Knowledge Tree
humans
Also known as: Humeans
Facts (55)
Sources
Evolutionary psychology - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org 12 facts
claimAnimals ranging from fiddler crabs to humans utilize eyesight for collision avoidance, which suggests that vision is primarily for directing action rather than providing knowledge.
claimSome insect species possess societies with distinct ranks for individuals despite having smaller connectomes than humans.
claimIn many animal species, males can solve spatial problems faster and more accurately than females due to the effects of male hormones during development, and this may also be true of humans.
claimHumans find it easier to make diagnoses or predictions using frequency data than when the same information is presented as probabilities or percentages, potentially because ancient human groups resided in small tribes where frequency data was more prevalent.
claimIn mammals, including humans, females make a larger parental investment than males due to gestation, childbirth, and lactation.
claimRichard Dawkins suggested that humans evolved consciousness in order to make themselves the subjects of thought.
claimEvolutionary psychologists argue that they possess knowledge about the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation (EEA), specifically that the ancestors of present-day humans were hunter-gatherers who generally lived in small tribes.
claimAncestors of present-day humans faced major survival problems including food selection and acquisition, territory selection and physical shelter, and avoiding predators and other environmental threats.
claimHumans possess a unique allele of the FOXP2 gene that appears to have first arisen between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago and is now nearly universal in humans.
claimPresent-day humans are more likely to solve a logic problem that involves detecting cheating than the same problem presented in purely abstract terms, reflecting the social nature of human ancestors.
claimPresent-day humans may be cognitively predisposed to misperceive patterns in random sequences because their ancestors did not encounter truly random events and lived under simpler life conditions.
claimHumans share at least five basic emotions: fear, sadness, happiness, anger, and disgust.
Psychedelics, Sociality, and Human Evolution frontiersin.org 10 facts
claimSelection for tolerance in humans was likely modulated by increased brain 5-HT (serotonin) levels, according to Hare (2017) and Raghanti et al. (2018).
claimHumans are considered 'generalist specialists' because they occupy and utilize a diversity of environments while also specializing in adaptations to specific environmental extremes, as noted by Roberts and Stewart (2018).
claimThe human striatum exhibits a unique neurochemical profile involving high dopamine levels, which is consistent with the distinctive ultrasociality of humans, according to Raghanti et al. (2018).
claimThe 'cognitive niche' concept implies that humans succeed in adapting to a wider range of environments than other animals primarily through thinking, as noted by Boyd et al. (2011).
perspectiveDrug instrumentalization theory proposes that non-addictive drug use in humans and many animal species is a purposeful adaptive process where psychoactive substances are consumed to improve the performance of goal-directed behaviors, according to Müller and Schumann (2011) and Müller (2020).
claimThe cognitive niche is defined as a social and cultural niche where humans adapt through skills, values, ideas, and social interactions acquired from others in culturally scaffolded environments.
claimVollenweider et al. (1999) found that psilocybin increases striatal dopamine concentrations in humans, which is a mechanism partly underlying euphoria and depersonalization phenomena.
claimThe cognitive niche theory posits that the ecological success of humans is primarily due to their ability to learn from others, which allows for the accumulation of information, technologies, and complex social arrangements across generations.
claimIn humans, rituals serve social, psychological, and instrumental functions, including signaling commitment to others, binding group members together, and reducing individual and collective anxiety, as stated by Boyer and Liénard (2020), Legare and Nielsen (2020), and Nielsen et al. (2020).
claimHumans expanded across the globe and successfully adapted to a diverse range of habitats using adaptations for richly cooperative social lives, as noted by Sterelny (2014) and Antón et al. (2014).
Dualism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Winter 2016 Edition) plato.stanford.edu Aug 19, 2003 4 facts
claimFor Humeans, the challenge of explaining the unity of the immaterial mind involves explaining the relationship between the different elements in the bundle that binds them into one thing.
claimRichard Swinburne theorized that humans exist intermittently while remaining the same entity.
claimRené Descartes held the view that humans are conscious even when they do not appear to be.
claimThe theory that humans consist of a series of substances that change at any break in consciousness supports a constructivist account of identity and aligns with the bundle theory of the self.
Conflicting States of Consciousness: Exploring Psilocin and Sleep psychedelicreview.com May 25, 2022 3 facts
claimMice cycle through distinct stages of wakefulness, non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, similar to humans.
claimDay-time administration of psychedelics in humans delays the time to the first REM sleep period.
claimThe study on psilocin's effects on sleep in mice is limited by a small sample size of only eight mice, and it is unknown if similar outcomes would occur in humans.
AI Sessions #9: The Case Against AI Consciousness (with Anil Seth) conspicuouscognition.com Feb 17, 2026 3 facts
perspectiveAnil Seth argues that AI language models represent a historical anomaly where fluent language is not a reliable signal of consciousness because these systems lack the shared evolutionary history, biological substrate, and underlying mechanisms of humans.
claimAnil Seth observes that AI systems have long been better than humans at many specific tasks, though these capabilities have historically been very narrow.
perspectiveAnil Seth posits that language models are exploring a different region in the space of possible minds compared to humans, meaning they may soon outperform humans in many tasks while remaining fundamentally different.
