What separates humans from monkeys?

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The philosophical question posed in the forum is: what separates humans from monkeys (or apes or primates or animals)? The differences, or lack thereof, are key to the discussion.

That is a whole 'nother issue that I may even someday start a thread on... oh wait... I DID start one just a couple days ago, that went way out into semantics and tangents and never got onto the topic of what I was trying to discuss. My fault though, I worded it horribly.



Innovation by and of itself doesn't make us different, it's our advanced ability and our propensity to use innovation that I'm saying sets us apart.
As I said, there are other animals that demonstrate similar capabilities, however the do so in minuscule proportions of our capabilities.



A human is less likely to have that "caught in the headlights" effect during situations of cognitive dissonance. Maybe the issue is more the ability to manipulate and deal with cognitive dissonance, than to possess/suffer it.
One way to separate instinct from "non instinct" whether it's accurate or not is an aside, as it works for this discussion.... If it deals with survival and reproduction it's instinctual, otherwise non-instinctual. In a way this could also be described as "genetically instinctual" vs "memetically instinctual"
Does fleeing from a salivating lion have the same level of instinctual basis as my desire to sit here and write this reply? There is a fundamental difference between the two... call it what you will.
I cannot see any "real" indirect route from me writing this to my survival and/or my reproduction. Truth be told, I can see reasonably direct routes to my writing here harming both purposes.


Art is a by product of cognitive dissonance. Well, at least one half of art is. The other half is copying.

Quite correct, this is about what makes us "DIFFERENT" not "BETTER"

Better is too relative and subjective a word to actually use in such a question. Soul-ists might take a different view as for the most part of what i've heard from such people is "we're better because we have a soul, end of story" But to really have an open discussion on if and why humans are "better" would only make sense if we were to limit to one specific aspect... such as versatility, cognition etc.

What separates humans from monkeys?

Clearly two things:

a) Monkeys have tails, humans don't

b) A monkey will eat a banana for breakfast but a human will not limit breakfast to just a banana but eat a bowl of Cherrios (ideally with a toy inside the box as an extra perk or game on the back of the package) with blueberries and cream topped with a banana. The human will then wash down breakfast with a glass of orange juice. The human is clearly civilized, the monkey is not.

These are major differences and account for all the major cultural differences between the two species.

(...just kidding a little...)

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald's

Strong evidence that humans are superior to monkeys in almost every way

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons

I think it's free will -- the ability to choose a course of action independently of nature and nurture.

"Everything which distinguishes man from the animals depends upon this ability to volatilize perceptual metaphors in a schema, and thus to dissolve an image into a concept. For something is possible in the realm of these schemata which could never be achieved with the vivid first impressions: the construction of a pyramidal order according to castes and degrees, the creation of a new world of laws, privileges, subordinations, and clearly marked boundaries — a new world, one which now confronts that other vivid world of first impressions as more solid, more universal, better known, and more human than the immediately perceived world, and thus as the regulative and imperative world."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

Our superiority complex separates us from any other animals. Other than that, us and apes are the same. Oh, that and apes don't start wars or shoot each other. Or bomb things. And they don't need a legal system to prevent massive anarchy.

You have never met a dolphin.


Not exactly. As smart as an ape is, they don't have writing. Nothing an ape discovers today will be useful for the apes that will be born within 100 years.


Apes do have their society rules and there are wars between clans. Granted, they only use sticks, claws and teeth in their wars, but I don't think we can just assume they wouldn't use bombs if they could.

Chimpanzees are a nasty violent bunch. They do start wars. Especially with other Chimpanzees.

The problem is that mankind resembles Chimps more than it resembles Bonobos.

ruveyn