<<

: Change in the

Martin Schönfeld University of South Florida

This paper is a review of the breakthroughs in the empirical study of ani- mals. Over the past ªve years, a change in basic assumptions about ani- mals and their inner has occurred. (For a recent illustration of this paradigm change in the news, see van Schaik 2006.) Old-school proceeded by and large as if were merely highly ma- chines. was admired for its consistently rigorous methodol- ogy, mirroring classical in its focus on quantiªable observation. In the old analytic , claims that animals are sentient raised method- ological and ideological problems and seemed debatable at best. Bolder claims, that animals are intelligent, or even -aware in a way that is for all practical purposes , were regarded as unfounded. Empirical trials to substantiate such claims were nipped in the bud, since it appeared that such inquiries would unduly humanize nonhuman . Scientists are not supposed to project their own , , or on ob- jects of their investigation. Studying the afªnities of and animals would appear to violate this well-established rule, and would risk sliding down the slippery slope from fawns to Bambi, from rabbits to Thumper, and from to . The task of science in the past four centuries had been to demythologize the past. Erasing had been the hallmark of ; it turned into astronomy, alchemy into chemistry, and natural into . Naturalists, ªeld workers, and experimenters who disagreed or who resisted the reduction of life to

The author wishes to thank John Voelpel, for his invaluable assistance and research at the Environmental Archive of the Philosophy Department, University of South Florida, Tampa, USA, as well as (), Thomas Duddy (National Uni- versity of Ireland), Robin Wang (Beijing University; Loyola Marymount University, L.A.), Masami Yamada (Osaka), and three anonymous reviewers, for their helpful comments to earlier drafts of this paper.

Perspectives on Science 2006, vol. 14, no. 3 ©2006 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology

354

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 Perspectives on Science 355

quantiªable could be ignored. They seemed to commit the fal- lacy of anthropomorphizing nonhuman beings. Dutch, Germans, or Aus- trians scientists with must have read too much Brothers Grimm; Japanese scientists feeding these doubts must have been misled by their own Shinto heritage. Thus foreign critiques were downplayed by the ‘real’ scientists in the English-speaking . It turns out that the dissent was justiªed. Anglophone reexamination of the Eurasian studies con- ªrmed their earlier results and produced an avalanche of new . As a result, the ‘tough-minded’ behaviorist view was thrown out and is now replaced by a better paradigm. I shall describe the paradigm change, summarize highlights of recent animal research, and suggest a philosophical interpretation of these ªnd- ings. Anyone interested in this scientiªc revolution would have to wonder whether “consciousness” is used appropriately when describing animals. Section 1 contains a conceptual clariªcation based on a simple linguistic analysis, and a naturalistic argument for the of nonhuman . How the paradigm change occurred is the question that have to be addressed next. Section 2 contains a sketch of the events, ªgures, and ªndings that triggered the paradigm change, and a historical argument for the wider cultural and geographic that informed regionally prevailing on . Sections 3–5 are summaries of the scientiªc breakthroughs over the past ªve years. The summaries concern and monkeys. A large amount of revolutionary has also been done on many as well as on —not to mention hive intelli- gences such as ants—but their appraisal should properly be the topic of papers. For the purpose of identifying the paradigm change, it sufªces to look at primates and monkeys, since they show the properties formerly identiªed with humans most clearly. Section 3 is an overview of ªndings of animal , making and use. Section 4 is an account of the recent experimental identiªcation of exact animal -contents. Section 5 is a summary of work on animal and a proposal of its naturalistic interpretation. The conclusion of the paper will make a sketch of an ontological model that ªts these discoveries better than the classic mainstream and that integrates them into a new of .

1. Determining the Meanings of Consciousness The word “consciousness” evokes multidisciplinary associations, and its core is obscured by an abundance of theories and perspectives. Consciousness involves a bundle of properties, some of which are pro- foundly intricate. Despite a wealth of information, the nature of con- sciousness is not fully understood. But the mysteries, problems, and puz- zles notwithstanding, some deªning traits of consciousness are obvious

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 356 : Paradigm Change in the Life Sciences

already by and to observation. Consciousness is a state of ; this state of awareness involves an experiencing , and the experiencing subject is aware of itself as well as of its environment. The ways of being so aware involve sensations, , , im- ages, ideas, thoughts, logic, , and . Next to how states of aware- ness out internally, there are traits of consciousness permitting its identiªcation by outside observers. Such external manifestations of con- sciousness are , , , and the defense or enforce- ment of values. Generally, consciousness involves an experiencing subject and its cognitive processes, and although this description does not exhaust the , it should be unproblematic that two quintessential markers of consciousness are an inner life, or thought, and an external or- ganization, or culture. Whether nonhuman animals can properly be said to have consciousness is a complex question. If one assumes that consciousness is a static entity, similar to a Christian (which is supposed to exist either fully or not at all), then the differences between humans and animals will invite the con- clusion that animals lack consciousness. But such an assumption is at odds with the observation that consciousness is a dynamic entity, as human de- velopment shows. Human life, if not cut short, follows a curve of transient levels of consciousness, from simple neonate beginnings to complex ma- ture operations to simple senescent endings. Seen in , consciousness rises and falls, and the height of its healthy states depends on age. This trivial fact puts the properties of consciousness in a dynamic context. Thought and culture are markers, but they vary in simplicity or complex- ity with the steps of organic progression. The dynamic nature of con- sciousness makes its ascription to nonhuman animals less mystifying than it would otherwise seem. We can properly and literally speak of animal consciousness, without needing to qualify “consciousness” as such. We can still deªne it by internal properties, such as emotions, thoughts, or values, and by external properties, such as tools, culture, or rules. All that needs to be understood is that the levels of consciousness vary not only in indi- viduals but also in species. The paradigm shift in the study of animal minds concerns the investi- gation of the listed external and internal markers of consciousness, such as culture (section 3), thought (section 4), and value (section 5). Behaviorists used to be skeptical about the of such markers, and this skepti- cism was integral to the standard model of animals in the past century. Recent research has successfully identiªed the presence of these markers, which has refuted the behaviorist stance and replaced the old dualism of animal machines and human minds with a more anthropomorphic inter- pretation of nonhumans, as sharing traits of consciousness. This recent

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 Perspectives on Science 357

fundamental reversal in the interpretation of data is the paradigm shift at issue here. But the story of this paradigm shift is not as simple as this outline sug- gests. A human problem with the structure of scientiªc revolutions is that research is never quite free of bias. Kuhn famously identiªed one irrational element of paradigm shifts in subjective preferences for certain research questions, attractive to some but not necessarily to others. Another unwit- ting irrational element, however, concerns the intelligibility of certain research topics, and the revolution over animal consciousness re- veals this unavoidable bias like no other shift before. As science has grown into a genuinely worldwide endeavor, linguistic backgrounds of different scientiªc communities inevitably color the perceived plausibility of heuristic assumptions. What “consciousness” may or may not mean, and which of its connotations and references are lucid or obscure, depends also on what one speaks. Telling about this paradigm shift is that the path-breaking work was long done outside the English before ªnding here. A comparative analysis of the of “consciousness,” in various lin- guistic contexts, illustrates the differences of common- assumptions and scientiªc approaches to the issue. Such an analysis shows cognitive constants in what can count as meaningful, and it sheds on why ani- mal consciousness has remained a hard problem in the English-speaking academy. The new paradigm turns on the inclusion of foreign meanings. The divergent conceptions of consciousness, with their distinctions in local intelligibility, can be illustrated by a quick comparison of English to German, Chinese, and Japanese terms. The English “consciousness” is a Latin derivative. Its central morpheme, “sci,” is from the Latin for know- ing (scire); “scio” originally meant “I know.” The English sense of “con- sciousness” evokes some kind of Ego in its personal act of knowing. Con- sciousness concerns a knowing self. The tail-end of the word is a sufªx denoting a lasting state of affairs (similar to words such as happiness or ill- ness); here, the sufªx “ness” determines a knowing self in a continuous condition. The beginning of the word is a preªx meaning in Latin “with” or “together”; here, the preªx “con” determines the lasting, knowing self as a coherent structure. Here, the preªx points to two basic ways of being “with” or being “together.” The lasting, knowing self is joined to its envi- ronment as an experiencing bundle of sense impression, and it is joined to itself, as a knowing aware of itself. In English, the knowing Ego is related to external environments and internal operations. Such are binary (“scio” ªrst meant “I di- vide”). In knowing my environment, I am distinct from it, and in know- ing myself, I am distinct from me. A simple experiencing center of life is

