What is it to be human?

@fmf said
But "unique" isn't the only word I used to explain myself. I used it in some sentences in conjunction with other words. Why are you talking about "dogs"?

Because nothing you have said beyond the part you cannot answer is meaningful to human life alone. All other life is unique, nothing special about that its all like that common among every lifeform there is. If you removed the word human from your text no one would know what you were talking about, could have been kittens.

@kellyjay said
What sets us apart from all other life?

Our capacity for projecting ourselves in abstract ways and affecting people and also our capacity to be affected and influenced and shaped by the abstractions projected by other people;

our ability to remember, learn and adapt to these interactions [i.e. our personal narrative that each of us, individually and exclusively, has access to;

and our ability to form a moral compass based on all this in order to govern our interactions with others.

This stuff is what sets us apart from all other life.

@kellyjay said
Because nothing you have said beyond the part you cannot answer is meaningful to human life alone.

I disagree. The things I have mentioned are fundamental to human life and are meaningful to - or create meaning for - every human being.

@kellyjay said
I find limitless personal moral compasses one of the most dangerous things ever said about human life, and that isn't a "could be" statement!

"Limitless" in what way?

Moral compasses are the product of our hard wiring in tandem with our experiences.

@kellyjay said
What sets us apart from all other life?
The one thing I thought you said that did, you cannot talk to.
If all you got is we are different and all other life is too, is that worth saying?

If there is a creator being then we presumably have in common with all life forms that we were created by it/him. I don't have any problem seeing what sets us apart from all other life; if you do have a problem with that, I am not sure what I can say to you.

@kellyjay said
I think we are all unique, but so is every other lifeform, dogs are unique from one another.

I will post my stab at an answer to question again here:

I think our humanity ~ whether we be theists or atheists ~ draws on the fact we are evidently endowed with a capacity for projecting ourselves in abstract ways and also we are affected and influenced and shaped by the abstract projections of other people.

Added to this, we clearly have individual spirits ~ perhaps the same thing that most religionists refer to as a "soul" although they see it differently from a non-believer and non-superstitious person like me ~ which comprise personality, uniqueness, relationships, and other abstract aspects all bound together in the singular personal narrative that each of us accumulates as we live our lives.

Therefore, I see our humanity – and perhaps even the ‘purpose’ of being humans, at least for me – as being about loving and being loved and learning and helping others to learn about our species and our world in the time we have before we die and cease to exist. That’s our common humanity, I’d say.

If you think all that could just as well be about dogs as it could be about humans, then I am truly stumped.