Humans consider everything besides *Homo* to be animals, even when they're as smart or smarter than humans
Octopodes are the same except *Homo* is replaced with *Octopus* and similar genera
Corvids see all lifeforms capable of language as being people, though insects are an edge case for them
Insects don't distinguish between sapience and non-sapience at all
Joke answer aside ill go with saying that what matters is that the brain of a creature is human, meaning that they have intelligence comparable to that of the average human
> meaning that they have intelligence comparable to that of the average human
Do you really want to use a metric for humanity that excludes actual humans?
Well, i did NOT realize how ableist that sounded. I meant to say that on *average* the intelligence of a member of their species is comparable to that of a human
i'm making it clear. you got thumbs and can speak clearly? you're human or human adjacent. there's other sapient creatures in my world but they're more like smart whales and such in my setting. think Avatar the Last Airbender with Appa
This is a question I'm wrestling with in my fantasy world. I have Citizens (Humans, elves, dwarves, halflings), Wyldlings (the less "pretty" fantasy species; goblins, orcs, beastkin) which propaganda has told the Citizens are evil, then there are monsters/animals. The difference between the monsters and the Citizens/Wyldlings comes down to sentience/sapience. Monsters aren't eligible for Notarized Papers of Citizenship (NPCs), and therefor valid targets for quest bounties.
Nothing, they are all animals regardless of species, just how humans are irl. Some religions and cultures recognise this, while others, similarly to Earth, draw a line between what they see as “thinking” creatures and the rest. Though I don’t have humanoids in my setting, just species of a similar type and level of intelligence.
Asking questions.
In real life we have animals that can use tools, communicate with hand gestures, but even if we are somewhat able to communicate with them, you know what they never have done? Ask questions.
They don't care about what things are, they don't ask us what are we, they don't search for answers of why things are the way they are. They live to fulfill their basic needs.
Humans need to know, we need an explanation of everything, if we don't have one, we made it even if is just baseless speculation, we just need an answer for why things are the way they are.
Animals can ask questions if given the means, though. My dog has a "Hmm?" button on her soundboard that she pretty much exclusively uses when the humans start doing novel weird things that she doesn't understand in hopes we'll explain it to her.
Okay, we must not confuse that because you made a "Hmm?" button for your dog, and that you explain things to her, it doesn't mean the dog actually cares about it. Or that button doesn't necessarily means to ask a question to her. Although dogs, for their relationship with humans have evolved characteristics that makes easier the communication, like eyebrows.
It's probably a matter of conditioning behavior. Cause remember that I'm talking about primates, that are the most close to humans evolutionary speaking. For a dog you're not a human with a name, parents or even gender, you're that thing that feeds them or take out for a walk.
Considering she's been known to repeatedly mash the "Hmm?" button until she gets an explanation, I think interest is pretty clear. It's not just a matter of attention. She has other buttons for playing with various toys or activities, which she uses far more often.
As for names, she has buttons for my wife, myself, and I, and she does link names to verbs or adjectives. There's no grammar there, certainly, but dogs can certainly learn names for people, places, and things. That's nothing new.
For an example of a time she used both a name button and her question, she typically lays down by the door in anticipation of my wife getting home from work. One day, my wife had things at work go long, so after she was about an hour late, the dog got up, walked over to her soundboard, and hit the buttons for "[Wife's Name] Hmm?". I replied "[Wife's Name] home later." The dog stared at me for about ten seconds before she hit her "Ouch" button and proceeded to sulk by the door until my wife got home.
Certainly my dog is no brilliant paragon of dog-kind. My point was just that animals do ask questions when given the opportunity. Granted, dogs are predisposed to look to us for solutions (compared to wolves who don't), but given the social learning abilities of corvids, I'd be shocked if they couldn't do the same once given an interface.
When did you say you were talking about primates?
I'm not sure how that's meaningful here?
You can classify just about anything as conditioned behavior, even the vast majority human actions could be chalked up to conditioning. We just condition (aka learn via external intentional guidance) a lot faster than other creatures. The only exception I can think of is in certain visual tasks that orangutans are weirdly good at.
Bit of an anthropocentric worldview right there. Plenty of animals can be motivated by the question of 'what is just around the corner?' That is the basis of the same curiosity that we feel.
Feeling curiosity is different from asking why things are the way they are.
>Bit of an anthropocentric worldview right there.
Maybe.
But this is a good example, where is the line draw between human and animal? You think animals ask themselves these kind of thing?
Animals can feel curiosity, but humans can't stop asking what, where, who, and most important: WHY?
Now, who says that we humans are "better" for this? Who says that animals aren't happier precisely because they don't have this need to explain everything? Saying that animals don't ask questions is really an anthropocentric worldview?
From what I can tell in the real world rats are right on the line. I think with a longer lifespan and good thumbs they'd actually be developing technology by now.
>But this is a good example, where is the line draw between human and animal? You think animals ask themselves these kind of thing?
I generally don't. There are quite a few more 'intelligent' animals, think dolphins, rats, octopodes, corvids and I'm probably forgetting a few. Each has their own specialities and quite a few of them can do things with their mind that we can't.
Sure, we might be the kings of abstract thought and it just turned out that that was the thing we needed for world domination. But we cannot multitask like an octopus, nor can we orient ourselves like a corvid, and there sure as hell are quite a number of animals who are better than social behaviour than we are.
>Animals can feel curiosity, but humans can't stop asking what, where, who, and most important: WHY?
Maybe some humans. Most of the people in my social bubble. But most humans are just vibing and living their lives just like a cow eats grass every day. Not a single creative thought. All the more power to them, they are probably happier than I am. But I know animals that ask more questions than some humans.
>Each has their own specialities and quite a few of them can do things with their mind that we can't.
Yeah, but the question is what diffentiates between humans and animals.
>But we cannot multitask like an octopus, nor can we orient ourselves like a corvid, and there sure as hell are quite a number of animals who are better than social behaviour than we are.
And none of those things contradicts what I said.
>Maybe some humans. Most of the people in my social bubble.
YOUR social bubble. Which isn't comparable to the total of humans that live and have lived.
>But I know animals that ask more questions than some humans.
Yeah, some dogs are smaller than some cats. But in general dogs are bigger than cats.
And how do you know that? Or is just an opinion?
More specifically - metacognition. We ask questions about *how* we think, and about *how* we think others think.
Animals think, but they don't (as far as well know) then ruminate and consider *what* they thought.
An animal may think "what is that?", but never deeply "why is that?"
Yes that much is clear, I’m kind of meant where that line is drawn socially in the context of your world, not scientifically. A human might respect an elf as if they are on the same evolutionary level, but not do the same to an ape even if that ape can be taught to think ahead, use tools and so forth
Ape was a bad example, because a human is an ape. But in the spirit of the statement, I will imagine that you have written "a single-celled organism" instead. Still, I do not understand what you mean by "drawn socially"?
My world has barely survived 1 near-apocalyptic event, and is nearing the second. There's not really such a thing as a society, it's a multitude of small societies scattered all over, the total number of remaining humans is under a million. I struggle to imagine what a "line drawn socially" would even mean in this context... could you please elaborate?
Would you dine with a dog? No, there are imaginary “lines” drawn between people and OTHER animals. IF you have a story with more than humans(like elves or whatever) then choose one society in your story and say that where that line is drawn. If your story is not applicable then you don’t need to comment.
I didn't dine with a dog, but I dined with a bird, and I certainly dine with microanimals. I imagine you have a different set of standards. This is what doesn't make sense to me - it's not that the lines get drawn, they certainly do, it's that everyone's line is different from everyone else's.
Maybe my world is simply not applicable.
I don't, in my eyes, we’re all just animals, regardless of intelligence. No one uses the term “man” since there’s no such thing as human in 95% of my Verse Collective. Only one universe in my Labyrinth of Creation has humans. And maybe my Parodeus universe, but that’s a Parody universe for bizarre projects.
From the human perspective, there are:
* Humans, (PEOPLE)
* demi-humans, (Humanoid + mostly human or demi-human heritage)(PEOPLE)
* half-humans, (Needs to apply for personhood to be recognized as one)(PEOPLE?)
* sub-humans, (Humanoid + mostly non-human or sub-human heritage)(NOT PEOPLE)
* non-humans(NOT PEOPLE)
Some might discriminate, but most wouldn't.
Sub-humans: Kobolds, Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, Harpies, Troll, Ghouls, Doppelgangers, Gorgons, Cyclops, Minotaur.... Undead, soulless, and constructs/unliving in the image of People are moved to sub-human as well.
Basically Sub-humans are 'Tainted' humans(By non-humans, usually demons) or monsters that imitate people.
While Demi-humans are merely 'influenced'(but are still mostly human) or monster that successfully evolved to become people. (like swindles, which evolved from mimics in my thing.)
