this thread has a lot of furryness in it... :P
anywho, i dont think humans and animals are that different. individually yes, but as a group not really. like monkeys can count and stuff.. theyre probably smarter than humans. humans kind of have characteristics of alot of animals so were about equal id say.

We have an enlightened sense of reason.
Other animals basic survival instinct is to either run or flee; fight or flight. They do either, regardless of reason. Mans basic survival instinct is to reason. Make of that what you will.
Man has the ability to control it's fear. Meaning he can do things other animals can't, i.e; create a fire.
Another major factor is that we are the only known self aware animal. We are aware of ourselves. This boils down to one of the three basic axioms, the objective axiom of consciousness of course.

Also, for you religious dumbarses, we were made in god's image. Animals weren't.

Cool story bro. Feel free to make more up while you're at it.
Man's basic instincts are to eat, fuck, strive for comfort, and nurture. Ergo, identical to most other mammals in the book.

Tell me: when an animal constructs a tool and uses it to extract something it needs, doesn't it use reason? (eg, it figures it needs something long and sharp, or hard and heavy, etc) Because even crows do that. Is building airplanes an instinct?

Another example of animal tool design.

As for self-awareness...



http://www.livescience.com/animals/0...nt_mirror.html

As for controlling fear...

Selflessness? No wai.

Creating fire requires the kind of motor skills and strength which no animals except humans and possibly some apes possess. Ever tried actually creating fire? With sticks? Not fun. Humans also didn't know how to create fire for a loooong time, nor did they know/see benefit of cooking food.

It's brain function that differs us.. as humans, we can interpret symbols with meaning behind them, whereas animals only truly care about the fundamentals: survival.

Humans are sheltered from what we were once exposed to..

I think I read somewhere that Humans will never evolve via natural selection, because of our ability to control our natural habitat, which is in fact artificial. The only way that we will 'evolve' is via artificial selection or DNA variations that give us more protection, stamina, strength etc. Furthermore, animals, unlike humans, have evolved over millions of years to become more efficient and more likely to survive in their given environment, humans have done this too but it is not needed anymore because of ur ability to 'create' our own food and change our environment. This gives us the opportunity to sculpt ourselves into whatever image or capablities that we desire e.g. Sprinters specialise in sprinting, strength athletics i.e. Worlds Strongest man specialise in massive amounts of strength and so on.

tl;dr We can decide How we live our lives and how we look, they can't.

Such colourful language you use Odlov. Let's talk strictly biological for a while.
Although apes and humans belong to the same family in terms of biology, there are differences to be seen in terms of locomotion (though I get the feeling that is not what you are looking for). The human brain is three times larger than that of an ape (that isn't an estimate but an actual measurement). Furthermore, our cerebral cortex is also more complex. These are all facts. You can verify them with a quick search. You going to call all of that bullshit Odlov?
I've also heard from a few sources (biology lecturers) that dogs have no conception of time. My biology lecturer said if you go out the front door and come in the front door a week later, the dog won't have the slightest idea how long you were gone but if you do out the front door and come in the back door, they go nuts even if it was a few minutes (at least her dogs do because they are hyper animals) because they don't know the time but pick up on the alter in your course.

I'll clarify my first point now, i.e. man has an enlightened sense of reason.
I really hope you realise that animals can not abstract concepts. Humans, of course, can.

Finally, watch the following video before you respond to me.

That dog thing is bullshit. Dogs can predict their owners coming home from work, feeding time, etc.

It's not prediction, it's pattern recognition and we have it too, but ours is far more complex. It has been said that elderly people do not become wise because they are elderly, it's just that they recognise patterns and similar situations and already know the various courses of action that can be taken, meaning they are not smarter, they just don't make the same stupid mistakes as they did when they were younger.

i would LOVE to know how to find out your animals thoughts.

*sigh*, Is it that hard to comprehend properly what I typed? What you mentioned is pattern recognition, as Murmayder said. Wonderful argument from intimidation by the way. Love how you back up your 'facts' with evidence.