What makes us human?
What makes humans unique? What are the things that differentiate humans from non-humans? Or what is it that makes us human? These are the questions people have been searching for answers to. The following discussion presents a comprehensive answer to them:
1. Our ability to imagine abstract things
One of the most important features unique to humans is our imagination. The ability to abstract concepts is what strengthens our imagination and enables us to think about ideas that may not exist with the same clarity as the real ones. Our ability to define and comprehend concepts about concepts (abstraction) makes up the major part of our internal library of knowledge. For example, the concepts of math exist only as ideas in our imagination.
Like other vital functions of the human brain, imagination is also a vital function. Imagination enables our mind to generate and work with ideas that are not tied to the physical world. We can identify, deal and remember these ideas in the same way as we do our real life experiences. We are the only animal who has the strong ability to intentionally control this skill. Abstraction is one of the benefits of our ability to generate new knowledge through imagination. We tend to generate ideas about ideas, define new terms, and continue to grow our library of ideas even without external intervention.
We have the ability to guide our imagination with intention through memories and concepts. We can recombine images, music, feelings and concepts in our minds methodically exploring what happened in the past or how it could have happened differently or what could happen in the future.
We have the ability to imagine entirely nonsensical situations as well as very realistic ones. We can learn about undesirable outcomes or find a solution to a longstanding problem. We can scrutinize various angles of a given situation from multiple perspectives to understand how best to navigate a certain social or professional situation. Unlike animals, we drive our actions by much more than just our current physical state and our sensory perception of the moment, and this ability prepares us to deal with challenges of life. Our imagination is a builder of our civilization and somehow a culprit for our conflicted existence.
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