What defines us humans from other lifeforms?

[Desperado †]

SO? What is it?

What makes Humans so brilliant? What defines us from other animals? What will we be seen as and remembered for if aliens visited us right now?

Our diversity and variety? Our abbundance? Our technology? Our civilitations? Our society? Our religons? Our traits (from random generosity to war making)? Our languages? Our TW Forums?

Why?

EDIT: OOps, forgot 'Other' in the poll. Ah well, I covered a large area of subjects...

[Wheelchair]

Obviously all of the above.

Explanation?

I think not!

[Sphere]

One simple word, Progress.

Humans can create "Progress", meaning we can make the lives of our decendents substaintially better hundreds of years into the future.

[Broken Pope]

One simple word, Progress.

Humans can create "Progress", meaning we can make the lives of our decendents substaintially better hundreds of years into the future.

Until about 1350, life had been unchanged by 'progress' for the last couple of thousand years. Changes in fashion aside, there had been little change in the life of a peasant over the last 2000 years or more (In Europe at least).

Technological improvement has only been appreciable since around the time of 'the enlightenment' when there arose a somewhat more individualistic and scientific worldview.

(This is, of course, an enormous oversimplification - but its essentially true.)

[Sphere]

I disagree, people still read aristotle/plato. People still pay good money to see the pyramids. People still speak latin/greek dialects. The square of the two short sides of a triangle still equal the square of the long side.

Human "Progress" started long before 1350. It may have had fits and starts, one step forward one step back, but it has been ever present.

I dont think your generic european peasant is anything more than a generic european peasant.

[Hand of Nergal]

Genetics

[Trax]

I wouldn't say that most of those traits are uniquely human, we just exhibit them on a much more advanced level than other species.

[Zodiac]

Abstract thought and our creativity mostly. Then again I almost put all of the above...

[D.B. Cooper]

I said our thinking power, our extensive religious systems, our technology, and our society and cultures. Mostly I think it's the technology. It's things like toilets, knives, forks, cars, etc. that seperate us from an animal-like lifestyle.

[BritPatriot1815]

Our society's, because we look good isn't there lol

[Da Skinna]

I always say it's our ability to distinguish, discern and decide between our own notions of morality.

Morality is universal in even animals, as it stems from the instinct of self-preservation, but humans have expanded upon it most.

Gophers don't worship God.

[CtrlAltDe1337]

The soul

(obviously non-religous people will not share this conviction, but I'm sorry)

[Ima Farmathar]

Thumbs

[Medicus]

Our mind. From it comes everything else that defines us as different from animals (religion, technology, creativity, etc.).

The soul

(obviously non-religous people will not share this conviction, but I'm sorry)

Some people would argue that animals also have souls. Or were you told that so you would feel ok eating meat?:hmmm:

[Simetrical]

A thought that comes up. Humans are the only creatures that acknowledge and worhip deities. Animals do not exactly congregate on certain objects or draw figures on the ground signifying them. Does this lead us to believe that we are unique and do indeed have a spirit that differentiates us from animals?

Worshiping deities seems to be one of the smaller differences, though. It's part of a much larger phenomenon, of culture and abstract thought.

The difference is the ability to create.

Animals can not create new technologies, the ones that use tools use what is around them.

Animals do not create art.

Animals do not create any kind of architecture, it only consists of nests or holes.

Animals do not create cities.

Animals probably create art, if by art you mean things that are designed to be aesthetically appealing. Some species of animals create various kinds of attractive structures as part of mating rituals and things like that.

Animals don't have architecture or cities, but neither did many humans until recently, so that's no grounds for distinction. Even two or three centuries ago there were many humans who were tent-dwelling nomads, but still far advanced of any animal.

Technology touches on it most closely, I think. Not just tool use, or transmitted tool use, but tool use transmitted through the robust and expressive means of language rather than example. Over time that allows ever-increasing sophistication, by allowing easy conveyance of ever more complicated concepts. Language is the key to technology, I think.

Some people would argue that animals also have souls. Or were you told that so you would feel ok eating meat?:hmmm:

He was probably told that because it's part of a millennia-old Judeo-Christian tradition that humans are above animals, not for some ridiculously shallow and contrived reason like "so he would feel okay eating meat". But it's not a question of science, either way. Reasons why humans are spiritually or religiously different from animals is a whole separate thread.

[Sphere]

Technology touches on it most closely, I think. Not just tool use, or transmitted tool use, but tool use transmitted through the robust and expressive means of language rather than example. Over time that allows ever-increasing sophistication, by allowing easy conveyance of ever more complicated concepts. Language is the key to technology, I think.

I think the ability to "Progress" (or Regress for that matter) is a better term for what you describe. The ability to improve upon past generations accomplishments, in whatever field, or to lose these accomplishments. Language/Technology/Art can be found in rudementary forms throughout the animal kingdom. We might have a more "robust" form of language/technology/art, but it is not a distinctive characteristic. But passing on and building upon language/technology/art is. Nothing a chimpanzee learns/creates today will be known to a chimpanzee born a thousand years in the future. Yet 1000+ year old churchs, mathmatical principles, languages, art styles, recorded data are still around today.

[Simetrical]

I would say the most compelling differences are 1) language and 2) opposable thumbs. Language means the ability to systematically transmit detailed or complicated things we've learned, allowing steady progress as more and more useful things become known. And opposable thumbs (or some similar appendages) are needed for creating and using tools. With those two, you're pretty much set.

I could include abstract thought, but that's really a prerequisite for real language, so I won't count it separately.

[Ummon]

I would say the most compelling differences are 1) language and 2) opposable thumbs. Language means the ability to systematically transmit detailed or complicated things we've learned, allowing steady progress as more and more useful things become known. And opposable thumbs (or some similar appendages) are needed for creating and using tools. With those two, you're pretty much set.

I could include abstract thought, but that's really a prerequisite for real language, so I won't count it separately.

As Simetrical correctly puts it, implicitly or explicitly following Aristoteles on this, we are humans because, in more modern terms:

1) we engage in symbolic activities
2) we use tools

I don't think there's any way to objectively measure self-awareness, consciousness, free will, etc. I would generally consider them unscientific concepts.

That depends. In the case of free-will we can't, as we are uncertain if it exists, in the case of self-awareness, there are possible structural observations which we can conduct on a species (but not yet on individuals) to deduce the capability of meta-representation which it possesses. When we come to consciousness, there are objective physical indicators (EEG) of the processes, which may in time allow for a quantitative analysis.

[Zephyrus]

A thought that comes up. Humans are the only creatures that acknowledge and worhip deities. Animals do not exactly congregate on certain objects or draw figures on the ground signifying them. Does this lead us to believe that we are unique and do indeed have a spirit that differentiates us from animals?

[Kanaric]

The difference is the ability to create.

Animals can not create new technologies, the ones that use tools use what is around them.

Animals do not create art.

Animals do not create any kind of architecture, it only consists of nests or holes.

Animals do not create cities.