I don't believe any of these stories as accounts of a critical gulf between us and other creatures. Some of the things we think they can't do, they can. And some of the things we think we can do, we can't. As for the rest, well, it's mostly a matter of degree rather than kind. Instead, our uniqueness lies simply in the fact that we tell these stories - and, what's more, we can actually get ourselves to believe them. If I wanted a one sentence definition of human beings, this one would do: humans are the animals who actually believe the stories they tell about themselves. Humans are credulous animals.
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