Rubaiyats of Lote-Tree

Humour.

Elephants also mourn the dead.

See, the thing is, Lote, we're not unique, we just like to think that we are.

[QUOTE=qimissung;bt48274]See, the thing is, Lote, we're not unique, we just like to think that we are. :D[/QUOTE]

You are so right:) Dolphins also do this. I think it is unique to any high level species with complex social structures, but we're not the only ones who qualify. Another interesting fact about chimps is that they have been witnessed making war on one another too. I'll see if I can find the original scientific article about it. I think it may have been from National Geographic. I'll look :)

Do you not want to be Unique?

Don't we all desire to be special? ;-) :-)

no matter how one thinks about it, but religion and burial rites are somewhat unique, I believe

Social traditions at the level of complexity of religion and burial rites is likely beyond the ability of chimps. However, there is evidence of neanderthals performing burial rituals. Neanderthals would have been our closest extant relative if they hadn't gone extinct. DNA from a 30k year old neanderthal bone showed we were 99.5-99.9% related to them and likely diverged 350k years ago. Think of how interesting it would be if they hadn't gone extinct, would they be considered human enough to have legal status?

Someone already mentioned Elephants, but Hippos also morn for their dead, and there has even been film of Hippos mourning for the dead of other animals. In a documentary I was watching a group of hippos held a vigil of silence for a dead water buffalo which they happened to come across.

And though ants my not actually mourn, they do have their own "graveyards" where they carry the bodies of their dead.

[QUOTE=Lote-Tree;bt48277]Do you not want to be Unique?

Don't we all desire to be special? ;-) :-)[/QUOTE]
I think we're unique as individuals, but unique as a species... Not so much. I'm good with it though. I don't really like the idea of being such a unique group that nothing else comes close :D

I agree. I feel as a species we make to much of our place inthe scheme of things. It smacks of hubris to me, and that is a slippery slope to land on.

As a matter of interest, I think Hindus believe that we are related to monkeys through the monkey God Hanuman and a female Ogre. (Please correct me if that's incorrect).

This must pre-date ideas of evolution. It makes you wonder if the evolutionary links between humans and animals was perceived by someone in the past and expressed as a mythology.

Perhaps I'm idly speculating.

Nah, animals have humour. I've seen chimps laughing their heads off.

There is one thing that we have that hasn't been witnessed in nature (yet): the desire and tendancy to teach (not learn, other animals do that). No other animal goes out of it's way to teach other members of it's species how to do something, that thought doesn't even cross it's mind. Other animals learn by witnessing and watching older members, but the one that's being witnessed couldn't care less. This ensures that our species' knowledge actually accumulates over time because we want other humans to know what we know, so we educate them. Other animals don't have school. It's how we're able to have things like complex language and mathematics, we keep building upon the work of our ancestors.

Haha, so in a way, we owe all of the perks of modern society to teachers. Hats off to all of you.

Buuuut anyway. Yeah, I once saw this thing where the chief orangutan died in a sanctuairy. The other orangutans visibly flipped out, they wouldn't let the scientists anywhere near the body. They were yelling, grabbing their heads and doing the whole ape-intimidation thing to the humans. It was pretty cool, and sad. Afterwards when they eventually got the dead orangutan out, the others didn't eat as much as usual and didn't play for a while.

Write a novel. Frankly this shows just how far from humans they are. Sorry for being hubristic, but I definitely think humans are way superior to any animals. It's not even close. Must be the engineer in me. I've yet to see a chimp that understood calculus.

Actually nothing in that video seemed to suggest they really understood death. If the mother carried the corpse for 63 days (or whatever it said) it would seem to me she did not understand death.

*deleted*

Originally Posted by Virgil

Write a novel. Frankly this shows just how far from humans they are. Sorry for being hubristic, but I definitely think humans are way superior to any animals. It's not even close. Must be the engineer in me. I've yet to see a chimp that understood calculus.

Actually nothing in that video seemed to suggest they really understood death. If the mother carried the corpse for 63 days (or whatever it said) it would seem to me she did not understand death.

Wow. This is like, the second time in a week that I've agreed with Virgil. I wonder if I'm getting a fever...

Yeah, as I was reading it occurred to me that the mom might not have realized that her baby was dead (but other apes do grieve, either that or the shock that they receive from the sudden absence of a close friend or prominent member of their tribe causes them to eat less and display negative emotions. The other orangutans in my previous example might have flipped out because they were confused about their chief suddenly lying flat on his face for no apparent reason).

