Saturday, September 23, 2017

"Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?"

-by franz de waal
2016
I'll get my one critique out of the way first...because it arrives even before you reach out your thumb to lift back the book's cover. I so, so wish this wonderful author would stop referring to other animals as "animals", because that reinforces every antiquated, arrogant, avaricious notion of insufferable humyn exceptionalism. Let's please start calling other animals just that - "other animals".
At the same time, i suspect i know why he doesn't, and i almost support that likely reason. It's hard to imagine that he hasn't considered this linguistic nuance himself, but probably refrains because it would make him appear more of an extremist than he is. It might be a confrontational and intractable challenge toward the mass of humynity which still clings to the notion that humyn consciousness is somehow, some way, absolutely unique in Earth history. Even if debunking that claim is the sole point of a book you've just written, even if you have careful, conservative evidence to make your case (which de waal does), you're almost certainly never going to convince someone they're wrong by first announcing "YOU'RE WRONG". So franz brings the argument to people on their own terms, continuing to refer to "animals" as though that's not us...and then, once people are calmed by his restraint, they'll read the book, and if they're open-minded, they'll probably end up spreading his message more forcefully than he does himself.
So you might call this author a clever franz! (to get that joke, read the book)
Speaking of which...
Brilliant! Brilliant and measured and beautifully-written...de waal expands his previous focus (the lifetime he has spent studying apes) to include the entire animal kingdom, collecting all the evidence available to substantiate the notion that the difference between our brains and those of other animals is one of degree, not kind...
...and the difference is actually even less impressive than that, as we're starting to discover ways in which other animals can outthink us. Chimps, for example, seem to have better instantaneous memory. He goes over all the old chestnuts which have fallen...other animals do indeed use tools, have culture, an artistic aesthetic, long-term memory, self-awareness, perhaps even death-awareness...and the newer chestnuts, those last-grasp straws to which exceptionalists cling with death-like, bony fingers, are also falling. Other animals (dolphins and some birds) have natural language - they call each other by name. Chimps have local dialects. And the perhaps final chestnut, so new that it not's old enough to yet be a chestnut, the notion of future (even distant future) self-projection, is falling too. Nor is it just the apes and dolphins who are turning out to be mental marvels. Elephants, whales, monkeys, birds, octopuses, even amphibians...and even some insects have been proven to possess individual facial recognition, one of the benchmarks of "high" intelligence. We're discovering that "intelligence" is all over the place, and on multiple levels - not just in unexpected ways, but in unpredictable and uneven degrees for very similar species. Evolution gives each creature exactly the smarts it needs, no more or less...and we'll probably keep on discovering no end of creatures who are simultaneously smarter and dumber than we. We're also learning that many of the intelligence tests we've applied to other animals have been ill-conceived, reflecting only biased, "humyn" ways of thinking.
A delightful, crucial book in the quest for knowledge (and self-knowledge).

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