How are humans different than other animals?

We humans are one of the many animal species that inhabit this planet. Like other animals or living things on this planet, our species (humans) also went through many evolutionary changes, and faced many challenges and difficulties to survive on this planet. We did a great job in not becoming an extinct species despite having limited physical powers compared to many other animal species that inhabit our planet. Many species physically much more powerful than ours, very dominant when they existed on this planet (like dinosaurs) are now extinct. We only see their skeletons or models in museums. What makes us so special? We not only survived so long on this planet but are now the most powerful species of this planet. Humans literally rule over this planet.

I am not going to go into too much detail about genetic differences or similarities between humans and other animals, there is a vast amount of information available about this topic, I have listed a few links in the reference section which specifically discuss this topic. To the best of our knowledge, humans are the only source of documented history of this universe. Our civilization started like other animals, we used to live in herds and used to behave like most of other animals, and still have many of those characteristics, we also eat to survive, reproduce, and do many things like other animals. We have physical needs like any other animal and also show physical changes like disease, old age, and death like other animals. But, and this 'BUT' is very important, our mental needs or our mental capabilities are totally different than all other animals on this planet. We have more developed brains compared to other animals and this fact has given us tremendous advantage over other animals and is the reason for our ability to dominate this planet.

We have unique abilities of thinking and imagination. This ability of imagination adds a unique dimension to our thinking. Many animals can only think about the things that they see right in front of their eyes, they cannot imagine the things that don't exist, and they don't worry about their death. For example, lions don't worry about why they can't fly, but we humans do, and that's the difference. Most animals feed their babies until they are capable of getting food on their own, but we humans not only worry about our kids' future, we even worry about our grandkid's future. This is because we can imagine what can happen to them if they don't have a home to live and food to eat. This ability to imagine is the reason for most of our progress and also many of our problems. This ability of imagination has helped us to overcome so many of our physical limitations. It helped us to design airplanes to fly, ships to sail, and even space shuttles to visit other planets. There is no limit to our imagination. The same imagination forces us to blow problems out of proportion, we can imagine a space attack by aliens, and our ever-growing desires are also the result of this imagination. If I have to choose one thing that differentiates us from other animals it will be our ability to 'imagine.' Animals just have needs, but we humans have both need and greed. Our every relationship has an element of some selfishness in it, no matter what relationship it is and with whom it is.


I don't think there is any special purpose for human life, there is no special reason for our existence on this planet, it's just a random event and a biological phenomenon. We came into existence and evolved similarly to any other species. We are not different than any other animal on this planet as far as our origin and evolution are concerned. We all fight in this world for survival, many times we behave in a selfish manner like other animals, we try to protect our possessions, mark our territories, and attack our fellow humans when we perceive them as our enemies. We call all these things our 'animal instinct' and we all have this. What differentiates our feelings or behavior compared to other animals is again our more developed brain. We have formed certain rules and regulations to live life. We have some dos and don'ts. We have developed concepts of morality, justice, equality, and equity, with the help of these things we train our mind. This training helps us to behave in a civilized manner, show compassion towards our fellow humans, force us to overcome our selfish feelings and do many things that other animals don't do naturally. Whenever we overcome this animal instinct and do anything, we call it a selfless act, an unconditional love because we are not thinking only about ourselves or not expecting anything in return. This is a human behavior.


It is our thinking that differentiates us from all other species on this earth, it controls our behavior (good or bad). It gives us strength or makes us weak, makes us kind or cruel. Most of these qualities are present in most animals but they can not overcome their intrinsic nature or animal instinct totally but we can. A lion cannot stop hunting on their own and become vegetarian or a deer can not suddenly start eating meat and start hunting, but humans can change their habits if they want. We can domesticate many animals by giving them proper training and teaching them controlled behavior but these animals cannot pass on that information as a culture to the next generation because of the limited ability of their brain, we humans can and that's how we built this civilized society which we see around us. Once again our developed brain made all the difference. Yes, we are animals but 'special animals' on this planet, we have learned to control our animal instinct and that's how we discovered humanity. 


Humans can go beyond themselves and do many acts but if we look into the core of it we do everything to make ourselves happy. Whether it's a mother's love towards her child, charity, or any other noble act, people do it because they want to feel happy, and satisfied. The human brain craves happiness and most of the acts are centered around generating happiness directly or indirectly.


I feel lucky to be a human, I love my planet and my species. I truly believe that we humans can make this planet a wonderful place where all species can live in harmony. We can do this by using our intelligence, at the same time we have the power to destroy everything because of our greed and selfishness so the choice is always ours. With great power comes great responsibility. Be responsible, remember, humans control the fate of this planet.

Thanks for reading and please share your views.

References:

1. http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/faq/compgen.shtml

2. http://www.actionbioscience.org/genomic/hhmi.html

3. http://www.nigms.nih.gov/Education/Factsheet_GeneticVariation.htm

4.http://www.eupedia.com/forum/showthread.php?25335-Percentage-of-genetic-similarity-between-humans-and-animals

5. http://realtruth.org/articles/090806-002-science.html

6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)