What Do Animal Minds Teach Us About Ourselves?
LINKS TO SOURCE MATERIAL
The Lyrebird: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSB71jNq-yQ
Alex The Parrot: https://alexfoundation.org/the-birds/alex/
NIH Animal Emotion: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6041721/
Animal Cognition, Stanford: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cognition-animal/#ProbOtheMind
Theory of Mind in Animals: https://oxsci.org/unlocking-the-secrets-of-animal-minds/
Thai Elephant Orchestra: https://davesoldier.com/thaiorch.html
The Ant Lab: https://www.adrianalansmith.com/
Center for Whale Research: https://www.whaleresearch.com/
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I’m recording this podcast from my studio today, a hot summer August morning in southern California. As if on cue to introduce the topic of today’s episode, a lizard has displayed itself prominently doing some push-ups on the roof of my neighbors home.
Are you like me? Do you also wonder what he’s doing?
He looks like perhaps he is showing off to find a date? Perhaps just like us, he’s lonely and looking for love? I have no data for this, just a feeling. Scientists would slap my wrist, scold me for anthropomorphizing, projecting my humanity onto animals, and maybe so. Perhaps he is simply running on auto-pilot, executing automatic behavior like a computer program, with no higher sense of self awareness or self-reflection? But I don’t really believe that.
Everyone has thought at some point, what goes on in the minds of animals? Do they think? Do they feel? Do they understand each others’ minds? Can never know for sure? Objectively, can we really even know the minds of our fellow human beings? Perhaps these kinds of questions aren’t even the right questions to ask?
What science can help understand is what animals do, how their brains work, how they make decisions, socialize, communicate and how they likely feel and experience their worlds. So how does learning more about the minds of other animals help us to rewire our own, and our own perception of everyday things?
By the end of this episode, you’ll understand how other animals also have many of our abilities and traits, how some animals far surpass our abilities, and the one attribute that actually unites the animal kingdom. You will see how our human perspective on ‘thought’ is just one interpretation, and you may be humbled to learn that animals have superpowers of mind and body that we could only dream of. By peering into the souls of these beautiful creatures, and comparing them with our own, you’ll gain a better understanding of what it actually means to think, communicate, and most importantly, what it means to feel. It turns out that it is not a language, nor how we think, but perhaps emotion, that is the beautiful commonality that binds the animal kingdom together.
My name is Christopher Grant Ward, and this is Rebel Nature. I am an award-winning artist and naturalist obsessed with the ways Nature can rewire our brains and change our perceptions of everyday things. I’m so happy you’re listening.
“In the very earliest of times, when both people and animals lived on earth, a person could become an animal if he or she wanted to and an animal could become a human being. Sometimes they were people and sometimes animals and there was no difference.”
This passage from the author Edward Field is a great place to start. Let’s really ask ourselves, what is it that makes us human? How are animals different, if at all? And, can how understanding the minds of other animals help us understand ourselves better?
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Language. Well let’s start with the most commonly held belief, that we humans possess one beautiful attribute that is privy only to us - our language. It’s been a long held notion that our ability to imagine, speak, hear and process words to create meaning was our unique achievement, and a mark of our superiority and civilization. Well, I’ll say, it’s certainly what we do. Perhaps even more important than speech, language is often seen as the precursor to thought, as humans need some lexicon to imagine concepts like “Choose a different color” To even have this discussion, you and I need a concept of what a color is, the concept of difference, we needed to be able to define these concepts in a way that could be shared agreed upon. For humans this is all done with words.
However, studies of a number of animal species have been proven to vocalize and imitate, to control and create sounds in a variety of modulations. The mockingbird on your roof is a common example in the United States of advanced vocal learning. Even more fascinating, the Australian lyrebird can imitate chainsaws, car alarms and barking dogs, but yet, they struggle with human words.
But, a few animals can successfully imitate human language, dogs, apes, gorillas, elephants and orca whales all have been shown to reproduce audible human words in response to human language. Of course the unmatched human vocalizers are the parrot family, who can consistently build a vocabulary of dozens to hundreds of words and respond consistently.
While memorization and reproduction of accurate sound is admirable, this is far from scientific proof of an animal’s abstract linguistic thought. A bird could easily be trained to create a sound X when sound Y is heard, in exchange for, say, a treat. Using learned sounds to represent abstract thought, in context, to communicate, was long thought to only be something us humans did.
