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> many people increasingly see themselves as just evolved apes, not as creative beings with limitless potential I mean, we are. Other apes also have creative p

> many people increasingly see themselves as just evolved apes, not as creative beings with limitless potential I mean, we are. Other apes also have creative potential. I'm probably better at it than most of them are, but they're probably better than me at climbing trees.

keiferski 1y ago
You missed my point, entirely… Humans are considered “evolved apes” because of our (culturally defined) system of categorization. Humans are just as related to every other species (itself a word that implies a static entity that actually isn’t) in our ancestry. It also isn’t really accurate to claim a microorganism ancestor of humans is some kind of proto-ape, or proto-human. The point is that process is more accurate as a label. The choice of focusing on apes is a cultural one, not something inherent to the structure of biological reality.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  > Humans are just as related to every other species… This is just silly. We are significantly more related to chimps than fungi. Humans are scientifically classified as apes, because we share close similarities in characteristics and very recent evolutionary history.
account42 1y ago
Yet you can cut down those trees to build housing more suited to you or plant new ones which requires long-term planning. If climbing trees was important to us we'd build machines to do it better than any ape that ever lived. That's human exceptionalism. It's why humans have conquered the globe while apes live in the space we let them.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  “For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”
  - account42 1y ago
    You're quoting fiction written by a human. Fiction means that it isn't real. Yet we can still imagine it to amuse ourselves and share our imaginations with others. Something else that your apes have not achieved and neither have the dolphins.
    - ceejayoz 1y ago
      At least one ape species has accomplished it!

keiferski 1y ago

You missed my point, entirely… Humans are considered “evolved apes” because of our (culturally defined) system of categorization. Humans are just as related to every other species (itself a word that implies a static entity that actually isn’t) in our ancestry. It also isn’t really accurate to claim a microorganism ancestor of humans is some kind of proto-ape, or proto-human. The point is that process is more accurate as a label. The choice of focusing on apes is a cultural one, not something inherent to the structure of biological reality.

ceejayoz 1y ago
> Humans are just as related to every other species… This is just silly. We are significantly more related to chimps than fungi. Humans are scientifically classified as apes, because we share close similarities in characteristics and very recent evolutionary history.

account42 1y ago

Yet you can cut down those trees to build housing more suited to you or plant new ones which requires long-term planning. If climbing trees was important to us we'd build machines to do it better than any ape that ever lived. That's human exceptionalism. It's why humans have conquered the globe while apes live in the space we let them.

ceejayoz 1y ago
“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”
- account42 1y ago
  You're quoting fiction written by a human. Fiction means that it isn't real. Yet we can still imagine it to amuse ourselves and share our imaginations with others. Something else that your apes have not achieved and neither have the dolphins.
  - ceejayoz 1y ago
    At least one ape species has accomplished it!