The argument from Aristotle is that a body is an organized existence, and an agent is required for any type of organization, as the organizer. Therefore the agent as organizer, is prior in time to the existence of the body. Of course abiogenesis is the basis for a denial of the secondary premise, but as the op points out, it's not a justified denial. — Metaphysician Undercover

I haven't read Aristotle, or much of anything else. So I don't know what I don't know. This may be universally understood in a specific way, but I'm not aware of it. Is the agent not organized, therefore needing it's own agent/organizer? Are you talking about the uncaused cause?

Not roadblocks so much as I'm just done. No scenario you come up with can possibly be anything but lose/lose, lesser of the evils. I think it's wrong to sacrifice people. Going to absurd lengths to try to trap me, and my addition of absurdities to try to point out your absurdities, isn't going to change that. What if you knew the person to be sacrificed was on the verge of solving world hunger? Or inventing an energy source that would power the entire world forever? Or was making huge strides toward showing the world how to live in greater peace, allowing us to put our time and resources to much better uses? We could go on and on.

Your phrasing ("how non-living matter became living") betrays an underlying misunderstanding of the problem. Classical ontology premises immaterial Forms which are prior to, and the cause of material existence. In this ontology, there is no issue of non-living matter becoming living matter, there is an immaterial form of life, which became a material form of life.

So your phrasing, instead of questioning whether immaterial forms became material forms, or, non-living matter became living matter, already excludes the former, and assumes the latter as a starting point. However, there is no science which supports this exclusion. — Metaphysician Undercover

What is the science which supports the premise of immaterial Forms which are prior to, and the cause of material existence? Is there some -ology?

Let's say the aliens do indeed come to Earth and demand a death row inmate for some known or unknown, potentially nefarious reason. Let's say the world leaders listen to you and refuse to capitulate because of their high-minded stance on never sacrificing a person unwillingly. A bunch of people's sons and daughters are then drafted to fight in a war against these far more technologically advanced aliens. Many millions of them die. While they would indeed now be defending our freedoms and lives, this would not have happened if not for adherence to an arbitrary, as of yet unjustified rule.

Let's say that we fight back the aliens, against all odds, and they decide to negotiate with us, demanding the United States' entire foreign aid budget as a sort of tithe in exchange for peace. This might directly result in millions of deaths but will stop the war. Alternatively, we keep the money and fight until every last human is dead. Should we accept the terms of the agreement? — ToothyMaw

I think the "Let's says" have gone too far to allow any points to be made. What are extraterrestrials going to do with our money??

Let's say they aren't the most honest, moral beings running around. They certainly wouldn't have any credibility with me. So maybe they were faking, and only wanted us using up our time and resources on this useless task, then they resumed their attack after we gave them the money.

And are we really still managing to send out our foreign aid as we're battling against far more technologically advanced aliens for the gate of the world?

Let's say they demand the USA's entire foreign aid budget in pennies. Maybe they need the metal.

It's not an arbitrary, as of yet unjustified rule. It's how I feel.

Patterner Assuming that all forms of strategic bombing involve deaths of innocents, do you think it's always immoral? For example, suppose a well placed bomb in WW2 could wipe out the Nazi leadership but also destroy a school. Would the Allies have been wrong to do it? — RogueAI

Yes. They would have been wrong. You don't kill children because of what their parents do. Find a better answer.

If there's never been an account of how the first-person nature of lived experience arises from the objective source, then wouldn't that tell you that maybe it's because it can be sufficiently explained through physicalism alone? — L'éléphant

But it isn't explained through physicalism alone. Physicalism explains physical things. If atoms are mainly empty space, how are solids solid? Why is water the universal solvent? How do things that are heavier than air fly? How does a plant get energy from the sun? we know how things like mass, charge, electron shells, and gravity explain these things.

Physicalism can even explain mental functions, like how we perceive different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, differentiate between different wavelengths, and move to avoid things that will harm the body.