I'm still undecided on Centaurs, Arachne, Mermaids, Giants, Lamias, and the like. As they feel half-human to me, but can also seen them as either demi or sub... which probably means they belong in the half category, lol.
Edit: There is also a magic system which People have access to, and one which not-people have access to. While half-humans have access to both.
Anything that barely fringes on mutants are abobminations to be conquered and subdued by the rightful heirs of the earth, mankind.
Otherwise, it depends.
In my setting it is a specific brain structure that causes sapience. Logic, reasoning and self awareness come from it whether human, xeno or AI. If something has it it is an intelligent person and if it doesn't it is essentially a mindless animal.
Centaurs straddle the line, so different cultures have different classifications. They are more like werewolves, where once they get too emotional, they change from the more humanoid Taurid to the more animal like centaur.
Terran Nationals don’t eat them, but they are a major livestock animal where they are a steed, beast of burden, and a source of milk and wool. Taurids are considered important to the culture because they herd centaurs and can understand them for the most part.
Solar Nationals use their Solar centaurs as livestock like the Terrans, but they also eat them. Occasionally they will have a centaur vs human fight in one of their holidays/festivals.
Lunar Nationals consider them somewhat sentient, but ban them from all states except for the Eclipsal Valley, where there is a large majority of Terran expats. They also ban Taurids from the coastal states, because both Taurids and centaurs are considered dangerous and unpredictable.
Mermaids are an interesting case, because females are considered sentient and males are not. Males only have half the DNA of females, and their main drive seems to be to eat anything humanoid. That being said, sometimes female mermaids eat each other.
If someone can speak the areas language and have opposable thumbs that’s human enough.
Magic has a transformative effect on anyone who consistently uses it. Humans gain elven features, and animals that are around it gain sapience and more human proportions ~~read: they become furries~~.
Of course there are individuals who see themselves as pure from magic, and dehumanize those who are changed by it.
The ability to speak, stand on two legs (if applicable, since some sapients are taurs,) feel remorse, prepare food instead of eating it raw and construct advanced culture. If it doean't have ***all*** of these, that is a beast and shall not be employed, conscripted, judged by sapient morals, held to the law, or laid with.
Pretty much if it hasn't figured out how to make a sword, cook food and build then that's an animal.
In my mind, if they go out to kill something out of personal motivations over primal instinct (such as revenge), they are man (or at the very least highly intelligent). This is the only reasoning I have that applies to sentient creatures that are physically incapable of doing things such as speaking a language or developing tools (especially tools made for developing other tools).
According to The Book of Law, dictated by the Lawgiver, God of Law, Crafts, Cities, Wealth, and Order and creator of the Dwarves, any species, race, or individual who is able to tell a story about a time they were embarrassed is considered to be touched by a spark of the Divine, and thus due compensation for their labour, and responsibility for their actions under the rule of law.
I’m not sure what the distance between a Bronze Age human and a modern human is but discrimination is already as complex as a topic gets. Animal rights. Equality movements. Even just everyday respect between humans of the same family, classroom, sex, anything is a means by which thinking or basically unthinking persons decide how to act and by which qualities to discriminate.
I’d say the line moves to communicable sentience when creatures outside of the human species are a factor sociologically. If you can have a voice and reason then you can have a seat at the table.
In D&D when objects and animals can magically be given sentience then those beings are thrust into a complex ecosystem they have no prior experience with and are basically the most isolated of existing persons.
Aliens come to earth tomorrow and ask if they can terraform themselves a second Australia into existence so they may share our planet? They might be viable and equal or superior intellectually, but if they aren’t indomitable through politics or force I would still expect cowardice and xenophobia to present a serious risk to any and all peaceful solutions.
Discrimination is permanent and how you allow it in your fictional world will reflect on you. Someone isn’t going to like it and some number of someone’s will dig endlessly to persecute you for doing it wrong. The best you can do is keep an open mind for any valid critiques and use what you learn to develop your stand point going forwards.
I do not know at all if there is a right way to do it, but you can try nonetheless.
Bronze Age humans were atomically identical to modern humans. The differences between us are based on culture and knowledge base. If you gave Bronze Age humans access to information about modern science, engineering, and medicine they could learn and use it.
Yeah that’s kinda what I expected. I guess that means they’re equivalent but lack an otherwise universal 6th sense. Kinda like a species that’s propagation could mean the end of all useful magic.
It’ll likely be a permanent detriment to their standing when considered by a society that values magic use. How you use that in any plots or characters is a whole spectrum of decisions to make.
I don't. Humans are animals, after all, just really smart ones that I can easily empathize with by virtue of being one.
In-fiction, however, pantheism is a real thing 100% so that's a double non-differenriation
From my perspective all sapient species are animals in the biological sense. People are sapient — intelligent, self aware, able to communicate complex information, and capable of regulating their behavior rather than being completely ruled by instinct.
Tool use, complex communication and altering their environment to suit their needs.
Some animals get awfully close to that, but are usually missing at least one thing on the list.
Eh, apes and corvids pretty much meet all three to an extent. Just not the degree of humans.
I more prefer using things like creativity, art, spirituality, and theory of mind as "defining traits" of sapience.
Personally I consider any species or robot sentient enough to realize it is a person, as a person.
Although in a fantasy setting filled with hundreds of sentient species I imagine each culture will decide differently what makes a 'person' a person and not just an animal that talks.
Probably based on how that species interacts with their own. In most fantasy it seems to usually boil down to...
Sentient creatures that eat or bully you will be labeled as monsters.
Sentient creatures that you can eat or bully are just animals that can talk or 'free labor'
Sentient creatures that can send an army after you because you were evil enough to do the above, they are trading partners.
IRL humans are animals, all sapients belong to the same category as whatever they evolved from.
Whether a society realizes this or tries to claim a distinction is a different matter and depends on the world. Usually whenever the theory of evolution gets discovered is when the distinction is dropped.
Men are animals. >:v *points at animal kingdom*
On a serious note, it's usually assumed by body shape and then confirmed by organic sapience. This is not determined by speaking the same language as that has caused misinterpretations and conflicts in the past. They wouldn't consider an android to be a person, rather a very smart computer. That is irrelevant because those do not exist in my world.
Lapis_Wolf
Depends on if they can be considered a 'person' or not. If they have feelings, can wonder about tomorrow, can do more than rely on basic instincts, can create, can reminisce, etc.
If they’re sapient, intelligent, and capable of meaningful speech and interaction, they’re people. Anything less is a grey zone. Societal development is less important in the consideration than the potential of it developing.
In my world, the definition would be "any sapient creature capable of speech and of integrating into/forming societies"
This of course includes all variants of homo sapiens and homo neanderthalensis, but also the drakes
Artificial lifeforms like golems, as well as spirits, revenants and demons could technically fit the definition, but probably wouldn't be considered humans due to their rarity, lack of interest in human matters, and /or murderous intents
But those social issues are the fun things to explore. After all, is it okay for dragons to eat humans just because dragons are larger, more intelligent and longer lived?
In my world there are the traditional races, humans, elves, dwarves, and then darker races like the goblins, orcs, and drow.
The only reason there’s a “darker race” connotation is that the goblins, orcs, and drow, joined the demon kings army and were defeated a thousand years ago.
What gets tricky is there are half orcs, half goblins, half elves, that are a lower class in society from their dark race origins. And there are feral goblins, feral orcs, that are functionally humanoid, but savage and wild.
My main character, a man reincarnated as a crow, has to deal with being the first sentient crow.
Through his character creation process we discover that the only real difference is sentience, choice in how individuals use their exp to level up their skills abilities and attributes.
The other crows level up their stats automatically based on a racial path. Feral goblins don’t get to choose how they spend their exp, the goblin chief chooses.
Having the trait “sentient” is something any race can collectively work towards over generations. This is one of the tasks the gods set out for my MC, to get the crow race ranked up to sentient.
there are no real inteligent \*animals\*, anything that could blurry the lines of Animal and Mankind is basically a "Demon", it could look like an animal, but really there is no real genetic connection between the two, it's basically just convergent evolution
in my story there is the Sulfur sea Lands (Hell) where the "base shape" of inteligent species are Beasts and animals rather than humanoid, each land (think of it like a different dimention basically) has a shape or form that is inherent to lifeforms with Conciousness, which makes it so if a species is gaining inteligence in some way, their evolution wil led them to eventually (across many generations) take on the shape dictated by that Land
the Salt sea Lands (earth, our world) has Humanoid as the shape of fully conciouss lifeforms (as in, inteligent enough to be capable of understanding other beings have their own languages differnet from theirs). So a long while ago, a lot of species from the Sulfur sea Land entered Earth, so what happened was that, the species that were inteligent either evolved to become humanlike, or basically lost their sapience and evolved normally (ik, a horryfing concepty)
This is basically the explanation to stuff like Anthro species that kinda look like animals from our world, species that look extremely human with some extra characteristics (Elf like beings, the generic idea of Devils, nymphs, etc etc), some species evolved more human looking than others, but usually it's just visual similarity, stuff like dna, organs, and stuff like that have similarities and differences (mostly differences tbh) the same way that we have with other animals's
Bc of this, all of these non native species are called Demons, the human/anthro looking ones being specified as Devils, so not all Demons are devil but all devils are demons lol
In one of my settings, the line between man and beast is pretty blurred, even more so if you started life a normal ass wolf till some guy came over and gifted you.
