How do humans differ from other species?

Pablo_

Maggie Fuing wrote: »

Humans are socialised beings . .unlike animals . .

What does this mean?
Is it we are social animals? i.e. we live in social groups with heirarchies, dependecies and communication or is it we are actively socialised i.e. we are thought how to communicate, understand heirarchies and depend on society for our needs ?

Maggie Fuing

Yeah, some animals are socialised . . .domestic animals I guess.
Yeah we become socialised but animals "to a certain degree". yeah

sponsoredwalk

http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/vecase/behavior/Spring2001/Kizer/altruism.html

http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/vecase/behavior/Spring2002/Perry/altruism.html

I just don't think you all should go off claiming certain species are this or that without some good evidence. It's that kind of quick judgement that lies behind people assuming certain monkeys dislike having their testicles ripped out after a fight! [Dan Dennet's book - Kind's of Minds]. The above links show bats co-operate [and many psychological studies], we all know of ant's & their colonies. schools of fish etc...

Some things for you to check up on to end these anthropocentric claims, there has been loads of variation in the time frame of 10,000 years & it is pretty well documented. We have caused so much Artificial Selection that it's perfectly logical to choose our times as examples.
Think of the English Bulldog that could not be birthed were it not for humans. They would go extinct in a generation without humans due to the baby puppies head being too big!

Cabbage is evolved recently along with many other plants from a single inedible plant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brassica_oleracea .
Aurochs is the cows recent ancestor, extinct due to human cultivation of it's genetic descendants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs .
Pidgeons are another source of genetic diversity, Darwin studied them a lot due to the phenotypic diversity in successive generations.
The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth is a very recent and distinct example.

All very recent, yet significant, examples.

I'd like to add about social animals that it's only to the benefit of all, particularly in humans. We learn so much from each other & advance so fast due to the spread of idea's. I heard so many amazing facts in the following course (suitable for mp3 while on a bus etc....) http://oyc.yale.edu/psychology/introduction-to-psychology/ about the values to all species of other beings, I advise people to give the first short lecture a listen and see whether or not to go from there.

caesarthechimp

Homo Sapiens appears to have killed off its closest rivals; the other hominids, and this has increased it's perception of itself as being unique.

robp

LilOc wrote: »

What do you guys make of the fact that scientists have spoken of classifying dolphins as "non-human persons"?

...

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/02/is-a-dolphin-a-person.html

This article describes how certain scientists believe that they have a high level of intelligence but the individual who refers to them as "persons" is actually a philosopher not a scientist. Personhood is not a scientific concept by any means. Its a important distinction. I think we should be looking towards paleoanthropologists and primatologists like Kathleen Gibson for concrete characteristics of humanity and leaving vaguer terms such as personhood for subjective philosophers IMHO.
Some robust traits which have been proven by these specialists included abstract thing, advanced technological sequences, long-term planning and symbolism or art.

r3nu4l

Interestingly, we used to believe that our use of tools made us distinct from other animals. Then we discovered that apes use stones to bash open nut shells, apes use twigs covered in tree resin to stick into termite nests and create a sweet, insect lollipop for themselves

Then we discovered that some birds use twigs as tools and that birds also smash snail shells open on rocks...

So that doesn't work.

As has been said, the self-aware thing is not confined to humans either, nor is language.

It has recently been shown that pigeons can distinguish 'good' art from 'bad' art!! Not really an example of abstract thinking but showing that they can be trained to differentiate quality of art...if you think about it, through our own lives we are 'trained' this way too.

So what does distinguish us? I don't know to be honest.

Someone mentioned urbanisation bringing us closer together earlier. However, many animals operate in herds or colonies and so are closer together.

Socialised animals? I'm not sure what that meant but we all know that there are hierarchies in many animal species. Some senior members of a group get to feed first, get groomed by other members of the group and apes punish wrongdoers in their groups by ostracising them. All signs of a social hierarchy and social etiquette...

Our belief in God/Gods and the supernatural may be a differentiating factor. However, we do also know that elephants in Africa often divert from their migratory routes just to visit the graves of former members of their family. These animals even shed 'tears' at these grave sites. Is that a 'religious' or 'supernatural' thing? Or is it a sign of a socialised animal?