But physicalism doesn't explain how the first-person nature of lived experience arises. As Chalmers puts it:

This further question is the key question in the problem of consciousness. Why doesn't all this information-processing go on "in the dark", free of any inner feel? Why is it that when electromagnetic waveforms impinge on a retina and are discriminated and categorized by a visual system, this discrimination and categorization is experienced as a sensation of vivid red? We know that conscious experience does arise when these functions are performed, but the very fact that it arises is the central mystery. There is an explanatory gap (a term due to Levine 1983) between the functions and experience, and we need an explanatory bridge to cross it. A mere account of the functions stays on one side of the gap, so the materials for the bridge must be found elsewhere. — David Chalmers

And no wonder. I've quoted Brian Greene in Until the End of Time before. Here it is again;

And within that mathematical description, affirmed by decades of data from particle colliders and powerful telescopes, there is nothing that even hints at the inner experiences those particles somehow generate. How can a collection of mindless, thoughtless, emotionless particles come together and yield inner sensations of color or sound, of elation or wonder, of confusion or surprise? Particles can have mass, electric charge, and a handful of other similar features (nuclear charges, which are more exotic versions of electric charge), but all these qualities seem completely disconnected from anything remotely like subjective experience. How then does a whirl of particles inside a head—which is all that a brain is—create impressions, sensations, and feelings? — Brian Greene

I haven't seen where any scientist contradicts him, explaining how those features and the mathematical description does the job. I've tried reading Tse and Damasio, on the recommendation of @wonderer1. I've looked at other sources. But I have not seen any theory or hypothesis that addresses why it doesn't all take place "in the dark.". There just seems to be an unspoken acceptance that, when you put enough mental functions, like the ones I just mentioned, together, it just happens.

Yeah, different on my cell. I see my avatar and make at all my posts, and it says 795 posts. This will be 796. But not mentions. I can find mentions in a menu, bit it doesn't give a count. I'll grab a laptop some time and see. Not that it matters. Only 796 posts isn't going to be as informative..

Is there a count somewhere? I only use my cell phone. I've noticed other things not easy to use or find that are right there the couple times I've logged in on a desktop or laptop. Maybe this is another.

[
I'm not jumping on board for any hypothesis or theory of how non-living matter became living, because, even though we can stack the deck any way we want, we haven't managed it. We don't have to try to set up the conditions of primordial earth, and see if any life arises. We can create any conditions we want, making everything as favorable as possible. But we haven't managed to make non-living matter live.

But if that's not how life began, what other possibilities are there? Sure, some think meteorites brought what was needed. But that's not the same as bringing life. Whatever they brought would still have to have become living, presumably after joining with other non-living matter already here.

And even if meteorites brought actual life, then the question is just put off to wherever it originated.

So if life did not come from non-living material, what other options are there?

All of this leads me to conclude that the hubbub over misinformation is a campaign for more power rather than a legitimate plight for public safety. — NOS4A2

**Ding Ding**
We have a winner!

I think it would be wrong to throw the switch. We should not sacrifice people.
— Patterner

Are you against conscription in all cases? — ToothyMaw

No.

We live in societies, with laws. The point of it all is to ensure our rights and freedom, and make our lives better. Not take our freedom, quality of life, or our very lives.

But. Since we want to live in these societies, it can't always go the way we want. There are also responsibilities. As they say, freedom isn't free. There are times when we have to do what we have to do for the society. Regardless of the risk.

Obviously, this trolley thing is not that kind of situation.

Indeed! :grin:

We should fight the aliens to the death. Not only because it's wrong to sacrifice people (Did we learn nothing from Omelas?), but also because we would be their bitches from them on.

If you make the scenario something like they are impossible to resist, maybe they are doing this from a light-year away, but we know they can back up their threat, then we die as humans. Captain Pike said:

Giving up our values in the name of security is to lose the battle in advance.

Do we want to live like that, sacrificing another person every time they tell us to? When they demand multiple? When they demand our children instead of death row convicts? Sounds like the Hunger Games. The galactic community would speak of the pathetic humans, and they'd be right. Better to die defiant and with our humanity.

What if we raise the stakes to ridiculous levels where the fate of the world rests on running over the guy on the tracks? — RogueAI

If doing nothing means everyone dies, and throwing the switch means only he dies, then saving everyone but him isn't sacrificing him. His fate want changed.

