Man and animal are extremely similar to each other. The human and animal organisms are similar in composition, structure and behavior - different reactions and processes. The body functions of humans and animals are identical, the human embryo develops in the same stages as the animal embryo. And, after all, humans still have some rudimentary organs that are found in animals (for example, the appendix). But what distinguishes a person from his smaller brothers? How does a person differ from an animal?
Speaking and showing
The stages of human thinking: reasoning, judgment, inference, as well as many mental operations (such as the ability to analyze, generalize, trace logical connections) are not characteristic of animals. A person is also able to exchange information with others like himself using articulate speech, as well as printed signs and writing signs. Animal conversation is a set of sounds and signals with which they can warn each other about danger and other events. In the language of animals there is no information about any abstract concepts, as well as about events of the past and future.
Roles and masks
A person occupies certain social roles, he can change his behavior and his desires. A person can predict the consequences of his actions and, depending on that, adjust his actions. A person evaluates everything around him and, based on the results of this assessment, behaves in one way or another. Animals also play certain roles: the leader and members of the pack subordinate to him, mother and children, male and female. But these roles are predetermined not by reason, but by instincts that are inherent in them by nature from birth. The animal cannot change its mind and choose any other role. In addition, the human psyche in most cases develops according to the era of time, that is, it depends on historical and social conditions. Animal world it did not change over time and always remained the same in relation to its structure as we see it now.
Patience and work
A person is able to improve his environment if it causes him discomfort; he is able to make and use tools himself. An animal adapts to the place in which it lives and acts in life, obeying the surrounding laws. An animal may break off a stick or roll a stone for specific purposes (for example, beaver dams or bird nests). But not a single species of animal is capable of making a tool and then using it.
Spiritual thoughts
A person not only strives to satisfy his natural needs for food, warmth and procreation, but also spiritual aspirations. Therefore, in human world There are such concepts as art, religion, philosophy and similar sciences. The animal does not have such a need and satisfies only its minimal physiological needs, which nature dictates to it.
Upright walking and hair
Man, among other things, differs from animals in his upright posture and scanty hair in comparison with the fur and wool of his little brothers. But this difference also has its deviations. For example, the giraffe is also characterized by upright walking, and sphinx cats, like humans, do not have pronounced hair.
DNA level
Each somatic nucleated cell of the human body contains 23 pairs of chromosomes. Not long ago, scientists found that the human genome contains 212 copies of the MGC8902 gene, which, in turn, encodes the DUF1220 protein. The function of this protein is unknown, but it is known that this protein is found in neurons of the brain. The number of copies of the MGC8902 gene (212) in humans is much higher than in the chimpanzee genome (37) or in the mouse and rat genome (1). Scientists put forward the theory that repeated copying of this gene was one of the reasons for human evolution.
How does a person differ from an animal? Often this topic becomes the subject of philosophical and religious debates. Often ideas are heard that there are no differences, that all people are shaved, washed and dressed in suits. Perhaps this is true. But animals would not be able to write these articles and certainly would not be able to read them or think about them. Here are the key differences.
1. A person has thinking and articulate speech. Only a person can reflect on his past, critically assessing it, and think about the future, dreaming and making plans.
Some species of monkeys also have communicative capabilities, but only humans can convey objective information about the world around them to other people. People have the ability to highlight the main thing in their speech. In addition, a person knows how to reflect reality not only with the help of speech, but also with the help of music, painting and other figurative forms.
2. A person is capable of conscious, purposeful creative activity :
– models yours behavior and can choose various social roles;
– has ability to foresee long-term consequences of one’s actions, the nature and direction of development of natural processes;
– expresses value attitude to reality.
An animal's behavior is subordinate to instinct; its actions are initially programmed. It does not separate itself from nature.
3. Man, in the process of his activity, transforms surrounding reality, creates the necessary material and spiritual benefits and values. Carrying out practically transformative activities, a person creates a “second nature” - culture.
Animals adapt to their environment, which determines their lifestyle. They cannot make fundamental changes in the conditions of their existence.
4. Man is capable of making tools and using them as a means of producing material goods.
Highly organized animals can use natural tools (sticks, stones) for certain purposes. But not a single species of animal is capable of making tools using previously made means of labor.
5. Man reproduces not only his biological, but also social essence and therefore must satisfy not only your material, but also your spiritual needs. Satisfaction of spiritual needs is associated with the formation of a person’s spiritual (inner) world.
Human - unique creature (open to the world, unique, spiritually incomplete); universal being(capable of any type of activity); whole being(integrates physical, mental and spiritual principles).
Topic 2. Human existence
Being – philosophical category denoting existence, reality. Accordingly, not only natural phenomena have existence, but also man and the spheres of his activity. The world of thinking beings and everything created by them enters the sphere of existence.
The primary prerequisite for human existence is the life of his body. In the natural world, man, existing as a body, is dependent on the laws of development and death of organisms, the cycles of nature. To give life to the spirit, it is necessary to provide life to the body. Therefore, in all civilized countries, the fundamental human rights to satisfy his primary needs, the rights associated with the preservation of life, are legally enshrined.
