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Gotta love the never ending hunt for things that are uniquely human. For a while, we thought it was language and then discovered that it wasn't. Same for tool
by golemotron 3y ago
Gotta love the never ending hunt for things that are uniquely human.
For a while, we thought it was language and then discovered that it wasn't. Same for tool use.
Maybe the search for uniquely human things is the uniquely human thing?
We can get over that too if we consider that we may not be that special.
- yyyk 3y agoIt's too easy to accuse every such article of arrogance - after all, something is obviously different, especially given that crows and apes didn't take over the planet long before humans existed. It's fair enough to look for it.
- golemotron 3y agoHave we really taken over the planet or is it just that it looks like that from our perspective? https://www.science.org/content/article/how-many-ants-live-earth https://www.science.org/content/article/how-many-ants-live-e... (answer: 20 quadrillion)
- incongruity 3y agoThe impact humanity has had on the planet is undeniable. Further, we really are the apex predator globally and we have caused the extinction of numerous species. By most measures it’s absolutely true that we have taken over the planet, imho.
- gizmo686 3y agoIf you go by impact alone, humans are still not the most influential organism. Cyanobacteria literally poisoned the atmosphere and triggered a global ice age. [0] [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event
- incongruity 3y agoGive us a few years? Sadly…
- philipov 3y agoBut that was billions of years ago! Cyanobacteria just peaked early. Give us a few more years, and I'm sure we'll catch up splendidly.
- yyyk 3y agoThat's a very old hat. What has Cyanobacteria done lately, as in the last billion years? Reminiscing about the glory days? We are the future (of screwing things up).
- konschubert 3y agohumans have flown to the moon
- konschubert 3y agoIt may be a difference in quantity rather than a categorical difference. If humans are 10x better at X than animals, it doesn't mean that X is unique to humans. But the things that humans can achieve by using X will obviously very different from what animals can achieve.
- yyyk 3y ago>It may be a difference in quantity rather than a categorical difference. I don't exclude that possibility. But the only way to find out is to test the other possibility as well.
- konschubert 3y agoConsidering that humans have evolved from animals, if there was a qualitative difference, how and why do you think something like this would have happened? Like, from one mother to the child, a switch was flipped? I think that we haven’t even really defined what qualtitative means.
- yyyk 3y agoBog-standard evolution is perfectly capable of large qualitative differences. Animals couldn't fly until they did. Land animals didn't exist until they did. Multi-cellular beings weren't until they were. We can empirically see this, so your question should be flipped to "how can we explain such developments within evolution?" (We can, but that's a different discussion).
- konschubert 3y agoYea, you are making a valid point. I guess where you stand in this debate depends on how you define “qualitative”. One could argue that being able to fly or not is a matter of quantity, not quality. But unless you’re being deeply philosophical I admit this is a silly argument to make.
- bee_rider 3y ago
- Wolfbeta 3y ago> We can get over that too if we consider that we may not be that special. Speak for yourself. I trust my mother knows what she's talking about.
- bad_alloc 3y agoHow about humans being unique in forming machine-building societieswith cultures containing some technology?
- golemotron 3y agoWe should just wonder why these distinctions are so important to us.
- chrisco255 3y agoWell we're the only species that even wonders why we're unique or debates if we are unique or not.
- yyyk 3y agoThe occasional research going off is hardly a sign of obsession, and if anything the limited funding suggests lack of importance.
- syndicatedjelly 3y agoIt’s possible that there are worldviews other than your own that are true
- Gys 3y agoSo far humans have behaved like any other species, we use all our qualities for our own ‘survival’. So no, we are not that special ;)
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y agoHumans use of language is way beyond any other known life form. Same for tool use. Saying they are the same as humans is like saying a tsunami and a ripple on a lake from a pebble are both waves.
- FridayNightTV 3y ago> Gotta love the never ending hunt for things that are uniquely human. To be fair, I've never seen any other member of the animal kingdom drunkenly light their own farts. I suggest such actions (a combination of drug use, mastery of fire, intellect (however limited) and social bonding) define our humanity.
- svnt 3y ago> To be fair, I’ve never seen any other member of the animal kingdom drunkenly light their own farts Maybe you just missed it, or scared them off. > drug use and fire: https://youtu.be/qgtXTv0jGxg https://youtu.be/qgtXTv0jGxg https://youtu.be/kU95P7kilLU https://youtu.be/kU95P7kilLU > limited intellect https://youtu.be/DJsn1QivbKM https://youtu.be/DJsn1QivbKM https://youtu.be/Gui3IswQ0DI https://youtu.be/Gui3IswQ0DI > social bonding https://youtu.be/i497TV5Q6TY https://youtu.be/i497TV5Q6TY https://youtu.be/MI75eogv6Wo https://youtu.be/MI75eogv6Wo
- dboreham 3y agoTool use. When the tools are purchased from Harbor Freight.
- gizmo686 3y ago> For a while, we thought it was language and then discovered that it wasn't. When did this happen? I only studied linguistics at the undergrad level, but as of about 5 years ago, animal language has not made it there other than some examples of 'here are some non-human communication systems, and this is of they differ from language'. It is not plausible to say that linguists are simply too egotistical to consider the possibility. Scientists in general love animal models. Plenty of linguists would jump at the chance to conduct experiments that are way too unethical to do with human subjects. There is some promising research into whale songs which might turn out to be analgous. However, as far as I have been able to find, our understanding there is still largely speculative.
- DougMerritt 3y agoI think it's at the level where one has to say only humans have non-trivial fully recursive grammar -- word order has to matter. Various animals have been shown to have fairly impressive language abilities otherwise. A long time ago one didn't have to phrase it carefully.
- xk_id 3y agoThis narrative that "there is nothing uniquely human" is just a grift originating with a handful anthropologists, who tried to claw some academic fame, by challenging the consensus. It is a catchy contrarian take. But it's very obviously naive. Yes, ants can organise their community, apes can break walnuts with a stone, dolphins can communicate their foraging wisdom to offspring, prairie dogs have a rich vocabulary to communicate their experiences. However, no species demonstrates either of these skills as a boundless process. For example, no species has approached levels of abstraction such as: a derivatives financial market; a meta-idea such as "this is a conversation"; the concept of a "concept" itself; or mythology. And while certain animals might be able to demonstrate far more effective problem-solving in their special environment (such as cephalopods), the features that set humans apart are generalisable across environments and explain the evolutionary advantage.
- yieldcrv 3y agoFascinating trigger, thats not what they said Searching for the mental capacity is the weird thing, there’s more pointing to the idea that other species cant be compelled to care. We cant even tell if another human is capable of intelligence if they are handicapped in speech, paralyzed or locked in. Our best brain scans dont correlate with the level of consciousness and intelligence told by people that became unlocked after a brain injury. of course there are going to be limitations in animals without vocal cords and other priorities.
- xk_id 3y agoThe inquiry into human uniqueness is probably just another case of human curiosity, enabled by our (seemingly) boundless capacity for understanding across domains, no? I agree about methodological limitations, but we do have plenty of examples where we measured features of animal cognition – it's just that we didn't find evidence that their abstractions can be boundless.
- yieldcrv 3y agoWhy not balance that with all of the deficiencies of humans? There are a whole host of traits, defects, and unproductive aspects that haven't been weeded out. A small group of self starters have built the entire infrastructure for humans to excel in and only when given the structure to prioritize doing so. Most people are just a monotonous as every other species most of the time.
- k__ 3y agoI think, it's a mix of the right abilities that make us unique. Walking absurdly long distances without pause, throwing things very precisely, not killing each other when in huge groups, autonomous temperature control.