Hey, what's the movie from decades ago when a terrorist executed a woman in (possibly) Times Square. Her fiance wasn't getting much help from the authorities, so he worked and worked, eventually tracking the guy down. Turns out the guy was CIA. They decided to execute a random person publicly, so he could convince the terrorists that he was on their side, and he could infiltrate them. DAMN!

I think it would be wrong to throw the switch. We should not sacrifice people.

Anyone is free to sacrifice themself. Fine if the one says, "Throw the switch! Better I die so many can be saved!"

Is there any chance Nagel's perspective is as scientifically well informed as that of anyone here?

"Jane, you ignorant slut!"

Don't sugar-coat it. Tell us how you really feel. :rofl:

It is through recognition that the pervading hypothesis is incorrect, and through examining the evidence of those failures, that we move along to better hypothesis. — Metaphysician Undercover

What hypothesis of the origin of life is better than abiogenesis? Genuinely asking,

There are different kinds of existence. The table in my dining room exists. It is a physical thing, verifiable in all the ways we can verify physical things.

My thought of a table in my dining room exists. Thoughts exist, though not physically. But we can still discuss our thoughts. I mentioned this particular thought, and now it exists in your mind, also. Thoughts come in and out of existence. Soon, no thought of a table in my dining room will exist, in my or your mind.

One specific type of thought is intentions. Intentions exist. We act on them. We shape the world because of them. If nobody had intended to build the Empire State Building - that is, if no intention to build it had ever existed - there wouldn't be an Empire State Building. But the intention existed, and, now, so does the ESB. The intention to build it no longer exists. The thought of that intention exists, at the moment, in my mind. And now in yours.

There is no absolute freedom. I am limited in various ways, due to the nature of my being. I cannot flap my arms and fly to Hawaii for the weekend. I cannot ingest dirt for nutrition. I cannot bear children. On and on.

I also cannot choose various preferences. I'm the only person I've ever heard of who doesn't like, to put it mildly, beets, watermelon, or cucumbers. I've tried, many times, but nothing I can do about it.

Love Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Chopin, Debussy, Bartok. Nothing I can do about that, and wouldn't want to.

I can choose what I listen to and when, what I have for dessert, and whether or not to murder someone. Those are decisions. Each time I do or don't do one of those things, it was not the one-and-only exact thing I was capable of doing. I literally could have chosen otherwise.

So it's fine to hold criminals accountable for their actions. They didn't have to commit the crime.

Of course, if none of us had the ability to do anything other than we did, and the murderer did not have the option of not murdering, those who hold criminals accountable for their actions can't choose otherwise, either.

I gotcha. I misinterpreted your post that I initially responded to.

I mentioned earlier that I favor physicalism. — L'éléphant

Are there different physicalist accounts, and you don't know which seems most likely? I'm not being confrontational. I'm asking. No, I don't believe physicalism is the answer. But I haven't heard of a physicalist account of the bridge. I hear of different physical structures and events added to the mix, but not of how the physical has the subjective experience of itself, rather than just taking place "in the dark." I thought maybe you had heard of a theory that had leptons in a central role.

Curiously, physics itself is largely mathematical in nature. The standard model of particle physics is understood in purely mathematical terms. But mathematics itself is not physical, but conceptual. How would you account for that? — Wayfarer

I don't think I agree that physics is mathematical in nature. I think many aspects of it can be described mathematically. Is it the same thing?

The subjective experience is a hot button because 'no' philosophical accounts have given us the bridge from the physical to the phenomenal. The critics of consciousness and subjective experience had raised an unconscionable objection against the theories of perception that sort of 'skip' the step on when this -- this consciousness -- develops from physical bodies.
I don't have my own suspicion as to the strength of their argument because, to me, consciousness is physical. As in atomic. As in leptons. The fluidity of our own experience is physical. — L'éléphant

What is your account of the bridge from the physical to the phenomenal?

What counts as thinking? What counts as rational thinking? The answers need a minimal criterion, which in turn, requires the right sort of methodological approach. Do you have a minimum criterion which, when met by a candidate, counts as thinking? Rational thinking? If not, then upon what ground do you rest your denial that some creatures other than humans are capable of thought, rational or otherwise?
— creativesoul
I agree. But I don't have the answers.
— Patterner

Right. I'm trying to point the discussion in the right direction, so to speak. — creativesoul

This is from Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos, by Ogi Ogas and
Sai Gaddam.

