Thomas Suddendorf

The Gap
Thomas Suddendorf
Saturday, December 28, 2013

This is an account of the psychological and physical differences between humans and other creatures, primarily between humans and the great apes. There is evidence that chimpanzees use tools, and pass the skill of tool making to other chimpanzees, and evidence that they have rudimentary abilities to communicate using sign language, at the level of a human two year old. There are many communication skills apparent in dogs, dolphins and other species. Humans are unique, according to Suddendorf, in the ability to imagine and reflect on scenarios that may not exist yet. Humans also possess a language that allows for new words, and for grammar structures that are recursive, and open ended, allowing any complexity to be communicated. The other unique feature of humans is the insatiable drive to link individual minds together and to understand that there are separate minds in other individuals.
Suddendorf also discusses current studies of human paleontology, and makes the important point that the large apparent gap in capabilities between humans and apes may have been much less between modern humans and other now extinct members of genus homo, like Neanderthals or homo habilis.
Entertaining, easily read, with detailed and critical analysis of psychological studies in animals, this is rewarding book.

Quotes:
Gilbert and Sullivan: "Darwinian man, though well behaved, at best is only a monkey shaved"

"According to Frans de Waal, the foundation of morality can be subdivided into 3 broad levels: (1) The basic building blocks of empathy and reciprocity; (2) the group pressures that keep individuals in line; and (3) the capacity for self-reflective moral reasoning and judgement."
Many species, and notably chimpanzees, demonstrate the level 1 of morality, but the evidence for level 2 is weak, and for level 3 is non-existent.… (mehr)