Victor

Humans have put animals into space. No animal has put a human into space.

Andrew_Wray

Gary L wrote: »

I think to believe that is to deny your incredible freedom. For all we can tell, we are the pinnacle of existence. Why grasp for a master?

we may be at the pinnacle of existence, as is every other member of every species, be they flora or fauna or other, taking the word 'pinnacle' to mean 'as far as we have got to date' - we certainly are not the pinnacle of existence

mankind certainly has some quite uniquely developed features, none of which features are unknown in other species

many of the aspects of our senses are almost vestigial, especially our senses of smell and hearing

there are many aspects of our characteristics as a species that suggest we are critically dysfunctional

Andrew_Wray

Our capacity for belief in anything is probably a differentiating factor, as is our having a belief about everything - even if I say 'I know nothing about that!' I am expressing a belief - our ability to think in the abstract is probably also a differentiting factor, as is out capacityy to express in words our abstract thoughts.

A number of animal species have been known to show grief at the loss of a member of their family / herd, gorrillas [as at Longleat], horses, dogs and elephants, I would say I have seen chimpanzees [on film] expressing satisfaction when achieving a bit of one-upmanship over a rival and I have owned dogs who strut about when achieving the same after a bit of mischief.

Wibbs

Turtyturd wrote: »

Humans are not naturally socialised either, its something we learn from the moment we are born. Animals can be socialised to a certain degree also.

Maggie Fuing wrote: »

Yeah, some animals are socialised . . .domestic animals I guess.
Yeah we become socialised but animals "to a certain degree". yeah

I would argue its a bit of both. Nature and nurture. I have had an interest in human evolution for yonks and one thing occurred to me a while back. We, Homo Sapiens are outliers among all those hominids that went before us and whom we co existed with for 1000's of years. We stand out, not just in what we've done with culture etc, but in how we look. We're far less robust and have strange faces. Not to us of course, but a Homo erectus or Neanderthalis would find us strange.

Bear with me here :O:) I was watching a programme on how one woman scientist in russia domesticated arctic foxes over several generations. From vicious little feckers to lapdogs. That was interesting in of itself and it did make me ask the question why such domestication happens in some speices and not others. "Domesticated" cats are more tame wild cats than domesticated, but I digress..

What hit me like a lightbulb moment were the physical and behavioural changes that seem to consistently occur along with the domestication process. The general ones are placidity, more vocalisations with the domesticator(eg dogs bark wolves dont), neotony across the board(the retention of juvenile behaviours into adulthood), the dentition becomes smaller, as does the mid face/snout, a drop in robustness, the senses become duller in general, an increase in the variation of pigmentation of the hair and eyes, acceptance into adulthood of new members, even of different species(pets etc) to the social group and a couple of other adaptations.

Then I looked at modern humans compared to our ancestral rellies and even earlier sapiens. The comparisons are interesting. We became less robust, our mid faces became smaller, our faces flatter, our jaws and teeth became smaller, as did our noses, our skulls followed this robust to gracile trajectory. While our brains are big Neanderthals had bigger skulls(and brains) on average. Adult sapiens engage in play throughout their lives. While we are tribal we also will accept new members into our adult groupings. We also accept other species. We were the first to have pets. The first to domesticate animals. We also show a great variability as a species in pigmentation(not just Vit D adapted pigmentation either).

So are we domesticated/socialised hominids and did we domesticate ourselves? Along with domesticating others. The dog in particular. The domestication of the dog comes along very close to the time when we really started to stand out as a species culturally. Studies have shown that if people are played the sounds of dogs they can discern with remarkable accuracy the emotional state behind the sounds. Even if they've never owned dogs themselves. The same people have no clue with chimp or other great ape vocalisations. Which is interesting. Even groups like Andaman islanders who traditionally didnt have dogs, when first exposed t dogs instinctively interact with them. It goes the other way too. Dogs can "read" humans very well too.

The triggers for this could be as simple as a growing population. The more of us in an area, the more likely we would survive if we socialised ourselves and negated our "wild" tendencies. Maybe that's why the Neanderthals died out? They never did this. It seems they didnt trade with others of their kind and remained in small pockets. They did interact with us as modern europeans retain up to 4% of neanderthal DNA. I suspect that interaction was driven by us.

