ABSTRACT
Humans form a unique species. We are not just animals, although we are a species of animal, and we are not super-complex machines, or, more specifically, computers, although some analogies may be drawn between our brains and computers. Though some other animals have both brains and genetic codes that are very similar to ours, none has exactly the same brain or code. More to the point, notwithstanding many fascinating discoveries in the field of animal research, it remains clear that there are things that humans can and others animals cannot do. Only a human has the ability to use a language that allows us to do such things as hypothesize, imagine, predict, and lie. Washoe the chimpanzee, for example, has been ‘taught’ to ‘recognize’ (‘react to’?) certain signs, and other animals could similarly be said to have acquired a language in the minimal sense of allowing some form of communication or at least response or reaction between them and us; as every dog owner knows, the sound ‘walk’ can produce a reaction. But there is absolutely no evidence to support the notion, and absolutely no reason to suppose, that any non-human animal can formulate thoughts of the type ‘you promised to take me for a walk, and now you have broken your promise’. An animal can certainly experience pain, but it cannot say to itself ‘if you would just stop hitting me’ or ‘if you would return my sister to me, I would feel fine’. Similarly, while computers can calculate to a degree and at a speed that is amazing, no computer can ‘say’ to itself ‘oh, I’m so tired of this calculation; I’m going to take a break; see how you people feel about that’.1
