uniqueness of humans?

[Blake]

@cmyk

We wear clothes. That is kind of a weird one as a species.

Not really, there are any number of insect species such as caddis flies and lacewings that construct garments for themselves that serve as protection and/or camouflage.

[Tibby]

@Chronos

If you count sacrificing oneself for the sake of family, there are plenty of examples. Some species of bird, for instance, will feign injury (making themselves appear easy prey) if a predator gets too close to the nest. This often ends badly for the mama bird, but it may keep the babies safe. And of course, bees will die stinging, in defending the hive.

I do draw a distinction between maternal protection, hive mentality and martyrdom, though the boundaries may be fuzzy. Good examples, however.

[Citizen_Bob]

@John Mace

We are the only extant species that burries its dead (or otherwise disposes of dead bodies).

I’ve seen Carpenter ants collect their dead and carry them back to the nest… It’s not well documented unfortunately, but here’s a possible possible ext source - http://www.antcolony.org/carpenter_antsmain.htm

[Mangetout]

@cmyk

We wear clothes. That is kind of a weird one as a species. I think of it as kind of two fold: It’s practical as it keeps us warm, and shelters our skin. Also, it’s to hide our nakedness. Do other animals feel this sort of shame (for lack of a better word)? I realize there are many native tribes that expose certain “body parts” to a stronger or lesser degree, but I think in most of the civilized world, there seems to be an innate sense to cover our bits.

There are animals that create artificial coverings for their own protection (caddis fly larva is the first that springs to mind), so that part of the function of clothes is out.
And I think the other aspect of clothes is too narrow and specific; we cover our naked bodies because of established social conventions; other animals have established social conventions - not necessarily to do with clothes, but if you’re allowed to pick out one very specific social convention, then the job of finding one uniquely human is trivial; only humans wear carnations in their buttonholes when attending weddings - it’s certainly a distinction, just not a very useful one.

[Hari_Seldon]

This story may be (probably is, come to think of it), but I was taught that Aristotle defined a human as a featherless biped. Some students (wise asses) brought in a plucked chicken and said, “Here is Aristotle’s man.” So Ari added, “with broad flat nails.”

That aside, I think the use of human language is the most distinguishing characteristic. And while I cannot really define human language, I will specify that at the very least, it include the possibility of subordinate clauses. This will eliminate all the Washoes and Nim Chimpskys. If someone eventually discovers that whales have a language that uses subordinate clauses, I will have to eat crow, but it will not happen in my lifetime.

FWIW, I do not doubt that some animals are conscious, are self-aware and have other capacities that once were considered characteristically human, but human speech seems unlikely to join the list. Oh yes, only humans (and only some) know how to prove that you cannot trisect and arbitrary angle using only ruler and compass.

[Tibby]

@Hari Seldon

That aside, I think the use of human language is the most distinguishing characteristic. And while I cannot really define human language, I will specify that at the very least, it include the possibility of subordinate clauses. This will eliminate all the Washoes and Nim Chimpskys. If someone eventually discovers that whales have a language that uses subordinate clauses, I will have to eat crow, but it will not happen in my lifetime.

If not subordinate clauses, then at least the use of metaphor, of which all language apparently derives from and which I doubt non-human life on earth could master.

[Tibby]

And, perhaps communism is for the dogs, but Fido will never compete in a laissez-faire free market society.

[Jet_Jaguar]

[obSimpsonsRef]
Weaseling out of things is what separates man from the animals. Except the weasel.
[/obSimpsonsRef]

@Blake

There are a couple of problems with this.

The first is that humans can ‘get by’ without tools quite well. Less effectively than we can manage with tools but there is no reason why a human couldn’t gather fruit, hunt small animals and so forth even of they were buck naked and empty handed.

True, there’s no reason why they couldn’t, but they wouldn’t. The first thing they’ll do is pick up a stick to knock in the heads of those small animals they’re hunting. Tool use is just that ingrained in our nature, you would have to forcibly prevent a human from using tools.

The second problem is that we need to start using a circular defintion of ‘tools’ to exclude everything required by non-humans. Most termites for example will die within hours of they can’t construct shelter, so we would need to say that a termite dwelling wans;t a tool, even though it quite obviusly is. The same applies to many other shelter making species, including the use of nests for raising young.

Unless you define “tool” so broadly that any artificial construct of any type is a tool, I don’t think a dwelling would really be considered a tool. I would define a “tool” something along the lines of a device or implement used to accomplish a specific task.

Here’s some other thoughts:

1. Mathematics.
2. Philosophy.
3. Religion.
4. Use of technology to adapt to the environment. Sure, chimps use sticks to fish termites out of their nests, but I don’t see any of them making a coat and moving to Northern Europe.
5. A value of knowledge for it’s own sake. My dog probably has no desire to walk on the moon, humans want to learn what’s there.
6. A curiosity of the causality of their environment. Humans have to try to figure out why the Sun rises everyday. Animals are probably in the “s*** happens” school of thought and take for granted that it does.

I also think it’s a matter of degrees. No other animal has developed language or technology to anything nearly as complex as humans have.

[Lissa]

@Chronos

Even more interestingly, the water bowl, right next to the dog food dish, was communal property, and none of the animals had any problem with sharing it.

This is actually pretty common. For some reason, domestic pets rarely fight over water-- only food. I would suppose it’s because dogs evolved in an environment where water was plentiful, wheras food was not. As a wolf, you can’t “own” a creek, but you can fight to the death to keep a chunk of deer.

This is an instinctive behavior, but not necessarily a mandate: my two younger dogs will eat out of the same bowl simultaneously, but both of them run when the eldest dog comes for the food. They’ve learned she’ll bite them if they come too close while she’s eating.

Unless trained, a lot of dogs with dominant personalities will display food posessiveness with their humans, too. It has a lot to do with the dog’s individual personality.