However, Alex changed all of that in the . Alex wasn’t a person, but an African Grey Parrot who lived from 1976 to 2007. Capable of a wide range of linguistic vocalizations, Alex was considered the smartest bird ever documented. He could communicate not only sounds, but understand abstract concepts and respond appropriately.
Alex could be asked a question such as “what difference” between a red and green block, to which he’d answer “color”. He could describe a key as a key no matter what its size or color, and could determine how one key was different from others keys. When asked “What color” he’d tell you if a key was red or blue, or “What matter” and tell you if an key was made of wood, fabric, rock and so on. He could tell you the number of blue wooden balls on a tray of many shapes, materials and colors. He could tell you four balls were on a plate and that four notes were played on a piano. He understood what “four” was abstracted from the object. In fact, Alex could identify 50 different objects and recognize quantities up to six; that he could distinguish seven colors and five shapes, and understand the concepts of "bigger", "smaller", "same", and "different". Before he died of heart failure in 2007, he was learning "over" and "under" as well as pronouns, “I want to go back” vs. “You don’t know”.
Most notably, Alex is also the first non-human ever to be recorded as asking his own questions. Once he looked in a mirror, and confirmed he knew he was looking at himself. He then proceed to ask, “what color”? He wanted to know what color he was. He was taught the word “gray” and he remembered his own color for his entire life. Not even great apes who learn sign language have ever asked a novel question.
Alex passed increasingly difficult tests that measure object permanence, the ability to understand that a hidden or unseen object or person still exists. This requires symbolic understanding and reasoning, such as pretend play, memory development, and language development. In fact, Alex showed surprise and anger when confronted with a nonexistent object or one different from what he had been led to believe was hidden during the tests.
And to me, this was the most special thing about Alex, that he was able to understand and express human concepts separate from really understanding our language. A limited grammar and vocabulary still revealed his knowledge of abstract concepts. Like anyone who has ever tried to use a foreign language, you flex the limited knowledge you have, knowing others also hold in their minds and understand similar concepts — the quantity of things, the value of items, the location of museums, when, where, how, concepts which can be abstracted from the objects). Regardless of a limited language, Alex was aware of the essence of things, the context of communication, and of what was in his mind, in also, in others’ minds … showing that conceptual thought need not be limited to language.
Alex’s amazing achievements have begun to measure an animal’s ability to communicate as we do. But to me that;s not really even a fair test. If the brains of most animals are considerably different, why wouldn;t their communication be as well? Take cetaceans, the family of aquatic mammals comprising whales, dolphins, and porpoises, they use one of the most complex forms of vocal communication presently known in the animal kingdom. Orca calls in the wild carry different dialects among, various pods or groups of whales which cannot be understood by members outside their circle. Orca sounds are very dense and rich, they vary in intensity, volume and tone, as well what could only be described as emotional content.
The problem here with language, is that the same science that scolded me for anthropomorphizing a lizard’s push ups must also be scolded for its human definition of language.
Carl Sagan once famously observed “It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned up to 50 words of English, no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.”
Intelligence. And not just language. Orcas also bring up to another attribute where humans have long believed they are superior: intelligence. For decades, the evaluation of intelligence was the comparison of another animal’s cognitive ability in relation to our own, such as multiple-choice questions, puzzles, or tasks. But more and more these days, scientists believe intelligence ought to be evaluated “species-specific”: the abilities that make it possible for a species to dominate their own environment.
So, in the case of orcas or whales, a marine environment requires a much different brain. While we can’t comprehend it fully, we know that orcas perceive the world in a way that we can only imagine.
Their highly developed paralimbic system and amygdala allows for incredible spatial memory and navigation, emotional learning and long-term memories. They are by far the most acoustically attuned animal on the planet, with the second largest brain after the sperm whale. To us, it would likely seem as if they possess a sixth sense to use sound to sense their surroundings underwater for navigation and for foraging. They also create a wide variety of clicks, whistles, and pulsed calls to communicate.
Dolphins and orcas can “see with sound” through visually opaque barriers and identify objects on the other side. It is also theorized that orcas and perhaps dolphins can send sonic ‘pictures’ to one another… Think of it, if we could simply send rich complete images of information that would convey concepts, ideas and other abstract thoughts. Words would become primitive and meaningless.
If Orcas’ brains are structurally and fundamentally different, then the criteria for intelligence will almost certainly be different than theirs, too.
