This does not include the cool demeanor, for that is a learned behaviour, and part of the life experience that forms a personality. Human individuality has its greatest impact when manifested as innovation. The invention of the steam engine by Denis Papin ultimately led to the industrialization of the world, which has forced many life-forms to adapt to the changes this has made to the Earth s ecosystem. Subsequent inventions by others resulted in our modern mechanized world, with an atmosphere, water quality, and distribution of flora and fauna that would never have occurred otherwise. Life has adapted to living in this environment, ourselves included.
All life learns on some level, either genetically or empirically.
Simple organisms have been shown to possess the ability to learn from experience. For example, flashing a bright light prior to introducing an electrical current to water containing mindless creatures, eventually causes them to respond to the light, in anticipation of the pain. We perceive the capacity to learn as being related to the complexity of the brain, yet we judge this using human values. Volume of knowledge, and amount of reasoning ability, is relative to the needs of the species. Whereas our mental acuity offsets our physical shortcomings, other creatures are physiologically better suited to survival, and have no need for our level of cerebral activity.