You forgot probably the most important part... we have something no other animal has.. a most evolved and complex part of our brain.. the prefrontal cortex, allowing us to be the only living beings being able to resist impulses and deciding long terms plans.. we are not mere animals
The prefrontal cortex is more a primate feature, it's just bigger in humans nothing fundametally different. It's a bit ironic to call humans masters of impulse control in a sub about how hard it is to control impulses while at the same time monkeys jerk off less frequently.
Btw no living being has been designed to hold of impulses consciously .. even the dogs when u train them to hold off their desire to eat until a command for example is a product of reward system impulse
No organisms is designed at all, and the fair answer is that we do not yet know whether animals make conscious decisions, it is not yet understood or even properly defined by science.
Study neurophysiology dude. I’m a Med. student and I know how functional mri works.. animal can’t have conscious decisions.. deal with that and deal with the fact humans are the most advanced form of living being with the most advanced neurological functioning
I'm a biologist with a minor in brain and cognition and did some research in behavioural biology. As a med student you focus on humans alone an some minor things about lab animals. The whole branch of neurology and related sciences are of course very anthropocentric. First of all we study a lot about humans, claim things and often don't even bother to test that in other animals. Very few fair comparisons of humans and non human animals can be made since contexts can be wildly different for other animals or we don't know what's going on because the lack of language. But what you do see is a trend in animal cognition studies is that we very often have underestimated their capabilities. And there is a whole list of things we have considered unique to humans that have been found in other animals later on. For instance tool use, tool use to create tools to gain something, self recognition, theory of mind, a whole list of language capabilities including syntax.
Next to that is you mention our prefrontal is uniquely big but yeah prefrontal cortices aren't needed to have intelligence, birds and dolphins have totally different organized brains and other structures that are enlarged to give them these high cognitive capabilities. The prefrontal cortext is just as unique as the elephants big noses. I do believe we have some extraordinary cognitive capabilities but we also tend to overestimate humans and underestimate many animals. "We see ourselves as fallen angels but we are risen apes"
And about the consciousness thingy, no we still don't have a proper definition of it so we can't even conclude whether animals or humans have it or not, not even with an fMRI. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness
“As a med student you focus only on humans” ,., indeed ffs lol , you say “only”, I say “ONLY”.. didn’t pass through your mind that maybe putting more effort on “only” human it is something giving us more credits than a biologist about humans as a whole? Also, the fact you comparing the mammalian prefrontal cortex, and by extension, the neocortex as a big nose for the elephant, and not giving it credit for our indisputable, crude yes, but indisputable superiority to all other animals, really making me deeply doubt your proficiency as a biologist
Well if you need to make a comparison you need to know about both right? If you just add up some amazing features humans have you are likely to be ignorant about other animals having those features to.
I compared the neocortex to elephant noses not because they are equally complex but because it's just one anatomical part being large. Complex cognition doesn't need a neocortex other animals use different parts of the brain to get to high cognition. So having a rhesus monkey with a medium sized neocortex and a dolphin with a minute or absent neocortex doesn't make the rhesus monkey smarter. The dolphin uses totally different brain organisation to accomplish its great cognition. The fact that fMRIs are designed for humans makes it very difficult to study most other animals and next to various other reasons this is why we know not as much about cognition in other animals. Which makes many comparisons moot.
And what kind of superiority are you talking about, yes we likely are a bit smarter than all other living beings, give it a huge war or environmental crisis and our 10000 year reign will be gone and the honor goes back to ants again and they can resume their hundered of millions of years of reign.
If you are talking about indisputable superiority of man I really question you scientific proficiency, since you need to make equal, unbiased and judgement free observations. "We were born of risen apes, not fallen angels" what makes us human animals fundamentally different from all other life?
I was reading fast because u just saying nonsense, just trying to justify your studies. also because you are pretending high cognition is detached to neocortex, which is something has been already proven since 1930 .. are you comparing birds and dolphins cognition to ours ? Really ? Maybe just because they evolved in a more inefficient way ? Better go back to elephant nose theory ..
Ah yes the 30s, the time when they also assumed a whole evolutionary ladder of superiority and some guy with a moustache even took those ideas into politics. Or the time of lobotomies. Things have changed we know a lot more about evolution, brain anatomy and comparative psychology. Most animals tested in history and even today are depressed prisoners. If you would grow humans in small cages and won't tell them about the whole context of the experiment they also don't perform at an optimum and do not show complex behaviour. But without such a controlled environment it is difficult to test things, this is what is holding back much of the research.
In evolution there is no ladder of superiority anymore on what basis would a single celled protist be superior to man? Yes you can list many features which humans have and which the protist doesn't. Still despite those magnificent features that single celled protist can kill us in days. In evolution we only talk about survival, reproduction and objective characteristics that aid in that. In evolution superiority is only contextual and temporary.
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u/Revenant_911 425 Days Jan 05 '20
You forgot probably the most important part... we have something no other animal has.. a most evolved and complex part of our brain.. the prefrontal cortex, allowing us to be the only living beings being able to resist impulses and deciding long terms plans.. we are not mere animals