The Human Spark

Mehr dazu

Globalization Positive and Negative Impacts

von Tanraj Mand

English as a Global Language

von Torleif Sleveland

Money

von Samuel Anderson-McCoy

St. Thomas Aquinas

von Alya Bejaoui

Teaching

• The transmission of knowledge is what allowed humans to succeed as a society
• We learned and grew as a species
• New discoveries quickly became wide spread due to our communication
• Animals tend to learn through mimicry:
• Apes watch others use tools and learn how to use the tools by proxy
• As seen earlier with the cods the other cods figured out how to use the tag by watching the innovative fish
• In this way animal knowledge can be spread around a localized area
• However some species show a capacity for true teaching
• Apes have been observed sharing tools with their young, especially when the tool was more complex
• Cheetahs have been observed teaching their young to hunt by capturing a young prey animal and letting the cubs attempt to hunt it
• Meerkats teach their young how to destinger a scorpion by handing it an incapacitated one and progressively hand them more and more lively scorpions
• Another species with the capacity for teaching is the Rock Ant
• When a rock ant finds a new food source it returns to the nest and then proceeds to guide other ants to said food source
• It does this using a method known as tandem running
• The two ants run together with the teacher ant leading the way at a slower pace while the student ant follows
• The teacher ant lets the student ant survey the environment and explore before receiving a cue from the student to keep moving

Culture

• What we have as humans that makes us unique is our advanced culture
• Other animals do have cultures, they:
• Form societies and bands
• Spread techniques and innovations
• Demonstrate teamwork
• Have politics
• However we are currently the only species to create a written language
• As demonstrated by the image our ancestors had a sense of culture
• They developed a written language
• They created works for other people to learn from
• Maps
• Spiritual art
• While other animals can teach and learn and invent and communicate and problem solve
• It is only humans that have created such a rich and sophisticated culture of written knowledge and works and that is one of the few things that still make us unique

Citations

The Human Spark

Click on the boxes with logos to open hyperlinks

Click on the boxes with lines to open notes

I am a note

What Makes Humans Unique and Why Humans Aren't as Unique as You Think

Tool Making and Use

• Tools were extremely important in our development as a species.
• Many other species today have been observed to make and modify parts of their environment in order to make tools. These include:
• Crows and Ravens
• Octopuses
• Apes such as chimps
• Certain species of fish have been observed to use tools
• Can smash hard shelled prey against rocks to break them open (as shown in the above video)
• Use precise shots of water to knock prey off of leaves
• Use sand to clean or hide objects
• Tool-making and use use to be the key defining feature of humans that separated us from other animals
• We know now that it is not a trait exclusive to humans or even primates.

Invention and Problem Solving

• Problem solving is another trait originally thought to be uniquely human
• Many animals are unable to spontaneously invent a new way to do things or refine age old techniques
• As shown in the video, some birds such as crows and Ravens, have the ability to solve problems
• They can fashion and modify tools
• Understand cause and effect
• Adapt to solve problems
• Apes have also demonstrated problem solving skills, so have some fish
• Once in a controlled environment, cod were taught to pull on a string to receive food
• A cod figured out that it could loop the string around its identification tag and pull it by swimming
• This allowed it to gain access to the food slightly faster
• Soon all the other cods in the tank were doing it too
• This demonstrates a capacity for flexibility and innovation

Jack of all Trades

• Homo sapiens and or ancestors were never really specialists
• We evolved in a way that ensured we could always adapt to new threats
• Becoming a specialist can lead to evolutionary dead ends and overreliance on a certain climate or condition
• The P. Boisei was an example of a specialist
• Strong teeth
• Powerful stomach
• Capable of eating dry roots during droughts
• However they became too specialized and stopped evolving, leading to their extinction when the climate changed.
• Homo Sapiens's ancestors never dominated in a particular area, but there continued evolution allowed them to grow and adapt to any threat they faced.
• Struggle leads to adaptation and adaptation leads to success

Mental Adaptability

• Humans have the most complex brain of any animal on earth
• To deal with struggles and new environments, primitive humans had to evolve their brain
• As shown in the image, we progressively developed bigger skulls to house our brains
• As we grew smarter and gained access to better foods we were able to support bigger brains
• Having bigger and more complex brains enabled us to adapt to new environments and solve problems more effectively
• In addition it gave us longer memories which ensured that we could function better both socially and in new environments
• Better brains also enabled us to form more complex social groups, invent better and more effective tools and coo-operate and communicate more effectively
• Studies have shown that our brain size increased fastest when the world was most unpredictable
• Natural selection left only the smartest primitive humans alive, so it was those that were most fit to reproduce.

