The Human Animal
Anthropologists, philosophers, and neuroscientists have spent years attempting to discover what differentiates our species from all other forms of life. Growing up I remember hearing we were the only animal that can blush, stemming, I assume, from a unique brand of self-consciousness. At times I have read about our supposed singular ability to laugh or understand complex languages. Other research suggest that our ability to conceptualize abstract ideas is what sets us apart.
As study in this area expands, bit by bit each of these characteristics is showing up in other creatures, although not to the degree found in humans. Gorillas and dogs have shown a capacity for extraordinary understanding of language while chimpanzees express jealousy, aggression and humility. Crows have demonstrated the ability to extrapolate solutions to complex problems through abstract thought and tool use and many mammals show a range of emotions from compassion to hatred to love. All of these are found in each of us as well since, of course, we are all animals.
I have always wondered why we need to see ourselves as unique within the animal kingdom, although this desire to be special seems universal in nature. A part of this surely has to do with our inherent narcissism, a subject incorporated into a vast amount of modern literature and art. Perhaps if we truly understood that Homo sapiens are just a small part of the greater biosphere and to some degree just a walk-on player that has an extremely brief but critical role in the comic tragedy of life’s time on earth, we wouldn’t be so intent on dominating our environment or being known as the “chosen” ones.
So with all of that said, in our attempt to discover our distinction from our animal brethren, we may indeed be different. I would rather we were not, so I’m hoping some reader might shed light on how the following is not unique to our species, but I believe we are the only creature that simultaneously lives in the past, present*, and future.
[* The “present” technically does not exist since we cannot live in the moment. Everything we do, feel, think and perceive is based on experience in both the near and far past, collated, filtered, and processed in our minds after the fact and translated into a sense of the immediate. It’s really a mind trick we play unconsciously to keep ourselves engaged and sane. The need to believe in the existence of the present will be a subject for another essay.]
Unlike our recent ancestors (500 years ago and more), the current iteration of humanity surrounds itself with the past; knickknacks, photographs, souvenirs, inherited items, mementos, cultural artifacts, important (at least to us) works of art and on and on. We listen to songs recorded fifty years ago, we watch old movies where all of the actors are now deceased, we go to museums to see icons of historical significance, we base our laws on archaic mandates. In Susan Sontag’s prescient critique titled On Photography, she muses about the unintended impact of capturing all of our memories, all of our relatives, our friends and ourselves on film and then visiting them over and over, becoming obsessed with who we were and where we’ve been.
An interesting but convoluted 1991 film by Wim Wender titled, Until the End of the World, has a sequence where people find they can record their own dreams. One aspect of the film is that once dreams are recorded, the dreamers become obsessed with watching them over and over until that’s all they do. This is not far from our fixation many people have with their phones and social media.
This relatively recent phenomenon is really only viable in more financially robust civilizations because we have the means and free time to indulge ourselves, so the majority of characteristics mentioned are not systemic, although with the wide dissemination of cell phone and photo technology, the ability to capture an image at any time or in any place has become global.
At the same time, we seem to be obsessed with looking into our own versions of a crystal ball to predict everything. We don’t want surprises, or at least not nasty ones. We check the weather forecast, stock market predictions, the future availability of just about anything and then make the necessary adjustments based on some sort of prescient notion. We want to know what’s coming down the road, as long as it isn’t a sign of our own mortality. We search for cause and effect! If we do “this” it will result in “that”, leading to an incongruous and usually ineffective attempt to manipulate or foresee the future. We rely on computers, Magic Eight-Balls, psychics, TV prognosticators, and all sorts of other paraphernalia to help us clear away any fog shrouding this future.
I don’t think our behavior of warping time is found in termites, sloths, platypus ducks, wolves, whales or any other life form. This basically dysfunctional style of living may be our only way of waving the flag of distinction. It is not a flag I would proudly display, but I can’t change my species, so I think I’m stuck with my nostalgia and my visions of the future. Viva la difference!
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A really good read, Tobin. I’m inclined to agree with you.
Thank you, Rachel! As with every offering, there may be aspects of it that don’t connect or seem off. I’m always interested in reading where someone feels I’ve missed the mark. This is an invitation.
