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Comment by eplanit | Hacker News Reader

Exactly. And libraries, moon/Mars/deep space exploration....

It amuses me when there's an article that recognizes a similarity between humans and other species, many jump onto the "see, they're _just_ like us" meme.

What I'd be intrigued by is if there is any other species (is there _any_?) that has, century over century, via pure self- and collective-determination, advanced their state of being, achieved new capabilities, live in ways completely different than their ancestors, etc. I'm not including genetic adaptation or evolution to suit an environment -- I mean self-driven advancement. Seems we're quite unique, in that regard.

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Actually we've evolved more in the last 50,000 years than in the 3 million before that. Civilization has definitely left its mark on us.

Right, that's called rationality. All other creatures are irrational, they act only on pure instinct, even if that instinct is sophisticated, such as the primates seen sharpening sticks for hunting, or the birds that drop hard shells into traffic so that cars crack it open and they get to eat what's inside, or the ways bees self-organize. Sophisticated, but still just instinct. We're the only rational creatures.

You’re joking, right?

No, but I think the confusion could be in the definition of rational. We're the only creatures who have the ability to reason abstractly, which is why we're able to do many things even the most intelligent other creatures can't.

From the article:

> These bees retrieved their spatial memories entirely out of context, at a time when there was no possibility of foraging and so no immediate need for communication. The function is unclear. They might have ‘just thought’ about these locations spontaneously during the night. Or perhaps the communication is a strategy for consolidating their spatial memory. Scientists have since found that a bee’s memories of the previous day are strengthened when they are exposed to elements of these memories while in deep sleep. Perhaps bees not only think and ‘talk’, but dream?

> The key implication of Lindauer’s discovery is that bees are capable of ‘offline thinking’ about spatial locations, and of linking these locations to a time of day, in the absence of an external trigger. That’s not what should happen if bees’ memories are merely prompted by environmental stimuli, combined with internal triggers such as hunger. Bees, then, appear to have at least one of the principal hallmarks of consciousness: representations of time and space.

That sounds like evidence that bees may be capable of "reason[ing] abstractly".

What can humans accomplish using solely "intelligence" that other animals can't?

All of the unique behaviors I see in humans involve use of fire-derived technology.

Isn't that enough? We can control fire. We can create technology from this one unique capability, which no other creature can. Others have the physical capability to control fire but they cannot actually do it.

>"Intentional Fire-Spreading by “Firehawk” Raptors in Northern Australia"

>"We document Indigenous Ecological Knowledge and non-Indigenous observations of intentional fire-spreading by the fire-foraging raptors Black Kite (Milvus migrans), Whistling Kite (Haliastur sphenurus), and Brown Falcon (Falco berigora) in tropical Australian savannas. Observers report both solo and cooperative attempts, often successful, to spread wildfires intentionally via single-occasion or repeated transport of burning sticks in talons or beaks. This behavior, often represented in sacred ceremonies, is widely known to local people in the Northern Territory, where we carried out ethno-ornithological research from 2011 to 2017; it was also reported to us from Western Australia and Queensland. Though Aboriginal rangers and others who deal with bushfires take into account the risks posed by raptors that cause controlled burns to jump across firebreaks, official skepticism about the reality of avian fire-spreading hampers effective planning for landscape management and restoration. Via ethno-ornithological workshops and controlled field experiments with land managers, our collaborative research aims to situate fire-spreading as an important factor in fire management and fire ecology. In a broader sense, better understanding of avian fire-spreading, both in Australia and, potentially, elsewhere, can contribute to theories about the evolution of tropical savannas and the origins of human fire use."

http://www.bioone.org/doi/10.2993/0278-0771-37.4.700

When they make a steam engine, then I'll admit to rational thought processes. Until then it could even be instinct.

How many steam engines have you made?

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