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It does.
I don't think we have sufficient evidence to show this occurred throughout our development, H. sapiens and earlier, for example. And if so, then there will have been some point when agency began to be assigned to whatever, even if mistakenly like thunder and such.
What separates us from animals?
This is a common misconception. A chimp-like creature began walking more than swinging on trees, probably because the forest was receding and the plains were increasing, over 6 million years ago. During the last 6 million years these hominids evolved into 2 lines, one slowly becoming more like modern humans, losing body hair for the cooling system of sweating, eating meat and growing larger brains. They began making tools, using fire, burying dead. All of these hominids except homo sapien are gone. So we feel removed from animals. Other creatures have closer relatives or never evolved much past common species.
There is never enough "evidence" for those that don't want to accept something.
For good reasons - they might come up with wrong answers, and hence why we have so many conflicting religious beliefs perhaps. Probably best to leave one's mind open and wait for proper evidence.
But 'human' is just semantics and how we can differentiate between the processes of evolution, hence why we seem to have issues with when such occurred - 200,000 or 300,000 years and until we get even better evidence - but we seem to know that the line from which we came is sufficiently good evidence to know we were and always will be primates. As to spirit - please inform me when it appears as proper evidence.
Technology and some invisible "spirit" are not what makes us biologically human, though. "Human" is just a noun designating a particular species of animal, like "cow" or "platypus." It is our anatomy and physiology that designates us as human, just as anatomy and physiology designate trout and ravens.
Sure it is. Are humans animals? Yes. That's simple and intelligible, and also correct.
This, on the other hand, is neither simple nor intelligible. "Yes" would have sufficed. Instead, you answered a question not asked and in a vague manner. Cognition is metaphysical to you? I can't even disagree, since I can't tell what you are claiming is the case here.
Every animal species have things that separate it from other animals. They would not be a different species, otherwise.Therefore, according to your logic, animals do not exist.
But being a primate is not what defines us, and it never has been. And we don't know what happened or when, that set us apart from all the other animals to such a striking degree. But we do know the characteristics that resulted. And that still define us to this day.
Biology is not what defines us "human" as the term "human" refers to a great deal more that just our biology.
It's not being "poetic" to call ourselves humans in reference to somethng more than biology, it's just being honest.
We are a type of animal. We are classified based on the shared characteristics of animals that we possess.
Asking whether humans are animals is asking a biological question, like asking whether trees are plants. Bringing in metaphysics and technology is taking the question into a poetic realm.
I think the birth of symbolic language is probably the thing that began our separation from all other species, but a talking, writing, and thinking primate is still a primate. We just happened to have everything in place for such a development to occur, whereas most other species did not and do not have such. Who knows how long we were a talking and thinking species before becoming a writing one. After all, the use of parchment and then paper will hardly define as to when things changed, even if the YEC believers seem to rely on this.
It all depends on how you define "animaĺ"
But language is itself the result of a degree of abstract thought that is unprecedented. Symbolic representations ARE abstractions. Words, images, spirits; are all abstract representations of our experienced reality. This ability is why we are not just another species of primate. But when and how did this happen?
It has philosophical relevance as we can debate if it makes sense to use any other "vocabulary" than a scientific for that question. And if we use scientific nomenclature the question has a definitive answer, the only question then remains how to teach those who don't get it.
Yes, and for 200,000 or 300,000 years, and no doubt earlier, there was no requirement for this seemingly, and the individual(s) who came up with such were no doubt laughed at - who needs this! And it was probably counting that evolved into symbolic language anyway - there being a definite use for counting. Who can ever predict the effects of inventions? Lasers had no expected use when first discovered, and even early computers seemed a novelty. How do we know what AI will do for us? And we are supposedly reasonably intelligent and thinking creatures now, so what was it like so long ago?
There is no requirement for it, now. In fact, the entire ecosystem would be better off if we humans had never developed this amazing ability to abstract (cognate) reality with imagination, and create conceptual representations of it that we can then shift around and inter-relate and thereby come up with tools and possibilities that did not otherwise exist.
Among other animals, auditory expressions of fear, anger, lust, and so on have developed because they provided an advantage. I'm sure it was the same with humans. But with humans this went WAY further, because somehow we developed the realization that those sounds were also "representations" of those states of being. And could therefor be used to relate an idea or memory of those states to others even when it was not 'actual'. And with that knowledge, we could make up all kinds of sounds to represent all kinds of conditions that we not immediately 'actual'.
Perhaps, but we did, and hence such likely just being natural, although not inevitable. And why us rather than the Neanderthals for example? Why did one monkey discover how to wash sweet potatoes, and this then being passed on throughout communities and down generations? Perhaps because such was advantageous to them.
True. And we can see, as per the example cited above, that many non-human species also seem to discover or invent new ways of acting. Is there nothing going on in their minds so as to cause such things? I think the main difference between humans and all other life is that we seemingly have plenty of spare brain power available and mostly they don't, although no doubt when we learn more about animal communication we might think differently.