[Flipside]

Good Call.

As far as resisting the mating urge, practically every animal that works in a pack has to resist its own biological clock, only Alpha Males get to mate, and if another animal wants to mate, it either has to take down the Alpha, thus becoming him, or live with it

As for protecting Humans, well, I think that's something to do with self-interest

There's strong evidence that Elephants and Great Apes mourn their dead, and Female Elephants have been known to hunt down Rhinos that attack the herd long after they have ceased to be a threat, a concept of revenge, perhaps?

[karajorma]

Don't worry; on HLP, as liberal as it is, people can get away with most posts, and in my opinion, get away with too much here, and mods don't seem to ever delete them. They just monkey someone or close a topic, but monkeying is rare too. You definitely won't have your post removed and I see nothing wrong with your post from any point of view.

I'd be very careful about asking the admins to get tougher if I were you.

[redsniper]

Humans are special to ME because I'm human. I'm pretty sure I'd put the life of a human over that of any other animal. It all depends on your point of view.

[ThesaurusRex]

Someone needs to move my last post here since I began to reply before the thread was split and posted it after it was.

[iamzack]

Humans aren't special. We're different, but then all species are different.

This wouldn't be a debate if we weren't so far removed from other animals taxodermically. Like, if there were other species within our genus.

[Flipside]

Someone needs to move my last post here since I began to reply before the thread was split and posted it after it was.

Copy and Paste, and I'll delete the original

[General Battuta]

I got it, it's in on the last page via a merge. Good practice, if nothing else.

[ThesaurusRex]

Thank you.

[General Battuta]

Yes our wiring is more complex and that's what separates us from other living organisms. A key ability that humans have over many other organisms is our advance cognitive abilities. These cognitive abilities are derived from the complexity of our brains. It is true that when everything is broken down to it's the chemical and electrical signals are essentially what makes us do the things that we do, unless you prescribe to the belief in a soul and such. Nevertheless, human brains are different from other organism's brains in terms of what they allow humans to do.

For example, take a conscious frog and place it in cold water. Now place that cold water over a stove and apply heat to it to boil the water. The frog in the water will not react since its brain will not detect the gradual change. Now take a conscious human and try the same experiment. The person in the water will eventually leave if he or she is able and allowed to leave. If the chemical and electrical processes of the frog brain and human brain were compared the two brains would appear to be very similar. However, we can see that the complexity of the human brain does make a difference.

Warning: The experiment listed on this post has been done before, so I would advise that no one try it.

These are arguably sensory differences here. But I agree with the fundamental point as long as you realize humans aren't particularly special - we (probably) can't do anything other animals are incapable of. We're just a lot better at a lot of cognitive tasks.

[ThesaurusRex]

Yeah that's true. We just got the luck of the draw.

[ThesaurusRex]

Humans aren't special. We're different, but then all species are different.

This wouldn't be a debate if we weren't so far removed from other animals taxodermically. Like, if there were other species within our genus.

If other species within our genus did exist right now everything would be so ****ing weird. Cultural problems would go beyond way beyond racism and a lot of other things would be radically different.

Whoops.  Double post. Sorry people.

[iamzack]

Humans aren't special. We're different, but then all species are different.

This wouldn't be a debate if we weren't so far removed from other animals taxodermically. Like, if there were other species within our genus.

If other species within our genus did exist right now everything would be so ****ing weird. Cultural problems would go beyond way beyond racism and a lot of other things would be radically different.

Whoops.  Double post. Sorry people.

Yeah, I thought of that. But, if you think about it, we slowly come to find that different != better/worse. So I figure, eventually, we would be able to say, well, we're bigger, but they're faster, etc.

[Flipside]

The main difference with humanity is that, rather than adapt to the environment, we have adapted the Environment to us, however, we are not alone in that respect either, we've just done it on a far vaster scale than any other creature that builds.

[ThesaurusRex]

Yeah, I thought of that. But, if you think about it, we slowly come to find that different != better/worse. So I figure, eventually, we would be able to say, well, we're bigger, but they're faster, etc.

Yeah that's true it could be better or worse right now. But I feel it would probably be like, you're talking all of my food...*bang*...someone's dead. Competition between similar species usually doesn't end well for one of them.

The main difference with humanity is that, rather than adapt to the environment, we have adapted the Environment to us, however, we are not alone in that respect either, we've just done it on a far vaster scale than any other creature that builds.

There is a theory that we can thank our hands for that. If an octopus had hands then there's no telling what they could accomplish, um...they would also have to have a bunch of modifications to live on land. But if they were land creatures and did have hands. Well, then...then we are in deep s**t.

[iamzack]

Depends on the species involved...

You know, if you think about it, anything "manmade" or anything humans do really is "natural." After all, many other animals learn to use tools from older relatives and such. Ours are just very, very complex. And pervasive.

[High Max]

Don't worry; on HLP, as liberal as it is, people can get away with most posts, and in my opinion, get away with too much here, and mods don't seem to ever delete them. They just monkey someone or close a topic, but monkeying is rare too. You definitely won't have your post removed and I see nothing wrong with your post from any point of view.

I'd be very careful about asking the admins to get tougher if I were you.

Not too worried since I don't use bad language, threaten, sexually harrass (never flirtatious, never talk about bodies of people or talk about wanting to do things with them in my posts, etc), or spam (I try to make detailed intelligent posts and not one liners), but others have went much further than me in many ways.

[iamzack]

If you did any of those things, no one would really notice beyond the awkward wording and miserable grammar/spelling...

[High Max]

I have great grammar and spelling. I strive of that, but I should get back on topic now.

I think humans are special depending on their abilities and strengths and whether or not they try to improve themselves intellectually and strength-wise and whether or not they try to work harder vs someone who expects someone to do everything for them. But humans have more importance to those who know them personally and like them (sentimental value).

[Flipside]

Don't get this started again, it's the face-offs between you two that were the cause of so much grief last time

[The E]

I have great grammar and spelling. I strive of that, but I should get back on topic now.

I think humans are special depending on their abilities and strengths and whether or not they try to improve themselves intellectually and strength-wise and whether or not they try to work harder vs someone who expects someone to do everything for them. But humans have more importance to those who know them personally and like them (sentimental value).

So, you're saying that humans are special because there are humans who think that humans are special?

In a strict biological sense, the only thing that makes us special (or rather, different) is not our capability to change our environment to suit our needs per se, but the sheer scale on which we do it. Which, arguably, stems from our capability to create abstract concepts, and then communicate them to others.
All of the above is my opinion, and not in the least reliable, or even reliably backed up, of course.

So, are we special? Until and unless it is demonstrated that other organisms posess similar characteristics, I'd say tentatively yes.


Side note: Why has noone mentioned this yet?