Seeing into the minds of other humans is impossible, isn't it? It's clear some of us have sufficient difficulty explaining the simplest of our imaginings, and the less communicative are hopelessly unable to bridge even the physical gap that separates each another, sometimes leading to arrest, serious charges and imprisonment – in my defence, your honour, I mistook the silence of the young lady listening to her iPod on the bus seat next to me as a clear invitation to remove all my clothes.
Well, that line may have worked for me time and again, but surely any attempt to understand the mind of another human and, more challenging, a non-human inhabitant of this planet is a fool's errand. How can we possibly know what's going on in the mind of Shep, Flossie, Beauty and Mortimer?
Thankfully, some of us appear to be are ahead of the game. The study of animal behaviour, that which is observable and interpreted in a natural setting, is called Ethology (let's not discuss lab-based behavioural science here at all). Animal A does X, then does Y – behaviours that, if repeated, may suggest a causal link between the two things. When humans observe animal behaviour they must attempt an interpretation based on previously observed and accepted norms. This is because Flossie is not very good at filling in elaborate questionnaires at debriefing sessions – sheep just can't do joined-up writing.
We've actually done this sort of ethological anaylsis for a long time, probably for about the same time we've been around observing animals, and have long-written up our findings for others to admire, such as at Altamira where pictoral forms of totemic animals clearly demonstrated an appreciation of animal spirits. Whilst our ancestors' conclusions may have been sometimes fanciful, we still perform this sort of behavioural analysis on our pets and on humans that are weak in language skills, such as babies, children, lawyers and politicians. This is justified pretty much because biological behavioural analysis is one of our only trusted methods. Whether it is always so accurate is a matter of much debate, results in a great deal of hot air and leads to the inevitable conclusion that the behaviour of the behavioural analysts analysing behavioural analysts analysing behavioural analysis should be analysed.
Quite why we should do all this ethology is fairly obvious – a correct observation and analysis of animal behaviour may by comparison shed light on our own. A great example is in the way animals react to death. Chimpanzees exhibit a peculiar behaviour over the death of one of their troop. That this behaviour constitutes a 'grieving' is a human interpretation that could help explain our behaviour when aunty Mabel keels over at the kitchen sink. Although we must be careful in analysis and in the direct comparison of any animal behaviour with our own, it may be more possible with chimpanzees than any other creatures because they are genetically closer to ourselves: perhaps less profitable conclusions might be drawn from a similar analysis of goldfish.
An ethological interpretation, however, isn't always applicable. We are unique creatures who do fairly bizarre things by animal standards. For example, we have inhabited nearly every ecological zone on the surface of the planet. It would have made more sense to stay on the warm African savannas, but we have sought out more and more divers environments and optimised the resources acquired in each. Humans, therefore, eat arctic seals as well as tropical spiders, and live in vast limestone caves as well as flimsy cardboard slums. In addition, our behaviour has been modified as much as our progress has been successful. We think it is normal rise and shine and shower in boxes, lock up our boxes and travel in boxes to then sit for hours in boxes communicating through boxes with others communicating through boxes, eat from boxes, defecate whilst sitting in little boxes, and finally doze off in our little boxes watching glowing little boxes.
We are also not content to be born, grow, eat, make other humans and then die. Our extraordinary creativity is perhaps our key attribute used in every aspect of our lives, and perhaps not all for the good. We are at the point where we are able to create our image in our own image, hitherto the role of ye gods. We fearlessly advance into this new realm of creativity like wide-eyed children on a magical mystery tour.
Is is possible then for homo 21st-centuriensis to properly understand each other's minds and even those of other creatures? Perhaps it is better to reverse the question. Have other creatures been able to fathom our behaviour? Obviously many of them have, and obviously many have given up in failure. Dogs have concluded that our smiling show of teeth is contrary to the usual threat gesture clearly demonstrated throughout the rest of the animal kingdom. They have also noticed that our good hunting skills are abundantly evident through the daily crunching of cornflakes and toasty bits, which must sound like the cracking of our victim's little bones. Cats, however, are infuriated with our utterly useless hunting skills and feel the need to prove the point by bringing home a headless bird, shrew or bat to show us how it's done – stupid humans!
What would a non-human intelligence from beyond make of our behaviours? Would they conclude that intelligence is clearly observable in our creativity, or shake their tentacles declaring that our minds are as inpenetrable as that of a long-toed sloth? Perhaps they've already done their ethological analysis and decided we just aren't worth the effort.
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