(From some earlier thoughts)
Most of the Nature shows on TV make the mistake — in my humble opinion — of characterizing animal behavior in human terms. We say animals are ‘nervous’ or ‘afraid’; they ‘seek companionship’ or ‘want to be comforted’. We say these things about animal behavior even though we really have little to no idea what is motivating them or what’s going on inside their heads. (especially those CATS, amirite?) Our worldview forces us to translate behaviors into familiar terms.
A long time ago Matthew asked me how a jellyfish could possibly survive if it doesn’t have a brain. But the jellyfish does have a cluster of nerve cells that create phyisical responses to stimuli like light, pressure, heat, salinity, and these are the inputs it needs to survive and thrive in a harsh and unforgiving ocean (there I go giving human traits to an OCEAN for goodness sakes). Because the jellyfish is so different from us, we have an easier time imagining it as a kind of living machine programmed to react to its environment. We would never place human characteristics on it as we would ‘higher’ animals, those seemingly more in line with our own physical makeup.
I guess what I’m wondering is this: What if the problem boils down to one of complexity? What if we are some kind of really advanced jellyfish, with enormous clusters of nerve cells allowing us to respond to the Universe in complex ways? And what if the beings above us on the evolutionary ladder interpret our behavior in their terms?
whoisfenton 