What differentiates humans from other species ?

a reply to: marg6043

You must be an evil SOB because the only way you can logically believe that's true is if you're intention and goal is to do such, cause I know my intentions aren't.

a reply to: marg6043

Your answer came closest to my thoughts:

Where other creatures have strong instincts for complex patterns of behavior, we must be intentionally taught. Oh yes, we do have some instincts (blink when something gets close to your eye) that we cannot control. But for the most part, we have traded instinctual behaviors for intentional behaviors. It makes me think of the story in Genesis about man being given 'free will.' We get to... or we have to... choose. We lack the rich library of instinctual behaviors so common in other living creatures.

a reply to: new_here

Exactly, we are given free will but so far look what humanity has done with it, I have to explain no more.

Rather than use it to achieve enlightenment we waste it in doing harm to anything around us.

a reply to: Puppylove

You just prove my point.

lol. some 80 year old dude killed a cheetah? there's a big difference between saying something and actually being able to do it. it all looks good on paper until that dog clamps down on your hand and violently shakes your arm snapping your ulna. but good ahead and dream it's ok.

oh ok I see what you're saying- if a dog just sat there and let you stick your arm down his throat you could kill him. I think you just answered the OP question: what differentiates us from other species is that we make up really stupid things to think about that have no basis in reality. Really pushing the limits of silliness here pal.

a reply to: Puppylove

Ok first I have to give you a hard time for posting the dailymail as your so called proof, but the location of the information doens't have anything to do with its validity so here ya go what I got from your source:

Gregory Berns, a neuroscientist who initially worked with a dog trainer to teach Callie, a nine-month-old rescue dog, and McKenzie, a three-year-old collie, to lie in a MRI machine, said: ‘We can really begin to understand what a dog is thinking rather than infer it from their behaviour.

First off, an MRI does not tell you what something is thinking. The fact behind an MRI scan is simply the area of the brain that has the most activation. This does not tell you that the dog loves you. This does not tell you the physiological and psychological condition of the dog. It simply tells you what area of the brain is being used the most.

Using hand signals to indicate the dogs were about to receive a food treat, Berns and his team showed that the caudate nucleus, a part of the brain associated with positive emotions, was similar in dogs and human

So the experiment being referenced here is one in which the Dog finds out its about to get a treat wahoo..that doesn't tell you whether the Human or food causing the activation of the dogs brain it just tells you the dogs MAY be experiencing physicological responses associated with that area of the brains activation. It doesn't tell you anything about its psychological state of awareness, and it only gives you a weak guess at what the dog may or may not be feeling.

In the next part of their research, they will analyse brain scans from dogs offered treats by strangers and machines....


We hope to show that they love us for things far beyond food, basically the same things that humans love us for, like social comfort and social bonds.’
His initial findings were published last year in a book called How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain.
In it he uses his findings to argue that dogs do indeed empathise with human emotions and experience friendships in a similar way to humans.

This experiment was preformed in hopes to rule out or express some of the holes I mentioned. Yet the results aren't displayed and I don't really see a point in purchasing the book, because the simple fact is he is only using a brain scan which can't tell you whether or not something is aware and having conscious thought about something else. Definitely not proof, and in my opinion not really evidence of such. If you want to count it as evidence I'd say its unconvincing.

Nothing...
a reply to: gosseyn

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

I couldn't find the original article this was the first thing I found. There's more in depth stuff out there. I think I got my info from a documentary so what do you want? I'm not scouring the internet for you. There's tons of evidence that animals care for us for more than the food we provide. I disbelieve you're a dog owner if all you think your dog cares about from you is food.

a reply to: Puppylove

Coonhound shepherd mix and Doberman shepherd mix and Shih zu. All trained in Japanese commands wahoo!!! I love my animals, and they exhibit actions that one could anthropomorphize but I would never consider such things as proof of love or any other emotion.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Both the assumption of anthropomorphism and the assumption of the lack thereof are both fallacious ways of thinking. To rule in either way by assumption, and not allow for the possibility of either, one has made an unproven assumption.

It is just as bad to assume an animals feeling are completely alien to us, as it is to assume the very similar. That being said, when it comes to creatures of intense social complexity like dogs, which by their nature are pack animals, it is far more logical to think they have evolved thoughts and emotions that lead towards bonding with others. When a wolf dies, the pack mourns. The dog is far more complex a creature as it evolved in a social hierarchy where each pack has a minor mini culture. No two dogs act exactly the same, each clearly has it's own personality, so they clearly are not robots acting purely on instinct.

It takes the tiniest bit of thought to realize your dog is not some pure instinct driven robot, no different from any other dog, and to realize that as a social animal, it has clearly evolved social based emotions. Dogs have demonstrated even further to develop a stronger bond with individuals and families, to become a pack, this is more than just getting food.

Is why dogs can suffer depression and separation anxiety, even if they have all the food in the world. Is why dogs, even with a full food bowl and water desire to be with you, by your side, getting affection and giving affection. In fact dogs and cats have developed the ability to form bonds with their humans completely different than what they form with each other.