This hominid self domestication would and did give big advantages. Extended "childlike" thinking into adulthood would give us a different take on the world. Would make us more curious and more the need to explore and to examine. Just the way a small child and indeed other juvenile animals do. Wolf cubs are very curious and quite bold. Adults are very wary. Maybe this childlike nature also led to organised belief systems? The imagination and belief in santa/tooth fairy openness and the need for an adult in the background when combined with mature minds led to God? That's been a common enough explanation for that. I'm just cotending that the neotenous traits made it a more robust meme in our species.

Enrate wrote: »

Homo Sapiens appears to have killed off its closest rivals; the other hominids, and this has increased it's perception of itself as being unique.

Yes thats one theory, but one I personally dont buy. I doubt we killed them off directly anyway. More like had some advantages so that when times got tough we had that edge and they didnt. Maybe like I say, our self domestication was all the advantage we needed. Look again at the wolf Canis Lupus and then look at the dog Canis Lupus familiaris. The latter is one of the most common mammals on the planet, yet its wild cousins are barely hanging on in some areas and extinct in others. Maybe similar happened with humans.

Torakx

How would you explain people instinctivly being able to discern the difference in tones of dog barks? Like the islanders situation.
For me the first thought is either a collective consciousness or unconsciousness whichever applies or maybe genetic memory of some kind.
Or is there a more plausible explanation?

seamus

Pablo_ wrote: »

And here'sa question? I don't believe we are the pinnacle of existence .. too homocentric and too much of a teleological interpretation of evolution but do scientists know of any animal/plant that evolved after 10,000 years ago? ie evolved into existence after homo-sapiens ?

This is next to impossible to know because species don't just "pop" into existence. Evolution occurs in such a way that if you were to take any one member of that species and compare him to his ancestors and progeny, he would appear almost identical to both (in terms of DNA). And the same goes for them, and their ancestors and progeny and so forth.

We only know that a new species has emerged when we take one member of the species and compare it to an ancestor from thousands of generations before him and determine that the differences are sufficient to consider it a new species and the two would be incapable of interbreeding (there's an actual definition for what a new species is).

Thus animals are evolving all the time. But it happens at an extremely slow rate in human terms. So an elephant from 10,000 years ago doesn't differ much from one today. An elephant 100,000 years ago, well it may not have been an elephant.

My point being that we can't really take any species known to exist in the last 10,000 years, then compare it to an ancestor from 10,000 years previous to that and say that they are necessarily two distinct species. Because evolution generally doesn't occur at that speed and for all intents and purposes they will appear to be members of the same species.

In the lab however, evolution has not only been proven, it's been actually demonstrated. At a microscopic scale, reproduction occurs in a matter of minutes and we are capable of seeing an organism evolve and develop new traits and characteristics.

"The pinnacle of existence" is a nonsense word because it assumes that there is a pinnacle - a perfect species. There can be no such thing. Organisms evolve as their environment changes, the "best" species in biological terms is the one who can reproduce as much as possible using as few resources as possible within the current environment(s) that they're living. Humans are waaay off that prize.

Wibbs

Torakx wrote: »

How would you explain people instinctivly being able to discern the difference in tones of dog barks? Like the islanders situation.
For me the first thought is either a collective consciousness or unconsciousness whichever applies or maybe genetic memory of some kind.
Or is there a more plausible explanation?

I think its more mundane, if not equally interesting than that. I would say collective experience in dog owning cultures right down to the subtle level. In non dog owning culture(rare) the innate human thing with recognising another domesticated/socialised species comes into it. Even more strangely one which is clearly a predator. I've seen kids walk up and cuddle rothweilers, though rotties generally love kids so not such a great example. We anthropomorphise animals as a default position. Even the most "logical" among us when faced with puppies or kittens react positvely to that. Funny, now that I think on it other domesticated animals will do similar. Dogs will suckle the young of tigers and lion etc. Maybe thats a stretch though so ignore :D

seamus wrote: »

This is next to impossible to know because species don't just "pop" into existence. Evolution occurs in such a way that if you were to take any one member of that species and compare him to his ancestors and progeny, he would appear almost identical to both (in terms of DNA). And the same goes for them, and their ancestors and progeny and so forth.

