Question: What makes us human?

Reka Nagy answered on 14 Nov 2016:

That is a ridiculously complex question. I’ll try to give an answer that covers only a small part of how this could be discussed.

Evolutionarily speaking, humans do three types of behaviours that we do and our closest genetic relatives, chimps, don’t. These are:

1. We have a language. Well, many languages. Other animals do communicate using various noises, but they do not have ways in which they can express complex thoughts and feelings – we’re not even sure they have complex thoughts and feelings to begin with!

2. We use symbols to communicate messages. We assign symbolic meaning to certain things – for example, a sign with an exclamation mark in it usually means a warning. But an exclamation mark is just a line and a dot, so it is an abstract concept to link it to danger. Other animals do not use these types of abstract symbols to communicate messages.

3. We have culture. This means that we produce knowledge, and seek to preserve this knowledge and pass it down to future generations. Other animals are merely concerned with surviving and maintaining the species, but they do not ‘think’ about the future their offspring will need to live in.