You're better than a well trained dog, Dirk. Every time I post your name, here you come running. Who's dancing for who?
You could've ignored the post. You're good at running from threads.
As you can see, we would appear to have stumbled upon a contradiction. If Dirk comes running at Kitty's beck and call, the latter statement would be untrue, and vice versa.
What separates man from matter? Matter does not think; matter does not fear. Matter will exist in its component atoms regardless of all else.
What separates the animal from matter? The animal is introduced to a divide matter could never conceive of: Life and death. To steer it towards life, the animal has its instincts of survival. Observe that you'll never see an animal acting in such a way as to bring about its demise, or indeed, against its best interests in the pursuit of life. Sheep and lemmings are two obvious exceptions, but they're too stupid to realise what they're doing.
What separates man from animal? Man loses the survival instinct of the animal; he has the unique capacity for suicide. He quite easily (and often) works against his best interests, serving the eventual goal of his destruction. The faculty man gains over the animal to compensate for his lost primeval instincts is that of the mind, of consciousness.
What is the nature of consciousness? We experience it as logic, as reason, as rationality. If we follow this most basic of paths, we survive. To act against rationality is to follow the course of death, no matter in its directness or degree. Our consciousness is our life, is our reason, is reality.
What is the nature of a contradiction, then? A contradiction of any nature is a denial of reality; servitude towards death. When a man denies his reason and throws himself into the irrational abyss, his consciousness is forfeit, and he becomes lower than a beast, for at least a beast has the instinct of survival. Man without mind is a flailing pile of matter, unaware of what it is, where it is going, or from whence it came, and will serve nothing but its own entropy.