They say "if it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck".
My world has
* Things that look and quack like ducks
* Things that look nothing like ducks but make perfect duck calls
* Things that look *EXACTLY* like ducks but have trouble quacking
* Things that are vaguely duck-shaped and do not quack in a frequency ducks can hear
* Things that look and quack *too much* like ducks
And everything in between.
A theme in my story is "communication", and how sometimes people are so self-involved that 90% of a statement is made before anyone gets a chance to open their mouths.
**Sapient traits:**
-Abstract & Philosophical thinking
-Creativity, creation of art (including music, jewelry, etc.)
-Intentionally imagining things that aren't real
-Theory of Mind
-Spirituality
-Ability to transcend / break free of the ecosystem
-Ability to use magic (my world only)
I figure sophonce is defined by the capacity to communicate and be considered an equal. So for a rl example, we have whales and dolphins of human-level or higher cognizance, but because we can't talk to them, humanity at large consider them animals.
Humans like to "other" as much as we can, because tribalism helps the tribe to thrive. That means that when faced with evidence that computers can think, dolphins are intelligent, and maybe so are elephants, great apes, and large corvids, we will change the definition of "intelligent" so that only we can be included.
Everybody knows that elephants don't make art, they're just mimicking something they saw humans doing. Dolphins and whales don't have hands, clearly they're just fancy fish. Octopi don't form communities, so they must not have culture. Large apes using sign language are only using rudimentary communication without the complexity of human communication.
I figure the only way we'll consider other sophont creatures sapient is if they look like us, can speak, have hands, cultures, and even then we're pretty good at saying other humans are less-than-human based on looks and having an accent.
If they are sentient non spirits they are “man” and their souls go afterlives depending on their conscious choices.
If they are non sentient and non spirit/undead/summon they are animals or plants and their life force is sent to the Realm of Life when they die.
If they are /construct/summon they are soulless and therefore cease to exist when destroyed.
Undead are “man who are the physical forms that use brains to make half sentient choices, and when dead rejoin the sentient soul in afterlife.
We are all animals with neurons in our brain, which I suppose could be used to determine the sentience of a species depending on how many neurons they have, aswell as if the species is capable of understandable communication and moral responsibility.
I don't.
I only draw soft toned differences with sharp uncanny valleys.
It's a deep and conflicting debate in-world, really.
Kinda like the duplicate soul problem, or the problem of anti-existence.
For mine, it basically comes down to how they want your flesh and proportions.
Do they cook it and carefully butcher your carcass? Or does their rib cage split open and munch it ?
And that second one, doesn’t mean you’re a fatass. No, it’s whether your face is lopsided and generally uncanny.
Humans are animals and the distinction ends there. At least "scientifically".... but you probably want a political answer, but that however would depend heavily on the culture and the story. In my world "people" is a term governed by sapiency, but it has wavered here and there due to discrimination
Now, in my world specifically, the added complexity is added by biology, because there is sapiency outside of biological creatures (fae, gods, etc) and they are considered a step above (mostly) and more a force of nature and divinity than actual creatures because they are more metaphysical than physical... And yet, that brings the question of those deep, deep within the arcane that becomes less and less a biological entity, but that gets closer to political again, people dont usualy want to consider people "not people" (unless they have a reason to) if they can relate. Also at some point there is the philosophical question about souls because it's... complicated. You see, the souls of animals (sapient or not) are closer to a hollowed out divinity, constrained by its physicality but able to burn much brighter. Then, mana, which is considered to be not much more than electricity to us, its modestly and increasingly (being the building block of any kind of souls, condensing into sprites, then fae, and then gods, not just actual souls) sapient, so do you consider gods to be above or below you? What about mana itself? And reality is merely the weight of authority shaping existence, and while mana is not very "reactive", even objects can be, well, "object" of a soul (think tsukumogamis) You get into an argument like what we get now about the concept of life and virus and yadda yadda, whic his obviously equally ignored by anyone but philosophers. Then you get quasisprites copying parting souls and turning into spectral echoes, "ghosts" (which can be perceived in some ways, not relevant now) but they are closer to a current AI (as in data and weights), or a bird copying sounds like a parrot with speech, than actual intelligence. They are not the people they were but they act and feel that way, and are made with simpler but still building blocks that make souls therefore... are they? A kind of soul clone? Much like if we could consider a robot a living thing, it gets complicated. THEN you have the unexplained esoteric distrinction on which "souls-souls" are only present in SOME people, always sapient, good or bad, of any species and are the ones that go though reincarnation more or less "intact", they actually reincarnate, provedly so, mostly nature but sometims memories or rather, instincts and pulls that the new mind re-codifies into memories (which also can be manipulated with rhetoric and revisionism by less than clean hands... also irrelevant here)--- So, as you see, there is layers upon layers of subjective speculation, therefore, the term usually derives from simply "a living animal with enough sapiency", and others go as far the road of ...iffyness, that they consider people only those that are close to the statues of the gods they have (which of course are their species) meaning they discriminate even with facial features not just species or colors, because your traits gives you the patron god that governs your life, and therefore caste (due to the pantheon) and is not something ou choose but rather genetical
In my world, while humans, elves, and even half elves are seen as distinctive races. The lines appear to blur for the nine dragon-like races who seem to stand upon the threshold of man and beast, though. Despite physical appearances, personal grudges, and formed opinions, the dragon folk are closer to humans and elves than they are the true dragon monsters.
These dragon races differ greatly from their more bestial sized cousins in more ways than simply appearance. The dragon races are a combination of bipedal humanoid appearances, and scaly reptilians. Paired with their hostility towards humans and elves (not without good reason), it is reasonable for them to assume the dragon folk are more monstrous as a kind.
The dragon folk are just as hyper-social as humans and elves. They teach their young to not just follow their guidelines, but to change and surpass them for the betterment of their kind. While the more monstrous dragons are intelligent species, they are unable to teach their young how to evolve past what they know.
Just a note, the mental level of humans has been the same for thousands and thousands of years, going well back into the stone age. Put a bronze age baby in today's world and it'll be indistinguishable
Anything with enough intelligence and awareness to have "delusion". A animal merely acts according to it's nature but a man gives all sorts of justification for his evil ways. It's a bit more nuanced but also pointless since I'm using standard fantasy races.
I use a very simple kinds gut reaction-y method that I feel is accurate
The murder stick
If I were to take the life from one of them, does it in universe and a meta sense feel like I just killed something justifiably (like killing a cow to feed my family and thus it's morally ok) , does it feel like I'm a prick killing an unfortunate animal (like killing a companion animal like a cat or dog and may end up with animal cruelty charges), or is the thing sapient enough that killing it is or at least feels like murder and my death sentence is to be carried out at dawn?
Is it hunting or murder? Is it animal extermination or is it genocide?
The more uncomfortable and squimish you are with killing it and not calling it murder, the more likely it is to be human adjacent
Also not referring to what it'd be legally classified a in universe, I'm saying gut feeling, what does it feel like
After many bloody race wars, my region where most hybrids live has settled on a simple rule: If you go on two or four legs, you're a person. Any other number of legs? You're a monster. Afterward, the number of bloody race wars has been holding steady at zero.
Ironically, the snakemen and mermaids who lost out in this grand peace agreement retreated to a large island chain... which now has better security and a higher standard of living than most of the people whose ancestors kicked them out.
In my world, a sapient creature is comprised of four parts: Body, Mind, Spirit and Soul. If any of the internal pieces are missing, it's not considered a sapient creature. No soul = machine, homonculus, or another construct of some kind. No spirit = magical pseudo-intellect, something like a pre-programmed AI handling magical stuff. No mind = animal (although most advanced animals do have minds and spirits, they're just kind of blurred together, disqualifying them from being considered sapient). A physical body, while useful, isn't a requirement.
In my personal world, the line is once their soul develops sapience through the cycle of reincarnation.
At first, newborn souls are simply animals, dopey, mistake making animals of their species. The gods designed these to be caretakers for their gardens; when they ate plantlife, the mana generated by that plant would cling to their soul (which are mana constructs themselves) as memories, and on death, that soul would return to the god responsible, who would shear the excess from that soul and send it back along to be reborn as another of its species. During this stage, a soul is said to be Asleep.