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 358 Animal Consciousness: Paradigm Change in the Life Sciences

an active mirror of its surroundings, but if it is conscious, it will also be an active mirror of its own self. This ties consciousness to “mirroring opera- tions”; that is, to reºection. English ºavors of the term suggest a cognitive structure whose center relates to others and to self by reºective functions. Here, consciousness is intuitively intelligible as a cognitive and logical phenomenon about an Ego and its dealings. Ascribing such a conception of consciousness to human is perfectly plausible, while ascribing it to animals seems perfectly implausible. Can a tough-minded British sci- entist professionally assert that or monkeys have “ego,” “reºec- tions,” or “”? The English ºavor of consciousness makes claim- ing nonhuman states of awareness more difªcult or obscure in this particular culture than need be. Behaviorism thus becomes attractive. This is different in the scientiªc communities responsible for the turn from behaviorism to animal consciousness. The pioneering work was done in other languages. Research on markers of consciousness such as emo- tions, thought, or communication, was done in German; research on markers such as culture, tools, and social evolution was done in Japanese. The German and Sino-Japanese ºavors of consciousness show how this re- search had been possible. Generally, these ºavors make consciousness intu- itively intelligible as a dynamic and ontological event, which concerns evolutionary potentials and outward-acting forces. The German range of meaning is quickly explained. Just as in English, Bewusstsein has three parts. The preªx ‘be’ of “Bewusstsein” is self-reºexive, functioning as grammatical mirror. The middle “-wusst-” evokes acquired (wusst) and a scrunched-up tangle (ein Wust). The sufªx “sein” means a state of neutral being. Both English and German refer to a ‘know- ing’. But while English emphasizes Ego, German emphasizes a network. Consciousness, in that sense, is a network of being in the know. Moreover (via “wusst” or “Wust”), German Bewusstsein evokes a substantial knot or a structural grid, crumpled into some dimensional foil. The Asian term offers a naturalistic and visual representation of the German image. The Chinese and Japanese for consciousness—the signs are the same in either—are a compound, yi- in Chinese. The ªrst component (yi) is , meaning, or expectation. The second component (shi) means “knowing”. Here, a consciousness is tied to inten- tion and knowing. “Intention” contains the for ‘stand-erect,’ ‘Sun,’ and ‘heartbeat’; associating intention accordingly with a stance, a light, and a pulse. “Knowing” is a more complex ideograph. It starts on the left with ‘word’ (sound-waves rising from an open mouth), continues in the middle with ‘stand-erect’ over ‘Sun,’ and ends on the right with ‘sword.’ Knowing, in this context, evokes communication, an enlightened stance,

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 Perspectives on Science 359

and tools. Consciousness is thus thoroughly dynamic, and the ideographs evoke a pulsing power that has speech, that is in the light, and that ªghts. Consciousness is a hard problem in English, since this only denotes an Ego and its binary interplays. Whatever the substance of con- sciousness is remains elusive. While English highlights the cognitive and logical aspects of consciousness, it obscures its . Here, the mean- ing of mind is limited to epistemic and functional senses. A knowing self exists in its reactive sensitivity to stimuli together with its reºective ex- pression of actions and ideas. It is a network of cognitive operations—and networks either or do not. English evokes a toggle-switch model of mind. There is a functional cluster with all its trapping—or there is noth- ing. But in Eurasian languages such as German, Chinese, or Japanese, con- sciousness is imagined as a dimensional foil, as a dynamic power-structure, whose instantiations range from dormant potentials to full-blown activa- tions, or from germinating seeds to unfolded articulations, or from organic threads, as in animals, to rational bundles, as in humans. Eurasian lan- guages evoke a volume-knob model of consciousness. This power structure has an evolutionary range. Thus the Eurasian defense of animal consciousness against initial Eng- lish skepticism is partly explained by language barriers. Dualistic views, excluding animals from consideration, are intuitively plausible in English. Holistic, evolutionary views are plausible in Eurasian languages. In those languages, consciousness arises organically and naturally.

2. The Cultural Context of the Paradigm Change Today, animals are studied as “experiencing subjects of a life,” in the apt phrase coined by T. Regan, and testable inroads have been made into ani- mal minds and hive . Traits of and social con- sciousness are now subject to empirical research. The ªrst challenge to the paradigm of empty-headed animals goes back in Europe at least to Leibniz.1 He was the ªrst to contradict Descartes, although his contradic- tion remained ineffectual until recently. His views on animals were actu- ally new; in a way Leibniz only revived Renaissance ideas, which were a revival of far more ancient views in turn. Although he was born and raised Lutheran, and saw himself as a Christian, his many critics disagreed 1. Leibniz’s views on animals were complex and changing, but generally amount to the claim that simple substances or elements of nature are reºective and energetic. These ‘mo- nads’ vary in the degree of awareness along a continuum from non-rational animal to rational human minds; see notes to a letter to Arnauld (28 Nov 1686), in Leibniz 1976, 2:73; De Ipsa Natura (1689) § 12, ibid., 4:512; Theodicy (1710), § 89–91, ibid. 6:151–153.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 360 Animal Consciousness: Paradigm Change in the Life Sciences

and suspected him of pagan heresies. Ironically, they were right. His no- tion of animals was profoundly incompatible with , owing more to the alternative of pre-Christian Greeks and non-Chris- tian Eurasians. The ªrst challenge to the paradigm was accordingly also the attempt to rehabilitate older views. In the past seventy years, investigations of consciousness-related traits of animals, such as their languages, passions, or intentional acts, took off and culminated in a Nobel Prize 1973.2 But despite the Swedish recogni- tion of the pioneering studies by Germans, Austrians, and Dutch, such lines of inquiry remained comparatively exotic in the U.K. and the U.S. Anglo-American and French scientiªc communities preferred to stick to the Christian and Cartesian distinction between human minds and animal machines.3 While humans were said to be free, rational, and endowed with a rich inner life, animals were seen as instinctual, reactive, and mech- anistically driven by a mix of appetites and reºexes. Queries of animal feelings, decision-making, , and reºection were not held in high academic esteem in the French- or English-speaking . The Cartesian skepticism on animals was visible in the Anglo- American reactions to empirical challenges posed by Eurasian researchers. A telling European case was the work by the Nobel Laureate (1886–1982). Frisch’s discovery of animal languages was published as early as 1923 (Frisch’s central works were Frisch 1923, 1946, 1962 and 1974). In Europe, this was immediately seen as a breakthrough, but on the British Isles and in the United States, it was met for decades with dis- , resistance, or irony. While this information on bees quickly found its way into the high school curricula in continental Europe east of the Rhine, Anglo-American scientists remained unimpressed by Frisch’s work.

