What makes homo sapiens "human"?

As a child I read a text-book that proclaimed that the differences between humans and all other animals were "language and tool-use".It seems now that we have evidence of language and tool-use in various other species, as well as evidence of other potentially human-distinguishing traits like self-awareness, culture, art, society, ethics, and face-to-face sexual intercourse.Are Biblical proclamation and religion the only characteristics that are left to distinguish homo sapiens from other species? Are they valid as identifiers, or simply ego-boosting cultural constructs?

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

Point of View and Perspective.Odds are there are a bunch of Chimps, Elephants and Whales holding similar discussions.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Humans are animal. What seperates us from the rest of the animal kingdom is our ascension to the top of the food chain when we created civilizations.

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The Laminator

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Pinky,I would say no. Obviously we don't need a bible, or even religion, to delve into the field of metaphysics - which is the profound extension of our self-awareness as a species.Also, I think our tool use and language capabilities should not be so casually compared to other species. Using a stick to dig for termites, or building a hive is not the same thing as terraforming a continent, creating satellite communications, or sending probes into outerspace.Being able to communicate where food is located or basic emotions and sensations such as fear, hunger, pain is not the same thing as writing a sonnet, or Catcher in the Rye, or an episode of Knight Rider where KIT has to save Michael from the clutches of an evil international organization - ok, maybe it is the same as the last one, but you get my point.

Firstly, I don't think there is any natural justification for a human/animal split. I think it is a simple case of anthrocentrism.However, I would query one point: Really? I haven't seen any. There's some exceedingly poor evidence that you can teach chimpanzees something that vaguely approximates rudimentary language. But as far as I know no evidence that they use any in their natural world.I'd say language remains a uniquely human attribute qualitively different from the communications of any other animal.

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Really? I haven't seen any. There's some exceedingly poor evidence that you can teach chimpanzees something that vaguely approximates rudimentary language. But as far as I know no evidence that they use any in their natural world.

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Elephants and whales both use "personal individual identifiers" in their messages... we would call such a 'name'. Also IIRC we have seen one of lab animals teaching its own child the sign language it had learned from humans, but I forget the reference.

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I'd say language remains a uniquely human attribute qualitively different from the communications of any other animal.

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I don't accept that I'm afraid. One strand on the Neanderthal debate is the suggestion that they might have communicated by whistles; this would tie into the 'co-existant but apparently in mutual ignorance' scenario discussed on another thread.Language is IMO a communications protocol; it is a technology, and tool as much as an axe is a tool. The qualitative complexity of our protocol does not make it meaningfully unique, even if it is the most developed such protocol on the planet.

Cool. Interesting, but not language. I've also seen that. I've also seen critques of the whole field. In my opinion (q.v. Stephen Pinkers' [i]The Language Instinct[i]) claims of sign language in chimps have been grossly exagurated and rely heavily on generous levels of interpretation by the experimenters. Although one case of Orang Utan language learning still stands above other examples.In any case no animal language learning has approached even the linguistic capabilities of an intelligent two year old and certainly has never approached that of a typical adult. I'm not sure I understand the relevance of your point? Of course ancestral, and 'branch', homonids will have possessed some kind of intermediary between human language and ape communication. I'm unsure as to what you mean by 'meaningfully unique'? Meaningful in what sense?

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Cool. Interesting, but not language.

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No, but this may well be because we do not know what we are looking for as yet. Its not language, but it is interpersonal communication. IMO, we are still in the very early days of invesigating consciousness and language in non-humans, and I'm not ready to write their abundant signals off as Not Language just yet, especially in the case of cetaceans.

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In any case no animal language learning has approached even the linguistic capabilities of an intelligent two year old and certainly has never approached that of a typical adult.

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Granted.

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I'm not sure I understand the relevance of your point?

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None particularly, it was just an aside that I found interesting; if true, it would give us more reason to consider non-human forms of communication more broadly; a whistle-language for cetaceans might be more plausible. And this is relevant becuase it will affect how syntax is consturcted and concepts ordered, all of which impacts our ability to interpret and understand.

I'm not sure that you are saying this, but I just wanted to clarify - I am not talking about the ability to learn human language.Just because we do not understand the complexity of whale songs and dolphin whistle-clicks or the subtleties of gestures and pant-hoots in apes, does not mean that they are not communicating by language as I conceive it. The idea that individual animals have "names" is strong evidence to me for both language use and individual awareness.Perhaps a definition is needed here. As a general clarification: In my initial post, though perhaps not clear, I was thinking of traits as binary - a species either has them or they don't. (Since I obviously know a computer is a far more sophisticated tool than a hammer and anvil...)

Ok. I would most definetly disagree with that as a useful definition of language. By language I mean a communication form with grammar and the ability to express abstract concepts as a bare minimum.There is utterly no doubt that animals can express emotional states to other animals (anyone with a cat or a dog can tell you that) or that they are capable of significant feats of communication (witness chimps hunting monkeys). Animals are also capable of verbally expressing specifics (prarie dogs have different calls for different kinds of predators) or transmitting those verbalisations culturally (different groups of prarie dogs have different calls).However, I don't consider these feats to be language. With the exception of the last item on that list, humans are capable of all of the above without ever using language and the last is no more than having a short vocabulary - no more language than telling a dog to sit, stay or fetch is language.

Based on this logic, I can claim that there is some exceedingly poor evidence that Americans (or English native speakers) cannot be taught Vietnamese and speak it the way that will make us Vietnamese understand. Therefore, I conclude that you don't really speak a language at all.The point is we haven't broken any code that the whales use or the elephants use. The whales could easily say to each other that humans lack language because there is little evidence that any human being at all could learn whale.

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The Laminator

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How would humans accomplish those things (expressing emotion, organizing a hunting party) without "language"? I'm guessing you mean through such things as facial expressions and gestures - which is language. Just ask anyone whose first language is American Sign Language (considered by many to be far more expressive than spoken English).I feel like you are also contradicting yourself by commenting that animals have "a short vocabulary," since you can't have vocabulary without language; and again, that is only the vocabulary that humans have deciphered.Your definition of language seems more like a definition of rudimentary literature to me.

Check the refernces to Koko and Waterbird. In addition, Koko taught her children signing from birth.When we get into the area of languages we need to look at it as a comparison to teaching someone a new, very complex talent when we cannot use the basic language skills as a tool.However there are some very clear examples that wild chimps use planning, spatial awareness, time sense and communication during a hunt.The pick a target prey. They divide into sub-groups and each group assumes a different task and role. They wait while that catchers circle arouond the prey and get into position. The drivers then begin to herd the prey towards the catchers.This is done in a three dimensional space over a relatively large area with parties being out of direct contact, over an extended period of time, in a situation that is fluid and constantly changing and acting independantly to achieve a team goal.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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Ok. I would most definetly disagree with that as a useful definition of language. By language I mean a communication form with grammar and the ability to express abstract concepts as a bare minimum.

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I think Mr. Jack hit it on the head. It is a human's ability to use abstraction that separates him/her from the rest of the animal kingdom. By abstraction, this includes figurative language, analogies, etc. Every other claim of language in non-human species has been direct communication of an object or action. You never see other animals using an analogy to describe a hunting strategy.