An individual becomes a personality by mastering the achievements of human culture (personal aspect human existence). Therefore, a person does not blindly obey the requirements of bodily laws, but is able to control and regulate his needs, satisfying them not just in accordance with nature, but guided by historically emerged norms and ideals. Nevertheless, it is believed that individual existence is the basis for the existence of a person.
Social being can be expressed in a broader sense as social being. Social existence (the relationship of people to nature and each other) arises along with the formation of human society and is primary in relation to the consciousness of the individual and generation.
Topic 3. Human needs and interests
In order to develop, a person is forced to satisfy various needs, which are called requirements.
Need – it is a person's need for what constitutes necessary condition his existence. The motives (from the Latin move - to set in motion, to push) of activity reveal human needs.
Types of human needs
– Biological (organic, material)– needs for food, clothing, housing, etc.
– Social- need to communicate with other people, social activities, V public recognition and etc.
– Spiritual (ideal, cognitive)– needs for knowledge, creative activity, creation of beauty, etc.
Biological, social and spiritual needs are interconnected. In contrast to animals, biological needs in humans become social in their essence. For most people social needs dominate over the ideal: the need for knowledge often acts as a means to acquire a profession and take a worthy position in society.
There are other classifications of needs, for example the following.
The needs of each next level become urgent when the previous ones are satisfied.
One should remember about reasonable limitation of needs, since, firstly, not all human needs can be fully satisfied, and secondly, needs should not contradict the moral norms of society.
Reasonable needs –These are needs that help the development of truly human qualities in a person: the desire for truth, beauty, knowledge, the desire to bring good to people, etc.
Needs underlie the emergence of interests and inclinations.
Interest(Latin interest – to have meaning) – a person’s purposeful attitude towards any object of his need.
People's interests are directed not so much at the objects of need, but at those social conditions that make these objects more or less accessible, first of all, material and spiritual goods that ensure the satisfaction of needs.
Interests are determined by the position of various social groups and individuals in society. They are to a greater or lesser extent realized by people and are the most important incentives to various types activities.
There are several classifications of interests:
– according to their carrier: individual; group; the whole society.
– by direction: economic; social; political; spiritual.
Interest must be distinguished from inclination . The concept of “interest” expresses a focus on a certain item. The concept of “inclination” expresses the focus on a certain activity.
Interest is not always combined with inclination (much depends on the degree of accessibility of a particular activity).
A person’s interests express the direction of his personality, which largely determines him life path, nature of activity, etc.
Similarities and differences between humans and animals
Similarities between humans and animals:
1. identical material composition, structure and behavior of organisms . Humans are made up of the same proteins and nucleic acids as animals, and many of our body structures and functions are the same as those of animals. The higher an animal is on the evolutionary scale, the greater its resemblance to humans. Modern science (ethology), based on numerous observations, claims that there are many similarities in the behavior of humans and animals. Animals, like humans, experience various feelings: joy, grief, melancholy, guilt, etc.;
2. H human embryo goes through its development all stages of the evolution of living organisms.
3. Humans have vestigial organs , which performed important functions in animals and were preserved in humans, although they are not needed by him (for example, the appendix).
Differences between humans and animals and they are fundamental:
1. presence of mind , But modern science proves the presence of reason in higher animals (previously it was believed that only humans have reason). Example: experiments with monkeys have shown that they can understand words, communicate their desires using a computer, and thus you can conduct a dialogue with them. The importance of intelligence can be assessed, for example, when a person plays chess with a computer, which tries to win due to the enormous speed of searching through all possible options, and in this competition the person wins.
Animals have curiosity, attention, memory, imagination, but even the most highly organized animals do not have the ability to conceptual thinking , that is, to the formation of abstract, abstract ideas about objects in which the basic properties of specific things are generalized. Animal thinking is concrete, but human thinking can be abstract, abstract, generalizing, conceptual, and logical. The higher the ability for conceptual thinking, the higher the person’s intelligence . Having the ability for conceptual thinking, a person realizes what he does and understands the world. Although animals have very complex forms of behavior and create amazing works (for example, the web woven by a spider or the honeycomb of bees), before starting work, a person has a plan, a project, a model, and this differs from all animals.
2. Man has speech(I.P. Pavlov called communication using words the second signaling system) , and animals may have a very developed system of communication using signals (dolphins, bats communicate using ultrasound). In natural science, there is a hypothesis of the German anthropologist M. Muller, the essence of which is that in the process of joint work of people, the roots of verbs first appeared from sounds, then other parts of words and speech. In the same way, in the process of social labor, reason could gradually arise, since a word creates a certain image of an object in a person’s brain.
3. Ability to work, ability to make and use tools distinguishes humans from animals. All animals act in some way, but higher animals are capable of complex types activity (monkeys use sticks as tools to get fruits). The only species of animal - the black raven (an endangered species) is capable of making and using tools - a hook from a branched branch for extracting larvae and caterpillars from under the bark of a tree, and the required length of the device is determined.
