What Makes Us Human ?

What makes us human and identifies us as distinct from other animals is our capacity to manufacture the future.

Our intelligence of itself is largely irrelevant. Since we can only guess at the mental processes of many higher intelligence mammals (such as whales and apes) it is safest to assume that the majority of humans are not inordinately more intelligent than some animal species (indeed many are arguably less so).

Humans have a kind of magical, as it must appear to an alien species, power to transform their physical environment. This practical intelligence is the defining characteristic of human history, in fact the possibility of "history" as a concept derives from the same practical capacity. With the ability and desire to change the future humans realized they required a past, that is they began to understand the concept of momentum. For other species the notion of momentum other than in a purely physical sense must be unimaginable.

What purpose would it serve to dream of new realities if you had no capacity to effect them?

The dreams, religions and myths we create all flow from this capacity to make changes to our future. These too may well then be the other half to our distinctiveness as a species. A necessary corollary to our practical intelligence.

Humans as story tellers

The artistic impulses to paint, draw, write songs and perform are the manifestation off our uniqueness as a story telling species. One that must mythologise events and create mythologies to manufacture new events. The success of human groups has to date largely been defined by those humans as the success of their own mythologies as much as any practical survival abilities. This fascination was most simply put when Christ allegedly stated that "man can not live on bread alone". As a story telling species humans require new fictions and new fiction makers to make sense of their universe and to provide comfort in the certain knowledge and fear of uncertainty.

The need for irony

It is possible that this fear has led to our ironic abilities. Maybe irony is also a distinctly human characteristic of all the animals. It seems to me that where you have a species that knows it can change the future and also knows that the present has been manufactured by both sheer luck and the previous actions of its ancestors then you will need an ironic capacity to stay psychologically balanced.

Are we better than other animals?

I remember discussing this question at length with one of my best friends. Humans have often mistaken the ability to create myths with a superior view of what is their essentially animal behavior. As William Blake said:

Nought loves another as itself,

Nor venerates another so,

Nor is it possible to thought

A greater than itself to know.

'And, father, how can I love you

Or any of my brothers more?

I love you like the little bird

That picks up crumbs around the door.'

It seems to me that much of our lives is filled with love and the need for love like this and that such a need is no different to animals. Neither is this something to be lamented by humans. It is good that we recognize the animal nature in us for what it is. That knowledge has value in itself.

Being human does not make us better than other animals however it gives us God like opportunities, that other animals do not have, to change the world and the lives of all of the other animals. No other animal has this ability. The question is how should we use it?

Wolf or Shepherd

Shall we remain a wolf in sheep's clothing or can humans finally take the the step to being a Shepherd?

The finally irony is that we will only be unique when we try to look beyond our uniqueness to the value of biological diversity. I hope the human race is destined to such superiority.