2. The 1973 Nobel Prize in or was won by Karl von Frisch (1886–1982), (1907–1988), and (1903–1989). Frisch was recognized for his work on insect languages, Tinbergen for animal , and Lorenz for nonhuman . Tinbergen taught at Oxford for 24 years prior to his Swedish recognition. His research shows him was the most analytic and “Humean” of his group; Frisch and Lorenz advanced more synthetic and anthropomorphic claims and were accordingly not as well regarded in Great Britain. An American pioneer of animal minds, Donald Grifªn, was marginalized in his academic environment as well; see Eakin 2001; cf. Gould, 2004; also see Daston and Mitman 2005; for a review of the latter, see Clutton- Brock 2005. 3. Descartes’ views on animals as “natural automata” also ªnd expression in statements such as “the beasts . . . have no at all”; see Discours de la Méthode (1637), part 5, Des- cartes 1996, 6:58. His letter to the Marques of Newcastle (1646) begins with his dissent from those “who attribute or thought to animals”; ibid., 4:329. Some schol- ars defend his view as being less crude than it is seems; e.g. Cottingham 1978.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 Perspectives on Science 361

The Nobel award initially failed to change the paradigm. Some U.S. workers criticized the award, but others were now willing to revisit the texts, repeat the ªeld work, and re-create the same .4 Scrutiny of Frisch’s work showed that his was sound and his argu- ments were valid (Gould and Gould 1988, 77–83). Despite its counterin- tuitive nature in a puritanical culture shaped by the and Descartes, and thus desiring “to see a gulf between the cognitive abilities of insects and those of humans” (Gould 1994, 98), it became clear to U.S. specialists ªfty years after the publication of this discovery that the dance of the bees objectively qualiªes as a . Languages are such things as French or English, with groups of vowels and consonants, and also such things as the International Sign Language, with groups of gestures, and languages, with groups of codes. All languages, from waggle-dance to French, are different in individual fea- tures but identical in their generic properties. Languages share some basic traits. Languages use arbitrary conventions as units of communication (which may be words, motions, or binary strings); they have a semantic or- ganization (which patterns information in a structure); they convey social information (which is shared by senders and receivers); and all languages refer to objects or events distant in time or . (See Gould and Gould 1988, chapters 3, “Communication” and 4, “The Dance-Language Con- troversy”. For a summary, which the above paraphrases, see Gould and Gould 1994, 94–100.) In the case of bees, the arbitrary con- ventions are sequences of motions, the semantic organization is the gram- mar of these sequential signals, the social communication is between a dancer and her audience, and the referenced information is mainly about food sources—their size, , location, required work effort, or risk as- sessment. Natural languages, like French and the , have one over artiªcial languages. They have dialects. Just as French differs in Paris, Haiti, and Algiers, the waggle dance shows geographic variation. In contrast to French dialects, bee dialects are genetically encoded: Ger- man larvae raised in Italian hives still communicate in their German bee- dialect as adults.5

4. For doubts on Frisch’s work, see Wenner and Wells 1973. The authors rejected Frisch’s core hypothesis that bees convey information by the waggle-dance and reported ol- factory clues as crucial for food location. Frisch reiterated his view in his 1974. The deªnitive tests on the two rival claims (odor vs. dance) was performed by a Caltech team that recorded unimpaired information exchange of bees whose ‘noses’ had been glued shut; see Gould 1976. 5. Gould and Gould 1994, 96. Bees also communicate by odors (e.g. alarm phero- mones) and by sound (e.g. vibrations of wing muscles while wings remain folded, used for signals to prepare hive swarming); see Gould and Gould 1988, 52–53.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 362 Animal Consciousness: Paradigm Change in the Life Sciences

A more recent Asian illustration of linguistic barriers dividing geo- graphic communities is the work of Kinji Imanishi (1902–1992). This Japanese primatologist was not awarded a Nobel, but he would have de- served the prize. He was behind the 1952 discovery of animal . This discovery, with the ªeldwork by his students (Mito, Kawamura, and Kawai), was celebrated in Japan and put Japanese , via Kyoto philosophy, on Eurasian maps. But in England and America, this research was ignored for three more decades. In 1984, a British geologist (Hal- stead) visited Japan to admonish the founder of Kyoto primatology for his Darwin-heresies. In 1985, Nature published the British critique, which begins with the patronizing remark, “The popularity of Kinji Imanishi’s writings in Japan gives an interesting insight into Japanese ” (Halstead 1985. For a contrast of English and Asian primatology, the bias of human-animal dualism in the former and the lack of dualism in the lat- ter, see Asquith 1986). Today, we see that this critique gave an insight into cultural differences.6 Studying macaques (macaca fuscata) on Koshima islet, Imanishi’s team observed a female cleaning sand off sweet potatoes in a river; a be- havior copied by others of her group and eventually shared by the entire troop (de Waal 1996 and 2001, 195–212). Later this evolved into a ‘sea- soning behavior’: the monkeys grew to prefer salty water for rinsing yams.7 Apparently, some of a given population are smarter or more creative than others are. Other individuals, however, did learn and (as in the Koshima troop) have managed to copy the new behavior over generations (Visalberghi and Fragaszy 1990; Kawai, K. Watanabe, and A. Mori 1991). Since macaques of the same genetic makeup in other groups act differently, it further appears there are socially transmitted differences in animal behavior—and consequently animal cultures. Imanishi, inºuenced by Uexküll’s environmental psychology and Nishida’s ontology of logical forms (Kyoto School), stipulated the fact of

6. De Waal 2003. He notes (294), “Western scientists have on a grand scale adopted Japanese and approaches, albeit often ignorant of their origin. It is unclear if they have also embraced the underlying outlook, which is rather far removed from their own, yet they certainly have been receptive to the observation techniques and speciªc concepts, such as individualized relationships and cultural transmission, ªrst employed within - nese primatology.” On the bias hostile to Imanishi’s discovery in the English world, the au- thor notes (293), “As has been pointed out many , it can hardly be coincidental that ideas about free-market capitalism and the struggle for existence arose at the same time in the same place.” 7. Cultural transmissions in the monkey troop were written up by Kawai1965. Kawai reports that the female adult that started potato-washing in 1953 made a new invention in 1956: she separated wheat grains from sand by dropping both into the sea; the grains ºoated and were scooped up.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 Perspectives on Science 363

interactively evolving nonhuman or shusyakai.8 He predicted their ob- servation in the ªeld and interpreted the subsequent data found by his team accordingly. Since “culture” refers to knowledge and habits acquired from others that are shared in a group but not necessarily in the species, the discovery of monkeys who learn from one another challenged the be- lief that cultures are only a human phenomenon.9 The Asian ªndings were ªrst ridiculed as an “urban legend” by Ameri- can scientists (for an anti-culture polemic, see Keyes 1982; see de Waal 2001, 396). Imanishi’s legacy passed a long overdue U.S. peer-review ªfty years after the original discovery. In 2001, his shusyakai spawned academic texts, best-sellers, and reviews in top journals.10 Apparently something is wrong with a mechanistic after all. The Darwinian model con- ceives of animals as mere victims of external pressures—random genetic mutations joined with environmental constraints produce lucky organic changes that allow new to spread. But in the English evolutionary model, animals are essentially inert, utterly at the of solar and earthly environments. Clearly animals are resourceful, but their speciation appears to be a passive by- product of . Frisch’s work suggests that traditional biol- ogy underestimates animal resourcefulness; beings as humble as bees are more intelligent and inventive than classic Darwinism allows. Imanishi’s work suggests that animals as complex as monkeys can evolve on their own via social interplays, and that such evolution is not merely lateral change from one shape to another but instead a literal upwards develop- ment, a genuine evolutionary progress. How Darwin is to be revised is be-

8. Imanishi coined the shusyakai- and articulated his alternative model to a mechanistic Darwinism in his 1940. The concept consists of three ideographs; shu (Chin. zhong), “seed, species, grow, cultivate”; sya (Chin. she), “organized body, community, soci- ety”; kai (Chin. hui), “assemble, understand.” 9. De Waal 2003, 6, 31, and 206. He proposes this deªnition (31): “Culture is a way of life shared by the members of one group but not necessarily with the members of other groups of the same species. It covers knowledge, habits, and skills, including underlying tendencies and preferences, derived from exposure to and learning from others. Whenever systematic variation in knowledge, habits, and skills between groups cannot be attributed to genetic or ecological factors, it is probably cultural. The way individuals learn from each other is secondary, but that they learn from each other is a requirement. Thus, the ‘culture’ label does not apply to knowledge, habits, or skills that individuals readily acquire on their own.” 10. Matsuzawa 2001; for glowing reviews, see Bekoff and Goodall 2001; Byrne, 2002. For a review of de Waal 2001, see Small 2001, who concludes: “ dies hard. As de Waal so convincingly explains, we would have to navigate an crisis on the way to enlightenment, and this might be too scary for those invested in the supremacy of human- kind. But for those ready for some self-scrutiny, and a less biased view of culture and learn- ing in our fellow creatures, this book will be a .”