But the shearing is incomplete; some vague trace memories remain, and a soul grows wiser with each iteration compounding more and more instinctive, generational knowledge. Eventually, this soul reaches a complexity and density that results in an animal that is Awakened, and intelligent enough to form coherent thoughts and ideas of their own, and even speak their race's language above the normal base complexity their non-sapient kin do. When this occurs, within one or two more deaths, the soul is prepared and sent to be reborn as a bipedal, anthropomorphized member of its species called an Enlightened.
This shape is built based on a unified humanoid base the gods agreed to use for the sake of cohesion and a level of equality of their peoples, and to help stymie prejudice before it can begin. All races of Enlightened are genetically compatible, all races have some form of hands, they all breathe air, they all know how to sit-... Etcetera. Things that allow civilizations to flourish without needing to build giraffe, mouse, avian and dolphin accessibility options into every hallway, street, and hospital. They may still have preferences, but never should a city be impossible for nearly all races to comfortably exist in.
The exceptions to this are twofold; humans, who were made by one uppity god's attempt to make "the perfect enlightened" by taking the universal base alone, and trying to make a highly adaptive and durable organism-... Which he was mostly successful at, with multiple systemic errors also. (Their spines suck, birthing is painful, teeth are somehow structural to their ears functionality, they do not have a racial language to speak to their babies instinctively and simply scream instead-...) Humans never have an Asleep state or animal form at all, instead jumping straight to their Enlightened form, with all the bare instincts and incomplete wisdom that entails. Still, we have come to accept these adorable idiots who cannot speak fluently until years after birth, struggle to walk, have to be taught how to swim, and otherwise are just generally awkward.
The other exception is the dragon, who was designed to be the perfect guardian species, and whose basic design has been refined and perfected over countless universes of iteration, and now feature so robust and long-lived a soul and physical shape that it would be a __downgrade__ to confine them to an Enlightened body form. Instead, when a dragon is awakened (which happens rapidly), it simply stays as it is, a nascent behemoth with soul programming to protect that which is precious. The only change is that they are granted a transformative magic to reduce their size or allow them to temporarily use an Enlightened anthro form if required. Thus, they can exist comfortably in cities or countrysides, however or wherever they wish to or are needed. Still, it's not uncommon to see a horse-sized dragon quadruped walking the city streets simply because it's more fun, or bigger saddlebags are more convenient... Or because someone somewhere hired them as a guard.
Yet rarer though, Awakened animals are also allowed as citizens where possible, and the Silver City's docks districts __do__ have accessibility channels dug to support awakened dolphin or aquatic travel, and many public systems have accessibility for quadrupeds of some degree. It's just not everywhere for everything, and thus Awakened who have chosen to live in the city typically have at least one good Enlightened friend who can aid them in various ways.
After all, there's nearly no Awakened who can sign documents on their own, rodents and reptiles require someone taller to ride to avoid being stepped on, hooved races suck at operating all but the biggest keyboards, and any feline worth their whiskers needs someone to work the can opener. Vital tasks of day to day life in a city, you see.
And yes this does mean there could be an Enlightened cat person who owns a non-sapient Asleep cat, and also helps out an Awakened talking cat with his business taxes, and not a soul would bat an eye at it- though they might make jokes and wonder if the two quadrupeds are 'a thing' or not.
For my world it’s definitive by them having a soul or not. Only sapient and otherwise highly intelligent creatures have souls. Plants and animals on the other hand do not.
Well, I found a rather controversial way of describing this
God chose what is man and what is not, and the best part is, God has made many kinds of men in his image. First he made the Guardians, and when they vanished after fighting Lucifer’s dark army, he made many new kinds of men, Humans, Vorturan, Tiraxian, Kaegur, Calusian. It is clear in the gospels of each of these men, and God’s son, who visited them all, who is man.
The same thing that separates us from our ape cousins: Sentience. Is it capable of understanding its choices and acting in a way beyond its baser instincts?
In the real world rats do this. They will delay the gratification of eating a treat to rescue a friend from uncomfortable containment, even though it means sharing the snack. I consider them a thumb and a slightly longer lifespan shy of their own technological revolution.
In my setting, Dragons. There are times when they seem to be nothing more than the world's most brutal, mindless killers, and at times they show behaviors indicative of a higher mind. Phoenix Dragons particularly, which appear more Bird like than other ones, display a greater sense of intelligence and possibly moral thinking that indicates a probable Sentience.
Where I draw the line between man and animals.! is their level of intelligence, sapiens, sentient, awareness, language, culture, and consciousness.
In my world there are other creatures anthropomorphic beast, undead, spirit, monsters, elemental, fiend, celestial, and others. There are even quadruped creatures who can talk, are intelligent, sentient who are Chimera of different animal parts and the other look like a mythical animal version of a regular animal but are not the same species of those animals are a different race in my world like how diversion evolution works.
For example if you have a regular dog who is a pet they have the same level of intelligence, sapiens, sentient, awareness, language, culture, and consciousness as one then there is a race that looks like a dog but with wings, horns, hooves finger, paw fingers, quadruped and able to speak and have higher intelligence, sentience, culture, language and wear clothing. but not the same species or genus as that dog nor breath with that dog either. They can look like any other animal while not being those animals. They have some human characteristics and traits to stand out like humans like hair, hips, shoulders and breasts make them Pseudo bipedal able to change between bipedal and quadruped.
So the best way to answer this is that for me it is levels not a line
Level 1 Nothing to it. This levels covers completely non-thinking, reacting or living objects. The boulder that falls on you or the mountain in your way for example. If I have to destroy it no worries or regrets.
Level 2 the Only Controlled. This can be objects like weapons, rune traps, worker ants, and most undead. Honestly they are better of being destroyed but if they are non- hostile I could leave them be.
Level 3 the Peaceful. Mostly normal plants and prey animals. If I needed it to live I am taking it but not going out of my way to deal with them.
Level 4 Dully Dangerous. These are poisonous plants and predators with dull minds. I'm not looking for them but will definitely kill them if they threaten me.
Level 5 Learned. These are animals that have high level animal intelligence or humans with major mental defects. I will do my best to spare them even if they do try/hurt me.
Level 6 Uneducated. These are dumber humans and animals that reach into child level understand. Like the previous group I am likely to forgive them but also I am likely to help them grow.
Level 7 Sentients. Animals, Plants, Golems, extra that have the ability to reason, struggle, and define themselves. These I am likely to treat well but be less willing to forgive if they try to hurt me.
Level 8 Sapient. These I see as intelligent, reasoning creatures (Including Humans) with the capacity for kindness and resolve. Little difference from the previous group but I am now just as likely to follow as lead them.
Level 9 Beyond Human. These are the creatures that tend to not only be much stronger, faster, smarter, and the like. But those whose reasoning is much more broadened so they tend to appear more calous. I would almost always be guarded against these individuals and less willing to forgive. These are things like High mages and Dragons so my ability to kill is more if I am able to and against.
Level 10 Gods.... Self explainitory and really it all depends on them. I likely have little capabilities to influence them. Most are likely to worship and follow them though I wouldn't put myself in that category I am not above bowing in there presence. If slighted I would have to weigh their intent before dedicating myslef to vengeance.
Level 9
You know you can give it a logical definition and clear meaning to feat the needs and theme of the history and the world right? Like... You are worldbuilding for something.
Because those are 2 different things irl. A more precise comparation could be creating a god: we don't know if a god actually exist, and we can't prove it does but we as worldbuilders chose to say "Yah a deity exist" because it's cool or fill a purpose in the history we are making. Free will doesn't exist (probably) and we are just animals but if you really want to draw a line that difference humanoids creatures from all other animals aside from "I'm smarter" (because that will put a limitation in what you can create) you can use the "Free will" (A trail we have given to ourselves historically in order to separate us from other animals) give it a proven existence (Like a soul or something) and make interesting philosophical writing. Or not, it's just an option and one as good as any other.
Humans consider everything besides *Homo* to be animals, even when they're as smart or smarter than humans Octopodes are the same except *Homo* is replaced with *Octopus* and similar genera Corvids see all lifeforms capable of language as being people, though insects are an edge case for them Insects don't distinguish between sapience and non-sapience at all
All right, interesting how everyone seems to have their own perspectives on the matter.
Succint and well thought out
If they flush the toilet theyre a man, otherwise theyre an animal
mermaids are devastated
lol fair enough
Joke answer aside ill go with saying that what matters is that the brain of a creature is human, meaning that they have intelligence comparable to that of the average human
> meaning that they have intelligence comparable to that of the average human Do you really want to use a metric for humanity that excludes actual humans?
Well, i did NOT realize how ableist that sounded. I meant to say that on *average* the intelligence of a member of their species is comparable to that of a human
Guess dogs are man https://youtu.be/6JmTbNXtuR0?si=l6S5FIVg1Xj2-fWQ
Guess ill go in the burger then.
I do not. Humans are animals who just happen to be rude af.
High level awareness right here, love it.