It is not hard to imagine that orcas see us as somewhat curious, yet obtuse and limited, as far as the estimates of intelligence which they value most. In comparison to them, we are literally quite deaf and dumb with our primitive words and hearing. It is also just as likely that humans are defined by our obsessing with intelligence, and perhaps other brilliant species simply have no opinion on the matter.
Tools. Ok, aso if animals acquire different intelligences in different environments, and the skills required for linguistic communication and abstract thinking are also present in many animals, then what do humans believe may set us apart from the rest of animal kingdom? What about tools? Our ability to use and create tools seems to be one of the hallmarks of the onset of human civilization: think the stone age, the bronze age, and so on. We know that many animals including elephants, fish, reptiles, beavers, birds octopuses and a variety of insects use objects in a tool like manner to solve problems. However, it was believed that only humans and other primates were really the only ones shown to be able to create new tools in new situations in response to novel problems. Over 30 species of primates create tools to hunt, process food, forage, collect water.
So, we took toolmaking and manufacturing as one of our unique abilities, that is until we studied crows. In particular, New Caledonian crows, who not only use, but create new tools. As we learn more about these birds, we’ve come to learn their incredible abilities to trim, finely rip, bend, and flex natural materials into specific tools that have been designed to solve incredibly complex and specific problems, problems they have never encountered before. They employ a manufacturing process that creates tools in steps, showing a strong awareness of the proper sequence of things.
The New Caledonian crow can also spontaneously make new tools from materials it does not encounter in the wild, such as wire and plastic. As well, it can use mirrors to see information out of its direct line of sight, then orient and use that information to solve problems. For example, an hidden stick that could be grabbed easily once an angled mirror is used to see behind another object. And, crows also are one of the only animals besides humans to use meta-tools. In one study food was placed in a box out of the crows' reach. The crows were given a stick too short to reach the food. However, this short stick could be used to retrieve a longer stick from another box, which could then be used to retrieve the food. This complex behavior involved the crow realizing that a tool could be used on non-food objects, and suppressing the urge to go directly for the food. It was solved by six of seven birds on the first attempt.
What’s most fascinating is that crows pass down these skills, and in particular the tool designs and methods of manufacturing them to younger generations, and the tools used in one isolated group will be different than another, based on the food they are foraging, the culture and the mindset of the group. This particular fact reminded me a lot of the comparison of chopsticks vs. forks in western and Asian cuisine. Because, as we know, not only are tools and tool use part of our advancement, they are part of our culture.
Culture. Ok so, what about culture? Human cultural systems are certainly unique, yet we certainly know alot about the complex social systems of animal culture, actually far too much to put into this episode. Eventually this in and of itself will be its own episode, but for now, but here’s some of the most fascinating highlights about animal culture.
Names. We know definitively that parrots give their children names. And dolphins adopt their own names, unique whistles that are a variant of their mother's signature whistle. Both species carry these names throughout their lives, to remember each other as individuals and call out to them specifically. Think about how important this is to the fabric of culture, to create social bonds, build your reputation, to find mates and build friendships. Names are a fundamental aspect of building society, and are only important to a species interested in building a cultural, social system like we have.
Laughing and comedy.
And the social similarities with humans continue. It’s also the little things. Octopuses, apes, rats, dogs, parrots and dolphins all tend to form a sense of humor. Magic tricks and illusions cause what can only be interpreted as joyful reactions. They tease one another, tickle one another and find enjoyment in the social interaction of physical roughhousing. Studies show this type of play to be critical to the development of social cognition and social awareness. In fact, studies show that females are much more likely to be attracted to males with more social play experience, as they are more likely to have more friends, be held in higher standing and thus, better chances of survival. Popularity, it seems, is also not only human. Our desire to be well-liked, well-known and accepted as part of the group stems from a fundamental evolutionary purpose.
Art and Design.
Speaking of skill sets, what about art and design? Certainly humans are the pioneers of aesthetic creation. Well, like all art, this is perhaps a subjective opinion. Elephants, gorillas, donkeys, and even a pig named Pigcasso create abstract paintings. Birds show rhythm and dance. Elephants have shown remarkable musicianship, the ability to distinguish 12 tones on the musical scale and remember simple melodies, even when played on different instruments at various pitches and meters. Don’t believe me, check out the Thai Elephant Orchestra, six to fourteen Thai elephants who play heavy-duty musical instruments.