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 364 Animal Consciousness: Paradigm Change in the Life Sciences

yond our scope. Two things, however, are now clear: some animals are smart, and they reºect a will to order their houses for the better. Useful to thinking of a model capable of integrating Frisch and Imanishi might be the French return to Lamarck. Although scoffed at by Anglo-American evolutionary biologists, some of his ideas seem valuable for explaining the individual and progressive evolution of culture. Yet, at this date, such enrichments of mechanistic Darwinism are still exotic and over the horizon.11 It is nice to see, however, that Lamarck’s myths integrate in a larger ra- tional of animals shared in continental Europe, Eurasia, and East Asia. This integration is not coincidental. If we look at the changing colors of political and ideological boundaries in a history atlas, we will ªnd Poincaré- of cultural and social units. Among historical changes, one fact sticks out: Christianity. Its path of triumphant success went from Rome to England, but not to points east. Very roughly summarized, the roots of the difference over animal con- sciousness—plausible here, foreign there—illustrate the social power of . Monotheistic creeds, originally from Egypt, spread to the Middle East, and were turned into the Great Commission at Rome. The quickest Christian converts outside Italy were the Anglo-Saxon tribes. By 450 A.D., Britain was a fully integrated bastion of Christendom. Other north- ern and eastern tribes converted later or not at all. Rivers were geographic and cultural boundaries. Anything south of the Danube and west of the Rhine was fully Christianized a century after Constantine. Anything north and east of this boundary stayed pagan for ªve more centuries. The ªrst mission on the far side of the rivers, Magdeburg, was built in 937 A.D. Christians crossed the river Elbe in 996 A.D. and were beaten back at the river Vistula in 997 A.D. The Baltic kingdom of Livonia (which covered what are now Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, and the Russian oblast Königs- berg) became Christian in the Renaissance. Livonia’s capital Vilnius had its last state funeral with pagan rites in 1382 A.D.12 Further to the south-

11. For a standard U.S. view on Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck (1744–1829), see Gould, 2002, 170–192; esp. “The Myths of Lamarck,” 170–174. For new debates on these myths, such as the claim that complexity is the result of Lamarck’s “auto-evolution” instead of Darwin’s natural selection, see “La théorie de l’évolution mise à mal,” P. Jean-Baptiste, “Quand les bactéries font de la résistance,” and R. Fléaux-Mulot, “Les contresens du sexe,” all in Jean-Baptiste 2004. The Canadian biologist J. Sapp at the University of York puts the cultural difference or bias that burdens scientiªc discussions nicely: “pour croire à Lamarck, me disait-on aux Etats-Unis, if faut vraiment être Français.” 12. See Fletcher 1997. Fletcher writes (505): “The Grand Duke Kestutis, who died in 1382, was cremated at Vilnius splendidly adorned and armed, and with him his , hounds, and hawks. It was a magniªcent send-off, thoroughly traditional in character.”

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 Perspectives on Science 365

east, Christians hit a limit, too. The lower Danube was China’s frontier during the Yuan-Dynasty in 1280 CE. The Bible was extraordinarily suc- cessful in Western Europe, but its preachers struggled to enter central Eu- rope for another half millennium; they gained control over northeast Eu- rope a thousand years after cultivating the English. The eastern control was fragile. The fresh converts triggered the Reformation, which frag- mented the Church in the 1500s, and which exploded into the Thirty Years War in the 1600s, making way for secular humanism. The cultural differences between the Latin-English world and the Eur- asian world are deªned by divergent spiritual and religious identities. In real life, this split emerges over values, ideas, and intelligibility— information plausible here is not necessarily just as plausible there. These discrepancies inºuence, taint, or burden the regional plausibility of scientiªc proposals.

3. , Tool Making, and Use The discovery of nonhuman culture in Japanese macaques was not an iso- lated incident or an exception to an otherwise sound rule. The scientiªc recognition of monkey cultures in the West permitted integrating similar ªndings on species, such as in , that had been re- corded earlier (McGrew 1992, Whiten, Goodall, et al. 1999. Boesch and Boesch-Achermann 2000. For an update on chimp culture, see McGrew, 2004; for a review, see Matsuzawa 2005). In 2001, Whiten and Boesch concluded, Whether chimpanzees are the sole species on the planet that shares humankind’s capacity for culture is too early to judge: nobody has undertaken the comprehensive research necessary to test the idea. Early evidence hints that other creatures should be included in these discussions, however. Carel P. van Schaik and his colleagues at Duke University [sic] have found in Sumatra that - ually use at least two different kinds of tools. Orangutans moni- tored for years elsewhere have never been seen to do this.13

Livonian funeral rites were similar to pagan rites in Egypt and China. They are observed today in the PRC (e.g. Hong Kong) and ROC (Taiwan): a small golden ªsh on the lips of the dead, for the sake of a wealthy rebirth. For a map of the many British bishoprics al- ready at c. 700 A.D., by contrast, see Fletcher 1997, 164–5. 13. Whiten and Boesch 2001. C. van Schaik is director of the Institute and Museum of at the University of Zürich in Switzerland; at Duke University he is an adjunct. For orangutans and their tools, see van Schaik, Fox, and Sitompul 1996. See the Network site of the University of Zürich at http://aim.unizh.ch/ orangutannetwork.html.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 366 Animal Consciousness: Paradigm Change in the Life Sciences

Various animal species make and use simple tools to perform a variety of intended tasks. Branches are stripped of leaves and twigs to serve as sticks for poking into termite mounds; stones are chipped to serve as ham- mers for crushing nuts; leaves are chewed into wads to serve as for cleaning. Next to such tools seen with mammals such as monkeys and , birds such as crows have been seen to bend wires into hooks for an- gling food out of a bottle (de Waal 2005b, 179). Making and using basic devices to perform tasks such as collecting or preparing food is incontrovertible evidence for nonhuman tool use. This alone qualiªes as a breakthrough already, and it falsiªes the old dogma that humans are the only tool users on the planet. What makes this dis- covery even more intriguing is that tool use is not evenly distributed within a given species. Some individuals do it, others do not; some groups get the concept, and others do not. Tool use reveals behavioral variations among regionally distinct animal communities in the same species. In this way, the discovery of animal tools triggered the discovery of animal cul- ture. After the observation of tool-using cultures, studies of orangutans detailed the variations of tool manufacture and use in orang- utan populations (van Schaik and Knott 2001; van Schaik 2004; cf. also Russon 2004). These variations are seen as indications of regional differ- ences among orangutan cultures (Vogel 2003; Smuts 2004). Orangutan research on social learning has resulted in more details on their referential understanding, abstract thought, and cognitive categories (Poss 2003; Vonk and MacDonald 2004). , meanwhile, have shown themselves to contain yet more tool- using cultures. Studies on various races have disclosed regional variations in social learning, troop communication, environmental inter- plays, and child rearing (Maestripieri Megna, and Ross 2002, Mulcahy, Call, and Dunbar 2005). Tool use has recently been recorded in two west- ern gorilla troops as well (Breuer, Ndoundou-Hockemba, and Fishlock 2005; see also Gross 2005). Evidence that tool use is not limited to old-style primates such as chimps but shared by others such as capuchin, tamarin, and tonkean mon- keys, has come recently to light, too (see Cleveland, Rocca, Wendt, and Westergaard 2004. See also Ducoing and Thierry 2005; Moura and P. Lee 2004; and Cummins-Sebree and Fragaszy 2005). Macaques, capuchins, tamarins, chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas illustrate the existence of tool use and cultural patterns in monkeys and primates (even have recently been found to vary in their dominance based on cultural transmission; see Sapolsky and Share 2004). These discoveries, which show that culture and tool use is common to humans, apes, and

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 Perspectives on Science 367

monkeys, imply that culture did not arise with sapiens in the ªrst place. Instead, the ªndings point to an earlier origin, with a common an- cestor of humans, apes, and monkeys.14 The spatial spread of culture across species boundaries raises the evolutionary question of time. It is likely that the phenomenon of culture is older than humankind. If culture arose in the speciation of the great apes—which may be an overly conservative guess, given the evidence for tool-using culture in birds (and the fact that birds are so much older)—then the emergent natural of tool-using culture will have existed for at least ªfteen million years.