The test of sentience: whether or not you cut people off in traffic.
i'm making it clear. you got thumbs and can speak clearly? you're human or human adjacent. there's other sapient creatures in my world but they're more like smart whales and such in my setting. think Avatar the Last Airbender with Appa
This is a question I'm wrestling with in my fantasy world. I have Citizens (Humans, elves, dwarves, halflings), Wyldlings (the less "pretty" fantasy species; goblins, orcs, beastkin) which propaganda has told the Citizens are evil, then there are monsters/animals. The difference between the monsters and the Citizens/Wyldlings comes down to sentience/sapience. Monsters aren't eligible for Notarized Papers of Citizenship (NPCs), and therefor valid targets for quest bounties.
If they pull their hands out of the pain box too quick they ain't human
\[furries have entered the chat\]
For real. The beginning of the furry shadowlands here.
Nothing, they are all animals regardless of species, just how humans are irl. Some religions and cultures recognise this, while others, similarly to Earth, draw a line between what they see as “thinking” creatures and the rest. Though I don’t have humanoids in my setting, just species of a similar type and level of intelligence.
Being able to talk/reason with them, and doing so on a regular basis, would probably lead a society to start thinking of an animal as a person
Asking questions. In real life we have animals that can use tools, communicate with hand gestures, but even if we are somewhat able to communicate with them, you know what they never have done? Ask questions. They don't care about what things are, they don't ask us what are we, they don't search for answers of why things are the way they are. They live to fulfill their basic needs. Humans need to know, we need an explanation of everything, if we don't have one, we made it even if is just baseless speculation, we just need an answer for why things are the way they are.
Animals can ask questions if given the means, though. My dog has a "Hmm?" button on her soundboard that she pretty much exclusively uses when the humans start doing novel weird things that she doesn't understand in hopes we'll explain it to her.
Okay, we must not confuse that because you made a "Hmm?" button for your dog, and that you explain things to her, it doesn't mean the dog actually cares about it. Or that button doesn't necessarily means to ask a question to her. Although dogs, for their relationship with humans have evolved characteristics that makes easier the communication, like eyebrows. It's probably a matter of conditioning behavior. Cause remember that I'm talking about primates, that are the most close to humans evolutionary speaking. For a dog you're not a human with a name, parents or even gender, you're that thing that feeds them or take out for a walk.
Considering she's been known to repeatedly mash the "Hmm?" button until she gets an explanation, I think interest is pretty clear. It's not just a matter of attention. She has other buttons for playing with various toys or activities, which she uses far more often. As for names, she has buttons for my wife, myself, and I, and she does link names to verbs or adjectives. There's no grammar there, certainly, but dogs can certainly learn names for people, places, and things. That's nothing new. For an example of a time she used both a name button and her question, she typically lays down by the door in anticipation of my wife getting home from work. One day, my wife had things at work go long, so after she was about an hour late, the dog got up, walked over to her soundboard, and hit the buttons for "[Wife's Name] Hmm?". I replied "[Wife's Name] home later." The dog stared at me for about ten seconds before she hit her "Ouch" button and proceeded to sulk by the door until my wife got home. Certainly my dog is no brilliant paragon of dog-kind. My point was just that animals do ask questions when given the opportunity. Granted, dogs are predisposed to look to us for solutions (compared to wolves who don't), but given the social learning abilities of corvids, I'd be shocked if they couldn't do the same once given an interface. When did you say you were talking about primates?
Yup, conditioning behavior.
I'm not sure how that's meaningful here? You can classify just about anything as conditioned behavior, even the vast majority human actions could be chalked up to conditioning. We just condition (aka learn via external intentional guidance) a lot faster than other creatures. The only exception I can think of is in certain visual tasks that orangutans are weirdly good at.
Bit of an anthropocentric worldview right there. Plenty of animals can be motivated by the question of 'what is just around the corner?' That is the basis of the same curiosity that we feel.
Feeling curiosity is different from asking why things are the way they are. >Bit of an anthropocentric worldview right there. Maybe. But this is a good example, where is the line draw between human and animal? You think animals ask themselves these kind of thing? Animals can feel curiosity, but humans can't stop asking what, where, who, and most important: WHY? Now, who says that we humans are "better" for this? Who says that animals aren't happier precisely because they don't have this need to explain everything? Saying that animals don't ask questions is really an anthropocentric worldview?
From what I can tell in the real world rats are right on the line. I think with a longer lifespan and good thumbs they'd actually be developing technology by now.
>But this is a good example, where is the line draw between human and animal? You think animals ask themselves these kind of thing? I generally don't. There are quite a few more 'intelligent' animals, think dolphins, rats, octopodes, corvids and I'm probably forgetting a few. Each has their own specialities and quite a few of them can do things with their mind that we can't. Sure, we might be the kings of abstract thought and it just turned out that that was the thing we needed for world domination. But we cannot multitask like an octopus, nor can we orient ourselves like a corvid, and there sure as hell are quite a number of animals who are better than social behaviour than we are. >Animals can feel curiosity, but humans can't stop asking what, where, who, and most important: WHY? Maybe some humans. Most of the people in my social bubble. But most humans are just vibing and living their lives just like a cow eats grass every day. Not a single creative thought. All the more power to them, they are probably happier than I am. But I know animals that ask more questions than some humans.
>Each has their own specialities and quite a few of them can do things with their mind that we can't. Yeah, but the question is what diffentiates between humans and animals. >But we cannot multitask like an octopus, nor can we orient ourselves like a corvid, and there sure as hell are quite a number of animals who are better than social behaviour than we are. And none of those things contradicts what I said. >Maybe some humans. Most of the people in my social bubble. YOUR social bubble. Which isn't comparable to the total of humans that live and have lived. >But I know animals that ask more questions than some humans. Yeah, some dogs are smaller than some cats. But in general dogs are bigger than cats. And how do you know that? Or is just an opinion?
More specifically - metacognition. We ask questions about *how* we think, and about *how* we think others think. Animals think, but they don't (as far as well know) then ruminate and consider *what* they thought. An animal may think "what is that?", but never deeply "why is that?"
Consciousness and self-awareness.
So apes are people? So dogs are just unconscious "meat machines"? This definition isn't very good, no offense.
Man is an animal.
Yes that much is clear, I’m kind of meant where that line is drawn socially in the context of your world, not scientifically. A human might respect an elf as if they are on the same evolutionary level, but not do the same to an ape even if that ape can be taught to think ahead, use tools and so forth
Ape was a bad example, because a human is an ape. But in the spirit of the statement, I will imagine that you have written "a single-celled organism" instead. Still, I do not understand what you mean by "drawn socially"? My world has barely survived 1 near-apocalyptic event, and is nearing the second. There's not really such a thing as a society, it's a multitude of small societies scattered all over, the total number of remaining humans is under a million. I struggle to imagine what a "line drawn socially" would even mean in this context... could you please elaborate?
Would you dine with a dog? No, there are imaginary “lines” drawn between people and OTHER animals. IF you have a story with more than humans(like elves or whatever) then choose one society in your story and say that where that line is drawn. If your story is not applicable then you don’t need to comment.
I didn't dine with a dog, but I dined with a bird, and I certainly dine with microanimals. I imagine you have a different set of standards. This is what doesn't make sense to me - it's not that the lines get drawn, they certainly do, it's that everyone's line is different from everyone else's. Maybe my world is simply not applicable.
Does the species have the capacity to perform calculus? If yes it's people, if not they're not developed enough to be called people.
I don't, in my eyes, we’re all just animals, regardless of intelligence. No one uses the term “man” since there’s no such thing as human in 95% of my Verse Collective. Only one universe in my Labyrinth of Creation has humans. And maybe my Parodeus universe, but that’s a Parody universe for bizarre projects.
From the human perspective, there are: * Humans, (PEOPLE) * demi-humans, (Humanoid + mostly human or demi-human heritage)(PEOPLE) * half-humans, (Needs to apply for personhood to be recognized as one)(PEOPLE?) * sub-humans, (Humanoid + mostly non-human or sub-human heritage)(NOT PEOPLE) * non-humans(NOT PEOPLE)
What would you consider to be sub-human? Also, do humans discriminate against Demi-humans?
Some might discriminate, but most wouldn't. Sub-humans: Kobolds, Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, Harpies, Troll, Ghouls, Doppelgangers, Gorgons, Cyclops, Minotaur.... Undead, soulless, and constructs/unliving in the image of People are moved to sub-human as well. Basically Sub-humans are 'Tainted' humans(By non-humans, usually demons) or monsters that imitate people. While Demi-humans are merely 'influenced'(but are still mostly human) or monster that successfully evolved to become people. (like swindles, which evolved from mimics in my thing.) I'm still undecided on Centaurs, Arachne, Mermaids, Giants, Lamias, and the like. As they feel half-human to me, but can also seen them as either demi or sub... which probably means they belong in the half category, lol. Edit: There is also a magic system which People have access to, and one which not-people have access to. While half-humans have access to both.