We only know that a new species has emerged when we take one member of the species and compare it to an ancestor from thousands of generations before him and determine that the differences are sufficient to consider it a new species and the two would be incapable of interbreeding (there's an actual definition for what a new species is).

Thus animals are evolving all the time. But it happens at an extremely slow rate in human terms. So an elephant from 10,000 years ago doesn't differ much from one today. An elephant 100,000 years ago, well it may not have been an elephant.

My point being that we can't really take any species known to exist in the last 10,000 years, then compare it to an ancestor from 10,000 years previous to that and say that they are necessarily two distinct species. Because evolution generally doesn't occur at that speed and for all intents and purposes they will appear to be members of the same species.

Species is such a grey area too. We're still locked into oul linnaeus' reductive (and bloody brilliant it has to be said) way of categorising things. Neanderthal's and Sapiens were(and still are in many circles) considered a separate species. Distanced from each other by the guts of 150-200,000 years and yet as recent DNA evidence has shown we could get jiggy and have enough kids to find the genetic echo of that hanky panky today. It seems we may have had some hanky panky with even more distanced Erectus in Asia 60,000 years ago. They had left Africa nearly 2 million years before.

"The pinnacle of existence" is a nonsense word because it assumes that there is a pinnacle - a perfect species. There can be no such thing. Organisms evolve as their environment changes, the "best" species in biological terms is the one who can reproduce as much as possible using as few resources as possible within the current environment(s) that they're living. Humans are waaay off that prize.

+1

recedite

The dogs bark is thought to have arisen mainly as a way of communicating with humans, so it would have to work pretty much intuitively for both man and dog. The human/dog duo as a hunting team has synergies that would have outstripped the neanderthals abilities. From what I see of modern humans, I would assume that there was warfare against the neanderthals, not just competition.
Piebald colouration is another trait that seems to go with domestication.

Wibbs

Maybe warfare, but Im not so sure. Usually the warfare lark kicks off over resources, but when the two of us bumped into each other the resources were pretty big for both. Plus we tended to hunt different things. Neanderthals went for big game almost exclusively. We did the odd time but had a much more varied diet. Just as likely to eat rats as eat mammoths. Our catholic tastes gave is the edge in many way. Evidence also seems to show pretty long term co existence between the two groups(in Spain and Israel). No evidence so far of violence anyway. Given we had some better weapons and they had way more strength(an average neanderthal would destroy the best cage fighter alive today), if we had gone that route you would think it would have shown up by now? Maybe it will of course, but IMHO it was a rare enough event. I'd reckon, looking at small scale tribes today in big areas, they mostly avoid each other. Maybe coming together for trade or mate acquisition. I'd say that was what happened back then. Trade would have been novel for the neanderthals. That's one of our inventions. Pre us showing up they never seemed to trade with their fellows. After we show up some sapiens stuff shows up in their stuff.

Interestingly culture and art may not be our invention, it may be theirs. Which really throws the cat among the pigeons about what it is to be "human". It has been assumed in the past and mostly still is that any neanderthal cultural items like body adornment and jewelry they copied from the newcomers. Problem with that is they have jewelry and such 20,000 years before we show up(There may even be examples of erectus art in the form of Venus figures). At a time when we didnt have that kinda thing. We did show some artistic bent in southern africa about 100,000 years back in the form of red ochre blocks incised with chevrons, but little else or at least there's a gap. Maybe this meeting of cultures triggered a great leap forward. Makes sense as it usually does leap forward when modern humans do it. Throw in a side order of their DNA and here we are.

IMHO hominids from later erectus onwards were "Human"(tm) just to slightly different degrees. We could have relationships with each other, bith cultural and after a few ales on a saturday night. We may have punted the ball in the goal, but the earlier guys had possession of the ball and passed it neatly to us in the box*.




*Apologies for the footy reference. Dont follow it at all but the WC is on so being the sponge that I am...

Wibbs

recedite wrote: »

The dogs bark is thought to have arisen mainly as a way of communicating with humans, so it would have to work pretty much intuitively for both man and dog.

