Humans developed methods to empirically study the best ways for consoling bereaved mothers, and develop statistically-guided time-frames for normal vs. pathologic grieving periods. Then we use functional MRI imaging to study if monkeys undergo similar brain-signaling patterns (previously academically theorized to be similar, based on other research studies), decoded by advanced software, powered by advanced chips, powered by nuclear power plants. The report is curated by artificial intelligence, and handed by a robot to the human. That's human exceptionalism.
Firstly, most humans who ever lived didn't do those things. Are they not exceptional? Are they lesser in some form? Did human exceptionalism only start when we invented computers or science? I assure you, many prior civilisations saw humans above animals (source: The Bible), yet hadn't done the things on your list.
Secondly, you listed outcomes. These are value judgements. As the article points out, humans did those things but we can't do basic things like smell water from miles away or see internal organs by just clicking. Animals don't value LLMs or mathematics, in fact many humans don't!
The challenges to human exceptionalism aren't based on outcomes (because that's subjective) but tries look at what makes humans unique in a way that can't be replicated in any form. This has to be more than "we're better at X" or "we can combine X and Y to achieve Z" because, unless trait X or Y only exist in humans, then another species could conceivably replicate it given enough time for evolution.
So problem solving wouldn't make us exceptional because we see it in other species. Language might but we do see rudimentary communication in other animals like corvids and cephalopods so perhaps humans just hyper-specialised in that. Hell, scientists have observed orca pods being unable to communicate across regions, hinting that there is a form of language.
Just being better at these traits doesn't suffice because there are plenty of things other animals are better than humans at. We don't consider that exceptional in the same way.
I didn't interpret GP as trying to give necessary and sufficient conditions for human exceptionalism. I think it's just supposed to be a (perhaps) humorous and ironic example of a way in which humans are exceptional. So yes it's an extreme example because it references the whole of modern science and technology, but it also brings out the irony: the paper challenging human exceptionalism is dependent on this whole network of scientific and technological development which is as far as we know unique to humans
what you say is true, but I think we become a bit too optimistic about our own individual exceptionality.
Many people forget the animals feel emotions very much the same as us, that they act and feel very much like us, and what separates is our ability to work together- and specialise, our individual intelligence is not terribly far away - but we have specialised in education so we’ve optimised our minds to work in a collective society and to specialise in certain trade craft.
we think of animals as being “dumb” and we get surprised when they show signs of intelligence.
- sent from my iPhone, which I can’t build a single component of; using software I can’t write, using electricity I can’t generate, while sitting on a sofa I can’t manufacture in an apartment I can’t build.
The human biomass and its byproducts do grow at an exceptional rate, that's true, we are exceptional. But being exceptional in one way should not be mistaken for being supreme or better, which I feel like a lot of commenters are suggesting.
This growth is clearly unsustainable, and the bubble, so to speak, will eventually pop. Other species have managed to survive for an exceptional time, e.g. the horseshoe crab, or most species of moss. There are species whose individuals might be older than human civilization, like the glass sponge. There are species that will survive in extreme conditions where humans would perish, such as tardigrades. Are we better than them?
Another point: evolution has caused living beings to reach equilibria where the whole system can thrive, where each species has a role. These systems have reached self-regulating states, where e.g. an overpopulation of predators will be cut down due to an absence of prey during the next generation.
Is human society better than that? Because humans are destroying this balance through unprecedented growth, which these systems cannot respond to. Our growth is not only unsustainable from the point of view of human survival, but unsustainable from the point of view of the earths ecological systems as a whole.
in short human exceptionalism became clear about 300 years ago, and has been becoming more clear with each succeeding year?
If so that is a relatively recent demonstration of exceptionalism. Given the long timeline of human existence it could even be argued that it is accidental that this proof of exceptionalism developed among the humans and not among some other species.
I actually believe in human exceptionalism, in that many of the features spread around various species are all found highly developed in the human, but really that is an argument for all species exceptionalism. There are very few species that do not some collection of interlocked traits that make them exceptional in some way, it just happens that our exceptionalism is one that allows for triumphalism at the same time.