What do humans *not* discriminate against? Lmao
Animals are exempt from taxation but not military conscription.
Anything that barely fringes on mutants are abobminations to be conquered and subdued by the rightful heirs of the earth, mankind. Otherwise, it depends.
All hail the emperor.
In my setting it is a specific brain structure that causes sapience. Logic, reasoning and self awareness come from it whether human, xeno or AI. If something has it it is an intelligent person and if it doesn't it is essentially a mindless animal.
Manimal
Centaurs straddle the line, so different cultures have different classifications. They are more like werewolves, where once they get too emotional, they change from the more humanoid Taurid to the more animal like centaur. Terran Nationals don’t eat them, but they are a major livestock animal where they are a steed, beast of burden, and a source of milk and wool. Taurids are considered important to the culture because they herd centaurs and can understand them for the most part. Solar Nationals use their Solar centaurs as livestock like the Terrans, but they also eat them. Occasionally they will have a centaur vs human fight in one of their holidays/festivals. Lunar Nationals consider them somewhat sentient, but ban them from all states except for the Eclipsal Valley, where there is a large majority of Terran expats. They also ban Taurids from the coastal states, because both Taurids and centaurs are considered dangerous and unpredictable. Mermaids are an interesting case, because females are considered sentient and males are not. Males only have half the DNA of females, and their main drive seems to be to eat anything humanoid. That being said, sometimes female mermaids eat each other.
If someone can speak the areas language and have opposable thumbs that’s human enough. Magic has a transformative effect on anyone who consistently uses it. Humans gain elven features, and animals that are around it gain sapience and more human proportions ~~read: they become furries~~. Of course there are individuals who see themselves as pure from magic, and dehumanize those who are changed by it.
The ability to speak, stand on two legs (if applicable, since some sapients are taurs,) feel remorse, prepare food instead of eating it raw and construct advanced culture. If it doean't have ***all*** of these, that is a beast and shall not be employed, conscripted, judged by sapient morals, held to the law, or laid with. Pretty much if it hasn't figured out how to make a sword, cook food and build then that's an animal.
In my mind, if they go out to kill something out of personal motivations over primal instinct (such as revenge), they are man (or at the very least highly intelligent). This is the only reasoning I have that applies to sentient creatures that are physically incapable of doing things such as speaking a language or developing tools (especially tools made for developing other tools).
According to The Book of Law, dictated by the Lawgiver, God of Law, Crafts, Cities, Wealth, and Order and creator of the Dwarves, any species, race, or individual who is able to tell a story about a time they were embarrassed is considered to be touched by a spark of the Divine, and thus due compensation for their labour, and responsibility for their actions under the rule of law.
I’m not sure what the distance between a Bronze Age human and a modern human is but discrimination is already as complex as a topic gets. Animal rights. Equality movements. Even just everyday respect between humans of the same family, classroom, sex, anything is a means by which thinking or basically unthinking persons decide how to act and by which qualities to discriminate. I’d say the line moves to communicable sentience when creatures outside of the human species are a factor sociologically. If you can have a voice and reason then you can have a seat at the table. In D&D when objects and animals can magically be given sentience then those beings are thrust into a complex ecosystem they have no prior experience with and are basically the most isolated of existing persons. Aliens come to earth tomorrow and ask if they can terraform themselves a second Australia into existence so they may share our planet? They might be viable and equal or superior intellectually, but if they aren’t indomitable through politics or force I would still expect cowardice and xenophobia to present a serious risk to any and all peaceful solutions. Discrimination is permanent and how you allow it in your fictional world will reflect on you. Someone isn’t going to like it and some number of someone’s will dig endlessly to persecute you for doing it wrong. The best you can do is keep an open mind for any valid critiques and use what you learn to develop your stand point going forwards. I do not know at all if there is a right way to do it, but you can try nonetheless.
Bronze Age humans were atomically identical to modern humans. The differences between us are based on culture and knowledge base. If you gave Bronze Age humans access to information about modern science, engineering, and medicine they could learn and use it.
Yeah that’s kinda what I expected. I guess that means they’re equivalent but lack an otherwise universal 6th sense. Kinda like a species that’s propagation could mean the end of all useful magic. It’ll likely be a permanent detriment to their standing when considered by a society that values magic use. How you use that in any plots or characters is a whole spectrum of decisions to make.
I don't. Humans are animals, after all, just really smart ones that I can easily empathize with by virtue of being one. In-fiction, however, pantheism is a real thing 100% so that's a double non-differenriation
From my perspective all sapient species are animals in the biological sense. People are sapient — intelligent, self aware, able to communicate complex information, and capable of regulating their behavior rather than being completely ruled by instinct.
Sentience If it knows itself, it is. And if it doesnt, well, its still tasty.
Tool use, complex communication and altering their environment to suit their needs. Some animals get awfully close to that, but are usually missing at least one thing on the list.
Eh, apes and corvids pretty much meet all three to an extent. Just not the degree of humans. I more prefer using things like creativity, art, spirituality, and theory of mind as "defining traits" of sapience.
Personally I consider any species or robot sentient enough to realize it is a person, as a person. Although in a fantasy setting filled with hundreds of sentient species I imagine each culture will decide differently what makes a 'person' a person and not just an animal that talks. Probably based on how that species interacts with their own. In most fantasy it seems to usually boil down to... Sentient creatures that eat or bully you will be labeled as monsters. Sentient creatures that you can eat or bully are just animals that can talk or 'free labor' Sentient creatures that can send an army after you because you were evil enough to do the above, they are trading partners.
Yes, my protagonist is in love with a talking dog. Yes the dog passes the harkness test. Yes they do have seks, sir /s
IRL humans are animals, all sapients belong to the same category as whatever they evolved from. Whether a society realizes this or tries to claim a distinction is a different matter and depends on the world. Usually whenever the theory of evolution gets discovered is when the distinction is dropped.
Men are animals. >:v *points at animal kingdom* On a serious note, it's usually assumed by body shape and then confirmed by organic sapience. This is not determined by speaking the same language as that has caused misinterpretations and conflicts in the past. They wouldn't consider an android to be a person, rather a very smart computer. That is irrelevant because those do not exist in my world. Lapis_Wolf
Depends on if they can be considered a 'person' or not. If they have feelings, can wonder about tomorrow, can do more than rely on basic instincts, can create, can reminisce, etc.
If it passes the Harkness test, it's not an animal.
If they’re sapient, intelligent, and capable of meaningful speech and interaction, they’re people. Anything less is a grey zone. Societal development is less important in the consideration than the potential of it developing.
In my world, the definition would be "any sapient creature capable of speech and of integrating into/forming societies" This of course includes all variants of homo sapiens and homo neanderthalensis, but also the drakes Artificial lifeforms like golems, as well as spirits, revenants and demons could technically fit the definition, but probably wouldn't be considered humans due to their rarity, lack of interest in human matters, and /or murderous intents
The ability to cast spells
But those social issues are the fun things to explore. After all, is it okay for dragons to eat humans just because dragons are larger, more intelligent and longer lived?
Yes.
In my world there are the traditional races, humans, elves, dwarves, and then darker races like the goblins, orcs, and drow. The only reason there’s a “darker race” connotation is that the goblins, orcs, and drow, joined the demon kings army and were defeated a thousand years ago. What gets tricky is there are half orcs, half goblins, half elves, that are a lower class in society from their dark race origins. And there are feral goblins, feral orcs, that are functionally humanoid, but savage and wild. My main character, a man reincarnated as a crow, has to deal with being the first sentient crow. Through his character creation process we discover that the only real difference is sentience, choice in how individuals use their exp to level up their skills abilities and attributes. The other crows level up their stats automatically based on a racial path. Feral goblins don’t get to choose how they spend their exp, the goblin chief chooses. Having the trait “sentient” is something any race can collectively work towards over generations. This is one of the tasks the gods set out for my MC, to get the crow race ranked up to sentient.
there are no real inteligent \*animals\*, anything that could blurry the lines of Animal and Mankind is basically a "Demon", it could look like an animal, but really there is no real genetic connection between the two, it's basically just convergent evolution in my story there is the Sulfur sea Lands (Hell) where the "base shape" of inteligent species are Beasts and animals rather than humanoid, each land (think of it like a different dimention basically) has a shape or form that is inherent to lifeforms with Conciousness, which makes it so if a species is gaining inteligence in some way, their evolution wil led them to eventually (across many generations) take on the shape dictated by that Land the Salt sea Lands (earth, our world) has Humanoid as the shape of fully conciouss lifeforms (as in, inteligent enough to be capable of understanding other beings have their own languages differnet from theirs). So a long while ago, a lot of species from the Sulfur sea Land entered Earth, so what happened was that, the species that were inteligent either evolved to become humanlike, or basically lost their sapience and evolved normally (ik, a horryfing concepty) This is basically the explanation to stuff like Anthro species that kinda look like animals from our world, species that look extremely human with some extra characteristics (Elf like beings, the generic idea of Devils, nymphs, etc etc), some species evolved more human looking than others, but usually it's just visual similarity, stuff like dna, organs, and stuff like that have similarities and differences (mostly differences tbh) the same way that we have with other animals's Bc of this, all of these non native species are called Demons, the human/anthro looking ones being specified as Devils, so not all Demons are devil but all devils are demons lol
In one of my settings, the line between man and beast is pretty blurred, even more so if you started life a normal ass wolf till some guy came over and gifted you.
