The animal kingdom: Man vs Animal

[Confused]

In the thread "Your beliefs", the author posed the following:

The thing that sets human beings apart from animals is control.

I don't know that I would agree with that. Since man is known to lose control under certain cirumstances and resort back to "animalistic instincts" to protect themselves, their home, their family etc.... I can't really agree with it. So the issue for debate:

Besides the obvious physical characteristics and abilities:

What separates man from animal? What makes the actions humans do so different from those of an animal? I guess what I am searching for is what distinctive traits do humans possess than animals don't?

[Goat]

That I don't think is a good definition at all. You could turn it about and say that what sperates the dolphins from the men is the inability of men to communicate with dolphins.

Uh, why is this an incorrect statement ?

one you can say that the deficency is in the 'animal', the other you can say the deficency is in man. It's all a matter of perspective.

[QED]

Kanzi is

regarded as the first ape to demonstrate real comprehension of spoken speech

His vocabulary is reported to be more than 500 words. I bet that comes close to beating some humans.

An article in New Scientist describes how he has apparently been forming his own sounds for words as well.

[Bugmaster]

That I don't think is a good definition at all. You could turn it about and say that what sperates the dolphins from the men is the inability of men to communicate with dolphins.

Uh, why is this an incorrect statement ?

one you can say that the deficency is in the 'animal', the other you can say the deficency is in man. It's all a matter of perspective.

Ok, and why is that wrong ? The question was, "what separates man from animal", not "which is better".

[Goat]

That I don't think is a good definition at all. You could turn it about and say that what sperates the dolphins from the men is the inability of men to communicate with dolphins.

Uh, why is this an incorrect statement ?

one you can say that the deficency is in the 'animal', the other you can say the deficency is in man. It's all a matter of perspective.

Ok, and why is that wrong ? The question was, "what separates man from animal", not "which is better".

There is that. However, the vast majority of people who want to 'seperate man from the animals' seem to think man is highly superior.

[Bugmaster]

There is that. However, the vast majority of people who want to 'seperate man from the animals' seem to think man is highly superior.

By what metric ? Evolotionarily speaking, we clearly win, and our intelligence is what allows us to dominate. But, I'm not sure if this is what the original poster had in mind.

[Goat]

There is that. However, the vast majority of people who want to 'seperate man from the animals' seem to think man is highly superior.

By what metric ? Evolotionarily speaking, we clearly win, and our intelligence is what allows us to dominate. But, I'm not sure if this is what the original poster had in mind.

That is just being homocentric. We can't do nearly as well in an ocean environment as the dolphin can.

[Greatest I Am]

There is no doubt that we are animals.
We are the best that Earth has to offer.
What makes us the best is our brain, intelligence, essence, consciousness or soul. Whatever title you want to give to what is you.

Use you wisely.

Regards
DL

[QED]

We are the best that Earth has to offer.
What makes us the best is our brain, intelligence, essence, consciousness or soul.

So you say. Have you ever spent time in some museum of human artifacts and been struck by how "primitive" people's lives were only a few hundred years ago? I recently visited the Bovington Tank Museum and was stunned by the conditions WWI soldiers were faced with. It only takes a hundred years to go by and the technology (which I think is how you're effectively measuring our superiority) looks positively "stone age". The reason I think this is relevant is because if we take our "civilized achievements" as our metric, then we can see how some hyper-advanced civilization might barely be able to distinguish our technology (I'll throw art into that mix too) from that of the other animals living on this planet.

In short, on some scale of the thing you're attempting to measure, we're possibly barely off the starting end along with the Bees and the Birds.

Another thought that occurs to me is the cancelling effect of all the trouble we make for ourselves. Like the credit card commercial, for every smart move there's a stupid one that keeps everything in balance. You seem to me to be rigging your conclusion by ignoring all the incredibly stupid stuff that's unique to humans.

[Greatest I Am]

We are the best that Earth has to offer.
What makes us the best is our brain, intelligence, essence, consciousness or soul.

So you say. Have you ever spent time in some museum of human artifacts and been struck by how "primitive" people's lives were only a few hundred years ago? I recently visited the Bovington Tank Museum and was stunned by the conditions WWI soldiers were faced with. It only takes a hundred years to go by and the technology (which I think is how you're effectively measuring our superiority) looks positively "stone age". The reason I think this is relevant is because if we take our "civilized achievements" as our metric, then we can see how some hyper-advanced civilization might barely be able to distinguish our technology (I'll throw art into that mix too) from that of the other animals living on this planet.

In short, on some scale of the thing you're attempting to measure, we're possibly barely off the starting end along with the Bees and the Birds.

Another thought that occurs to me is the cancelling effect of all the trouble we make for ourselves. Like the credit card commercial, for every smart move there's a stupid one that keeps everything in balance. You seem to me to be rigging your conclusion by ignoring all the incredibly stupid stuff that's unique to humans.

It is true that we shoot ourselves int he foot on occasion but overall even at our most stupid, we are still the best.
My statement stands. If we ever need to bow to spacemen with advanced systems at some point in time, but the statement still stands.

Regards
DL

[Bugmaster]

You seem to me to be rigging your conclusion by ignoring all the incredibly stupid stuff that's unique to humans.

Well, that's what happens when you start making vague value judgements about what "best" is. I stand by my original statement: from the evolutionary perspective, we are currently "best" on this planet (I can't speculate about aliens until I've seen one).

Yes, dolphins can swim better than us, and tigers have bigger claws, and birds can fly; but, as a species, we can outperform them as far as passing down our genes is concerned. We have our technology to thank for that. Giant squids can eat an individual human, but, as a species, we consider them sushi.

In fact, ultimately, we can also build submarines, swords, airplanes, and even things with no natural analogue, such as the Internet. Dolphins can't fly, and there's no reason to suppose that they ever would.

Note that I'm not making some sort of a moral or cultural judgement here; I'm merely trying to define "best" in some sort of objective terms. Otherwise, you get dragged down into debates about whose "best" is the best "best", and eventually the whole conversation devolves into pin-head-angel-counting.