Many dogs and cats will become depressive and dysfunctional without love and affection. Is why token dog owners who ignore their dogs and just leave them in their back yard, just so they can say they have a dog, are in my mind animal abusers.

But it's all just about food, right? None of the many stories that circle the globe about the things dogs have done, that go completely against self preservation instincts all account for nothing. You're just a food source to your dog, right?

a reply to: Puppylove

Both the assumption of anthropomorphism and the assumption of the lack thereof are both fallacious ways of thinking. To rule in either way by assumption, and not allow for the possibility of either, one has made an unproven assumption.

Well this is called shifting the burden of proof. You see my claim is the negative position. Animals don't have consciousness. Its not on me to prove they do as that is the default position until it has been shown otherwise. So I haven't made an assumption I am merely taking the default position as no convincing evidence has been provided for the idea that animals indeed have consciousness .

It takes the tiniest bit of thought to realize your dog is not some pure instinct driven robot, no different from any other dog, and to realize that as a social animal, it has clearly evolved social based emotions. Dogs have demonstrated even further to develop a stronger bond with individuals and families, to become a pack, this is more than just getting food.

Yes there is such a thing as pack mentality, but that doesn't prove consciousness. Birds fly in flocks. Its a survival instinct. Power in numbers. A pack of dogs becomes unstable without their alpha, hence the reason a dog might act funny after being separated from its human alpha. Again I think you want to believe this so much that you don't even stop to think about other options.

But it's all just about food, right? None of the many stories that circle the globe about the things dogs have done, that go completely against self preservation instincts all account for nothing. You're just a food source to your dog, right?

My reference to food was just one alternate explanation for the actions we observe from out pets. There are plenty of others.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

We're animals too, to pretend we're completely foreign from all other life and some special unique snowflake as the default assumption, is plain arrogance at it's nicest.

You act like nature and evolution isn't progressive at all, there's everything then us, one big giant leap. How is that logical or reasonable at all? How does that make sense as a default position.

My default position is, we are animals with advanced brains, but other animals all have brains that are various steps along the way as ours. As such much of us is in them to varying degrees. You assume, nothing, it's all robotic instinct, in which case we too must be plain robotic instinct because we're just a further evolution of them.

It's not wishful thinking, it logic and reasoning. Nothing else makes any sense.

Oh and animals don't have consciousness is NOT the default position, this isn't aliens, or some other bizarre thing. The default position is whatever fits best and easiest with all evidence provided. I'm guessing you know the term that goes with it.

I posit that it takes more assumptions to assume pure instinct as the default position, as to do so, you need to find an instinctual reason for every single one of their complex actions and interactions with others. If a single thing cannot be adequately explained through instinct, then pure instinct must be wrong.

It has long since been known and accepted that mammals at the minimum have feelings, not always as complex as ours, but feelings none the less. Is like the most non argued against thing in animal psychology. I mean #, they're starting to say it seems plants have feelings too.

All love is, is a feeling of strong affection towards another human being, there are many versions of feelings that are defined as love. Love, as a term, is pretty fricken broad in scope.

Yet saying a dog loves their owner is too much for you to handle? Catch up with the rest of the scientific community already, we're long past animals having feelings. Did you know animals play to practice, that catching prey is not instinct only, animals actually have to out think each other on at least a minor level, that wolves hunting is not just instinct they really do work together and adapt to changing behaviors of their prey.

They may not be super genius thinking on our level, but they certainly aren't relying on pure instinct either.

a reply to: Puppylove
You said'All love is, is a feeling of strong affection towards another human being, there are many versions of feelings that are defined as love. Love, as a term, is pretty fricken broad in scope.'
Emphasis is mine, but do you see how you just defeated your own argument?

a reply to: 5leepingWarrior

How so? I said what love is. It's a strong feeling off affection from one being to another. Which I contend dogs feel for their masters. Nothing in anything I said contradicts that what so ever.

a reply to: Puppylove
All love is, is a feeling of strong affection towards another human being.
That sentence that you wrote defines love as a feeling of affection from one human to Another. You have to be human to feel something for Another human, correct? Yet you used that to back up your statement that dogs feel love for their owners. Ergo, contradiction. I am of a mind to agree with you on dogs, however.

a reply to: 5leepingWarrior

Erm, were you seriously being that nit picky? You knew my intent.

Yes. While I realized the intent, others might not have, as intent is hard to convey through text. Also, My intent wasn't to aggravate you. Exactly because I knew your intent was why I pointed it out.

a reply to: gosseyn

Here is an affirmation :
What differentiates humans from other species inside the animal realm and life in general is the possibility to transmit information through lapses of time of the millennia magnitude. That is what permits us to build civilizations, to continue the work of our predecessors without the need for each generation to reinvent the wheel. Humans start where their predecessors have stopped while other animals start where their predecessors have started.

Other species have, just like us :
- consciousness
- language
- culture
But they don't have the capacity to transmit information through centuries and millennia.

You disagree ? Discuss !

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Thoughts...?

Come now, don't bail on this one...let's discuss it!

OP -
We believe our thoughts
That's it!

...thread concluded...?
no it's a little late for that ^.^