Why are humans unique among all animals in so many ways?

Thank goodness for our thumbs. j/k

First off, some other species also pass down skills. Many cats who are taken away from their mother never learn to hunt effectively, while those that are raised by a good mouser actually learn what to do with a mouse once they corner it.

Other animals use tools as well. The New Caledonian Crow is particularly good at making tools, but there are other species that have at least limited use of tools, such as an otter smashing seashells with a rock to get at the yummy noms inside.

Who says we need to grow and cook/process our food before we eat? Sure, fire makes meat taste better, but isn’t strictly necessary.. or at least it didn’t used to be until we humans started sterilizing everything in sight and let our immune systems devolve.

It has been proven that housecats have “accents”.

Other animals also need to take shelter from the elements, though you are correct that our lack of fur and blubber sets us apart frm most species. Clothing is optional in many climates though; we wear them more for societal reasons than biological necessity in tropical environments.

Self-awareness is, to my knowledge, limited to humans and some higher primates. Then again, we have had lots of misconceptions about other species before, so it’s possible that other species merely express their self-awareness differently.

I think that what makes us truly unique in the animal kingdom are our greed, megalomania, and our desire to fuck with everyone and everything merely because we can.

The way I see it, humans are just another species on this planet. We might be the most evolved, is all. It’s our survival techniques, mentality, and level of adaptation, I think, that set us apart.

Terrence McKenna thought that humans are so different from other animals because our distant ancestors ate psychedelic mushrooms or something on a regular basis at one or more points. It makes more sense than any other guess I’ve come across, because our intelligence seems to work against us as much as it does for us. Basic natural selection alone doesn’t seem to account for the more ridiculous traits we have. Maybe our brains had to be scrambled on a regular basis—forced to reconstruct themselves over and over again in very diverse ways—to achieve our unique intelligence.

I don’t agree with McKenna’s apparent glorification of the drug, but then I’ve never done it so that may be why. I just like the idea of it. It might be silly, but it represents an adventure I know will always be available to me in the future. (Probably why I chose a picture of a mushroom for my avatar.)

It’s more than just self-awareness, it’s awareness of our self-awareness, and awareness of that, and so on. Our brains are more absorbed with themselves than any other type of animal’s brain. Which is probably why people seem to become more animalistic the more they stop thinking “for themselves” and start thinking for thoughts that are primarily outside of themselves.

It seems to me, that we are not so much developing into something greater as we are ascending to what we already are, in a way. Maybe that’s what makes us different from other animals. Where animals progress forward, usually changing only when their environment “tells” them to, we start messing with our environments if only we get a little bored. Our brains got exploded into awesomeness, and we are still figuring out what to do with that.

Maybe we once knew, like McKenna seems to imply in some of the things he said. I think we did. I think people do, every once in a while, but there’s something about society that doesn’t allow them to persist. I don’t know. It’s a dark subject. The idea that enlightenment has been and is being lost. I think understanding that is the first step to gaining it, though.

by the way, I think this question would be better in the social section and I’m not just saying that because I love going off-topic

Firstly we are less unique than we like to think. We are animals, just another branch of the evolutionary tree, very similar to apes or dogs and sharing DNA with unlikely creatures such as caterpillars and fish. Each species is unique. Is the difference between a beetle and a nightingale any less than that between an ape and a human? I think the main difference between humans and the rest of creation is language but this may just be human pride.

By coincidence, I just stumbled upon this interesting TED talk called A monkey economy is as irrational as ours. It shows that we share some of our dumbness with animals.

Need to farm, & cook / process food before eating

Since the invention of cooking, natural selection has favoured those of us who have larger, more energy-hungry brains – a purely raw vegetarian diet doesn’t provide enough calories for us. Cooking decreases the energy we expend digesting food, and increases the calories we extract from our food. Cooking meats also reduces the caloric burden of breaking the proteins down.

Need to wear clothing, and need for extensive shelter from the elements.

This is not strictly true – it’s been posted several times already that clothing is more of a social function than biological necessity in tropical and sub-tropical climates.

Multitude of languages

Which all do largely the same thing – every language predicates, for example.