I'm actually amazed at what people accomplished thousands of years ago, given their resources and stage of development. From architecture and urban planning, to tool-making, to philosophy, to math, etc. I don't see them as less exceptional at all.
All you've written is important only to humans. Other species don't give an F about MRI. So if you value your humanism based on traits important only to humans, then it's about egocentrism, not exceptionalism.
I understand the popularity of these kinds of theses, and I definitely support better treatment of animals.
But in general I think this is also reflective of a negative trend in Western culture, which is something like a collapse of the “divine potential” of man. I don’t mean it in the literal religious sense (although that’s where it came from), but in the sense that many people increasingly see themselves as just evolved apes, not as creative beings with limitless potential. There are many reasons for this cultural trend (evolution, secularism and the collapse of religion as a foundation for our idea of self), and so on.
The key, to me, is in understanding that this “evolved ape” narrative is a fundamentally a narrative. What’s needed is a new story that factors in these scientifically true facts of evolution etc. but isn’t so flat and unimaginative in placing them into an arch-narrative.
It probably needs to start with a shift from essence to process as foundational. In other words, the deflationary account of humanity sees itself as “just an evolved ape” because we categorize things as if they were unchanging, static entities. A shift to a process-oriented idea means that value can grow in complexity and develop over time, and so therefore there isn’t anything deflationary about being descended from microscopic organisms.
It reminds me of philosopher Feuerbach’s ideas on God, which are essentially that humanity has externalized its own qualities and greatness into an abstract being, and become estranged from our own potential.
> many people increasingly see themselves as just evolved apes, not as creative beings with limitless potential
I mean, we are. Other apes also have creative potential. I'm probably better at it than most of them are, but they're probably better than me at climbing trees.
Yet you can cut down those trees to build housing more suited to you or plant new ones which requires long-term planning. If climbing trees was important to us we'd build machines to do it better than any ape that ever lived. That's human exceptionalism. It's why humans have conquered the globe while apes live in the space we let them.
Humans are considered “evolved apes” because of our (culturally defined) system of categorization. Humans are just as related to every other species (itself a word that implies a static entity that actually isn’t) in our ancestry. It also isn’t really accurate to claim a microorganism ancestor of humans is some kind of proto-ape, or proto-human.
The point is that process is more accurate as a label. The choice of focusing on apes is a cultural one, not something inherent to the structure of biological reality.
They’re correct that they are many measures by which humans are not exceptional. Quite a lot, actually. But there clearly is something different about humans, something exceptional. Is it language? Is it our capacity for thought? I think what it actually is that makes us different is absolutely up for debate, and even traits we thought were exclusive to humans may not be.
So I’m not sure we know exactly what it is that makes us different, but we clearly are in some way. There is no other animal that has developed anything close to the capabilities we have.
Would any other species on earth, in a billion years, ever develop the ability to travel to other celestial bodies, let alone even know what they are?
Calling something as exceptional or special entails a value judgement; it's not particularly surprising, IMHO, for the things humans care about to align around human traits. Heck, even the act of making judgements about human exceptionalism is an arguably human-specific trait.
Consider, horseshoe crabs are undeniably the best at doing all things horseshoe crab. No other animal comes close to behaving like a horseshoe crab!
IMHO, the almost tautological nature of this judgement is what makes it uninteresting at best and actively harmful at worst. It's just a stone's throw away from individual, group, and racial exceptionalism.
> Consider, horseshoe crabs are undeniably the best at doing all things horseshoe crab. No other animal comes close to behaving like a horseshoe crab!
Yes, you could say this about any animal. It does not explain why, apparently, no other animal in the entire history of the Earth has done anything comparable to what humans have done.
Horseshoe crabs are good at horseshoe crab things, but convergent evolution has in the past created similar animals that are roughly equally good at doing horseshoe crab things.
There have been and are many animals good at doing horse-ish things. Many good at wolf-ish things. Even flight has evolved independently several times among both vertebrates and invertebrates (and while we can’t fly on our own, we regularly fly faster than any flying animal). We’re petty weak among all animals and yet the heaviest things that have been moved have been moved by humans. We’re pretty slow runners and yet we hold pretty much any speed record you can think of.
