The difference between a human and a rock

And? Because, in the long run, it can help prevent me from being smashed...This is all very simple

No, not for *me*. Animal behaviour has evolved through pack mentality, tribe mentality, etc, bringing with it altruism and other socially benevolent features - all in the name of survival. *I* simply feel compassion, empathy, love, etc. Knowing where these feelings come from does not make them any less real, nor any less worth acting upon.Edited by cavediver, : Nor, not or

No, I think it is much more complex than that. We know of areas of the brain that are directly associated with empathy, and we see what happens when these areas are damaged or less developed. Apparently, my own inability to appreciate fully danger and risk is due to a similar under-development.

Your inability to appreciate that such complex social behaviours take much more than a single mutation, and your continued insistence that there must have been a single "first" organism in which such behaviours arose fully formed suggests that you are not very well equipped to discuss these advanced topics - it's a bit of a waste of everyone's time having to deal with someone who claims to have a good grasp of a subject yet reveals their complete ignorance in each post. Can you do better?