4. Experimental Identiªcation of Exact Animal Thought-Contents Next to tools and cultures, a long list of consciousness-related traits is characteristic of primates and monkeys. This is not new. , , rage, and passion are traits common to mammals and birds, as has been studied for decades (e.g. by Lorenz or Eibl-Eibesfeldt); emotions such as grief and jealousy have been shown in apes and monkeys, and there also exists an ex- tensive record of pranks, humor, cheating, and reºection in primates.15 Recent work has updated and expanded this list of consciousness-related traits.16 Next to these new studies on understanding, , and numer- ical and verbal comprehension, there is new research on animal humor as yet another marker of if not . As Science reported 2005, “recent studies in , dogs, and chimps are providing evidence that and joy may not be uniquely human traits” (Panksepp 2005. See also Matsusawa 2004. For other mammals, such as , see Panksepp and Burgdorf 2003). What is new—and genuinely innovative—is the identiªcation of ideas and in animals. We now possess measurable evidence of 14. See van Schaik 2004 and Poss and Rochat 2003. Humans split from the chimpan- zee line 6–8 million years ago, cf. Begun 2004. Orangutan ancestors split from the great line 15 million years ago; cf. Smuts 2004. Also see Henshilwood et al., 2002; Vogel 2002; Coqueugniot et al., 2004. 15. For a summary of such earlier research, see Gould and Gould 1994, chap. 8; for grief, 155–156; for self-recognition in mirrors and movies, 156–159; for trickery, decep- tion, adultery, and pranks, 161–163; for , 168–169. 16. The following may serve to illustrate current advances on animal consciousness: for visual understanding, see Tanaka 2001; for talk, see Bodamer and Gardner 2002; for goal- directed behavior, see Richmond, Liu, and Shidara 2003; for social ties, see Silk, Alberts, and Altmann 2003; for social status, see Bergman, Beehner, Cheney, and Seyfarth 2003; for real- ity perception, see Eysel 2003; for of motion, see Gottlieb and Mazzoni 2004; for re- ward motivation, see Roesch and Olson 2004; for nonverbal reference, see Leavens, Hopkins, and Thomas 2004; for the neural mapping of intentions, see Nakahara and Miyashita 2005; for memory limits, see Beran, Beran, and Menzel 2005; for numerical comprehension in primates, see Beran 2004; for numerical comprehension in monkeys, see Harris and Washburn 2005.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 368 Animal Consciousness: Paradigm Change in the Life Sciences

thought in monkeys and primates (2003). The methods used are so rigor- ous, and the data have held up so well, that this delivers the coup de grace to the old behaviorist rejection of anthropomorphic interpretations of ani- mal actions. This discovery is not a theoretical addition alone, but it has already lead to applications in medical (2004). This discovery, its experimental identiªcation and its medical application, shall be de- scribed next. Through research done in 2002 and published 2003, thought—and thus the paradigm example of inner mental life—has become accessible to quantiªable and empirical investigations. A team led by J. M. Carmena at Duke University, with Duke scientists from the Departments of Psycho- logical and Sciences, Neurobiology, and Biomedical Engineering, the Division of Neurosurgery, and the Center for Neuroengineering man- aged to implement an older proposal (Schmidt 1980) to a mind- interface (Carmena et al. 2003. For a follow-up, by a Caltech team, see Musallam et al., 2004. For the initial proposal, see Schmidt 1980). Working with macaques, the team designed, built, and tested a di- rect interface between the cortical motor of the monkey and artiªcial actuators. Monkey thoughts were relayed via implants and a translation program to a joystick that was connected, in turn, to movable robotic devices. The ulterior aim of this work, which sounds science-ªction at ªrst glance, is to improve the lives of quadriplegics. Spinal and neurodegenerative disorders can lead to paralysis of such totality that some patients up being fully paralyzed, unable to move even their eyes. Individuals locked inside such frozen bodies can still be of perfectly sound mind and fully aware. Surgical or medical attempts of restoring damaged nerve ªbers are only of limited value, and as an alternative to physical modes of repair, Carmena’s team designed a mind-machine inter- face that decodes speciªc motor parameters from electrically measurable brain activities. This study, whose goal is to allow paralyzed patients to “enact their voluntary motor intentions,” was done with macaques trained to control a joystick by their wishes or intentions alone (Carmena 2003, 193; for behavioral and electrophysiology, see Carmena 2003, 206). Via sensors wired to a hard drive, whose decoded electric bursts as correlates of speciªc intentions, the brain activity of the monkeys translated into remote machine control. The abstract of Carmena’s paper describing the project deserves to be quoted in full:

Reaching and grasping in primates depend on the coordination of neural activity in large frontoparietal ensembles. Here we demon- strate that primates can learn to reach and grasp virtual objects by

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 Perspectives on Science 369

controlling a robot arm through a closed-loop brain machine inter- face (BMIc) that uses multiple mathematical models to extract sev- eral motor parameters (i.e., hand position, velocity, gripping force, and the EMGs of multiple arm muscles) from the electrical activity of frontoparietal neuronal ensembles. As single typically contribute to the of several motor parameters, we ob- served that high BMIc accuracy required recording from large neuronal ensembles. Continuous BMIc operation by monkeys led to signiªcant improvements in both model predictions and behavioral performance. Using visual feedback, monkeys succeeded in produc- ing robot reach-and-grasp movements even when their arms did not move. Learning to operate the BMIc was paralleled by func- tional reorganization in multiple cortical areas, suggesting that the dynamic properties of the BMIc were incorporated into motor and sensory cortical representations. (Carmena 2003, 193) With the use of this -theoretical approach to neuronal encoding of motor parameters, Carmena’s team concluded that “it is reasonable to en- vision that a cortical neuroprosthesis for restoring upper-limb movements could be implemented in the future, following the basic BMIc [brain- machine interface] described here” (p. 206). This work did not come out of thin air. It draws on studies of animal thought, brain map- ping, and neuroengineering. The manipulation of thought in rats had been performed by others (Chapin, Moxon, Markowitz, and Nicolelis 1999; Talwar, Xu, et al. 2002). In the earlier -study, the brain-machine interface used the idea of neuronal ensembles as causal sources of motion. This holistic view of neural effects, proposed some time ago (Mussa-Ivalidi 1988; Kennedy and King 2000), spawned insights into thought-action dynamics (Nicolelis 2001, 2003). An interesting side-effect of the thought-control of actuators by the monkeys was the of a constructive or evolutionary feedback from the actuator to brain activity, which prompted Carmena’s team to in- fer that such feedback “should be taken into account to decide how much of the plasticity reported by Taylor et al. (2002) reºects real cortical reor- ganization instead of resulting from the improvement in the animal’s be- havioral performance during the task used to measure directional tuning” (Carmena 2003, 206; see Taylor, Tillery and Schwartz 2002). Carmena et al. conclude: We propose that long-term operation of such a device by paralyzed subjects would lead, through a process of cortical plasticity, to the incorporation of artiªcial actuator dynamics into multiple brain representations ...wepredict that this assimilation process will

