defend each other...
Pods of whales are highly coordinated as a group..
Killer whales hunt in a coordinated way...
Ant colonies wage wars over resources...
Animals use tools...

So how are we humans so different? It seems to me we fit right in with the animal kingdom...

Reference yesterdays question on animal behavior strongly resembling human behavior....



http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ah3zl0xZz2Gxx_cVNpgW9Vjsy6IX?qid=20070317210850AA40klo


So, how are humans so very different?

Yes... the experiment with the chimps and the bananas, reslting in a shock... I saw the video of that... they learn and continue to believe even after the stimulus is removed. Amazing... Superstition? Religion?

Answer 1

I think there is no real qualitative difference between us and the other "animals". Btw, this is implicit in the theory of evolution.

Obviously we are smarter, we are more conscious, our societies are way more complex... and all this has led us to achieve all sorts of truely amazing and completely unmatched results (philosophy, democracy, physics, space exploration, nanotech, nuclear energy, etc, etc)... as well as to achieve the quite long list of bad stuff we all know about (no examples, let's not get depressed).

Oh yes, I was nearly forgetting about this: last but not least, we are by far more PROUD than any other being we have ever met... and that's probably what really makes it very hard to accept to be just "animal". Plus of course all this is in open contradiction with the literal interpretation of most of the religions I am aware of, and this does not help for sure.

However in my opinion there is nothing bad in being simple "animals". If most of us could at least appreciate the doubt and admit that this could be true it would not hurt. Probably it would even make us more responsible and wiser. Maybe we could grow a bit as a whole and start acting as "adults" and stop playing the part of the "poor stray semi-gods"... and take a bit of more care of our world and treasure the good side of all our mighty achievements.

PS if interested, there is a good old book about this: "The naked ape" by D.Morris. I don't agree with everything in there, but there is a good deal of interesting ideas.

http://www.amazon.com/Naked-Ape-Zoologists-Study-Animal/dp/0385334303

Answer 2

Well we're self aware, but so are dolphins, great apes and elephants, to some extent. Considering the category, religion seems like an obvious answer, but I remember hearing about a study involving a group of monkeys (or chimps, I forget) who formed what was certainly a superstition, if not a religion, involving a banana and some electric shocks.
Maybe the thing that separates us from other animals is that we ask what separates us from other animals.

Answer 3

Thank you for asking an 'everyone' question. It does become tiresome, being 'left out' because I'm not a member of a 'majority group'. But enough of my soapboxing.
Good question. Humans believe they are so very different for one simple reason. They're afraid that they're not.
Without the thin veneer of 'civilisation' we'd all be 'animals'. And no one wants that. After all, animals are dirty. Animals are 'beasts'. Animals have no morals, no standards of decency, no self control. They have none of the 'higher abilities' of Noble Mankind.
Isn't that how the argument runs?
Yet you've cited some fine examples of animal behaviours. 'Good' behaviours.The kind of things 'civilised' people aspire to.
Allow me to cite, in return, two examples from the recent past that cast a black cloud over the notion of Mankind's 'right' to claim to be a Civilised creature. Rwanda and Bosnia.
Humanity has a dark side. Perhaps it is not man's inhumanity to man, but man's denial of his true nature, seething, just below the surface.

Answer 4

I actually don't see much of a difference, maybe with exception to our selfishness. I may be wrong, but I believe we are the only species that will exploit another living creature (even our own) for personal gain not having anything to do with survival. I disagree with those that say our language places us in a different category than other species. Just because we do not fully understand other creatures' communication systems, does not mean ours is better. For example, my dog is able to understand not only my verbal communication, but also my gestures. He is also able to detect my feelings (when I am upset) and acts accordingly (gives me kisses.) I, on the other hand, am not able to understand the majority of his verbal or physical gestures or some of his emotions. In addition, many animals can understand the communication between species other than their own. Perhaps some animals are more advanced than we as far as communication goes.

I agree that we do fit right in with the other animals.

Answer 5

The only difference between humans and animals is that humans are more intelligent in terms of we can eat with spoons and forks and can walk upright and talk with actual words instead of sounds. Otherwise we are pretty much the same as animals as we want to protect our loved ones and etcetera etcetera.

Answer 6

We demonstrate a higher capacity to be aware that we are aware -self awareness. This allows metacognitive thinking, which changes our ability to interact with the world significantly. How significantly would go into cortex development and novel usage of neural pathways, and be a really long answer, but you get the point.

Answer 7

The only difference I know of is that I like animals a whole lot more. They aren't nearly as judgmental as the inferior human species.

Answer 8

Consciousness. Reason. Self-control.

Sure, animals use tools. But they don't look around and use it to their advantage. They blend themselves in with the environment. We pretty much trample over it. We recognise that we can manipulate things to our advantage in creative fashions.

Plus - and I think this is the biggest reason - we're not satisfied with mere survival, mere reproduction. We want it all. We want all the luxuries in life. We're never happy. We have to have more. We're going to build a big road through that hill for the hell of it. Or a big building with a man on top of it to show who's boss, just for fun! Why would any species even bother with that?? But we're incredibly trivial like that.

Answer 9

We are not different form animals. That is why my religion, HInduism, says that every living being is equal.
Only some faiths say that animals are lesser beings. And also some freethinkers. We can only tell what we think.

Answer 10

Not too much.

were made out of the same material remember.

But humans have something extra. That makes them so unique. So amazing, so capable of being both ultimately evil, and ultimately good in the same time.

Many different cultures have different names for it.

Overall its the capacity to surpass oneself and become something more. A human can surprise you by changing.

Animals are predictable.