Examining DNA sequence similarities seemingly shows humans are nearly identical to other species such as apes. However, the minor differences in genetic coding reveal a great deal about humanity. The clear separation between human and non-human organisms has fascinated society for generations, even laying the groundwork for modern-day conceptions of religious thought. Regardless of the exact reason for the distinguished nature of homo sapiens as evolutionary beings, clearly certain, shared traits set people about from what we collectivize as animals. While MacWhinney, Tattersall, and Yeats all posit different defining factors for humans in their respective pieces, they are all linked by the embedded concept of human consciousness, revealing
…show more content…
The speaker of the poem describes continued travel back to the same lake with seemingly the same swans. Even though the speaker notes he has changed a great deal, the swans remain “unwearied still” despite the massive passage of time (19). Although 19 years bring about a seemingly large amount of change, time is an extremely relative concept, and from an environment prospective it all the change still “Mirrors a still sky” (4). However, from a human perspective, the reason why 19 years seems to inherently bring with it change is because of memory. The ability to differentiate, recognize, and analyze the present from the past lays an important framework for cognition. Admittedly, other species possess the quality of memory as well (even some animals like elephants seemingly exhibiting superiority in this regard), but human conceptions of memory are unique in that we have the ability to further internalize past events and allow them to influence our present and future behaviors. Memory gives us the ability to alter the perception of the world and thought itself, while other organisms are only simply influenced at a single point in time or by a single action and cannot view memory in a broader context. Thus, memory gets its human differentiation because of cognition and consciousness, the linking factor that sets all qualities seemingly shared by others
The speaker of the poem describes continued travel back to the same lake with seemingly the same swans. Even though the speaker notes he has changed a great deal, the swans remain “unwearied still” despite the massive passage of time (19). Although 19 years bring about a seemingly large amount of change, time is an extremely relative concept, and from an environment prospective it all the change still “Mirrors a still sky” (4). However, from a human perspective, the reason why 19 years seems to inherently bring with it change is because of memory. The ability to differentiate, recognize, and analyze the present from the past lays an important framework for cognition. Admittedly, other species possess the quality of memory as well (even some animals like elephants seemingly exhibiting superiority in this regard), but human conceptions of memory are unique in that we have the ability to further internalize past events and allow them to influence our present and future behaviors. Memory gives us the ability to alter the perception of the world and thought itself, while other organisms are only simply influenced at a single point in time or by a single action and cannot view memory in a broader context. Thus, memory gets its human differentiation because of cognition and consciousness, the linking factor that sets all qualities seemingly shared by others