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 370 Animal Consciousness: Paradigm Change in the Life Sciences

not only ensure proªcient operation of the neuroprosthesis, but it will also confer to subjects the perception that such apparatus has become an integral part of their own bodies (Carmena 2003, 206). The authors claim that “changes in cell-preferred direction occurred af- ter switching to brain control,” and that “preferred directions were de- rived not from -movement directions of the hand or the cursor, but rather from ideal directions deªned by target locations” (ibid. p. 206; my em- phasis). In sum, the macaque monkeys controlled their cursors by willful thought alone. Since the experimental setup used by Carmena’s team trained the mon- keys to use a brain-machine interface by making them draw on a pad with a wand, the original could not quite eliminate physical mo- tion. A follow-up study in 2003 and 2004, by a team led by S. Musallam at Caltech, ªne-tuned Carmena’s work by immobilizing monkeys and em- ploying solely their “memory activity” to allow movement of cursors and robotic arms in two dimensions. Musallam’s team reports that “higher level signals related to the goals of movements were decoded from three monkeys and used to position cursors on a computer screen without the animals emitting any behavior” (Musallam 2004, 258). Apparently, Carmena’s claim was not mistaken. Musallam’s team concurred with the interpretation that intentional “ideal directions” caused the preferred cursor directions. The claim of monkey thought control had thus been seconded. In fall 2004, these results were applied by surgeons at the Wadsworth Center (New York), who implanted 100 electrodes into the brain of a quadriplegic man and connected them to a computer “that enables him to check his e-mail and choose a television channel with his thoughts alone.”17 What works in monkeys, works in humans, and the surgery was the ªrst successful application of the Carmena-result in line with the ªrst goal, help for quadriplegics. The salient point, for a perspective on scientiªc research, is that nonhumans have measurable and efªcacious intentions and thoughts. The old question of animal consciousness has been settled. As viewpoints on animals go, Descartes was wrong, and Leibniz was right. And as theologi- cal opinions of the ontological status of animals go, Thomas Aquinas’ po- sition seems less realistic than non-Western appraisals. We may not neces- sarily be pleased with this outcome, but we do not have much over the question anymore—animals really think. 17. The surgeons are J. Wolpaw and D. McFarland at the Wadsworth Center, part of the New York State Department of Health in Albany. See 2004; cf. Leuthardt, Schalk, Wolpaw, Ojemann, and Moran 2004.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 Perspectives on Science 371

5. Work on Animal Morality Since consciousness is not an exclusively human property, the question arises whether cooperative animals such as monkeys can also conceive of justice or fairness. Early evidence seems to indicate that they do, and this builds up on the ethological studies of the past century. This challenges the wide-spread philosophical belief that animals are moral patients de- serving of some justiªable protection but never moral agents capable of dis- tinguishing right from wrong. Current work on animal justice—which is part of a discipline called “behavioral ”—rests on the studies of Konrad Lorenz (1903– 1989). The Nobel Prize shared with Tinbergen and Frisch was “for their discoveries concerning ‘organization and elicitation of individual and so- cial behavior patterns’” (Karolinska Institutet 1973). Lorenz had intro- duced the scientiªc community to the study of social and individual ag- gression (Lorenz 1963). A later extension of Lorenz’s work were the studies on group dynamics in animals by Edward O. Wilson, who initiated a fu- sion of sociological and biological methods in his (1975), a sys- tematic application of the evolutionary model to social behavior.18 Today, behavioral ecologists, the heirs to Lorenz’ and Wilson’s sociobiology, focus on the structure of in nonhuman coopera- tives. Within a cooperative society, aggression is subject to invariant con- straints, as it must considering its disruptive consequences. Chimpanzee colonies reveal a regular and conspicuous pattern of conºict resolution in terms of friendly reunions; former enemies kiss and embrace after ªghts (de Waal 2000). This observed pattern contradicts the older view of ag- gression as an antisocial . In the new explanatory framework, ag- gression is seen as a tool of competition and negotiation (ibid. 586). The new model revolves around three aspects, which are, so de Waal (2000), “(i) indications of a calming function of grooming and other body con- tacts, (ii) recognition of long-term social relationships and their survival value, and (iii) demonstration of a connection between aggressive conºict and subsequent interopponent reunions, called ‘reconciliations’” (ibid., 586–587). 18. Wilson 1980 (1975). In the preface, Wilson points out that sociobiology is an in- terdisciplinary ªeld created by investigators from population , (esp. ), and zoology (p. v.). In chapter 1, he notes (p. 3): “The biolo- gist, who is concerned with questions of physiology and evolutionary history, realizes that self-knowledge is constrained and shaped by the emotional control centers in the hypothal- amus and of the brain. These centers ºood our consciousness with all the emotions . . . that are consulted by ethical who wish to intuit the standards of good and evil. What, we are then compelled to ask, made the hypothalamus and limbic system? They evolved by natural selection. That simple biological statement must be pur- sued to explain ...atalldepths.”

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 372 Animal Consciousness: Paradigm Change in the Life Sciences

For animal species such as chimpanzees, group organization offers pro- tection. Over mortality rates, there is literal safety in numbers, and usu- ally, the troop members act accordingly. The group as such offers survival, and the collective respect for this value regulates aggression. Lethal force is used to safeguard chimp territories from rival tribes; male chimps, who are usually ªercely competitive within their troop, bracket their animosi- ties when going on patrol in the ªeld. Male tensions are replaced by team bonding of the patrolling warrior platoon. Anger potentials ªnd external aims and emerge in coalitional aggression against foreigners (Watts, Mitani 2001; see also staff reports in News Focus, 2004). Aggression, properly regulated, safeguards the survival of groups in boundary disputes, and it serves as a “fairness-check” within the animal groups themselves. An experiment with brown capuchin monkeys (cebus apella) demonstrates the of fairness among primates: [This] nonhuman primate...responds negatively to unequal re- ward distribution in exchanges with a human experimenter. Mon- keys refused to participate if they witnessed a conspeciªc obtain a more attractive reward for equal effort, an effect ampliªed if the partner received such a reward without any effort at all. These reac- tions support an early evolutionary origin of . (Brosnan and de Waal 2003, 297) The experiment, which shows that monkeys go on strike following raw deals, is based on earlier tests on monkeys doing work that use an equality condition (rewarded tokens, convertible to cucumber) and an inequality condition (grapes, a more favored food). The early tests (1997) indicated that capuchin females “pay closer than males to the value of ex- changed goods and services” (Brosnan and de Waal 2003, 298; cf. di Bitetti 1997; de Waal 1997). The new study (2003) involves females, who were subjected to equality and inequality conditions, as well as to barter- ing actions with effort- and food controls. Before a subject could exchange tokens for cucumber, the experimenter handed a grape to her partner (ef- fort control) or put the grape on the place of the absent partner (food con- trol). The overall exchange tendency varied across the four conditions such that the presence of high-value rewards reduced the tendency to exchange for low-value rewards. The strongest increase in refusal to barter occurred whenever a partner was seen to receive better reward without any effort. Brosnan and de Waal conclude: People judge fairness based both on the distribution of gains and on the possible alternatives to a given outcome. Capuchin monkeys, too, seem to measure reward in relative terms, comparing their own