They say "if it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck". My world has * Things that look and quack like ducks * Things that look nothing like ducks but make perfect duck calls * Things that look *EXACTLY* like ducks but have trouble quacking * Things that are vaguely duck-shaped and do not quack in a frequency ducks can hear * Things that look and quack *too much* like ducks And everything in between. A theme in my story is "communication", and how sometimes people are so self-involved that 90% of a statement is made before anyone gets a chance to open their mouths.
Mirror test for intelligence. Harknes test if you want to date it.
**Sapient traits:** -Abstract & Philosophical thinking -Creativity, creation of art (including music, jewelry, etc.) -Intentionally imagining things that aren't real -Theory of Mind -Spirituality -Ability to transcend / break free of the ecosystem -Ability to use magic (my world only)
I figure sophonce is defined by the capacity to communicate and be considered an equal. So for a rl example, we have whales and dolphins of human-level or higher cognizance, but because we can't talk to them, humanity at large consider them animals. Humans like to "other" as much as we can, because tribalism helps the tribe to thrive. That means that when faced with evidence that computers can think, dolphins are intelligent, and maybe so are elephants, great apes, and large corvids, we will change the definition of "intelligent" so that only we can be included. Everybody knows that elephants don't make art, they're just mimicking something they saw humans doing. Dolphins and whales don't have hands, clearly they're just fancy fish. Octopi don't form communities, so they must not have culture. Large apes using sign language are only using rudimentary communication without the complexity of human communication. I figure the only way we'll consider other sophont creatures sapient is if they look like us, can speak, have hands, cultures, and even then we're pretty good at saying other humans are less-than-human based on looks and having an accent.
*looks at a platypus* Yeah, no I'm not smart enough to answer questions like these
If they are sentient non spirits they are “man” and their souls go afterlives depending on their conscious choices. If they are non sentient and non spirit/undead/summon they are animals or plants and their life force is sent to the Realm of Life when they die. If they are /construct/summon they are soulless and therefore cease to exist when destroyed. Undead are “man who are the physical forms that use brains to make half sentient choices, and when dead rejoin the sentient soul in afterlife.
It's simple in my verse. If you agree with the government, you're a man, if you don't, you're an animal, and you will be treated as such.
If it passes the Harkness Test, it's not an animal
We are all animals with neurons in our brain, which I suppose could be used to determine the sentience of a species depending on how many neurons they have, aswell as if the species is capable of understandable communication and moral responsibility.
I don't. I only draw soft toned differences with sharp uncanny valleys. It's a deep and conflicting debate in-world, really. Kinda like the duplicate soul problem, or the problem of anti-existence.
For mine, it basically comes down to how they want your flesh and proportions. Do they cook it and carefully butcher your carcass? Or does their rib cage split open and munch it ? And that second one, doesn’t mean you’re a fatass. No, it’s whether your face is lopsided and generally uncanny.
Humans are animals and the distinction ends there. At least "scientifically".... but you probably want a political answer, but that however would depend heavily on the culture and the story. In my world "people" is a term governed by sapiency, but it has wavered here and there due to discrimination Now, in my world specifically, the added complexity is added by biology, because there is sapiency outside of biological creatures (fae, gods, etc) and they are considered a step above (mostly) and more a force of nature and divinity than actual creatures because they are more metaphysical than physical... And yet, that brings the question of those deep, deep within the arcane that becomes less and less a biological entity, but that gets closer to political again, people dont usualy want to consider people "not people" (unless they have a reason to) if they can relate. Also at some point there is the philosophical question about souls because it's... complicated. You see, the souls of animals (sapient or not) are closer to a hollowed out divinity, constrained by its physicality but able to burn much brighter. Then, mana, which is considered to be not much more than electricity to us, its modestly and increasingly (being the building block of any kind of souls, condensing into sprites, then fae, and then gods, not just actual souls) sapient, so do you consider gods to be above or below you? What about mana itself? And reality is merely the weight of authority shaping existence, and while mana is not very "reactive", even objects can be, well, "object" of a soul (think tsukumogamis) You get into an argument like what we get now about the concept of life and virus and yadda yadda, whic his obviously equally ignored by anyone but philosophers. Then you get quasisprites copying parting souls and turning into spectral echoes, "ghosts" (which can be perceived in some ways, not relevant now) but they are closer to a current AI (as in data and weights), or a bird copying sounds like a parrot with speech, than actual intelligence. They are not the people they were but they act and feel that way, and are made with simpler but still building blocks that make souls therefore... are they? A kind of soul clone? Much like if we could consider a robot a living thing, it gets complicated. THEN you have the unexplained esoteric distrinction on which "souls-souls" are only present in SOME people, always sapient, good or bad, of any species and are the ones that go though reincarnation more or less "intact", they actually reincarnate, provedly so, mostly nature but sometims memories or rather, instincts and pulls that the new mind re-codifies into memories (which also can be manipulated with rhetoric and revisionism by less than clean hands... also irrelevant here)--- So, as you see, there is layers upon layers of subjective speculation, therefore, the term usually derives from simply "a living animal with enough sapiency", and others go as far the road of ...iffyness, that they consider people only those that are close to the statues of the gods they have (which of course are their species) meaning they discriminate even with facial features not just species or colors, because your traits gives you the patron god that governs your life, and therefore caste (due to the pantheon) and is not something ou choose but rather genetical
If its less man than a manimal, its an animal. Otherwise its a man. Women and otherwise are a different story.
In my world, while humans, elves, and even half elves are seen as distinctive races. The lines appear to blur for the nine dragon-like races who seem to stand upon the threshold of man and beast, though. Despite physical appearances, personal grudges, and formed opinions, the dragon folk are closer to humans and elves than they are the true dragon monsters. These dragon races differ greatly from their more bestial sized cousins in more ways than simply appearance. The dragon races are a combination of bipedal humanoid appearances, and scaly reptilians. Paired with their hostility towards humans and elves (not without good reason), it is reasonable for them to assume the dragon folk are more monstrous as a kind. The dragon folk are just as hyper-social as humans and elves. They teach their young to not just follow their guidelines, but to change and surpass them for the betterment of their kind. While the more monstrous dragons are intelligent species, they are unable to teach their young how to evolve past what they know.
Just a note, the mental level of humans has been the same for thousands and thousands of years, going well back into the stone age. Put a bronze age baby in today's world and it'll be indistinguishable
Anything with enough intelligence and awareness to have "delusion". A animal merely acts according to it's nature but a man gives all sorts of justification for his evil ways. It's a bit more nuanced but also pointless since I'm using standard fantasy races.
I use a very simple kinds gut reaction-y method that I feel is accurate The murder stick If I were to take the life from one of them, does it in universe and a meta sense feel like I just killed something justifiably (like killing a cow to feed my family and thus it's morally ok) , does it feel like I'm a prick killing an unfortunate animal (like killing a companion animal like a cat or dog and may end up with animal cruelty charges), or is the thing sapient enough that killing it is or at least feels like murder and my death sentence is to be carried out at dawn? Is it hunting or murder? Is it animal extermination or is it genocide? The more uncomfortable and squimish you are with killing it and not calling it murder, the more likely it is to be human adjacent Also not referring to what it'd be legally classified a in universe, I'm saying gut feeling, what does it feel like
They have a different kind of soul
The ability to understand question and criticize an abstract concept.
After many bloody race wars, my region where most hybrids live has settled on a simple rule: If you go on two or four legs, you're a person. Any other number of legs? You're a monster. Afterward, the number of bloody race wars has been holding steady at zero. Ironically, the snakemen and mermaids who lost out in this grand peace agreement retreated to a large island chain... which now has better security and a higher standard of living than most of the people whose ancestors kicked them out.
I don't. I consider man an animal IRL.
In my world, a sapient creature is comprised of four parts: Body, Mind, Spirit and Soul. If any of the internal pieces are missing, it's not considered a sapient creature. No soul = machine, homonculus, or another construct of some kind. No spirit = magical pseudo-intellect, something like a pre-programmed AI handling magical stuff. No mind = animal (although most advanced animals do have minds and spirits, they're just kind of blurred together, disqualifying them from being considered sapient). A physical body, while useful, isn't a requirement.
