It might help us all to acknowledge it We animals who call ourselves “humans” are not a lot more intelligent than many other living beings. We are just better able to communicate with each other and coordinate our activities more effectively, at our human time scale, than most other animals…

Some make us look foolish, and some make us look wise. We are imperfect mirrors for each other’s lives. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Read every story from Jim Mason (and thousands of other writers on Medium): https://jmason37-80878.medium.com/membership

It’s a myriad of evolving structures in which human supra-organisms grow, act, and change themselves and those structures Think of a group of people who buy a large old house together to share as a residence. If they are wise, they will draw up a written contract to govern how…

Is it a uniquely human ability? Sometimes we are planning to do something and are about to start, when we are interrupted and have to do something else first. Most of us have heard requests like “Before you take your shoes off, could you please take out the garbage?” Or…

Our ancient ancestors spread around the world primarily by walking and floating. At first our ancestors walked by themselves or rode on animals that walked. Later they made tools designed for transportation. We often think of the wheel as being of singular importance, but the boat came first. It seems…

When I write this article and You read it, what are We doing? If you have read many of my articles here on Medium, you will be aware that I am interested in how we humans use language to communicate with one another. Many of my articles, like this one…

Why do we humans enjoy breaking things, seeing things broken, or threatening to break them? — It begins quite early in childhood. One child carefully builds a structure out of building blocks, and another child, or even the same child, then delights in knocking it down. It persists through adolescence, as some teenagers enjoy disparaging or destroying the accomplishments of others. And it continues even into…

We humans have experiences that they do not I have just published a piece titled “Our Fascinating Senses of Touch” here on Medium. If a similar piece were to be written by one of the text-generating large language programs, would it be legitimate for the word “Our” to appear in…

The who, what, where, how, when, and why of them — As is well known, our skin is our largest bodily organ. It contains cells that are receptive to pressure, pain, heat, and cold. It also covers the muscles and nerves by which we can move parts of our bodies to touch other things, plants, and animals, including people and other…