Oh defo. Read a good book whose name escapes about a guy who spent a year actually living with canadian wolves in the wild. At first they were very wary, but after a while relaxed. What he noted was they started to bark at him. Adult wolves dont. Cubs do, but they grow out of it. He reckoned they figured he was a bit deaf compared to their own kind so compensated for the dopey human. Which is again interesting as they're working this stuff out and essentially domesticating/socialising him as much as he was doing the same to them.

The human/dog duo as a hunting team has synergies that would have outstripped the neanderthals abilities.

Oh yea and vice versa. The wolf/dog would get a very good hunting partner too. They can sniff out and track prey, but need a large investment and risk to take it down. We're pretty shíte at sniffing prey out by comparison, but we're hell on wheels at the kill end of things. Both of us are predators who alone are OK hunters with their own advantages, but together are hunting machines par excellence. The above guy also noted this too. The wild wolf pack started to look to him to spot things because of his height. We're among the tallest animals on the planet, by virtue of bipedalism. If you think on it, very very few animals have eyes higher than us. It was one helluva deal for us both. If I dropped the average dog into a wilderness on its own. It'll do OK but not so great. Ditto with a human. If I drop the pair of ye in together? Both together at least double the chances of survival, if not low level obesity for both Not so much with cats. The cat would likely think "I do like you, but lets face it you're on your own ya two legged freak". :pac:

recedite

Wibbs wrote: »

Given we had some better weapons and they had way more strength(an average Neanderthal would destroy the best cage fighter alive today), if we had gone that route you would think it would have shown up by now? Maybe it will of course, but IMHO it was a rare enough event. I'd reckon, looking at small scale tribes today in big areas, they mostly avoid each other. Maybe coming together for trade or mate acquisition. I'd say that was what happened back then. Trade would have been novel for the Neanderthals. That's one of our inventions. Pre us showing up they never seemed to trade with their fellows. After we show up some sapiens stuff shows up in their stuff.

Around 1100 years ago a lot of Irish monk's stuff was showing up in the homes of Scandinavians. That does not mean there was a happy trade going on. We are a devious lot; we take stuff without paying if we can. Trade arises where both sides are more equal in physical or military force, so the chances of being killed or injured outweigh the cost of paying for the goods. From that point of view, H. sapiens might have decided it was better to trade with the more robust Neanderthals.
Its interesting to speculate on their interactions, but I suppose we will never really know. It seems the Neanderthals had less well developed vocal chords and may not have talked much, which might have limited the spread of new ideas and technologies among them. IMO they were probably intelligent but might have seemed a bit "autistic" to us. I can't help thinking of Sylvester Stallone now

Wibbs

recedite wrote: »

Around 1100 years ago a lot of Irish monk's stuff was showing up in the homes of Scandinavians. That does not mean there was a happy trade going on. We are a devious lot; we take stuff without paying if we can. Trade arises where both sides are more equal in physical or military force, so the chances of being killed or injured outweigh the cost of paying for the goods. From that point of view, H. sapiens might have decided it was better to trade with the more robust Neanderthals.

True enough.

It seems the Neanderthals had less well developed vocal chords and may not have talked much, which might have limited the spread of new ideas and technologies among them. IMO they were probably intelligent but might have seemed a bit "autistic" to us. I can't help thinking of Sylvester Stallone now

:pac: the problem is again we just dont know. Vocal chords dont fossilise too well so short of finding one preserved in the depths of a 60,000yr old bog we'll never know for sure. What we do know is they had a hyoid bone that looked modern, they also had the nerve channel that controls the tongue that looked modern. It then comes down to how the larynx was located in the throat. One side says it was like us another says it was higher up due to the angle of the neck.

Personally I reckon they could speak and speak about complex stuff. I further reckon we have had speech from early on. From erectus onwards with the complexity and range getting higher over time. Neanderthals had culture, made complex tools, used pigments and objects as body adornments, had big brains(bigger than ours on average), buried their dead. All of which for me anyway is evidence of complex speech. Throw in the modern looking bone structures involved in speech and it seems pretty certain.

Woow_Aqualung

I saw this statement by Ayn Rand yesterday and thought of this thread.

Man's unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself.

I think that this is, mainly, how humans differ from other species. Can't think of any other animal that changes its surrounding considerably to meet its needs.

recedite

Woow_Aqualung wrote: »

I think that this is, mainly, how humans differ from other species. Can't think of any other animal that changes its surrounding considerably to meet its needs.

