Seriously thoughtful What is it that makes us human?

[tompe]

Well as usual you have to wait for consensus and see what will appear in text books if you are not an active researcher in the field. As I understand it the state of the research is not such that you can claim what you are claiming.

The claim about animals not having a concept of time and not having preferences was something It thought was "text book accepted". Maybe there are newer research that will lead to a re-evaluation of this.

Here is one article discussing the concept of time in dogs:

http://animals.howstuffworks.com/pet...ceive-time.htm

[tompe]

Here is a paper from 2003:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...dfff49cd0c13c4

Abstract

Are humans alone in their ability to reminisce about the past and imagine the future? Recent evidence suggests that food-storing birds (scrub jays) have access to information about what they have stored where and when. This has raised the possibility of mental time travel (MTT) in animals and sparked similar research with other species. Here we caution that such data do not provide convincing evidence for MTT. Examination of characteristics of human MTT (e.g. non-verbal declaration, generativity, developmental prerequisites) points to other avenues as to how a case for animal MTT could be made. In light of the current lack of evidence, however, we maintain that MTT is a uniquely human characteristic.

[tirsales]

Originally Posted by tompe

Well as usual you have to wait for consensus and see what will appear in text books if you are not an active researcher in the field.

Why? Read the ongoing research - most papers are available for free or at libraries. Oh and text books vary - do you mean papers summarizing other papers (2nd level)? (Which in my eyes is the appropriate level for "not in the field" research). Or papers summarizing summaries (3rd level)? Or "specialized textbooks for students" (3rd to 5th level)? Or "textbooks for school" (more like 10th level)?
In behavioural research there is not much consensus

As I understand it the state of the research is not such that you can claim what you are claiming.

I claim that some experiments show that animals might have skills like "reflection what others might know" or "recognizing oneself" (textbook accepted) or "reflection about time". You stated that they have not w/o accepting ongoing research as hint towards might be wrong. I do not say "it is like that" I say "it might be" (and I still do not understand why this is relevant for the definition of human)
My position is that we dont know enough to make any absolute statements and that current research is hinting towards "animals (especially birds) can do more then we thought". I strongly dislike claims like "they cannot do xyz" because in most cases we have no possibility of knowing that (ATM). If you'd be arguing "any animal can do MTT" I'd be arguing against you for the same reasons.

The claim about animals not having a concept of time and not having preferences was something It thought was "text book accepted". Maybe there are newer research that will lead to a re-evaluation of this.

To the best of my knowledge there is some research (apart from the fact the definiton of "concept of time" is a very varying one. E.g. your howstuffworks-article uses a very highly abstracted definition).
I had no access to the paper from 2003 - and the abstract provides no insight why the researchers decided that MTT is "human only". The "howstuffworks"-article is strange - it arguments about dogs but uses Apes and Rodents as source. We have no reason to believe that different animals use the same concepts (especially if we want to show that human (another animal) is doing it completely different). Apart from that it uses only one expert as "know it all reference" which is .. dubious.

[GeoffC]

a) A basic need to be clothed, for modesty or protection. Synthetics aside, most of our clothes are harnessed from other species.

b) A perceived need to harvest from the Earth a greater variety of 'stuff' from a wider geographical spread than any other species. (For stuff, read : Oil, wood, food, ores - etc)