Why hasn’t there been any other animals similar to humans in our abilities? Why hasn’t spaceflight evolved several times? Why hasn’t metallurgy? Particle physics? Why can’t any other animal understand the basic chemistry of the universe as we do?
> Calling something as exceptional or special entails a value judgement;
Calling something exceptional or special is generally an objective statement based on observed facts. Now whether something exceptional deserves special treatment is a value judgment.
> Consider, horseshoe crabs are undeniably the best at doing all things horseshoe crab. No other animal comes close to behaving like a horseshoe crab!
What are their exceptional traits? For example, we can say peregrine falcons or cheetahs are exceptionally fast. Or blue whales are exceptionally large. Saying horseshoe crabs are horseshoe crabs isn't saying much.
> IMHO, the almost tautological nature
You conjured up a false tautological argument.
> It's just a stone's throw away from individual, group, and racial exceptionalism.
But such exceptionalisms exist individually and group-wise/racially. We know that lebron james is exceptionally good at basketball. We know that tibetans do exceptionally well at high altitudes. Those are objective facts. Now whether they deserve special treatment is a value judgment.
> Would any other species on earth, in a billion years, ever develop the ability to travel to other celestial bodies, let alone even know what they are?
A billion years is a very very long time. Humans and chimps diverged about 7-8 million years ago. Given no human competitors and a billion years there's no reason some other great apes or raccoons or something couldn't develop a space programme.
Jacob Bronowski expressed this with a more fundamental hypothesis. Humans have "a sense of the future" whereas other animals have very limited foresight.
I only got half way through but it didn't get to our general purpose intelligence which trumps pretty much everything else. Most of the greater capabilities other species have, humans can do better using technology which we made for our own use so it's kind of an extension of ourselves.
Even in pre-historic times, humans were herding prey to kill using earthworks, for example. We can also live in cold climates by wearing clothes and building houses and fires, as well as hot climates by not doing those things. We can build defenses against predators. We've been using technology to enhance our abilities since forever. That's exceptional. No ape poking a stick into a hole comes anywhere close to that.
I don't care that eagles can see better than humans. A camera can see better than an eagle and a plane can fly better than an eagle but we don't say that cameras or planes are anywhere close to being comparable to human life. Those abilities are easy ones. Hell even a rock can live longer than a sea sponge, and humans are obviously exceptional compared to rocks.
Bernard Lowe: So what's the difference between my pain and yours?
Dr. Robert Ford: Between you and me? This was the very question that consumed Arnold, filled him with guilt, eventually drove him mad. The answer always seemed obvious to me. There is no threshold that makes us greater than the sum of our parts, no inflection point at which we become fully alive. We can't define consciousness because consciousness does not exist. Humans fancy that there's something special about the way we perceive the world, and yet we live in loops as tight and as closed as the hosts do, seldom questioning our choices, content, for the most part, to be told what to do next. No, my friend, you're not missing anything at all.
But we are exceptional. No other animal has developed technology to leave earth. No other animal would have the hope of defending our planet against a threat from space, like an asteroid. We need to stop denying our exceptionalism and take responsibility for it.
We would be able to challenge human exceptionalism way more effectively if we could fully decode the languages of other species. The first thing we'd notice is:
1. language features we have and they don't understand
2. language features we both have
3. language features they have and we don't understand
Probably in that order.
Then it's just a question of gathering a couple of different species that are seemingly intelligent. Such as: corvids, octopuses, whales, etc. And see if the species can be reasoned with. If so, then you can set up schools where you can train them on human things and vice versa. Eventually you can form interspecies groups and really test the hell out of things.
Doing it that way will really challenge human exceptionalism, as well as the exceptionalism of that particular species.
I know it sounds a bit far off, but I figured that we might be able to get there with AI. I mean, we're getting better and better at giving machines tons and tons of data, and it somehow makes some sense of it.