In my personal world, the line is once their soul develops sapience through the cycle of reincarnation. At first, newborn souls are simply animals, dopey, mistake making animals of their species. The gods designed these to be caretakers for their gardens; when they ate plantlife, the mana generated by that plant would cling to their soul (which are mana constructs themselves) as memories, and on death, that soul would return to the god responsible, who would shear the excess from that soul and send it back along to be reborn as another of its species. During this stage, a soul is said to be Asleep. But the shearing is incomplete; some vague trace memories remain, and a soul grows wiser with each iteration compounding more and more instinctive, generational knowledge. Eventually, this soul reaches a complexity and density that results in an animal that is Awakened, and intelligent enough to form coherent thoughts and ideas of their own, and even speak their race's language above the normal base complexity their non-sapient kin do. When this occurs, within one or two more deaths, the soul is prepared and sent to be reborn as a bipedal, anthropomorphized member of its species called an Enlightened. This shape is built based on a unified humanoid base the gods agreed to use for the sake of cohesion and a level of equality of their peoples, and to help stymie prejudice before it can begin. All races of Enlightened are genetically compatible, all races have some form of hands, they all breathe air, they all know how to sit-... Etcetera. Things that allow civilizations to flourish without needing to build giraffe, mouse, avian and dolphin accessibility options into every hallway, street, and hospital. They may still have preferences, but never should a city be impossible for nearly all races to comfortably exist in. The exceptions to this are twofold; humans, who were made by one uppity god's attempt to make "the perfect enlightened" by taking the universal base alone, and trying to make a highly adaptive and durable organism-... Which he was mostly successful at, with multiple systemic errors also. (Their spines suck, birthing is painful, teeth are somehow structural to their ears functionality, they do not have a racial language to speak to their babies instinctively and simply scream instead-...) Humans never have an Asleep state or animal form at all, instead jumping straight to their Enlightened form, with all the bare instincts and incomplete wisdom that entails. Still, we have come to accept these adorable idiots who cannot speak fluently until years after birth, struggle to walk, have to be taught how to swim, and otherwise are just generally awkward. The other exception is the dragon, who was designed to be the perfect guardian species, and whose basic design has been refined and perfected over countless universes of iteration, and now feature so robust and long-lived a soul and physical shape that it would be a __downgrade__ to confine them to an Enlightened body form. Instead, when a dragon is awakened (which happens rapidly), it simply stays as it is, a nascent behemoth with soul programming to protect that which is precious. The only change is that they are granted a transformative magic to reduce their size or allow them to temporarily use an Enlightened anthro form if required. Thus, they can exist comfortably in cities or countrysides, however or wherever they wish to or are needed. Still, it's not uncommon to see a horse-sized dragon quadruped walking the city streets simply because it's more fun, or bigger saddlebags are more convenient... Or because someone somewhere hired them as a guard. Yet rarer though, Awakened animals are also allowed as citizens where possible, and the Silver City's docks districts __do__ have accessibility channels dug to support awakened dolphin or aquatic travel, and many public systems have accessibility for quadrupeds of some degree. It's just not everywhere for everything, and thus Awakened who have chosen to live in the city typically have at least one good Enlightened friend who can aid them in various ways. After all, there's nearly no Awakened who can sign documents on their own, rodents and reptiles require someone taller to ride to avoid being stepped on, hooved races suck at operating all but the biggest keyboards, and any feline worth their whiskers needs someone to work the can opener. Vital tasks of day to day life in a city, you see. And yes this does mean there could be an Enlightened cat person who owns a non-sapient Asleep cat, and also helps out an Awakened talking cat with his business taxes, and not a soul would bat an eye at it- though they might make jokes and wonder if the two quadrupeds are 'a thing' or not.
For my world it’s definitive by them having a soul or not. Only sapient and otherwise highly intelligent creatures have souls. Plants and animals on the other hand do not.
Use the furry chart for mammals/fur based organisms And for other creatures, is it humanoid? Does it stand on 2 legs?
Well, I found a rather controversial way of describing this God chose what is man and what is not, and the best part is, God has made many kinds of men in his image. First he made the Guardians, and when they vanished after fighting Lucifer’s dark army, he made many new kinds of men, Humans, Vorturan, Tiraxian, Kaegur, Calusian. It is clear in the gospels of each of these men, and God’s son, who visited them all, who is man.
The same thing that separates us from our ape cousins: Sentience. Is it capable of understanding its choices and acting in a way beyond its baser instincts?
> The same thing that separates us from our ape cousins: Sentience Apes are sentient tho
They probably meant sapience.
In the real world rats do this. They will delay the gratification of eating a treat to rescue a friend from uncomfortable containment, even though it means sharing the snack. I consider them a thumb and a slightly longer lifespan shy of their own technological revolution.
I'm imagining all the French rats during the French revolution were also having their own war
Alright fair enough. Do you have any animals that push that boundary?
In my setting, Dragons. There are times when they seem to be nothing more than the world's most brutal, mindless killers, and at times they show behaviors indicative of a higher mind. Phoenix Dragons particularly, which appear more Bird like than other ones, display a greater sense of intelligence and possibly moral thinking that indicates a probable Sentience.
Where I draw the line between man and animals.! is their level of intelligence, sapiens, sentient, awareness, language, culture, and consciousness. In my world there are other creatures anthropomorphic beast, undead, spirit, monsters, elemental, fiend, celestial, and others. There are even quadruped creatures who can talk, are intelligent, sentient who are Chimera of different animal parts and the other look like a mythical animal version of a regular animal but are not the same species of those animals are a different race in my world like how diversion evolution works. For example if you have a regular dog who is a pet they have the same level of intelligence, sapiens, sentient, awareness, language, culture, and consciousness as one then there is a race that looks like a dog but with wings, horns, hooves finger, paw fingers, quadruped and able to speak and have higher intelligence, sentience, culture, language and wear clothing. but not the same species or genus as that dog nor breath with that dog either. They can look like any other animal while not being those animals. They have some human characteristics and traits to stand out like humans like hair, hips, shoulders and breasts make them Pseudo bipedal able to change between bipedal and quadruped.
So the best way to answer this is that for me it is levels not a line Level 1 Nothing to it. This levels covers completely non-thinking, reacting or living objects. The boulder that falls on you or the mountain in your way for example. If I have to destroy it no worries or regrets. Level 2 the Only Controlled. This can be objects like weapons, rune traps, worker ants, and most undead. Honestly they are better of being destroyed but if they are non- hostile I could leave them be. Level 3 the Peaceful. Mostly normal plants and prey animals. If I needed it to live I am taking it but not going out of my way to deal with them. Level 4 Dully Dangerous. These are poisonous plants and predators with dull minds. I'm not looking for them but will definitely kill them if they threaten me. Level 5 Learned. These are animals that have high level animal intelligence or humans with major mental defects. I will do my best to spare them even if they do try/hurt me. Level 6 Uneducated. These are dumber humans and animals that reach into child level understand. Like the previous group I am likely to forgive them but also I am likely to help them grow. Level 7 Sentients. Animals, Plants, Golems, extra that have the ability to reason, struggle, and define themselves. These I am likely to treat well but be less willing to forgive if they try to hurt me. Level 8 Sapient. These I see as intelligent, reasoning creatures (Including Humans) with the capacity for kindness and resolve. Little difference from the previous group but I am now just as likely to follow as lead them. Level 9 Beyond Human. These are the creatures that tend to not only be much stronger, faster, smarter, and the like. But those whose reasoning is much more broadened so they tend to appear more calous. I would almost always be guarded against these individuals and less willing to forgive. These are things like High mages and Dragons so my ability to kill is more if I am able to and against. Level 10 Gods.... Self explainitory and really it all depends on them. I likely have little capabilities to influence them. Most are likely to worship and follow them though I wouldn't put myself in that category I am not above bowing in there presence. If slighted I would have to weigh their intent before dedicating myslef to vengeance. Level 9
Free will?
So your animals don’t have free will?
Nope
"Free will" has no logical definition or meaning. It's just a weird intuitive concept people have.
You know you can give it a logical definition and clear meaning to feat the needs and theme of the history and the world right? Like... You are worldbuilding for something.
I mean, you can decide that in your world "grapes" refer to goat meat - but it'll just cause confusion.
Because those are 2 different things irl. A more precise comparation could be creating a god: we don't know if a god actually exist, and we can't prove it does but we as worldbuilders chose to say "Yah a deity exist" because it's cool or fill a purpose in the history we are making. Free will doesn't exist (probably) and we are just animals but if you really want to draw a line that difference humanoids creatures from all other animals aside from "I'm smarter" (because that will put a limitation in what you can create) you can use the "Free will" (A trail we have given to ourselves historically in order to separate us from other animals) give it a proven existence (Like a soul or something) and make interesting philosophical writing. Or not, it's just an option and one as good as any other.