To Follow the Real Early Human Diet, Eat Everything scientificamerican.com Jun 25, 2024 3 facts
claimHumans lack the long, sharp canine teeth required for stabbing and tearing prey, as well as the sharp-edged carnassial teeth required for shearing flesh.
claimHumans can survive on animal tissue because cutting and cooking meat make it easier to consume.
claimFossil, archaeological, and ethnographic evidence indicates that there is no single diet prescribed by nature for humans, as ancestral diets varied significantly over time and space due to seasonal changes, climate shifts, and the expansion of populations into new ecosystems.
Unknown source 2 facts
Medicinal plants: bioactive compounds, biological activities ... frontiersin.org 2 facts
claimCandida albicans is the sixth most prevalent pathogen in the bloodstream for both acute and chronic yeast infections in humans and is a recognized source of nosocomial infections, particularly in immunocompromised individuals.
claimTreating fungal infections is difficult because of the physiological cellular similarities between fungi and humans, which limits the availability of effective therapies compared to those for bacterial disorders.
Critique of Panpsychism: Philosophical Coherence and Scientific ... thequran.love May 7, 2025 2 facts
perspectiveGalen Strawson contends that humans lack sufficient knowledge of what matter is intrinsically, apart from its extrinsic behavior.
claimBiologist Jerry Coyne argues that panpsychism fails to explain how the rudimentary consciousness of electrons, atoms, and molecules combines to create the sophisticated consciousness found in humans, noting that panpsychist philosophers lack a solution for this.
The Western Diet–Microbiome-Host Interaction and Its Role ... - MDPI mdpi.com 1 fact
claimA Western diet can lead to increased levels of endotoxin-producing bacteria in the intestinal tracts of both humans and mice, which results in metabolic endotoxemia.
Panpsychism - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy plato.stanford.edu Jul 18, 2017 1 fact
claimNon-constitutive panpsychism typically takes the form of emergentism, where the conscious minds of humans and animals arise as a causal product of interactions between micro-level conscious subjects.
Un/Making Pollination – Feminist Methods for Creating Ecosocial ... tandfonline.com 1 fact
claimThe article "Un/Making Pollination – Feminist Methods for Creating Ecosocial Futures" focuses on the interactions and relationships between plants, pollinators, and humans.
Hard problem of consciousness - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org 1 fact
claimPhilosophical zombies are hypothetical beings that are physically identical to humans but lack conscious experience, serving as a thought experiment in discussions of the hard problem of consciousness.
The cross-cultural study of mind and behaviour: a word of caution link.springer.com Apr 8, 2022 1 fact
perspectiveA trend in contemporary anthropological theorizing, as noted by Holbraad and Pedersen (2017), posits that there is no 'real' world existing independently of people's worldviews or cultural formations, suggesting that entities like bodies, minds, spirits, gods, animals, humans, and landscapes are defined entirely by how particular peoples determine their existence.
The Mechanisms of Psychedelic Visionary Experiences - Frontiers frontiersin.org Sep 27, 2017 1 fact
referencePregenzer, Alberts, and Bock (1997) characterized the ligand binding properties of 5-HT1D receptors cloned from chimpanzees, gorillas, and rhesus monkeys, comparing them to human and guinea pig receptors.
Ecology: Nature's Interactions and Ecosystem Dynamics scholarsresearchlibrary.com 1 fact
claimEcology is defined as the branch of biology that studies the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment.
Self-Consciousness - Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science oecs.mit.edu Jul 24, 2024 1 fact
claimChimpanzees demonstrate self-recognition by touching and rubbing a red mark placed on their face only when they are in front of a mirror, suggesting they share with humans the capacity for self-recognition.
A harder problem of consciousness: reflections on a 50-year quest ... frontiersin.org 1 fact
claimNeurons in the hippocampal-entorhinal system create a dynamic, topological representation of space that is independent of direct sensory input in both rodents and humans.
Schwitzgebel October 8, 2025 AI & Consciousness, p. 1 ... faculty.ucr.edu 1 fact
claimEric Schwitzgebel posits that the most advanced artificial intelligence systems might become as richly and meaningfully conscious as ordinary humans within the next five to thirty years.
Enterprise AI Requires the Fusion of LLM and Knowledge Graph linkedin.com Jan 2, 2025 1 fact
claimEffective technology should enable capabilities that were previously impossible or perform tasks faster, better, or cheaper than humans.
Panpsychism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Fall 2015 Edition) plato.stanford.edu May 23, 2001 1 fact
perspectiveJosiah Royce believed that conscious beings include humans, planets, stars, galaxies, and species.
[PDF] FACING UP TO THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS* David J ... personal.lse.ac.uk 1 fact
claimConscious experience is the thing that humans know most intimately.
Effects of psychedelics on neurogenesis and broader neuroplasticity link.springer.com Dec 19, 2024 1 fact
measurementOf the 68 experimental articles in the final sample, 6 were conducted in humans, 44 in vivo, 11 in vitro, and 7 used both in vivo and in vitro approaches.