A mind is a physical system that converts sensations into action. A mind takes in a set of inputs from its environment and transforms them into a set of environment-impacting outputs that, crucially, influence the welfare of its body. This process of changing inputs into outputs—of changing sensation into useful behavior—is thinking, the defining activity of a mind. THINKING ELEMENTS

Accordingly, every mind requires a minimum of two thinking elements:
•​A sensor that responds to its environment
•​A doer that acts upon its environment — Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam

My problem is that you announce that your judgement is entirely subjective, which puts it beyond discussion and at the same appear to expect me to discuss it with you — Ludwig V

you have been participating on a philosophy forum to the tune of 1.5K posts. Surely, you've been in one or two discussions where you did not expect the other person to change their mind.

But I don't know why subjective judgement puts something beyond discussion. Opinions change. Tastes change. Someone can present an opposing opinion in just the right way to sway the other person.

Some people think that an image is worth a thousand words, so there are deficiencies in words, as well. — Ludwig V

Indeed. Just as B&W Mary knew all the words, but didn't know what red looked like until she stepped out of the room and saw the rose. There are some things words can't do.

Ever read Stranger in a Stranger Land? The protagonist decided that's what separates us. Man is the animal that laughs.
— Patterner

Some researchers believe other animals have a sense of humor. — Athena

You just can't argue with Martians.

A classic!

Thank you. Hum, do other animals laugh? — Athena

Ever read Stranger in a Stranger Land? The protagonist decided that's what separates us. Man is the animal that laughs.

But what grounds are there for withholding the accolade of rationality?
— Ludwig V

Try explaining the concept ‘prime number’ to her. — Wayfarer

Although the concept of prime numbers shows that there are areas of thought that humans have that other species do not, I don't see how it disproves dogs thinking rationally. Does being able to think rationally mean you can understand all possible things? I'm not saying they can, just saying I don't think that proves they can't.

Still, I make that judgement. It's entirely subjective, after all. I think our intelligence and consciousness (I believe the two are very tightly intertwined) is the most extraordinary thing we are aware of, and capable of more wonders than we can imagine.
— Patterner
"Subjective" is a much more complex concept than traditional philosophies want to recognize. In particular, assessing something to be extraordinary, if it is to be meaningful, requires a context that defines what is ordinary. That is, it depends on your point of view. There are points of view that see human achievements as extraordinary (good sense) and as extraordinary (bad sense). There are points of view that see human achievements as different in kind from anything that animals can do and points of view that see human achievements as developments of what animals can do. All of these have a basis. What makes any of them "better" than the others? I'm not sure. But I think the point of view that insists on the continuities between humans and animals is more pragmatic than the others. Stalemate. Pity. — Ludwig V

Not sure what you mean by the part I bolded. My take would be you want subjective preferences to be chosen for practical reasons?

Why do you assume that only vocal behaviour is linguistic?
In any case, iInstinctive skills are necessarily simple. Someone brought up the Monarch butterflies' ability to navigate, which is clearly not learned, yet is, one would have thought, quite complex. — Ludwig V

If the ability is not learned (I don't see how it could be), then it is instinctive. And it is complex. Therefore, instinctive skills are not necessarily simple.

Patterner pretty much, the rest seems to be technicalities. If intelligence did happen then it had to happen, we’re just arguing if it happened before or not. That’s it. — kindred

What I bolded is what is being contested. It is not established fact. Until it is at least agreed upon (better if established as fact), there is no going on to "the rest."

The question then is whether the same process of abiogenesis occurred there too and that is what is being contested here. — kindred

I believe what is being contested here is the idea that anything that did happen had to happen.

Intelligent Beings Without Brains Are Abundant In Nature–A Growing Scientific Consensus — Agree-to-Disagree

In Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious, Antonio Damasio has a bit to say about this.

