What makes us human? - Page 2

Jon Miller · April 2, 2003, 00:28

Quote:

Originally posted by reds4ever
who the hell is voting for 'soul'? the other options encompass the notion anyway

it is multiple choice...

Jon Miller

MRT144 · April 2, 2003, 00:44

Quote:

Originally posted by Osweld

Many birds make ornamental nests. Some sing and dance, too.

I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are other animals that are artistic aswell.

these birds, are you sure the real motive isnt attracting mates?

Zero · April 2, 2003, 00:48

Quote:

Originally posted by Osweld

Many birds make ornamental nests. Some sing and dance, too.

I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are other animals that are artistic aswell.

nest building is necessity. singing and dancing is for sexual reproduction (attracting mate)

You can argue that they dont have to build nests so pretty. I was thinking about this before. But nevertheless animals dont make art for sake of just making art.

Zero · April 2, 2003, 00:51

Quote:

Originally posted by JCG
The fact we can do/have all of the above while still being a single animal species *is* rather impressive...

not really... given tens and thousands of years with ability to stack more knowledge from our ancestors by preserving theirs thru some sort of communication and method to create crude tools..... I bet dophins and chimps would have been so ahead of us.

Caveman wouldnt be wondering what we are wondering right now for example. Caveman is no better than a smart chimp, which shows just how much stacking of our knowledge thru written records have gotten us.

MRT144 · April 2, 2003, 00:59

my question is "how did we get to this point and where are we going from here?"

Rufus T. Firefly · April 2, 2003, 05:02

Quote:

Originally posted by GePap
Philosophy and art is how I voted. Let them chimps try to direct a movie! wait, that might be a cool film to see....

It wasn't. A surprisingly large number of monkeys at an equally suprisingly large number of typewrites couldn't even come up with any actual words for the title; they ended up having to call it XXX.

Personally, I think what distiguishes us from the animals is our willingness to put more time into looking at other people have sex than into going out and having it ourselves. Go, evolution, go!

Urban Ranger · April 2, 2003, 05:29

Our ability to stab others in the back for fun and profit.

MRT144 · April 2, 2003, 05:44

but also love one another for fun and profit

General Ludd · April 2, 2003, 07:23

Quote:

Originally posted by Calc II

nest building is necessity. singing and dancing is for sexual reproduction (attracting mate)

You can argue that they dont have to build nests so pretty. I was thinking about this before. But nevertheless animals dont make art for sake of just making art.

There is, for example, a bird (the name escapes me) where the male will devout all it's time to building ornemental nests - never used for actual nesting. It'll build huge nests and put alot of deliberate personality into it, if you where to move one of it's leaves or stones, the bird will either put it back to a place it likes, or remove it form the nest as soon as it sees it. Each nest is very unique to the bird that built it.

How does doing something as a courting ritual diminish it? Everything that anything does, including humans, has an instinctual background of some sort. I could just as easily dismiss something like mathematics as "simply a method of observation". Besides, you surely aren't telling me that the entertainment industry has nothing to do with sex, are you?

MRT144 · April 2, 2003, 07:27

stop trying to poke holes in my theories...

and i hardly think the entertainment industry is art

General Ludd · April 2, 2003, 07:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Calc II

not really... given tens and thousands of years with ability to stack more knowledge from our ancestors by preserving theirs thru some sort of communication and method to create crude tools..... I bet dophins and chimps would have been so ahead of us.

What do you mean by "ahead"? Technology does not equal intelligence - if humans are any judge, it might even be the opposite. Anyways, Dolphins do communicte but don't have any hands, and chimps... well, that's what we are.

Quote:

Caveman wouldnt be wondering what we are wondering right now for example. Caveman is no better than a smart chimp, which shows just how much stacking of our knowledge thru written records have gotten us.

I think you're really underestimating our ancestors.

That reminds me of something else... alot of people will assume that other animals are stupid simply because they are unable to communicate with them - which also means they have no way of knowing what they are thinking, or what kind of thought processes they have.
What ever happened to that amazing human capacity for conjecture and extrapolation?

molly bloom · April 2, 2003, 07:52

Quote:

Originally posted by Calc II

nest building is necessity. singing and dancing is for sexual reproduction (attracting mate)

You can argue that they dont have to build nests so pretty. I was thinking about this before. But nevertheless animals dont make art for sake of just making art.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s140922.htm

Whale song.

Also, off the coast of Vancouver Island is a beach where pods of killer whales go to a particular stretch and as far as scientists can tell, simply have fun.

http://www.travel-wise.com/northamer.../alertbay.html

Of course one of the problems in divining why some animals do what they do, is the difference between their environments, their brains, the way they experience their environments and the way we interpret what they do. How do you know that hump-backed whale song is simply instinct? What common means of communication do we have?

Urban Ranger · April 2, 2003, 09:07

Quote:

Originally posted by MRT144
but also love one another for fun and profit

Animals do that too, but only we backstab. They can't.

St Leo · April 2, 2003, 23:51

We are not different from animals. All attempts to differentiate us from our brethren have been blindingly pathetic, arbitrary, and self-serving (whether consciously or subconsciously).

St Leo · April 3, 2003, 18:38

I killed the thread.

Frogman · April 3, 2003, 18:45

Quote:

from St Leo

We are not different from animals. All attempts to differentiate us from our brethren have been blindingly pathetic, arbitrary, and self-serving (whether consciously or subconsciously).