Beavers.
Ayn Rand was a pompous elitist propagandist.

SuperInfinity

Gary L wrote: »

I think to believe that is to deny your incredible freedom. For all we can tell, we are the pinnacle of existence. Why grasp for a master?

We are not the "pinnacle of existence", if anything we're the asshole of existence, or of animals anyway.

Humans are the fools of the animal kingdom, they think they're somehow superior to all the other animals because they have a big brain. They think it allows them to torture, harass and kill other animals as it suits them.

Why do you consider humans to be "above" other mammals? Just because they have a bigger brain? There is no other difference, other than the particular clique and social group we're in.

Capt'n Midnight

recedite wrote: »

Beavers.
Ayn Rand was a pompous elitist propagandist.

termite mounds would be another example

also jungles / forests can provide up to 60% of the local rainfall by transpiration so the climate is wetter due to water recycling

Capt'n Midnight

where we do differ is that we can use use energy from outside a local ecosystem to keep us going while we exploit that ecosystem

Woow_Aqualung

recedite wrote: »

Beavers.
Ayn Rand was a pompous elitist propagandist.

Ok, firstly, in my comment I said Considerably to cover for people who would say birds that build nests, or, in this case, beavers that build dams. A beaver builds a dam as a home for itself in the river, but the dam itself is made to taylor for the river, i.e. the background. Therefore the beaver adjusts to its suroundings. Humans, on the other hand, adjust their own suroundings to fit their needs, such as sowing seeds to feed them selves, instead of adjusting to nature and foraging for whatever is available.

Secondly, that statment you made on Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand was a pompous elitist propagandist.

Is a broad, sweeping statement which denounces all Randian arguement as being moot, and is completely uncalled for. For example whilst I disagree with Marxist theory on a whole, I see the validity of some of his arguements, as it would be wrong to say that all his views are completly invalid.

I'm not going to argue Objectivist theory on this thread again, as it's a digression from the subject being dicussed and I've seen how it can spoil a thread.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055929894

recedite

Beavers like lakes, not rivers. Big ones.

Wibbs

Woow_Aqualung wrote: »

I think that this is, mainly, how humans differ from other species. Can't think of any other animal that changes its surrounding considerably to meet its needs.

In our history that's quite a recent development though. 10,000 years at a serious push. We would certainly define the chaps and chapesses who illuminated caves with their artwork as fully human, so yes as a definition of human since the dawn of agriculture it would have some weight alright. Then again ants change their environment and "domesticate" and milk aphids and others plant and nurture fungi for consumption in underground gardens.

Gun to my head? If I was to define the difference between us and other animals I would say we differ because we can define that difference.

steddyeddy

Well for a primate we are quite different in that the adult of the species is relativly hairless.

SuperInfinity

Wibbs wrote: »

In our history that's quite a recent development though. 10,000 years at a serious push. We would certainly define the chaps and chapesses who illuminated caves with their artwork as fully human, so yes as a definition of human since the dawn of agriculture it would have some weight alright. Then again ants change their environment and "domesticate" and milk aphids and others plant and nurture fungi for consumption in underground gardens.

Gun to my head? If I was to define the difference between us and other animals I would say we differ because we can define that difference.

Agreed, and we only ruin ourselves and the planet rather than gain anything.

That's the terrible truth about humanity's supposed "progress", we haven't actually done anything except err.... ruin ourselves and the planet.

fontanalis

Anyone geta chance to read this yet? Seems like it covers osme of the topics discussed here.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400062152/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_r=1FEFFZJK2AAAC7RGFCSY&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938811&pf_rd_i=507846

sink

I just watched a PBS series dealing with this exact question, I would recommend everyone check it out.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/humanspark/

If you're having trouble finding it pm me.

It draws the conclusion that essentially it's our abstract ability to imagine ourselves in different situations at different locations and points in time and to imagine how we would act and how our different actions would affect the outcome. It's the same cognitive ability which allows us to imagine other peoples thoughts and to think about what they think. This ability together with our other ability to communicate our complex thoughts through gestures, symbols and language which forms the basis for what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom.

The program obviously explains better and in much more detail and I recommend everyone watch it.