>>10930452From my PoV that line of thinking doesn't make sense since everything is closely linked to stimuli.
In the end everything has a motivation and that motivation can be boiled down to stimuli. Trying to imagine something free from stimuli is an exercise in futility, as what you'd eventually imagine is a rock. It does nothing, feels nothing, it just exists. The potential of a "rock" doesn't matter, even if it is omnipotent, it has no motivation to do anything, so it does nothing.
As for the differences between humans and other animals, you can simply look at them as a game of probability. Evolution did its thing and the end result was a species that relied on its intelligence and somewhat quick reproduction speed to survive.
You start with instincts. Since physically speaking humans aren't that strong, populations with the ability to make decisions, however small, outside of those instincts start doing better. For example, instead of hitting a boar with your fists you pick up a stick. Eventually that stick gets sharpened.
Instead of a group of people attacking with sticks, you'll eventually end up with a group of people coordinating between them, still with sticks.
Keep repeating this and things keep getting more and more complex. As soon as you get to the point where history becomes a thing, everything starts to snowball since knowledge no longer dissapears after "short" periods of time.
