What really separates us humans from animals and inanimate objects, plants, etc etc etc?
Besides opposable thumbs and brains capable of abstract thinking, thanks.
shareNothing. Just because we think of ourselves as being separate doesn't mean we are in any fundamental way
shareBut who or what decides and determines that? And is our thinking, or "some parts of our" or our "common" thinking, really "wrong" here, or just highly flawed and "imperfect"?
shareWhoever has power decides. For most of recorded history that was the church
But as the world becomes secularized those questions are becoming scientific, although science does not yet have concrete answers to them. Maybe they don't have answers at all
Maybe it was Charles Darwin or Christopher Columbus who have originally err "declared" all that and also called the human race "intelligent" and stated that opposable thumbs and brain capable of abstract thinking separates us from the animal kingdom?
shareThose assumptions predate Darwin. They are as ancient as it gets. But yes, I guess over the last millenia philosophers and naturalists gradually refined the concepts of the mind and rationality
But the truth is that we simply don't know what other organisms experience. It's very easy to make assumptions, it's another thing to ground those assumptions in testable evidence
I knew this^ was coming as soon as I read your post. Your original post should have just been this statement.
shareAnd why haven't animals, monkeys etc have managed to manufacture electricity, space ships, build houses, cars, vehicles, gadgets, cook food etc etc etc, like we did?
BESIDES, how DID we even MANAGE it all to the degree that we have, how did we get so much metal and raw materials, when did it all start so that we can have lights, central heating, homes, machines, vehicles etc etc etc?
And is it really magic or miracles that Earth is supplied with all that stuff?