So far, I think it's not necessarily the human species that is exceptional. It's the revolutionary periods it went through in order to become more exceptional hunters, so we could dominate and control the world in the way we want to. Things such as: discovery of fire, agriculture (+ creating defensive settlements) and antibiotics. We couldn't kill bacteria for a long time. We still have trouble with viruses and are getting into trouble with bacteria again. Could dolphins or whales have done it too, if they were land creatures?
It doesn't help that the main conclusion of over 100 years of this kind of animal language research, is that -- and I quote -- "animals don't have language" [0]
The most charitable viewpoint I can give is: that can be true or that can be false. Time will tell.
If it's true, then we are exceptional but how can we truly know at this point? I mean, Michael the Gorilla told us about what poachers did [1].
If it isn't true, then it shows how in the prevailing consensus we are still too arrogant. In that case, we don't understand that well what sets us apart and what doesn't.
It will probably be a nuanced discussion either way regardless of what the truth is probably due to the definition of language. But in this particular case I'd want to characterize it: some way of communicating that is about as effective as whatever it is that humans do, when they speak out loud.
Also, when you look nowadays at some of the dog/cat videos and they press those buttons, they clearly are capable of communicating something. I remember one dog inventing a word for ambulance given the words he/she knew. Ah, found it! [2]
There's clearly a lot more research to be done here. I hope AI can accelerate it. I know AI is a tricky business, but one can hope.
This is the conclusion of linguists. Linguists’ definition of language necessarily includes a productive grammar. It’s not enough to be capable of uttering from a long list of sounds or signs. To have language we must be able to regularly construct novel and unique communications composed of strings of symbols governed by grammatical rules.
All animals that we’ve studied — including great apes we’ve attempted to teach sign language — have so far failed to demonstrate the acquisition of grammar. This means the number of unique communications they can express is exactly limited to the number of utterances they know.
Readit News
Firstly, most humans who ever lived didn't do those things. Are they not exceptional? Are they lesser in some form? Did human exceptionalism only start when we invented computers or science? I assure you, many prior civilisations saw humans above animals (source: The Bible), yet hadn't done the things on your list.
Secondly, you listed outcomes. These are value judgements. As the article points out, humans did those things but we can't do basic things like smell water from miles away or see internal organs by just clicking. Animals don't value LLMs or mathematics, in fact many humans don't!
The challenges to human exceptionalism aren't based on outcomes (because that's subjective) but tries look at what makes humans unique in a way that can't be replicated in any form. This has to be more than "we're better at X" or "we can combine X and Y to achieve Z" because, unless trait X or Y only exist in humans, then another species could conceivably replicate it given enough time for evolution.
So problem solving wouldn't make us exceptional because we see it in other species. Language might but we do see rudimentary communication in other animals like corvids and cephalopods so perhaps humans just hyper-specialised in that. Hell, scientists have observed orca pods being unable to communicate across regions, hinting that there is a form of language.
Just being better at these traits doesn't suffice because there are plenty of things other animals are better than humans at. We don't consider that exceptional in the same way.
Many people forget the animals feel emotions very much the same as us, that they act and feel very much like us, and what separates is our ability to work together- and specialise, our individual intelligence is not terribly far away - but we have specialised in education so we’ve optimised our minds to work in a collective society and to specialise in certain trade craft.
we think of animals as being “dumb” and we get surprised when they show signs of intelligence.
- sent from my iPhone, which I can’t build a single component of; using software I can’t write, using electricity I can’t generate, while sitting on a sofa I can’t manufacture in an apartment I can’t build.
This growth is clearly unsustainable, and the bubble, so to speak, will eventually pop. Other species have managed to survive for an exceptional time, e.g. the horseshoe crab, or most species of moss. There are species whose individuals might be older than human civilization, like the glass sponge. There are species that will survive in extreme conditions where humans would perish, such as tardigrades. Are we better than them?
Another point: evolution has caused living beings to reach equilibria where the whole system can thrive, where each species has a role. These systems have reached self-regulating states, where e.g. an overpopulation of predators will be cut down due to an absence of prey during the next generation.
Is human society better than that? Because humans are destroying this balance through unprecedented growth, which these systems cannot respond to. Our growth is not only unsustainable from the point of view of human survival, but unsustainable from the point of view of the earths ecological systems as a whole.
