Humanity (Part I)

Humanity, according to the dictionary, is the the state of being a person rather than a god, an animal or a machine. What does make us feel different from a machine and an animal? Do we have specific behavior and capacity which make us unique on Earth? Is it an objective point of view to say that we are animals with specific capacities that other animals don’t have. This would make us animal of higher order. Is it discriminatory?

Viewing at the nature (as opposition as human life), we see that everything seems perfect. Everything has its specific role and the human is disturbing its perfect ecosystem. We even say that we are polluting our world (saying that we transform it in a manner that will badly affect the ecosystem and the Earth in general). Is this effect the consequence of our particularity? We say that only us have religions and we are the only animal capable of creation. We say that ants doesn’t really create their home but just follow their instinct. We say that we are the only animal who make art. Is it right?

In fact, in nature, when we study it carefully, in a different point of view than the human one (avoiding an anthropocentric perspective), we can see that some species are polluting their ecosystem too (predator killing too much of their prey). We also see that some species have rites and social customs. Indeed, chimpanzee have been seen to dance when the rain is coming and they have social particularities in function of the region they live. Furthermore, if a chimpanzee goes to another community he start to adopt the new custom as a human would do in the same case. Also, art have been found, at least when animals are in captivity. But art is subjective and no human could judge art from another animal without understanding it first. We should avoid anthropomorphism while describing the animals.

The power of creation is given to almost all animals on this earth through the sexual and asexual reproduction. But creation of objects from matter outside the body seems to be only given to humans (though it need to be more study). We have free hands to manipulate the matter and create something from our mind. Does other animals exists with this same capability? Does they exists on Earth too? This particular power is described in the religion as the god part of human. We have, like god, the power to create. Our thoughts become matter. What in our body, permits us to have this capacity? Can it be explained by DNA?