I meant the "essence" of humanity, as in "what separates us from the animals." T... | Hacker News

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JonnieCache on Oct 4, 2012 | parent | context | favorite | on: Are Those Spidery Black Things On Mars Dangerous?

I meant the "essence" of humanity, as in "what separates us from the animals."

That is what it means to be uniquely human: to match patterns, overzealously.

technolem on Oct 4, 2012 [–]

Most animals are pattern matchers. Overzealous ones at that. Our specialty is abstraction and formal logic.

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