Ability to pass on knowledge from generation to generation (rather than just passing on the beneficial genes)

Again, this has been shown above to be a common occurrence. However, our extended chilhood and adolescence (20 years, give or take!) gives us enormous plasticity in learning and adapting to change.

similarly a large component of our knowledge and behaviour being determined by what we learn and experience, rather than what we are born with

See above.

Self-awareness (rare though not exclusive to humans I guess)

It depends on how we define self-aware and how we test for it. I’d suggest that we’ve been so wrong on things like tool-making and socialisation among even our closest related apes that there’s a strong possibility we’re wrong on this count too.

Ability to use tools (rare again)

The opposable thumb is a wonderful adaptation, the plasticity of learning, long window for cultural transmission (we’re a relatively long-lived species) and our big, energy-hungry brains gives us plenty of scope for innovative tool-making and use.

Ability for abstract thinking, concepts, scientific theories, experimentation

As I said above, I think our uniqueness is actually reducible to one or two necessary conditions – cooking food is a necessary condition for human ‘uniqueness’ as it freed us to evolve big brains. That, along with our plasticity and extended childhoods explains a great deal.

Once certain necessary conditions are in place, I suspect that, given a bit of luck (i.e. no mass extinction-inducing events like the formation of the Deccan Traps or K-T boundary impacts) a technological species is very likely to arise.

Need to farm, & cook / process food before eating
We do not need to do this, but we do because it yields much better results. Over the thousands of years we have been cooking and processing food, our digestive tracts have become accustomed to this method, but that does not mean it is essential to our survival.
Need to wear clothing, and need for extensive shelter from the elements
This is only because we have migrated to regions far from that of our origin. I dare say if you took a giraffe to Scandinavia it would need clothes to avoid frostbite too. Other animals need shelter too though, such as rabbit warrens, weaver bird nests, and wombat holes. Hermit crabs also wear clothes in a manner of speaking to protect them from the elements. This adaptation allows it to enter environments with substantially more danger than otherwise, and therefore gives it greater hunting grounds.
Multitude of languages
We still know very little about animal languages. We have decoded the simple language of bees telling each other where flowers are, and different species of bees may well have different nuances to this language. It is also quite possible that different species of whales speak different languages. They certainly have a different pitch and range, so why not a different meaning too?
Ability to pass on knowledge from generation to generation (rather than just passing on the beneficial genes)
Tigers teach their cubs how to hunt. Chimpanzees teach their offspring to groom each other and use simple tools. Sugar gliders teach their kittens (is that the correct term?) to jump from tree to tree. Birds teach their chicks to fly. Bears raised in captivity can never learn to hunt well enough to be released into the wild. Many, many species pass on knowledge from generation to generation. The difference is that humans have learned how to expand on that knowledge.
Similarly a large component of our knowledge and behaviour being determined by what we learn and experience, rather than what we are born with
Animals also learn and experience. I once had a dog that was afraid of grown men, because the father in his previous family had abused him. Humans are just more biased towards experiences, since we live for longer than most animals and get the chance to analyse and experiment with ideas.
Self-awareness (rare though not exclusive to humans I guess)
You are correct, this is far from exclusive to humans.
Ability to use tools (rare again)
This is not as rare as you might think. The major difference here is that humans have a broader imagination. Most animals have evolved every feature they need for day to day life, but injured animals of certain species can improvise. Other species naturally use tools, because to evolve the appropriate features would involve losing some of their other advantageous features.
Ability for abstract thinking, concepts, scientific theories, experimentation
The evolution of the brain is still a field in its infancy, but so far the majority of neural processes appear to be new uses for old machinery. We have similar cortical structures to other great apes, but we have developed new ways to use those structures. So while the uses themselves may be unique, they are simply an exaggerated manifestation of abilities possessed by other species of apes.