Not different from the other animals? Thats just stupid. We have been to the moon and back. When some archeologist from some other species a million years from now starts going through the fossil record, they are going to find a marked difference when we showed up. We are a whole different sort of animal then has ever walked the planet before. It would be obvious to them, and it should be obvious to us.

Giant_Squid · April 3, 2003, 18:55

"The ability to weasel out of things is what differentiates us from the animals. Except, of course, the weasel."

The best serious answer I can give this, other than the standard copout "a little bit of everything", would be the ability to think, being particularly impressed with our ability to think in hypotheticals "IF I grow crops, THEN I won't have to hunt mammoth all day" and with reason, which allows us to evaluate the desirability of these hypotheticals. I would say that all the things above stem from these two abilities, with the possible exception of language, which Non-Denominational Supreme Being only knows WHERE that came from.

St Leo · April 3, 2003, 19:12

We have been to the moon and back.

So?

Naturally, my definition of "different" considers a lion and a wheat stalk to be the same.

When some archeologist from some other species a million years from now starts going through the fossil record, they are going to find a marked difference when we showed up.

Yes. In the stratum between the Cretaceous and the Tertiary, there's a distinct layer of Iridium. In the stratum between the Tertiary and the Holocene (?), there will be a distinct layer of carbon dioxide.

BTW, archaeologists seldom deal with things more than twenty thousand years old.

We are a whole different sort of animal then has ever walked the planet before.

Well, yeah. There is no other animal out there that could be impregnated by or impregnate a human. That makes us a different sort of animal.

VetLegion · April 3, 2003, 19:33

Quote:

The best serious answer I can give this, other than the standard copout "a little bit of everything", would be the ability to think, being particularly impressed with our ability to think in hypotheticals "IF I grow crops, THEN I won't have to hunt mammoth all day" and with reason, which allows us to evaluate the desirability of these hypotheticals. I would say that all the things above stem from these two abilities, with the possible exception of language, which Non-Denominational Supreme Being only knows WHERE that came from.

Computers can do hypotheticals even better then we can.

Next

Frogman · April 3, 2003, 20:01

The thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to change and create. We aren't driven by instinct. We can eat anything, live anywhere, and adapt to changing environments. I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say we have dominated the planet like no other species before. Sure cockroaches are hardy too, but they don't have the ability to change their behavior like we do.

Quote:

from St Leo

BTW, archaeologists seldom deal with things more than twenty thousand years old.

Speaking before you think on this one. Why is it that archeologists only go back 20,000 years? Could it be that there was no civilization to study before that? A million years from now archeologists will be able to study civilizations much older than 20,000 years, and it all begins with us.

Giant_Squid · April 3, 2003, 20:29

Quote:

Computers can do hypotheticals even better then we can.

Not so. A computer is unable to consider any case it hasn't been programmed to consider. If I write a program one way, the computer is unable to just go think "Hey, what if I decided to do it this way instead today?".

St Leo · April 3, 2003, 21:35

A million years from now archeologists will be able to study civilizations much older than 20,000 years, and it all begins with us.

How well would the artifacts of a civilization weather 500 millions years? A billion years?

ravagon · April 3, 2003, 22:10

Quote:

Originally posted by St Leo

How well would the artifacts of a civilization weather 500 millions years? A billion years?

Well if you somehow manage to define purified Uranium (as opposed to ore) as an artifact, then probably pretty well.

ravagon · April 3, 2003, 22:13

I once heard that a defining feature of humankind is the ability to act against ones instincts.

St Leo · April 4, 2003, 18:06

/me hits ravagon's knee with a mallet
/me watches him kick the air

You inferior untermenshten! To the death camps with you and your animal kind!

VetLegion · April 4, 2003, 18:27

Quote:

Not so. A computer is unable to consider any case it hasn't been programmed to consider.

Not true. What do you mean by 'consider'? Computer can act in new circuimstances for sure.

Quote:

If I write a program one way, the computer is unable to just go think "Hey, what if I decided to do it this way instead today?".

And a human is? I can say human 'free will' is the equivalent of Random() function in any computer program.

OPD · April 4, 2003, 18:31

Theory of Mind is what sets us apart IMO. It developes between 5 & 7 and is best described as the ability to see the world from other peoples view or an understanding that other people have minds and act according to their own self rather than just in accordance with the enviroment.

A four year old can't hide something as they can't comprehend that what someone else knows would be different from what they know.

Animals hide food but thats just instictive behaviour.

Once Humans developed TOM a great step was taken and all maner of things like were possible like trading rather than just taking stuff you want from people.

VetLegion · April 4, 2003, 18:39

Hmm. OPD, consider a robot based on neural networks, whose 'inner working' we havent programmed and therefore do not really understand.

If it can produce such behaviour, like trading, is it human?

Maybe it could learn that taking stuff is dangerous by trial and error and evolve a trade-like behaviour?

St Leo · April 4, 2003, 22:25

Animals hide food but thats just instictive behaviour.

Have you ever been one of those to whom you refer as "animals"?

Elok · April 4, 2003, 23:16

I put "banana."
The real difference is that only humans take time to answer questions like this. Other animals wouldn't bother when they could be eating, drinking, or humping something.
Now, if somebody out there IS eating, drinking, and humping something while answering this post, I don't need to know.