There had been lot of theories but to every theory there had strong counterpoint found. For example, speech, language and math was considered unique to humans b

There had been lot of theories but to every theory there had strong counterpoint found. For example, speech, language and math was considered unique to humans but several animals have been found to speak, have elaborate language and even do counting and addition. Then there was belief that animals can’t do counterfactuals, for example, making decisions based on simulating what-if scenarios but that also has been proven false. My take is that there is no fundamental lack of ability in animals but the fact that those abilities are a magnitude or two lower than humans and animal species tend to specialize on very specific abilities. There is book written on this subject that argues that most fundamental human abilities not yet seen in animals is building nested scenario such as telling a fictional story and desire to share knowledge among each other: https://www.amazon.com/Gap-Science-Separates-Other-Animals/dp/0465030149 https://www.amazon.com/Gap-Science-Separates-Other-Animals/d...