It is very simple,humans have soul and awesome brain.After they have what they need,they are still not sastisfied,only eternal life can satisfy them,we can have food raw but we want it cook,we wont need such comfortable shelter,but its comfortable,we can get things done the hard way,but we want tools to make it easy,humans also have law which is one of the main things that make us good or we’ll be in deep trouble,all the “wants” above are also contributing factors that makes us live longer than other most mammals as when our ancestors cook the food,they “unknowingly” kill bacteria,and if we have no “law” we will be like any other predators,when a weak lamb is infront of 5 wolves,they snatch with one another to get it,and if they want something they may even kill each other,noone to punish them leaving the last few surviving trying to kill each other judging by what people can do to get what they want.In ancient China,the emperor gets most thing he wants,even torturing people but the biggest and last thing he want is to live forever and force his guys to make an eternal-life pill which killed him.
It is your own opinion if you don’t believe this but the bible explains the various language by people from all nations trying to defy God and God confuse them by giving the different people different language.
FINAL CONCLUSION:PEOPLE WANT,THAT’S WHY!

@vamtire Do you really think eternal life would be satisfying?

We aren’t. Just putting my two cents in. Many people above have made great points.

I’m with @tinyfaery

@zophu How did he die? I know he said that it’s a huge loss for a person to live his life without trying psy. mushrooms.
I guess I lose.

The same reason jelly fish are unique among animals in so many ways. Jellies have see-through boddies and hence no need of clothes. They are over 90% water. Many jellyfish species have long, singing tentacles. They do not have a circulatory system, a specialized digestive system, a central nervous system or a respiratory system. And yet the lion’s mane jellyfish‘s_mane_jellyfish is the longest animal on earth, reaching lingths that shame a blue whale. While they lack a brain or central nervous system, jellies have a nerve net in their epidermis.

The box jellyfish is one of the most venomous animals on earth. Even a tiny, localized sing on human flesh causes searing, unbearable pain and leave a raised scar for life. Stings of greater size result in rapid death. Box jellies. unlike many jellies that have only rudimentary ocelli, or light-sensitive organs to help determine up from down, have true eyes, complete with retinas, corneas and lenses. They have 32 of these, each set tuned to a specific frequency of electromagnetic radiation.

Now, I have said all this to give you the real answer to your question. That is evolution. Each animal type is specialized to do certain things necessary to its special survival strategies. Elephants are pretty unique too, as are snakes, jelly fish, and humans. Each is uniquely designed by natural selection to exploit its environmental niche.

Evolution. The same reason why bats may wonder why they get wings. Why whales way wonder why they can swim and why they are so large. These things come from changes to an animal that doesn’t result in its death.

Other animals possess some of these ‘human’ characteristics too. Snails and crabs carry around a shelter/clothes. Most mammals communicate in some form of language. Many birds and cats can recognize their own reflection, which requires higher thinking. It is thought that most sea mammals are sentient and experience emotions. Many animals possess the ability to use tools. Primates and birds for sure. Some crows drop nuts in the street for cars to crack the shells, before returning to eat. Other animals pass on knowledge to their offspring. Large cats teach hunting skills.

Farming and cooking are very unique to humans though.

@Afos22 You are quite right. Not only have crows thought through the process of dropping hard nuts into the street to let cars run over and crack them, video surveillance reveals that after close calls with traffic, they sit back and observe till they figure out that when the light turns red, traffic stops and it is safe to swoop down to eat the cracked nut, but when the light goes back to green, they must fly up to the safety of a nearby perch and wait for the next light cycle.

@Aster He died of brain cancer. Maybe that could have been caused by the shrooms, I don’t have a clue. And/or it could have been the primary cause for his unique mental experiences, and the drugs were just a catalyst for them. He was an interesting guy, regardless.

From what i’ve observed of our species, the only major traits that make us appear unique amongst the animal kingdom is an abnormal central nervous system and our egos convincing us that our species is special as by association we may then consider ourselves to be special.

@ETpro Yes, I’ve seen a video on that. I have also seen a video on grieving elephants. And check this out. Very interesting

@Afos22 That was a great video. Chimpanzees and bonobos have been observed not only to cooperate, but to expect a return for their trouble and to use a rough accounting of how much each animal owes the others who assisted. It makes you wander when humans talk about “dumb animals” if we aren’t the dummies for being so blind to all the intelligence around us.

@FireMadeFlesh ya,most people do,wait till you are old then maybe you will understand