4. Upright walking freed the front limbs (arms) of a person.
5. During the labor process, the hand developed, especially the thumb.
6. Man uses fire and is not afraid of him, unlike animals.
7. Man burying the dead of people.
Conclusion: the main differences between humans and animals are conceptual thinking, speech, work contributed to the separation of man from nature in the process of evolution.
Man is an animal belonging to the order of mammals. We have evolved, i.e. originated from animals and, accordingly, should be very similar to them. In fact, this is so: the structure of our body, the structure and functions of internal organs, the processes occurring inside the body, physiological needs are identical to those of our smaller brothers. But there are still differences, albeit not as many as one might think. And so, the key differences between humans and animals:
Upright walking
The most distinctive feature human - upright posture. Thanks to it, a person’s hands were freed, which made it possible to use tools and other tools. But the ability to walk straight had a negative impact on the structure of the pelvis. To maintain balance, the pelvic bones are located closer than in animals, so in humans childbirth is much more difficult and painful.
Speech
Compared to our distant relatives, chimpanzees, humans have a lower larynx, which makes it possible to speak. 350 thousand years ago, man received a gift from nature - the hyoid bone. This is the only bone that is not attached to other bones, thanks to which a person pronounces words clearly.
Wool
Compared to most representatives of the animal world, man seems completely naked. Although the human body has the same number of hair follicles as chimpanzees, for example, they are shorter and thinner.
Hands
Man is unique in what he can touch thumb little finger and ring finger. This makes the hands more tenacious and dexterous, allowing a person to easily use tools and comfortably hold a pen and other writing objects.
Brain
This, of course, is the most basic difference between us and all other animals. The human brain is not the largest - the sperm whale has the largest, and not the largest in proportion to body weight - in many birds the brain occupies 8% of the body weight, in humans - about 2.5%. But still, the human brain is unique - thanks to it, people can think, remember, realize, create, and explore.
Constantly growing needs
This hypothesis is by no means new, although people started talking about it seriously only recently. Each of you could even notice this - human needs are constantly growing. Give a beggar a roof over his head and after some time he will want a bigger and better house, give him a goat that will give milk and after a while he will want a cow... This is human nature, he never stops there, he constantly wants more and more...
It is quite possible that thanks to this last feature, people became what we are now. It was thanks to the growth of needs that we developed ourselves and developed our civilization, invented technical inventions, made scientific discoveries, created masterpieces of art...
What distinguishes a person from an animal? There are many differences, but first of all, it is his brain. This is the main difference between a person and an animal. Our brain is approximately 3 times larger in volume than the brain of the chimpanzee, our closest “relative” from the animal kingdom. In addition, there are other differences between humans and animals. This is, for example, the ability to move on two legs. Thanks to this, he was able to free the other two limbs, which he used for a wide variety of activities, as a result of which there was an increase in the flexibility of the hand and fine motor skills, which, in turn, as many scientists believe, allowed the human brain to develop. By the way, a monkey cannot perform such an action as, for example, insert a thread into a needle, no matter how hard they tried to teach it this, in our opinion, simple action. There are some other differences between humans and animals. For example, people have fairly well-developed speech, which is capable of conveying thoughts quite accurately.
People for long years their existence, they were never able to establish any contacts with their “brothers in mind” on Earth. We cannot even imagine what a domestic dog or ants, which lead a complex collective life, might “think” about. Man believes that he is the only thinking species on the planet. Maybe that's true. At least we know that people are endowed with the ability to think about things very far from their immediate survival. Such abilities are associated with Using this ability, people created a civilization, developed a culture, studied distant planets, wrote wonderful paintings, poetry, music, built beautiful cities, were able to defeat many diseases, cold and hunger.
The biosphere has properties associated with self-regulation. However, people sometimes go against natural laws. wild nature can feed a number of people approximately a thousand times smaller than those currently living on planet Earth.
In practice, we know well the differences between humans and animals. However, what mechanisms to use in order to determine who is in front of us - a person or a representative of the animal world - is not so easy to formulate. There is a huge diversity of species and genera in the animal kingdom, and "Homo sapiens" is only one of the species. Thus, it turns out that the concept of “animals” is broader, since it includes the concept of “human”!
However, the following differences stand out between humans and animals:
- Man creates for himself environment, transforming and changing the Animal can only adapt to the conditions of nature.
- A person changes the world, not only in accordance with his needs, but also according to the laws of knowledge of it, as well as morality and beauty. An animal changes the world, focusing only on satisfying its physiological needs.
- Human needs are growing and changing all the time. The needs of the animal hardly change.
- Man evolves according to biological and socio-cultural programs. Animal behavior is subject only to instincts.
- A person treats his life activities consciously. The animal has no consciousness and follows only its instincts.
- Man creates products of material and spiritual culture, creates, creates. The animal does not create or produce anything new.
- As a result of his activities, a person transforms himself, his abilities, changes his needs, and living conditions. Animals actually do not change anything either in themselves or in external living conditions.
These are the main differences between humans and animals.