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 Perspectives on Science 373

rewards with those available, and their own efforts with those of others. They respond negatively to previously acceptable rewards if a partner gets a better deal. Although our data cannot elucidate the precise motivations underlying these responses, one possibility is that monkeys, similarly to humans, are guided by social emotions. These emotions, known as ‘passions’ by economists, guide human reactions to the efforts, gains, losses and attitudes of others. Clearly if these reactions evolved to promote long-term human cooperation, they may exist in other animals as well....Asopposed to primates marked by despotic hierarchies, tolerant species with well-devel- oped food sharing and cooperation, such as capuchins, may hold emotionally charged expectations about reward distribution and so- cial exchange that lead them to dislike inequity. (Brosnan, de Waal 2003, 299) Parallel studies of neuronal events in monkey brains show the being important for predicting a reward and to obtain it (Matsumoto 2003); they also show the continued heuristic power of economic dynamics (Nash’s ) in the prediction of future re- wards (Matsumoto, Suzuki, and Tanaka, 2003; Richmond, Liu, and Shidara 2003; see the idea of Nash Equilibria in Nash 1950). While be- havioral ecologists such as Brosnan and de Waal are clarifying the picture of nonhuman cooperation, aggression, and fair play, such as Matsumoto anchor this theoretical result in physiological mechanisms with the identiªcation of circuits in the nonhuman brain “that respond to cooperators and cheaters” (Vogel 2004, 1128). The comprehension of fair play presupposes a grasp of moral desert. The awarding of praise and blame—illustrated by monkeys peacefully cooper- ating or disruptively striking, determined by whether they are treated honestly or provocatively cheated—requires a cognitive identiªcation of cause and effect. Recent studies on primate perception of (O’Connell, Dunbar 2005), and comparisons of causal knowledge in mon- keys and children (Horner, Whiten 2005) underscore the ethical interpre- tations of nonhuman conduct.19 In sum, can approach nonhuman moral agency through classical , which shows that cooperation is based on the cognition of the value of fairness, and which illustrates, at the very least, “how animals do business” (de Waal 2005a, 72–79). This raises the ques- tion of the nature of such an animal sense of fairness. What, exactly, is 19. O’Connell and Dunbar 2005; Horner and Whiten 2005. For non-primate problems with cheating, experimental work on the Prisoner’s Dilemma, and cooperation in birds, see Stephens, McLinn, and Stevens 2002; Mesterton-Gibbons and Adams 2002.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 374 Animal Consciousness: Paradigm Change in the Life Sciences

nonhuman justice? The cited experimental setups suggest that the sense of fairness, as animals employ it, consists in reciprocity. The capuchin mon- key test (2003) indicates that the idea of reciprocity is older than human- kind, and that it arose with the emergence of nonhuman cooperative cul- tures. Today, the evolution of the is an expanding and interdisciplinary ªeld of research, involving , primatology, behavioral ecology, economics, and .20 At this point, it is still unclear to what extent aggression is the key to the social enforcement of fair play, but the observed relation of aggressive replies to unfair deals sug- gests that the basic Golden Rule is not the positive, ideal version of the West, “do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” but rather the negative, earthy version of the East, “what you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” Asked about the point of this core rule of humanity, Confucius replied, shu!—written as ‘mouth’ and ‘female’ above ‘heart’, deªning reciprocity as light-hearted considerateness.

Conclusion: Philosophical Implications The reviewed studies on animal languages, cultures, tools, thought, and fairness point to a parsimonious model of nature. Christian or Cartesian divorces of humans from animals appear less realistic than pagan or Leibnizian continua from animals to humans. Clearly animals are less complicated than we are, and their ability to use tools quickly hits limits (Santos et al. 2005). But this does not make them categorically distinct from us. The similarity of minds, both internally and outwardly, indicates that dualistic ontologies are rationally ºawed. Monist or holist frame- works appear more useful for integrating the described research. Over ani- mal consciousness, such an ontological would imply the stipula- tion of the ‘volume-knob’ model mentioned earlier; that is, the stipulation of a natural continuum of lesser and greater potentials, capacities, powers, or forces. This has at least three implications. Conceptually, it is time to abandon the habit of thinking in rigid, static dichotomies, and to replace it by a more realistic way of reasoning along dynamic, evolutionary ranges—the “toggle-switch” model of philosophical verdicts must yield to a “volume- knob” model if a sound perspective on this scientiªc work is to be gained. 20. For a useful report on the interdisciplinary ventures in animal moral agency, see Vogel 2004; Vogel discusses work by the evolutionary biologists R. Trivers (Rutgers), D. Johnson (Stanford), and M. Milinski ( Institute Plön), the primatologists J. Silk (UCLA), S. Brosnan and F. de Waal (both at Emory), the anthropologists R. Boyd (UCLA) and E. Fehr (Zürich), the mathematicians M. Nowak (Harvard) and K. Sigmund (Vienna), the economists S. Gächter (St. Gallen) and B. Herrmann (Göttingen).

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 Perspectives on Science 375

Historically, it is time to revisit early modern thinkers who anticipated just this sort of current results, such as Spinoza, Leibniz, Wolff, Unzer, or the early Kant. And rationally, this paradigm change should help us to unload the burden of Scottish skepticism that had stunted 20th century philosophy—animal consciousness points to ªrst-order questions, to fact- value links, and to a new ontology.

References Asquith, P. J. 1986. “Imanishi’s Impact in Japan.” Nature 323: 675–676. Begun, D. R. 2004. “The Earliest Hominids—Is Less More?” Science 303: 1478. Bekoff, M. and J. Goodall. 2001. “The View from Japan.” Nature 41: 995– 996. Beran, M. J. 2004. “Chimpanzees ( troglodytes) Respond to Nonvisible Sets After One-by-One Addition and Removal of Items.” Journal of 118: 25–36. Beran, M. J., M. M. Beran, and C. Menzel. 2005. “ and Monitoring of Hidden Items Through Spatial Displacement by Chim- panzees (pan troglodytes).” Journal of Comparative Psychology 119: 14–22. Bergman, T. J., J. Beehner, D. Cheney, and R. Seyfarth. 2003. “Hierarchi- cal Classiªcation by Rank and Kinship in Baboons.” Science 302: 1234– 1236. Bitetti, M. di. 1997. “Evidence for an Important Social Role of Allogrooming in a Platyrrhine Primate.” Animal Behavior 54: 199– 211. Bodamer, M., and R. A. Gardner. 2002. “How Cross-Fostered Chimpan- zees (pan troglodytes) Initiate and Maintain .” Journal of Comparative Psychology 116: 12–26. Boesch C. and H. Boesch-Achermann. 2000. Chimpanzees of the Ta? Forest: Behavioral Ecology and Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Breuer, T., M. Ndoundou-Hockemba, and V. Fishlock. 2005. “First Ob- servation of Tool Use in Wild Gorillas.” PLOS Biology 3: 2041–2043. Brosnan, S., and F. de Waal. 2003. “Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay.” Nature 425: 297–299. Byrne, R. W. 2002. “When Met Japanese Prima- tology.” 5: 59–60. Carmena et al. 2003. “Learning to Control a Brain-Machine Interface for Reaching and Grasping by Primates.” PLOS Biology 1: 193–208. Chapin, J., K. Moxon, R. Markowitz, and M. Nicolelis. 1999. “Real-time Control of a Robot Arm Using Simultaneously Recorded Neurons in the .” Nature Neuroscience 2: 664–670.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 376 Animal Consciousness: Paradigm Change in the Life Sciences

