# Why are humans special?

**URL:** https://discourse.numenta.org/t/why-are-humans-special/4912
**Category:** Lounge
**Tags:** philosophy
**Created:** [November 8, 2018, 12:36pm UTC](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/why-are-humans-special/4912 "2018-11-08T12:36:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 2

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### Author: ![Paul\_Lamb](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.numenta.org/paul_lamb/32/2725_2.png) [@Paul\_Lamb](https://discourse.numenta.org/u/Paul_Lamb)
#### Post date: [November 8, 2018, 1:21pm UTC](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/why-are-humans-special/4912/2 "2018-11-08T13:21:36Z")

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> [@A Framework for Intelligence and Cortical Function Based on Grid Cells in the Neocortex](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/a-framework-for-intelligence-and-cortical-function-based-on-grid-cells-in-the-neocortex/4713/19):
>
> An educated guess says vocal chords and opposing thumbs enable us to form complex societies, hive minds of sorts. Figuring out how _that_ happens is central to our long-term survival and brains are cogs in that machinery. Important cogs, no doubt, but cogs. I’ve touched on this [elsewhere](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/brains-are-they-overrated/2943).

Wouldn’t simulating a hive mind, by definition, require the simulation of a mind as its basic, repeatable unit?

I believe the thing which enables the human “hive mind” is the fact that our ideas are themselves creatures competing for resources in an evolutionary process. Their transfer medium was originally spoken language, but the evolutionary process (and along with it greater and greater complexity of human society) accelerates along with new better forms of communication and information storage and retrieval.

An excellent introduction to the concept of ideas themselves being creatures, is Dan Dennett’s [Dangerous Memes](https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_dangerous_memes) on TED Talks. That concept then leads to another interesting thought that @gmirey hinted at on another thread, which is the underlying “DNA” for these “creatures” might turn out to be something similar to the concepts that Calvin describes in [The Cerebral Code](http://williamcalvin.com/bk9/index.htm).

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