For a while, we thought it was language and then discovered that it wasn't. Same for tool use.
Maybe the search for uniquely human things is the uniquely human thing?
We can get over that too if we consider that we may not be that special.
When did this happen? I only studied linguistics at the undergrad level, but as of about 5 years ago, animal language has not made it there other than some examples of 'here are some non-human communication systems, and this is of they differ from language'.
It is not plausible to say that linguists are simply too egotistical to consider the possibility. Scientists in general love animal models. Plenty of linguists would jump at the chance to conduct experiments that are way too unethical to do with human subjects.
There is some promising research into whale songs which might turn out to be analgous. However, as far as I have been able to find, our understanding there is still largely speculative.
A long time ago one didn't have to phrase it carefully.
https://www.science.org/content/article/how-many-ants-live-e...
(answer: 20 quadrillion)
Cyanobacteria literally poisoned the atmosphere and triggered a global ice age. [0]
I don't exclude that possibility. But the only way to find out is to test the other possibility as well.
Like, from one mother to the child, a switch was flipped?
I think that we haven’t even really defined what qualtitative means.
I guess where you stand in this debate depends on how you define “qualitative”.
One could argue that being able to fly or not is a matter of quantity, not quality. But unless you’re being deeply philosophical I admit this is a silly argument to make.
Or maybe there are animals out there that are just as smart, but their environment was not conducive to storing knowledge long term.
Searching for the mental capacity is the weird thing, there’s more pointing to the idea that other species cant be compelled to care. We cant even tell if another human is capable of intelligence if they are handicapped in speech, paralyzed or locked in. Our best brain scans dont correlate with the level of consciousness and intelligence told by people that became unlocked after a brain injury. of course there are going to be limitations in animals without vocal cords and other priorities.
I think it is like the Ptolemaic model of the universe. We want to be special. Same as "my home team is the best in the world."
The actual mental capability gap between humans and other animals might be shorter than it appears, if you filter out the knowledge obtained over generations (i.e. not possible to obtain individually without some advanced society).
Sure, most animals have significantly less mental capacity than homo sapiens, but I'd argue that the human society is decoupled from the biological capabilities of a single individual to a large degree. It's a separate self-organizing system, and 99% of our perceived intelligence (a made up number) is purely social in nature.
That being said, a sufficiently big quantitative difference is in practice indistinguishable from a qualitative one.
Speak for yourself. I trust my mother knows what she's talking about.
To be fair, I've never seen any other member of the animal kingdom drunkenly light their own farts.
I suggest such actions (a combination of drug use, mastery of fire, intellect (however limited) and social bonding) define our humanity.
Maybe you just missed it, or scared them off.
> drug use and fire: https://youtu.be/qgtXTv0jGxg https://youtu.be/kU95P7kilLU
> limited intellect https://youtu.be/DJsn1QivbKM https://youtu.be/Gui3IswQ0DI
> social bonding https://youtu.be/i497TV5Q6TY https://youtu.be/MI75eogv6Wo
Walking absurdly long distances without pause, throwing things very precisely, not killing each other when in huge groups, autonomous temperature control.