If so that is a relatively recent demonstration of exceptionalism. Given the long timeline of human existence it could even be argued that it is accidental that this proof of exceptionalism developed among the humans and not among some other species.
I actually believe in human exceptionalism, in that many of the features spread around various species are all found highly developed in the human, but really that is an argument for all species exceptionalism. There are very few species that do not some collection of interlocked traits that make them exceptional in some way, it just happens that our exceptionalism is one that allows for triumphalism at the same time.
Dead Comment
But in general I think this is also reflective of a negative trend in Western culture, which is something like a collapse of the “divine potential” of man. I don’t mean it in the literal religious sense (although that’s where it came from), but in the sense that many people increasingly see themselves as just evolved apes, not as creative beings with limitless potential. There are many reasons for this cultural trend (evolution, secularism and the collapse of religion as a foundation for our idea of self), and so on.
The key, to me, is in understanding that this “evolved ape” narrative is a fundamentally a narrative. What’s needed is a new story that factors in these scientifically true facts of evolution etc. but isn’t so flat and unimaginative in placing them into an arch-narrative.
It probably needs to start with a shift from essence to process as foundational. In other words, the deflationary account of humanity sees itself as “just an evolved ape” because we categorize things as if they were unchanging, static entities. A shift to a process-oriented idea means that value can grow in complexity and develop over time, and so therefore there isn’t anything deflationary about being descended from microscopic organisms.
It reminds me of philosopher Feuerbach’s ideas on God, which are essentially that humanity has externalized its own qualities and greatness into an abstract being, and become estranged from our own potential.
I mean, we are. Other apes also have creative potential. I'm probably better at it than most of them are, but they're probably better than me at climbing trees.
Humans are considered “evolved apes” because of our (culturally defined) system of categorization. Humans are just as related to every other species (itself a word that implies a static entity that actually isn’t) in our ancestry. It also isn’t really accurate to claim a microorganism ancestor of humans is some kind of proto-ape, or proto-human.
The point is that process is more accurate as a label. The choice of focusing on apes is a cultural one, not something inherent to the structure of biological reality.
So I’m not sure we know exactly what it is that makes us different, but we clearly are in some way. There is no other animal that has developed anything close to the capabilities we have.
Would any other species on earth, in a billion years, ever develop the ability to travel to other celestial bodies, let alone even know what they are?
Consider, horseshoe crabs are undeniably the best at doing all things horseshoe crab. No other animal comes close to behaving like a horseshoe crab!
IMHO, the almost tautological nature of this judgement is what makes it uninteresting at best and actively harmful at worst. It's just a stone's throw away from individual, group, and racial exceptionalism.
Yes, you could say this about any animal. It does not explain why, apparently, no other animal in the entire history of the Earth has done anything comparable to what humans have done.
Horseshoe crabs are good at horseshoe crab things, but convergent evolution has in the past created similar animals that are roughly equally good at doing horseshoe crab things.
There have been and are many animals good at doing horse-ish things. Many good at wolf-ish things. Even flight has evolved independently several times among both vertebrates and invertebrates (and while we can’t fly on our own, we regularly fly faster than any flying animal). We’re petty weak among all animals and yet the heaviest things that have been moved have been moved by humans. We’re pretty slow runners and yet we hold pretty much any speed record you can think of.
Why hasn’t there been any other animals similar to humans in our abilities? Why hasn’t spaceflight evolved several times? Why hasn’t metallurgy? Particle physics? Why can’t any other animal understand the basic chemistry of the universe as we do?
Calling something exceptional or special is generally an objective statement based on observed facts. Now whether something exceptional deserves special treatment is a value judgment.
> Consider, horseshoe crabs are undeniably the best at doing all things horseshoe crab. No other animal comes close to behaving like a horseshoe crab!
What are their exceptional traits? For example, we can say peregrine falcons or cheetahs are exceptionally fast. Or blue whales are exceptionally large. Saying horseshoe crabs are horseshoe crabs isn't saying much.
> IMHO, the almost tautological nature
You conjured up a false tautological argument.
> It's just a stone's throw away from individual, group, and racial exceptionalism.