Meanwhile, in Austrailia, just to attract its mate, the Bowerbird spends hours arranging a mosaic collection of hundreds of shells, leaves, flowers, feathers, stones, berries, and even discarded plastic items, coins, nails, rifle shells, or pieces of glass in an elegant display. Several studies show that the colors used match the preferences of female they are trying to attract and each bowerbird will create with its own flair and interpretation. Bowerbirds use complex depth of field to create optical illusions, arranging objects in the bower's court area from smallest to largest, creating a forced perspective which holds the attention of the female for longer. Males with objects arranged in a way that have a strong optical illusion are likely to have higher mating success. This complex mating behavior suggests bowerbirds are among the most behaviorally complex birds.
And fascinatingly, in almost the exact same way as the bowerbird, the white-spotted pufferfish is known for a unique courtship display which involves creating large, geometric patterns in the sand of the sea floor. Males must maintain their circles in order to attract a mate. Using its belly, the fish begins with a simple circle shape in the sand using its belly, then a unique array of valleys and peaks by waving its fins while swimming The center is formed by in to out movements. Once complete, it is maintained over time. Females consider the size and number of peaks/valleys, size of circle, sand composition and color. This is believed to be the most geometrically ordered structure created by any fish.
Typically it is physical attributes that win out in sexual selection, but bowerbirds and pufferfish, oh and also humans, are some of the only species we know of, where an individual’s creative ability and work plays a role in sexual attraction, selection. In these species creative ability indeed acts as a powerful mechanism to shape the evolution of a species.
Teaching. Besides artists and hunters, we also know that teachers may very well be the only other non-human profession in our animal kingdom. While most animals learn skills from watching their elders, there are a few animals who actively teach others. For science, teaching is quite specifically defined: the teacher modifies their behavior around the pupil, with no benefit to the teacher, and then, the pupil’s skills are improved as a result. Astonishingly, as specific as this is, rock ants pass this test. They show one another the way to a new food source— slowing down at their own peril to let the newbie keep up and note helpful landmarks. Pied babblers in southern Africa school their young to associate a “purr call” with getting food. Fairy wrens teach a “password” to their chicks before they even hatch, which they’ll later use to call for food. Meerkats put themselves in danger to show their young how to handle dangerous scorpions, one of their main sources of prey. And sperm whales are taught their dialect directly from whales in their social unit.
Self-Identity. Humans appear to have a great deal in common with other animals, at least it is easy to see strong reflections of our humanity in other species. Our language, conceptual thought, intelligence, cretaing tools, solving problems, having names, comedy, laughter, art, even teaching, seems we are not alone in any of these departments, and in many we are well matched.
But, perhaps more fundamental to our humanity is our awareness of self, our consciousness. Are other animals even aware of what they are doing? One prevailing sentiment is that human beings are unlike animals not because of a different set of skills, but because they alone hold a subjective sense of the world, an awareness of self, an ego, a sense of inner belief vs. outer reality. How could we evaluate this in other animals?
One basic way to evaluate this would be self-recognition using what is called the mirror test. An animal is sedated, and harmlessly marked in a location they cannot see without looking in a mirror. If the animal spontaneously directs grooming behavior towards the mark, that is taken as an indication that they are aware of their body as their own, who they are and what they look like. Chimpanzees, elephants, bonobos, orangutans, gorillas, bottlenose dolphins, killer whales, magpies, corvids and pigeons can all easily pass the mirror test. However, this is a visually dominant test. Other tests using a “sniff test” have shown dogs also have a sense of self-recognition and that fish very well have this sense as well.
Emotions.
I think perhaps finally, this is coming to the place that matters most to me. If other animals are observed to do what we do and make what we make, even to a degree or difference in kind, and sometimes in better ways than we can ever imagine, if they also form social bonds, and play, and create art, if they name each other and spend time to teach each other, and if they are also self aware of their existence in the world, then if we do all the similar things, then for me the most important takeaway is, perhaps we all feel similar things.
I am going to skip ahead past the naysayers, and say that most researchers studying animal emotions are of the opinion that humans cannot be the only ones that experience emotions. And, that it is unlikely that the more complex emotions such as love and grief evolved only in humans but are not manifest in other animals. It is far less likely that only humans feel emotions, and more likely that we feel some emotions other animals do not, other animals feel emotions we do not, and we have many emotions in common.
In the mammal’s brain, the insula plays diverse functions linked to emotions that includes compassion, empathy, perception, motor control, self-awareness, and interpersonal experience. Orcas and dolphins with some of the most highly developed insulas, have deeply complex emotions, and show powerful empathy for each other and for humans.