Humans certainly are different from other animals, to the extent that a human thinks that it is different. Your wondering “why” has the bungee cord effect to remind me of the creation story in the book of Genesis. A human being is given to understand that crossing a line, violating a standard upheld by divine fiat, will entail discovering the difference between “good” and “evil.” And since humans of all animals are fond of naming things, a distinct form of life based upon knowing – what human could possibly resist such a challenge? I would’ve reached for the apple, without apology. Experience is a most effective teacher.
The point that I draw from this tale: humans learn by experience, assigning a good or evil value to the consequences of their behavior. Language makes it possible to hold in storage a complicated complex of valuations. If you want to know, you must cross a line, or at least pass very close to that edge.
You write that the “present” technically does not exist. I agree. Moreover one could press the point that past and future have no existence either, depending upon what one insists “existence” has to mean. It is striking to me how much of contemporary philosophy is an extended meditation upon the topic of time.
The human animal is capable of self-reflection in dimensions that are unlikely to be matched by other mammals. Time matters a great deal to us because we try to measure how much we have left. A majority of us are very afraid of death. We have many devices, strategies to avoid examination of this inevitable fact. As other mammals do not seem to have a complex sense of self, when compared to humans, they know and fear pain, but not death.
I am quite willing to concede that all dimensions of time, – past, present, and future are all constructs, made-up-abstractions that permit us to live in a distinctly human manner. I think that extended consideration of this possibility is psychologically productive. Perhaps it is futile to think we could ever know the nature of time, because then it would be necessary to stand outside of time. We are “in” time, perhaps driven somewhat mad as a consequence of our attempts at denial?
You know that I am a fan of T. S. Eliot. Here are a few lines from his poem The Dry Salvages, which I have revisited over and over:
People change, and smile: but the agony abides.
Time the destroyer is time the preserver,
Like the river with its cargo of dead negroes, cows and chicken coops,
The bitter apple, and the bite in the apple.
And the ragged rock in the restless waters,
Waves wash over it, fogs conceal it;
On a halcyon day it is merely a monument,
In navigable weather it is always a seamark
To lay a course by: but in the sombre season
Or the sudden fury, is what it always was.
III
I sometimes wonder if that is what Krishna meant—
Among other things—or one way of putting the same thing:
That the future is a faded song, a Royal Rose or a lavender spray
Of wistful regret for those who are not yet here to regret,
Pressed between yellow leaves of a book that has never been opened.
And the way up is the way down, the way forward is the way back.
You cannot face it steadily, but this thing is sure,
That time is no healer: the patient is no longer here.
As always, a great deal to unpack from your reply. The T. S. Eliot quotes are extraordinary. The final line is one that I have been contemplating a great deal lately, that being that the old saying “Time heals all wounds” is not as accurate as we might like to believe. Eliot’s words are indeed dark, but not in an overly morose way, just pragmatic in nature. I am going to have to digest this a bit more and offer another response later on.
Given what we are learning about animal senses and intelligence, can we say that the “lesser” than human animals don’t have an understanding of past, present, and future, and their own deaths?
We used to think that migration was blind instinct and not a navigated action.
How can we know that deer aren’t aware of a future when they sense a coming storm and rush to a location that offers protection from its coming effects?
How can we know that squirrels burying nuts in the fall don’t know that they’re preparing for a lean season? Do we really think that their success in finding the nuts doesn’t come from remembering the past and where they put them?
How can we know that a pregnant caribou making its way to its calving ground is not remembering from past experience the place that provides conditions its young one needs for a successful beginning?
I’m just asking how you know.
Verna,
Great points. As you noted, any animal that has a sense of its environment may indeed have a innate knowledge of what might be down the road with regard to a change of seasons or even the potential severity of an upcoming winter. Most animals also learn from mistakes or experiences which does mean there is at least come consciousness of past events. I guess what I meant is a majority of humans appear to be obsessed with hanging onto past events through the gathering of bits and pieces of “meaningful” objects. That we imbue these objects with our experiences and they then become the experience. I’m reminded of the term, Horcruxes from the Harry Potter books, where Voldemort placed part os his soul. We seem to do the same thing with objects and ephemera we hold dear. I don’t believe that squirrels hold a nut from last fall, becoming sentimental over where they found said nut and have it represent anything except a stored meal. Again, I could be wrong on this. I do know that our long since passed dog, George, was attached to his rubber frog (which we still have on our mantle). He imbued it with a sense of security, so here I am opening the door to again being incorrect in my assessment. Botton line – Who Knows!