Intelligence, in the general perspective of all living organisms, signifies the ability to resolve successfully the problems posed by the struggle for life.
.........
We know that the most numerous living organisms on earth are unicellular, such as bacteria. Are they intelligent? Indeed they are, remarkably so. Do they have minds? No, they do not, I believe, and neither do they have consciousness. They are autonomous creatures; they clearly have a form of “cognition” relative to their environment, and yet, instead of depending on minds and consciousness, they rely on non-explicit competences—based on molecular and sub-molecular processes—that govern their lives efficiently according to the dictates of homeostasis.
.........
Sensing is not perceiving, and it is not constructing a “pattern” based on something else to create a “representation” of that something else and produce an “image” in mind. On the other hand, sensing is the most elementary variety of cognition. — Damasio

I don't see how you can possible make that judgement. Given that our specialness is as much a curse and a blessing, to the rest of the planet and ourselves as well. — Ludwig V

Still, I make that judgement. It's entirely subjective, after all. I think our intelligence and consciousness (I believe the two are very tightly intertwined) is the most extraordinary thing we are aware of, and capable of more wonders than we can imagine.

And the lack of our intelligence and consciousness is nature. Which includes billions of animals screaming as they're killed and eaten. Unless they're just eaten alive. There may be no malice involved, but there is plenty of pain and fear.

Good point. And why not? you may ask. But I'm pushing the point that our way of like is developed from animal ways of life and, in my opinion, cannot be down to just one factor, but to many interacting factors. All of which may have existed independently in the animal kingdom, but "took off", so to speak, when they developed together.
..................
There is truth in that. We have hyper-developed various capacities. But I don't think we have hyper-developed just one capacity. — Ludwig V

I agree. There may be ways some non-humans think that we do not. Every autumn, freakin' Monarch Butterflies migrate from Canada to the same tiny area in Mexico where they have never been, but where their great grandparents were born. They have senses and abilities we obviously lack, despite their much more limited ability to think. I don't know if they think at all. But if they do, it's bound to be in ways we don't. My point, though, is that, in ways of thinking that we share with other species, the capacity is more developed in us. Not just one thing.

And, we think in ways they don't.

What counts as thinking? What counts as rational thinking? The answers need a minimal criterion, which in turn, requires the right sort of methodological approach. Do you have a minimum criterion which, when met by a candidate, counts as thinking? Rational thinking? If not, then upon what ground do you rest your denial that some creatures other than humans are capable of thought, rational or otherwise? — creativesoul

I agree. But I don't have the answers. The general idea I get from looking it up is that rational thinking and decisions are arrived at through logic and reason. Especially as opposed to through emotion.

I suppose thinking ora decision can be entirely wrong, even if done rationally. The information that the logic/reason works on could be wrong, after sll.

Scientific American 2014 - What Makes Humans Different Than Any Other Species

Scientific American 2018 - What Made Us Unique — Ludwig V

I've read those. I also read
2 Mental Abilities Separate Humans from Animals.

Much is made of learning from each other. Here's a good quote about it, from What Made Us Unique:

The emerging consensus is that humanity’s accomplishments derive from an ability to acquire knowledge and skills from other people. Individuals then build iteratively on that reservoir of pooled knowledge over long periods. This communal store of experience enables creation of ever more efficient and diverse solutions to life’s challenges. It was not our large brains, intelligence or language that gave us culture but rather our culture that gave us large brains, intelligence and language. For our species and perhaps a small number of other species, too, culture transformed the evolutionary process. — Kevin Laland

I don't agree for two reasons. First, because, at least in humans, language is a huge part of a culture. How can we say either lead to the other?

Second, many species live in groups, and many have been doing so for far longer than we have. But what other species has language that can express anywhere near the number of things human languages can (we can make an infinite number of sentences), or the variety of kinds of things (infinity; the future; death; fiction; etc., etc.) Despite being in groups longer than us, and having us as models for a long time now, no other species has managed it. They do not have the mental capacity to develop it themselves, or even copy it. Which makes sense. Why would they have a language that allows them to talk abouy things they don't think about?

I do, however, agree with the importance of our interactions with each other for the development of our thinking and language. (Also consciousness.)