And we can observe this quite plainly. Dolphins act in ways that can only be explained as bored, anxious, stubborn, frustrated, or angry. And it’s not just our friends in the ocean.
Anyone with a pet knows each soul has its own preferences, opinions and beige flags. It is very difficult to deny categorically that no other animals enjoy themselves, that wolves are not happy when reuniting, their tails wagging loosely to and fro and individuals whining and jumping about. Elephants hold family reunions in a greeting celebration, flapping their ears and spinning about and emitting a vocalization known as a “greeting rumble.” Likewise, animals must be feeling grief to remove themselves from their social group upon the death of a friend, sulk, stop eating, and die. What other reason than mourning does an orca pushing her dead calf around for weeks?
This is sentience: the ability to feel a range of emotions and feelings, such as pleasure, joy, and fear. And pain. While scientists have known definitively that all animals respond to pain stimuli, this was often discounted as an autonomic survival response, but wasn’t internalized, realized, remembered, endured. Yet, recent studies show definitively that not just primates — but also orcas, whales, fish, birds, reptiles, and cephalopods feel pain subjectively, let’s say emotionally, just as we do. So thus, they suffer just as we do. The implications here open up serious questions to our treatment of other animals, and thus, perhaps why it is so hard for humans to accept self-awareness in other animals. Factory farming, fisheries, and other industrialized processes certainly cause an impact on animals, an impact would surely be considered chronic suffering if it was endured by humans.
The more we learn about the minds of animals, the harder it is to justify the practices we use that cause them to suffer. It is also harder to neglect that animals can and want to feel positive emotions and states too. They, like us, want to feel good. They want to do things they enjoy; they want to exert control over their own lives, have choices, play, feel satiated and comfortable, solve problems, get excited, and seek the comfort of companions.
These things matter to animals, and they matter to us. Our understanding of animal sentience still varies depending on the species, as some groups of animals, such as mammals, have received far more attention than others. But here the question then becomes, how much like us do animals have to be before we pay attention?
Conclusion
So what does it actually mean to be human, if everything that we value about being human, we find reflected, expressed or often, improved upon, by the millions of other animals around us on this planet?
Perhaps it is not about the comparison at all, bouit being special, but perhaps it is about what connects us all, and finding humility in the shadows of our beautiful relatives. For me, Rebel Nature is about harmony, letting go of the modern world and finding a common denominator with the natural world, outside of language, thought, logic or intelligence. Outside of a human’s understanding of the world.
Today, I’m seeing that common denominator is emotion. And as humans, emotion is one place that our words fail us. I can tell you I’m sad, but isn’t it my face that really shows you. I can describe Yosemite Valley in language, but I can't communicate the feeling of being there, no matter how hard I try. We see words as an advantage, but perhaps language hinders as well as helps. We can learn from other animals who live directly in the emotional world.
Art is our best expression of emotion. Emotions transcend words, intelligence, logic and cognitive ability. The most beautiful moments in our lives are when we share how we feel, not what we think. And as we’ve learned, all animals share emotion. So, perhaps it is in our best interest to feel more, and think less. Listen more and speak less. To have empathy for one another and for the other animals which live and die by our ability to tap into our emotions and live in harmony with the world. I see today that it is emotion which truly makes humans into animals, and animals human, and the one thread that can connect us to the back to the source of Nature, that we struggle to find in our everyday lives.
As far as I am concerned, we all have animal minds. We can easily find mirrors to our own physiology and psychological makeup in many animals, and not only mammals. We can certainly follow an evolutionary journey across the entire animal kingdom to its present state. While other animals’ minds may be different in some degree, or shape, they are likely of the same ilk and come from the same origin. As such, what exists in one mind, may very well exist in some way in every other, in some fashion.
But saying this is scientific can of worms, pun intended. To claim that an animal acts “as if” they are considering their options, or “as if” they are happy or sad, is insufficient evidence. The argument goes, that we can never know for sure what is in the minds of animals, we can’t observe it, it isn’t science. This is often referred to as the “private mind problem”.
Yet where does that leave the entire study of human psychology, epistemology, or philosophy, which requires knowing the human mind. In these instances, scientists cannot proceed with their work unless they presume the existence of human minds. In this episode, I’m saying, the same should go for other species. Skepticism about the existence of other minds will always remain a possibility in the human as well as the non-human case.