But such exceptionalisms exist individually and group-wise/racially. We know that lebron james is exceptionally good at basketball. We know that tibetans do exceptionally well at high altitudes. Those are objective facts. Now whether they deserve special treatment is a value judgment.
A billion years is a very very long time. Humans and chimps diverged about 7-8 million years ago. Given no human competitors and a billion years there's no reason some other great apes or raccoons or something couldn't develop a space programme.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Cbqr9NcFDtjvM6zC4/time-bindi...
Even in pre-historic times, humans were herding prey to kill using earthworks, for example. We can also live in cold climates by wearing clothes and building houses and fires, as well as hot climates by not doing those things. We can build defenses against predators. We've been using technology to enhance our abilities since forever. That's exceptional. No ape poking a stick into a hole comes anywhere close to that.
I don't care that eagles can see better than humans. A camera can see better than an eagle and a plane can fly better than an eagle but we don't say that cameras or planes are anywhere close to being comparable to human life. Those abilities are easy ones. Hell even a rock can live longer than a sea sponge, and humans are obviously exceptional compared to rocks.
Deleted Comment
Bernard Lowe: So what's the difference between my pain and yours?
Dr. Robert Ford: Between you and me? This was the very question that consumed Arnold, filled him with guilt, eventually drove him mad. The answer always seemed obvious to me. There is no threshold that makes us greater than the sum of our parts, no inflection point at which we become fully alive. We can't define consciousness because consciousness does not exist. Humans fancy that there's something special about the way we perceive the world, and yet we live in loops as tight and as closed as the hosts do, seldom questioning our choices, content, for the most part, to be told what to do next. No, my friend, you're not missing anything at all.
from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4458814/characters/nm0942482 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7TR50Mnwpw
1. language features we have and they don't understand
2. language features we both have
3. language features they have and we don't understand
Probably in that order.
Then it's just a question of gathering a couple of different species that are seemingly intelligent. Such as: corvids, octopuses, whales, etc. And see if the species can be reasoned with. If so, then you can set up schools where you can train them on human things and vice versa. Eventually you can form interspecies groups and really test the hell out of things.
Doing it that way will really challenge human exceptionalism, as well as the exceptionalism of that particular species.
I know it sounds a bit far off, but I figured that we might be able to get there with AI. I mean, we're getting better and better at giving machines tons and tons of data, and it somehow makes some sense of it.
So far, I think it's not necessarily the human species that is exceptional. It's the revolutionary periods it went through in order to become more exceptional hunters, so we could dominate and control the world in the way we want to. Things such as: discovery of fire, agriculture (+ creating defensive settlements) and antibiotics. We couldn't kill bacteria for a long time. We still have trouble with viruses and are getting into trouble with bacteria again. Could dolphins or whales have done it too, if they were land creatures?
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_language
If it's true, then we are exceptional but how can we truly know at this point? I mean, Michael the Gorilla told us about what poachers did [1].
If it isn't true, then it shows how in the prevailing consensus we are still too arrogant. In that case, we don't understand that well what sets us apart and what doesn't.
It will probably be a nuanced discussion either way regardless of what the truth is probably due to the definition of language. But in this particular case I'd want to characterize it: some way of communicating that is about as effective as whatever it is that humans do, when they speak out loud.
Also, when you look nowadays at some of the dog/cat videos and they press those buttons, they clearly are capable of communicating something. I remember one dog inventing a word for ambulance given the words he/she knew. Ah, found it! [2]
There's clearly a lot more research to be done here. I hope AI can accelerate it. I know AI is a tricky business, but one can hope.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXKsPqQ0Ycc&ab_channel=kokof...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/a93PWudceKk
All animals that we’ve studied — including great apes we’ve attempted to teach sign language — have so far failed to demonstrate the acquisition of grammar. This means the number of unique communications they can express is exactly limited to the number of utterances they know.
1. Satisfying curiosity / because it's fun
2. To build new technology
By virtue of that, my stance on whether I think we are or aren't exceptional is irrelevant.
I don't have any hope that any of this will be researched thoroughly enough in my lifetime though.
Deleted Comment