I've always thought that humans were pretty damn amazing, look at what we've done. Our knowledge base just keeps growing. We've been in space, we can communicate with other members of our species on the other side of the globe, we've seen other galaxies, we visit bloody online literature forums... it's mind boggling how different we are from every other species on earth. Other animals might display behaviour that is similar to our own, but they are not even close to our complexity (take grief for example... other animals might experience grief, but do they organize funerals? Do they communicate with friends that they haven't seen for twenty years to attend said funeral? Do they mark the grave? Do they bury the dead? We've been engaging in behaviour like this for millions of years, and no other animal does these things). Honestly, from an objective point of view, humans stand alone (that's just my opinion though, I've had people disagree with me on this subject before).

I don’t know if we’re “superior” though. Our intelligence is further advanced than that of other animals, but our survival depends upon our species’ ability to balance with our environment. Humans might be too intelligent for our own good. We take too much from the world without giving enough back, and we use technology and weapons that destroy our food sources. We are so smart that we can clone our food to create enough of it to feed the whole world… until the next blight, and because of a lack of biodiversity we are suddenly left without vegetables. We’re smart, but not smarter than the system that created us. Intelligence is no good to us if we're all dead. In a way, cockroaches are the "best" species on earth... they were here well before us, and they'll be here long after we're gone.

Actually nothing in that video seemed to suggest they really understood death. If the mother carried the corpse for 63 days (or whatever it said) it would seem to me she did not understand death.
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In the past we carried the dead around too I think.

Write a novel.
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Perhaps they do but not with words or letters ;-)

I think we're unique as individuals, but unique as a species... Not so much.
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I guess I have to settle for that :-)

Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf

Wow. This is like, the second time in a week that I've agreed with Virgil. I wonder if I'm getting a fever...

Yeah, as I was reading it occurred to me that the mom might not have realized that her baby was dead (but other apes do grieve, either that or the shock that they receive from the sudden absence of a close friend or prominent member of their tribe causes them to eat less and display negative emotions. The other orangutans in my previous example might have flipped out because they were confused about their chief suddenly lying flat on his face for no apparent reason).

I've always thought that humans were pretty damn amazing, look at what we've done. Our knowledge base just keeps growing. We've been in space, we can communicate with other members of our species on the other side of the globe, we've seen other galaxies, we visit bloody online literature forums... it's mind boggling how different we are from every other species on earth. Other animals might display behaviour that is similar to our own, but they are not even close to our complexity (take grief for example... other animals might experience grief, but do they organize funerals? Do they communicate with friends that they haven't seen for twenty years to attend said funeral? Do they mark the grave? Do they bury the dead? We've been engaging in behaviour like this for millions of years, and no other animal does these things). Honestly, from an objective point of view, humans stand alone (that's just my opinion though, I've had people disagree with me on this subject before).

I don’t know if we’re “superior” though. Our intelligence is further advanced than that of other animals, but our survival depends upon our species’ ability to balance with our environment. Humans might be too intelligent for our own good. We take too much from the world without giving enough back, and we use technology and weapons that destroy our food sources. We are so smart that we can clone our food to create enough of it to feed the whole world… until the next blight, and because of a lack of biodiversity we are suddenly left without vegetables. We’re smart, but not smarter than the system that created us. Intelligence is no good to us if we're all dead. In a way, cockroaches are the "best" species on earth... they were here well before us, and they'll be here long after we're gone.

I agree. I think we are far too distant in social development to assume that human behaviour resembles animals except the very basic kind. Didn't you use the Bonobo as an example of the opposite view though in one of the threads?

My, my, Virgil, you are quite the Alpha dog.

quote Juniper:

"I don’t know if we’re “superior” though. Our intelligence is further advanced than that of other animals, but our survival depends upon our species’ ability to balance with our environment. Humans might be too intelligent for our own good. We take too much from the world without giving enough back, and we use technology and weapons that destroy our food sources. We are so smart that we can clone our food to create enough of it to feed the whole world… until the next blight, and because of a lack of biodiversity we are suddenly left without vegetables. We’re smart, but not smarter than the system that created us. Intelligence is no good to us if we're all dead. In a way, cockroaches are the "best" species on earth... they were here well before us, and they'll be here long after we're gone."

I agree.

Bacteria - they are the kings that will inherit the earth!

Or so I've heard tell...