this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
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Whales, dolphins, elephants, dogs, and a massive number of animals clearly exhibit signs of being self aware and intelligence. Sure, it is mostly mammals that amass in groups which show the clearest sign, but a lot of birds show strong hints as well.
We aren't even the only animal that uses language or tools!
Chickens are incredibly intelligent and self aware.
Plenty of animals show self awareness and even theories of mind (they model the personalities of those around them to predict outcomes).
There's plenty of other intelligent and self-aware beings around. It's more likely to be a communications issue that prevents us from readily perceiving the sophistication of other social species.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind_in_animals
Articulate dialogue and dexterity of tool use are basically all that separates us from other species. We're no where near as superior as most people intuite. Your sense of superiority is an intuition, a guess.
Give seals, or dogs a voice box and hands, and they'd soon breed up the rest of what makes humans, human.
I see dogs using those speech buttons on the internet and talking about their dreams to their owners and cannot believe that humans are the only animals with consciousness.
I'm not aware of any evidence to suggest that many living animals aren't highly self-aware. What is it that you think separates humans so decisively?
Now if you talk about this late-stage, high-tech, message-dense civilisation being responsible for much of that, then I agree, but I'd also point out that it's a recent construction. Genetically we're still the same as our hunter-gatherer ancestors, who had none of that stuff.
So what would make those humans from about 6K - 12Kyrs so unique compared to other animals..?
There’s nothing that I think should mean any species capable of experiencing shouldn’t also experience their self within the scope of their awareness. However, I think mankind is a logical kind of animal. Applying logic to the phenomenon of self awareness, e.g., asking about one’s character and goals, is likely unique to humans in my view.
Speaking of applying logic, that's what we typically do through science studies, which consistently show that other animals experience emotion and self-awareness to far higher degrees than previously understood.
I agree that modern man likely has the most articulated language that's ever existed on earth, which is a big part of that. But would hunter-gatherers have asked themselves about their 'character and goals' as part of their regular life? I don't know that such would be the case especially more than other humans or apes did or do. That said, keeping a nomadic, tool-using tribe going arguably would have required more of that than at any other level of organisation.
Which again suggests to me that a big part of that impetus comes from the level of civilisation I described. I think that's really what you're thinking of. Which hardly correlates to our genes at all.