The mediocrity principle seems to imply that humans are another form of animal with no special talents or role in the universe.
So what is the name of the philosophy where you believe humans have a special role or special destiny in the universe? Are there non-theological philosophies that believe this or do philosophies that claim humans have a special role all need to be theological? What about the theories of people like Robert Wright who seem to claim we have no special purpose, but we are working towards a destiny (namely one of higher degree of cooperation and innovation to deal with problems)? Those imply we aren’t special in our creation, but we do have a special trajectory that our species is on (one headed towards cooperation and mastery of our environment via technology).
I’ve seen secular philosophies claiming humans have a special destiny (Kurzweil, Wright), but I don’t think I’ve seen any secular philosophies that say the creation of the human race was somehow different than other animals.
What if you believe humans have no special role (or even destiny) in the universe, but we do have special talents (tool making, culture, subjective consciousness) that make us different from all other animals on earth? What is the name of that philosophy called?
The gap isn’t that large. And it’s easily explained by a combination of the benefits of culture and the killing of any near-rivals to our intelligence by our ancestors.
It seems to me that the major intellectual difference between humans and nonhumans is our use of a grammatical language. That is, every human language can distinguish between “The dog bit the man” and “The man bit the dog”, but AFAIK there is no non-human language that can make such a distinction–nor is there any firm evidence that any nonhuman can be taught to make such a distinction. It’s amazing watching my daughter develop language and grammar, creating sentences that she’s never heard before, figuring out how to express her wishes. It seems magical, even though I know that billions of people before her managed to do the same thing.
It may well be that dolphins have an entirely different sort of intelligence, one that doesn’t use a grammared language. But it just so happens that a grammared language is a singularly powerful intellectual tool.
I once read that the only major non-human-created system that conveys information through the order of its elements is DNA. Kinda puts language in perspective.
Since you can’t speak dolphinese, how do you know they don’t have grammar? And why is grammar advantageous? Maybe there are language systems that are unambiguous enough to not require grammar. Wouldn’t that be “better”?
A dog might say that they are more intelligent because they can distinguish whether another dog is in heat through their scent, where humans need to spend hours chatting one up at a party to figure it out.
As for why grammar is important: it allows a far smaller range of words. Without grammar, you need to have a word for every different concept. Look at this post, and imagine trying to express the thoughts in it without grammar. Or go look at the directions for building a computer, or a house, or for cooking steak.