Beg to differ. There is a difference in kind. In Greek philosophy, man is recognised as superior due to his rationality. In Buddhist philosophy, only humans are able to apprehend the Teaching and so avoid an unfortunate rebirth.

I prefer both explanations to yours, thanks.

Beg to differ. There is a difference in kind. In Greek philosophy, man is recognised as superior due to his rationality. In Buddhist philosophy, only humans are able to apprehend the Teaching and so avoid an unfortunate rebirth.
I prefer both explanations to yours, thanks.

Certainly the higher animals, apes especially, have a great deal in common with homo sapiens. I believe in terms of the genome the difference is minute. I accept the descent (or ascent) of the human species. But again, I side with all the traditional philosophies that man is categorically different to beast nonetheless.

... and a question that needs to be resolved is how can this seeming paradox be the case? ... how can there be so little biological difference but so drastic an intellectual difference? ... Fido already hit on the answer: "we can pass knowledge between generations, and expand it as we go" ... take away our knowledge and we're back to competing with the other apes for territory and resources ... it's an interesting study in how a minute difference in initial (genetic) conditions can lead to wildly different (cultural) outcomes

The human has the capacity for salvation. You may not believe there is such a state, but that is the difference that is understood and taught by the traditions.

Plus, there is even another explanation that comes from the theory of self organization:
Bifurcation.
Bifurcation is the state where a stable system reaches a point of maximum unstability.
It's the point when a droplet of water runs over the dam, making the stream of water follow and the dam break.
It's the footstep in the snow that makes the avalanche go down.
My personal example of a bifurcation is the clapping in silence.
Everyone knows the situation: For example your at a classical music concert and the first set of a music peace comes to its end. Somewhere in the first row there will always be a poor moron not knowing what to do. so he claps twice, and this is a moment that is totally unpredictable - if there is only one more moron following his initial sign, the clapping can take over the whole audience.
People cannot stand up to the group dynamics of clapping.
Sometimes the first two claps will lead to embarrassing silence, and sometimes it will rule the whole system.
Next time you observe this you may remember that you whitness the pure essence of what the word bifurcation means (in Chaos Theory).
What i especially like about this example is that it shows how a bifurcation does not necessarily lead to a catastrophe (Actually in the beginning of chaos theory the term was 'catastrophe', which was replaced by the term 'bifurcation' due to this particular reason):
It doesn't have to be chaos resulting from this particular state of a system.
It is just a point at which the system CAN (not must) behave totally uncalculatable, which can mean total chaos (but does not have to), and which can mean the system 'jumps' into an unpredicted state and develops into a completely new direction.
We should not neglect that simply continuing the old direction is another one of the unpredictable behaviours.
Typically when a system is going through a leap, like a jump or continous chaotic behaviour, the result will be the system to end up in a mostly new order (compare H.v. Foerster's 'order from noise'), which most of the times will be a more complex order than before.
My personal opinion is that the development of consciousness has taken place in other animals (mostly mammals) also, but in case of humans was increased to a level that made the system reach a bifurcation.
The different kinds of consciousness (phenomenal, reflective, conscious thought, planning...) were increased and at the same time entangled according to the logical structure of a web (neuronal web of course).
The logical structure of a web has incredible emergent potential... (we can discuss this later)
This caused an explosive increase of emergent psychological and intellectual phenomenons.
And here we go...
We actually observe in humans an exponentiated increase of complexity compared to other animals.
It's not mystical however.
Although to be honest, the fact that it's based on so simple and pure physics strikes me in an even more mystical way.

There is never one drop over a dam that takes it out, but all of them...It is never a straw that breaks the camel's back, but the entire load...Every journey begins with a single step, but each takes as many as it takes...
We are not more complex, and we are like any animal except in one respect... We use forms to hold and pass knowledge..

And does it matter to you that your statements are not in accordance with scientific research?

Because your statement cannot be shown in accord with common sense suggests no amount of scientific research means anything....

Global Brain - The Internet could become conscious by mid-2030s

By Dick Pelletier The World Wide Web is a network of inter-connectivity that goes everywhere and follows its own intelligence. The advent of this newly emerging communication field around our planet has enabled citizens from all lifestyles to communicate globally via words, sounds and pictures - inexpensively, person-to-person; and from the safety of their own homes and offices - for the first time ever.

The Internet represents a major step in our evolution, and is a forerunner of things to come. Artificial intelligence researcher Francis Heylighen sees huge growth as this new world-wide communication system continues to gain power from billions of humans adding to its intelligence every day. "It will get smarter," Heylighen says, "as it morphs into a global super-organism that could one day provide solutions to most of humanity's problems."

Experts compare the Internet to a planet growing a global brain. As users, we represent the neurons. Texting, emails, and IM act as nerve endings, and electromagnetic waves through the sky become neural pathways.

Like germinating seeds, this global brain continues to evolve and as some forward-thinkers believe, will not stop until it develops feelings and achieves consciousness.

Feelings represent a lower level of awareness of what goes on in a system's environment. In that sense, the global brain will be conscious of important events affecting its goals. A higher level of consciousness - self-awareness - would require that the global brain could reflect on its own functioning.

The Internet, in the wider sense of the world community is slowly becoming aware of itself. Although today's algorithms make the web more intelligent, it cannot monitor itself. However, in principle, there are no obstacles towards implementing such a capacity in the future.

Search engines can adapt web pages to user needs. These hyperlinks bear a remarkable resemblance to the human brain. Synapses that connect neurons become stronger with repeated use, and disappear when usage declines. Similarly, global brain's algorithms will reinforce popular links, while rarely used links will diminish and die.

Could tomorrow's global brain allow uploading the human mind? At present, information exchanged between humans and computers only occur with mouse, keyboard or voice. However, many futurists believe that one day technology will enable us to separate our minds from the physical brain and store its information in a computer.

This is not as crazy as one might think. IBM hopes to reverse engineer the human brain by 2030, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute is rounding up 300 of the world's top neuroscientists to capture human thought at moment of creation, which conceivably could enable thoughts, memories, and feelings to be transferred into a machine.

In the future, many believe we will treat the human mind like any other bit of information by copying and storing it in various media. Scientists are aware that our mind roams over trillions of neuron connections and today, we do not possess abilities to understand this incredibly complex system.