And I'm not claiming I an incredibly special. We all are. Yes, even you. No member of any other species would be reacting the way you are now. One of the pitfalls of the ways we think that no other species does.
— Patterner
I'm not denying what you say. But it's more complicated than that. If everybody is special, then nobody is special. So some explanation of what "special" means here is necessary. — Ludwig V

I am not saying any human is special compared to any other human. I'm saying humans are special compared with any other species. We are doing things no other species does, and changing the face of the world as we do it, because we are thinking about things, and in different ways, than any other species does. Any number of species may be special for one reason or another. This is the way that humans are special. And, in my opinion, the way we are special is of more value, and has greater impact, than the way any the other species is special. (Also, The Incredibles?)

Do you suppose the mother of a wildebeest that has watched it's child, perhaps more than one over the years, murdered, torn apart, and eaten, suffers the horrors I would?
— Patterner
Do you suppose that I have any way of "really" understanding how any mother, never mind the mother of wildebeest, feels about the loss of a child - even though I have lost a child. The balance between understanding and projection is very difficult. To be more accurate, we can be pretty certain of our understanding at a general level, but when you get down to details it gets much, much more difficult. — Ludwig V

Well, I'm so glad i brought up that particular example.

I'm more sorry than I can possibly express. I cannot imagine.

I would be surprised if you think a parent in any other species has ever gone through the depth or duration of emotional pain that you have.

Yet there is no spark of understanding. They somehow simply happened to stumble upon using X to accomplish Y, and they kept doing it.
— Patterner
I don't understand you.
If a pigeon stumbles on the fact that pecking a specific item in their cage produces food and keeps on doing it until it has eaten enough, that it doesn't understand what is going on? It may not understand about the aims of the experiment or what an experiment is, but it understands what is important to it. In any case, human beings also stumble on facts and have no hesitation in exploiting them to the limit of their understanding (which is often quite severe and detrimental to their long-term interests). — Ludwig V

What I mean is, once they have it, they don't run with it. They do not use tools for new purposes, and don't apply ideas to new situations.

I'm just saying we are unique in that we think in ways no other species thinks.
— Patterner
I'm guessing that mathematics and perhaps ethics are examples of what you have in mind. Yet people seem quite happy to ask whether dogs can do calculus and to insist that they can make and execute a plan of action to achieve a common end. And then, attributing values to them seems inherent in saying that they are alive and sentient and social - even in saying that evolution applies to them.
I think you would question whether dogs can do any mathematics, never mind calculus, or really make and execute a plan. I also think you would question whether dogs really understand ethics, even if they have desires. There's a common theme, because it would not be unreasonable to think that (human) language is essential for both. Am I wrong? — Ludwig V

You are not. Who doesn't think in words? I've heard that some people hear the words of what they're thinking. I don't "hear" the words in my mind, although i think in words. Others say they see the words in their mind. Some say neither of those are happening when they think. But does anyone think without words?

No, dogs don't do math. I know many animals recognize groups of objects of certain sizes. That doesn't mean they count them, and it doesn't mean they can add and subtract.

Nor do I think they have any concept of ethics. Does an alligator, lion, or eagle think it's wrong to kill and eat whatever its prey is? Does a fisher think it's wrong to kill someone's little dog? Have we ever seen any behavior that suggests the any animals have such thoughts?

You may be missing a point in your last message. It is not difficult to find a unique feature or features in any species. (That's largely how we identify them). The interesting question is what is the significance of those unique features. So the short reply to your list is simply that none of that proves that we are not animals. Whatever is unique, there are also features that we share with them and they with us. We are certainly not above them. Indeed, in some ways we might be thought to be below them. War? — Ludwig V

I don't think I'm missing that point at all. I have not said anything to suggest I don't think we are animals. Of course we are. And we reached our current state the same way every other species reached their current state - via evolution. Also, I don't think we are the only species that is unique. I'm just saying we are unique in that we think in ways no other species thinks. That doesn't even mean all the aspects of thinking that we are capable of are unique to us. But some are. And they are what makes us capable of having such discussions about other species, and having them on this medium, while no other species is having such discussions about any other species, by any method.

My contention is that reason and rational thought are not confined within nor limited to these human areas. — Vera Mont

What do you mean by "human areas"? That almost sounds like you are suggesting there are areas of thought that are only seen in humans.

