The latest edition of the ABC's Science Show reported as news that chimps can do some tasks better than can humans.
A 5 1/2-year-old chimpanzee named Ayumu performs a memory test with randomly-placed consecutive Arabic numerals,
which are later masked, accurately duplicating the lineup on a touch screen computer.
Chimps could memorise the nine numerals much faster and more accurately than human adults.
We are quite used to being inferior in the world of physical feats or endurance. A dog can smell and hear things we can't. Many animals run or swim better; and some can fly without mechanical assistance. But we like to think that we have higher intellect that all other animals; whatever intellect means.
We have known for many years that bright children are better than most adults at short term rapid recall. Several popular card, board and computer games can be used to demonstrate this.
Now researchers have discovered that chimps are smarter than children, or adults, at an intellectual task employing short term memory.
I have previously referred to superior chimp abilities in other articles on this website where I drew attention to our arrogant assumption that we have a special place in the animal kingdom as a result of our intellect that leads to us having 'free will' and questioned what it is that constitutes human 'sentience' or intelligence.
In The Meaning of Life (2002) I noted:
In 2001 the human genome was mapped (first draft in 2000). The human genome contains 30,000 to 40,000 genes. This is a lot less than scientists had thought before the work was done. This means that some genes must be coding for more than one kind of protein molecule.
One way of thinking about genes is as words that need to be linked together into sentences; sentences that describe an organism. So like all messages, it may not be just the words but their order and number and other genes present that are important. A lot of attributes are probably the outcome of relationships between genes rather than the result of having a particular gene.... ... there are less than 1,000 genes that are different between a chimpanzee and us. DNA analysis shows that chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor that lived about 5 million years ago while gorillas branched off over 6 million years ago, orang-utans nearly 14 million years ago and monkeys over 25 million years ago.
Indeed chimpanzees are so close that some scientists want them to be classified with us in the genus 'Homo'. Yet the remarkable thing is that you or I can program a computer or design a plane but a chimp cannot.
Of course this is an essay to my children. I want them to be balanced human beings. I wrote the essay more to encourage an ongoing debate with them around the topics addressed than to be didactic.
Just as they need to be able to swim; and ride a horse and a bike; and drive a car; and climb a tree or a rock-face; I expect them to develop the basic intellectual skills to design a (working model) aircraft; to master relevant computer code. Boys need to be able to cook and sew and girls need to be able to use an electric drill or assemble something from IKEA (as well - in both cases).
So what is it that we humans do or have that sets us apart?
In recent years some animals and machines have begun to call this into question.
Not long ago we might have judged how smart a human is by how quickly they do sums; how well they spell or how much they know. Today we accept that our internet connected tablet or phone is better at these things than we are.
When I was in high school I argued that a machine could already beat a human at tic-tac-toe (noughts and crosses) and it would soon be impossible to beat one at drafts. I hypothesised that in my lifetime the same would be true of chess and even poker where understanding an opponents psychology is required.
Nonsense! I was told; yet machines can now consistently beat the worlds best human players.
Not only that but a machine (Watson) beat the best human players on the American quiz show Jeopardy; without any connection to the Internet. Had this been allowed there would have been no competition at all.
Already many of us rely on the World Wide Web for those things that once distinguished quiz show competitors: being widely read and/or experienced with excellent recall.
Yet all of these new abilities are in fact human abilities. We invented developed and programmed these machines; we can now test animals as never before; we can now understand how genes are passed on and cells reproduce and specialise; and we will soon understand how we do these things.
That's what makes us human and chimps not human.
Our ability to manipulate our environment through our tools and intellect, together with our 'free will', is what appears to give each of us a more significant role in changing the path of the future than a chimp. This, of course, assumes that 'free will' is more than an illusion.
In the article Adolf Hitler and Me I said:
Some philosophers, mathematicians and physicists argue that the universe is at its fundamental level, as described by quantum mechanics, is unpredictable and random; that the global appearance of predictability, as described in physical laws, is a higher order phenomenon. In this case the same starting initial conditions may not always result in the same outcome. So it is possible that complex but apparently entirely physical things, like a meteor impact, may or may not happen; unpredictably. This may then provide an explanation for Free Will.
From my perspective my children are the the direct or indirect outcome of my considered and deliberate actions; even if one thing did lead to another. But from their perspective they would not exist to perceive the universe unless I, and their mother, had behaved exactly as we did; we are a necessary part of their fabric of existence.
As a result, if we reject the view that everything is ordained, and prefer to think that we make choices, we are obliged to believe in a universe in which the future is entirely contingent on the day-to-day actions of humans. Its present was in the hands of our ancestors.
That we are here is therefore entirely accidental; even though it is almost infinitely improbable. This same improbability encompasses every human, past and present, on the planet.
In this view, the future may also depend on any animal that has volition (makes a choice) such as: the dog that bites; the cat that scratches; the horse that throws; as these interactions are constantly changing the course of human decision making.
While some philosophers, like Descartes, have argued that no animal, except humans, has the ability to make such choices; that other animals are simply reacting predictably to a situation; this seems unlikely when a chimp can be shown to out-think a human on certain tasks. Either a chimp makes considered choices or a human does not. And what's so special about humans anyway?
This impact on the future may encompass other living things that we interact with; like those that do not seem to have volition but may nevertheless behave unpredictably such as: the bee that stings; the weed that grows; or the bacteria that infects. Thus it may be that a characteristic of living things, as opposed to the inanimate, is our ability to change the future; or possibly everything subject to quantum uncertainty is constantly on the verge of a different future?
There was a time when we might have regarded our influence on the future to be limited to future human events, at arms length from the actual greater universe, but now human actions are depleting planetary resources; impacting on its climate; extending to other planets; and beyond the solar system itself. We still, with good reason, regard and earthquake, tsunami or cyclone to be the work of nature (or God), beyond human influence or control, but we are more doubtful about a lightening strike; bushfire; loss of top-soil; epidemic; plague; or climate change.
Food for thought!