We are not "fundamentally" different from stones. It's all just atoms, quarks whatever.

Serious answer: depends what you mean by fundamentally. Why are you asking?

We are stardust, we are golden
We are billion year old carbon
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden…

@yoyo fungi are thought to be in communication with plants as part of the energy exchange. There is evidence that fungi networks assist plants to resist disease through a communication network not yet understood. Perhaps it is our invertebrate bias that leads us to conclude they are less sophisticated.

Thanks kuta,

I had heard that song for years and never knew what that middle line said.

Are you mad?

Sorry, meant are you all mad? I'm very very pissed.

It is SELF EVIDENT

The fact that many animals have means of communicating specific concepts with each other doesn't mean they're communicating like humans but to a lesser degree. There are important facets of human languages that haven't been demonstrated in animals, most notably arbitrariness and generativeness, that make human language more of a distinct phenomenon than an extension of animal communication.

As I said

Is an evolution argument feasible..? "We all started as little tiny alien meteor bacteria"

Humans have discovered the categorical imperative and are therefore the only beings capable of perfect ethical reasoning.

This debate has been declared tight

I belive that we are different...at a very fundamental level.

Like Sonny in I Robot we have a set of laws that govern our behaviour like all animals that enables us to do as CAPT Brad states. "So those of you who argue that we are no different from animals then mean that there is no morality, no correct behavior and no restraint from animal behavior. then we are free to do whatever to whomever for any or no reason"

We also have a set of laws that allows us to behave in a manner that goes against the first set.

This is our fundamental difference. where you belive that sourse is higher consciuoness, Devine design or random chance makes no differnce the laws exist and we live with them..

I'm vertical

This is a dumb topic because it just becomes an argument about what "fundamental" means. Literally impossible to model this in a way that isn't either tight or messy.

You cannot go against nature because if you do
Go against nature is a part of nature too.

But those laws are humans. I think there's plenty of age old evidence of humans acting as animals when they weren't confined by the law.
The fundamental part, in my opinion, should disregard any restraint put on humans

Are not humans*

"This is a dumb topic because it just becomes an argument about what "fundamental" means. Literally impossible to model this in a way that isn't either tight or messy."

That's the idea behind the topics chosen for these kinds of debates.
They don't really serve as useful vehicles for coming to a definite resolution of the subject of the debate, because they have to contain room to argue for both sides.

Err... definitions debates are not good debates. Speaking as someone who has debated competitively since I was 16.

This topic would be decent in a phil lecture or dinner conversation but would be ass at a debate tournament

Condescension I agree for the most part, because the other resolutions I worked on were things like: "Resolved, The right to housing should be guaranteed in the United States", "Resolved, national service ought to be compulsory in the United States", "Resolved, wealthy nations have an obligation to provide development assistance to other nations"
However, this debate still has arguments for either side that bear white even when the "Fundamental" isn't put into much consideration

bear weight*

Yes. God took a separate day to specially create humans, and we're also the only species capable of appreciating God.

So if a... erm, thing doesn't appreciate God, they're not human?

Actually, that's a very common notion, WyattS. It's hard to say how many think atheists are inhuman but we are the #1 least respected minority in the US judged by polling

Does that mean you're finally going to give the other -isms a rest, since atheists are apparently the most hated minority in the US but also not meaningfully oppressed or marginalized in any way?

I find it hard to believe that you're the least respec.... actually, no. I've got a feeling I won't win that argument...

I find it hard to imagine that, if atheists such as yourself were in the majority, that the reverse wouldn't be true.

I actually don't find it hard at all to believe that Ogion is the least-respected minority in America.