Och, never mind. Yes, yes, you are incredibly special! You have totally cornered the market on thinking. — Vera Mont

Can someone not disagree with you without you resorting to this? You have not attempted to make any points in opposition to mine. You just say I'm wrong. And when I don't bow to the brilliance of such a tactic, and I try to explain my position in different ways, I get this.

And I'm not claiming I an incredibly special. We all are. Yes, even you. No member of any other species would be reacting the way you are now. One of the pitfalls of the ways we think that no other species does.

But our ability to think in the ways we do, in ways nothing else is able to think, we are the undisputed masters of all these things.
— Patterner
You could be right. But there are many contenders in the field. Language, (Rational) Thinking, Tool-making, Culture, Empathy, Moral sense, Social living. Each one is popular for a while - until empirical evidence pies up. It turns out that animals also have these things, or at least recognizable precursors. — Ludwig V

Culture, empathy, moral sense, and social living are surely up for grabs. Because the merit of each is subjective. Even an animal that kills it's prey in a terrifying, painful way, which is quite a few, is morally superior to us, imo, because they have no malice.

But if language is for communication, no other species' language comes close to being able to express the number of things (there are an infinite number of sentences we can construct), or the types of things (descriptions of physical events; thoughts of mortality; mathematics; the possible state of anything at any point in the future; the feelings evoked by music or painting) human languages can communicate.

What does rational thinking mean? I mean, what is its value? If it increases understanding, leading to advancement, no animal has advanced in any noticable way. No members of a species live in a different way today than any members of its species did a million years ago. We, otoh, do many things our earliest ancestors had not yet learned about. Things we must teach to every new generation, or they will not know about it. All knowledge would have to be rediscovered, again and again. But we think rationally, discover and learn, and pass knowledge on. As a result, our lives are immeasurable far removed from those of our earliest ancestors. No other species advances in this way.

Yes, other species use tools. In most cases, a species uses a tool for a purpose. Chimps use tools in several situations, particularly for eating. Yet there is no spark of understanding. They somehow simply happened to stumble upon using X to accomplish Y, and they kept doing it. Then they stumbled upon using A to accomplish B, and kept doing it. They don't realize tools can be improved, adapted for other uses, or that it's possible to invent tools for other purposes entirely. This is because they don't have rational thinking. (As I described in my previous paragraph. You may have something else in mind regarding rational thinking.)

Maybe my point can be made in this way... Let's remove humans from the earth entirely. We never existed. All species on earth would be at various points on the spectrum of intelligence. Which would hold the top position that we would hold if we were still there? Which would be the undisputed masters of the world? I suspect there would be no such thing, even though the spectrum would still be there. Despite the large differences in thinking ability between all the species, none think in different ways than any other. There is only greater or lesser thinking in the same ways.

Reading publications from scientists about their research is often unhelpful, but, purely in the spirit of suggesting that you are casting your net too narrowly and long before science will catch up with you, here are two references that show how much empirical work is going on and how varied it is.

Scientific American 2014 - What Makes Humans Different Than Any Other Species

Scientific American 2018 - What Made Us Unique — Ludwig V

Thank you. I will look at them tonight.

The supreme irony is that if you ask what makes us human, you will likely find that the top contender is emotion. Which animals also clearly experience. Reason has had a bad reputation ever since the Industrial Revolution. — Ludwig V

I once saw a documentary of a lion cub that was liked by hyenas. The cub's mother was searching, and finally found the body. She sat there for some time, looking into the distance, and her vocalizations seemed to be cries of anguish. How long do you suppose her pain remained with her? A week? A month? A year? Do you suppose the memory hit her like a truck from time to time, for the rest of her life? Do you suppose her pain faded somewhat over the years, until the memory of her child came with a bittersweet smile?

Do you suppose the mother of a wildebeest that has watched it's child, perhaps more than one over the years, murdered, torn apart, and eaten, suffers the horrors I would?

I'm beginning to think that this debate is a distraction. — Ludwig V

I don't understand. Is all this not there very heart of rational thinking? Is any other species able to think about thinking the way we are?