Supple Language

• One of Humanity's key defining features is our complex and full language
• Enables us to transmit information more effectively
• Function better in groups
• As mentioned in the image, human words can be used to string together infinite sentences and ideas (some more nonsensical than others)
• Other animals have languages with various degrees of complexity
• Chimps can communicate simple commands and feelings using both physical gestures and calls
• Dolphins are a species with an extremely complex language
• Like humans they are able to string together words to form sentences
• They use various pulses and hums to transmit messages

Complex Social Structures

• Humans form many meaningful relationships in our lifetime
• Our relationships are all part of a complex social structure which was developed over many generations
• Group power dynamics and political relationships enabled us to survive more effectively as a species
• As our brains evolved we became able to communicate better and develop our language
• This helped us to form bands and teams and function as societies, which was key to surviving in a rapidly changing climate.
• I chose this image as it is a recreation of a primitive human band gathering around a fire, it shows them conversing and working together to survive.
• All sorts of animals today are able to form complex social structures and power dynamics
• Chimpanzees demonstrate group politics and political thinking
• Chimps have been observed to form coalitions to increase power within groups
• They understand the importance of forming relationships to increase one's survival and power and reproductive fitness

Cooperation and Altruism

• Cooperation was key to the survival of early humans
• Many of our evolutions, such as language, good memory and expressive eyes help us succeed in social and group settings
• Being able to cooperate helped us:
• Share information hunt and gather food more effectively
• Increase individual powers within a group
• This image shows an example of early humans teaming up to kill a bigger animal which I thought was a good example of primitive teamwork
• Many animals especially pack animals demonstrate teamwork, some examples are:
• Wolves
• Lions
• Hyenas
• Meerkats
• Altruism is another important social power humans developed
• Acting altruistically increased ones standing within the group and demonstrated good character
• Forming alliances and using favors contributed to the complex groups primitive humans developed and gave one advantages in power struggles
• Demonstrating good altruism and social skills made one more reproductively fit and increased the likelihood of getting a mate (pretty sure it still does)
• Once again Chimpanzees can demonstrate altruism to improve political power and personal appeal

Imagination

• The most unique thing about humans is our imagination
• We have an ability to imagine the world we cannot see and believe in concepts like dying of the afterlife
• This imagination helps us to invent new tools and ideas and helps us prepare for future scenarios
• However we are not the only animal with the ability to do so
• Certain animals such as chimpanzees have demonstrated a capacity for imagination
• The video mentions how chimpanzees care for "rock dolls"
• They treat these dolls like baby chimps, despite the fact that they are rocks
• This demonstrates a capacity for imagination and fantasy

Conceptual Understanding

• Humans can understand and theorize about non-physical concepts such as gravity and time, our ancestors were able to too.
• Being able to understand these concepts helped us develop new technologies and predict environmental changes as well as cause and effect.
• In addition these concepts helped us to hunt food in unorthodox ways, such as pushing rocks onto large animals like mammoths
• Studies have also shown that certain animals, like apes. Are able to understand the concept of gravity
• As shown in the linked article, apes are able to infer from the weight of objects their contents
• From a survival perspective this helps them tell which food items contain more food than others
• But it also demonstrates a small understanding of the concept of weight and gravity
• Archerfish are another animal that understand metaphysical concepts
• They know how to aim their controlled jets of water to hit pray in motion
• In addition they shoot more water for bigger targets showing an understanding of weight
• In the video we can observe how the archerfish adjusts its shot to account for further away targets
• They understand optical distortion and can account for it