Cleveland, A., A. Rocca, E. Wendt, and G. Westergaard. 2004. “Transport of Tools to Food Sites in Tufted Capuchin Monkeys (cebus apella).” Ani- mal Cognition 7: 193–198. Clutton-Brock, Juliet. 2005. “Admitting Sympathy Beyond Species.” Na- ture 434: 958–959. Coqueugniot, H., et al. 2004. “Early Brain Growth in Homo erectus and Implications for Cognitive Ability.” Nature 431: 299–302. Cottingham, J. 1978. “‘A Brute to the Brutes’? Descartes’ Treatment of Animals.” Philosophy 53: 551–555. Cummins-Sebree, S. E., and D. M. Fragaszy. 2005. “Choosing and Using Tools: Capuchins (cebus apella) Use a Different Metric than Tamarins (saguinus oedipus),” Journal of Comparative Psychology 119: 210–219. Daston, L. and G. Mitman, eds. 2005. Thinking with Animals: New Perspec- tives on . New York: Columbia University Press. Descartes, René. 1996. Oeuvres. Ed. C. Adam and P. Tannery. Paris: Vrin. Ducoing, A. M., and B. Thierry. 2005. “Tool-Use Learning in Tonkean Macaques (macaca tonkeana).” Animal Cognition 8: 103–113. Eakin, E. 2001 (3 February). “No Longer Alone: The Who Dared to Say Animals Think.” , A-17. Eysel, U. T. 2003. “ and Perceived Images in the Primate Brain.” Science 302: 789–791. Fletcher, R. 1997. The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity. New York: Holt. Frisch, Karl von. 1923. “Über die ‘Sprache’ der Bienen. Eine tierpsycholo- gische Untersuchung” (On the ‘language’ of bees—a study in animal psy- chology). Zoologischer Jahrbücher 40: 1–186. ————. 1946. “Die Tänze der Bienen” (The dances of bees). Österreichische Zoologische Zeitschrift 1: 1–48. ————. 1962. “Dialects in the Language of the Bee.” Scientiªc American 207.2: 78–87. ————. 1974. “Decoding the Language of the Bee.” Science 185: 663– 668. Gottlieb, J., and P. Mazzoni. 2004. “Action, , and Perception.” Science 303: 317–318. Gould, J. L. 1976. “The Dance-Language Controversy.” Quar- terly Review of Biology 51: 211–244. Gould, J. L. 2004. “Thinking About Thinking: how Donald R. Grifªn (1915–2003) Remade Animal Behavior.” Animal Cognition 7: 1–4. Gould J. L. and C. G. Gould. 1988. The Honey Bee. New York: Scientiªc American Library. Gould J. L. and C. G. Gould. 1994. Animal Mind. New York: Scientiªc American Library.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 Perspectives on Science 377

Gould, S. J. 2002. The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Gross, L. 2005. “Wild Gorillas Handy with a Stick.” PLOS Biology 3: 1841–1842. Halstead, L. B. 1985. “Anti-Darwinian Theory in Japan.” Nature 317: 587–589. Harris, E. H., and D. Washburn. 2005. “Macaques’ (macaca mulatta) Use of Numerical Cues in Maze Trials.” Animal Cognition 8: 190–199. Henshilwood, C. S., et al. 2002. “Emergence of Modern Human Behav- ior.” Science 295: 1278–1280. Horner, V., and A. Whiten. 2005. “Causal Knowledge and / Emulation Switching in Chimpanzees (pan troglodytes) and Children (homo sapiens).” Animal Cognition 8: 164–181. Imanishi, Kinji. 1940. Seibutsu no Sekai. German trans. A. Wuthenow and K. Satoko, Die Welt der Lebewesen. Munich: Judicium, 2002. English trans. P. Asquith, H. Kawakatsu et al. A Japanese View of Nature: the World of Living Things. New York: Routledge, 2002. Jean-Baptiste, P. 2004. “Faut-il brûler Darwin?” Sciences et Avenir 693: 58– 69. Karolinska Institutet. 1973 (October). “The 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiol- ogy or Medicine.” http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1973/press .html. Kawai, M. 1965. “Newly Acquired Pre-cultural Behavior of the Natural Troop of Japanese Monkeys on Koshima Islet.” Primates 6: 1–30. Kawai, M., K. Watanabe, and A. Mori. 1991. “Pre-Cultural Observed in Free-Ranging Japanese Monkeys on Koshima islet over the Past 25 Years.” Primate Report 32: 143–155. Kennedy, P., and B. King. 2000. “Dynamic Interplay of Neural Signals During the Emergence of Cursor Related Cortex in a Human Im- planted with a Neurotrophic Electrode.” Pp 221–233 in J. Chapin and K. Moxon, eds. Neural Prostheses for Restoration of Sensory and Motor Func- tions. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Keyes, K. 1982. The Hundredth Monkey. Coos Bay: Vision Books. Leavens, D., W. Hopkins, and R. Thomas. 2004. “Referential Communi- cation by Chimpanzees (pan troglodytes).” Journal of Comparative Psychol- ogy 118: 48–57. Leibniz, G. W. 1978. Philosophische Schriften. Ed. C. Gerhardt. Hildesheim: Olms. Leuthardt, E. C., G. Schalk, J. R. Wolpaw, J. G. Ojemann, and D. W. Moran, 2004, “A Brain-Computer Interface Using Electrocortico- graphic Signals in Humans,” Journal of Neural Engineering 1: 63–71. Lorenz, K. 1963. Das sogenannte Böse. Zur Naturgeschichte der Aggression Vi-

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 378 Animal Consciousness: Paradigm Change in the Life Sciences

enna: Borotha-Schoeler. English trans. . London: Methuen, 1967. Maestripieri, D., N. L. Megna, and S. K. Ross. 2002. “Mother-Infant Interactions in Western Lowland Gorillas (gorilla gorilla gorilla): Spatial Relationships, Communication, and Opportunities for Social Learning.” Journal of Comparative Psychology 116: 219–227. Matsumoto, K., W. Suzuki, and K. Tanaka. 2003. “Neuronal Correlates of Goal-Based Motor Selection in the Prefrontal Cortex.” Science 301: 229–232. Matsusawa, T. ed. 2001. Primate Origins of Human Cognition and Behavior. New York: Springer. ————. 2004. “When Does Play Panting Occur during Social Play in Wild Chimpanzees?” Primates 45: 221–229. ————. 2005. “Primate Viewing: Chimpanzee Behavior Shows Re- markable Regional Variation.” Nature 434: 21–2. McGrew, W. C. 1992. Chimpanzee Material Culture: Implications for . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ————. The Cultured Chimpanzee: Reºections on Cultural Primatology. Cambridge University Press. Mesterton-Gibbons, M., and E. S. Adams. 2002. “The Economics of Ani- mal Cooperation.” Science 298: 2146–2147. Moura, A., and P. Lee. 2004. “Capuchin Stone Tool Use in Caatinga Dry Forest.” Science 306: 1909. Mulcahy, N. J., J. Call, and R. Dunbar. 2005. “Gorillas (gorilla gorilla) and Orangutans (pongo pygmaeus) Encode Relevant Problem Features in a Tool-Using Task.” Journal of Comparative Psychology 119: 23–32. Musallam, S., et al. 2004. “Cognitive Control Signals for Neural Prosthet- ics.” Science 305: 258–262. Mussa-Ivalidi, F. A. 1988. “Do Neurons in the Motor Cortex Encode Movement Direction? An Alternative Hypothesis.” Neuroscience Letters 91: 106–111. Nakahara, K., and Y. Miyashita. 2005. “Understanding Intentions: Through the Looking Glass.” Science 308: 644–645. Nash, J. F. 1950. “Equilibrium Points in n- Games.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 36: 48–49. News Focus. 2004. “Tracking the Evolutionary History of a ‘Warrior’ ” and “Chimpanzee Gang Warfare.” Science 304: 818–819. Nicolelis, M. 2001. “Actions from Thoughts.” Nature 409: 403–407. ————. 2003. “Brain-Machine Interfaces to Restore Motor Function and Probe Neural Circuits.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 4: 417–422. O’Connell, S., and R. Dunbar. 2005. “The Perception of Causality in Chimpanzees (pan spp.).” Animal Cognition 8: 60–66.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 Perspectives on Science 379

Panksepp, J. 2005. “Beyond a Joke: From Animal Laughter to Human Joy?” Science 308: 62–63. Panksepp, J., and J. Burgdorf. 2003. “‘Laughing’ Rats and the Evolution- ary Antecedents of Human Joy?” Physiology and Behavior 79: 533–547. Poss, S. R., and P. Rochat. 2003. “Referential Understanding of Videos in Chimpanzees (pan troglodytes), Orangutans (pongo pygmaeus), and Children (homo sapiens).” Journal of Comparative Psychology 117: 420– 428. Richmond, B., J. Z. Liu, and M. Shidara. 2003. “Predicting Future Re- wards.” Science 301: 179–180. Roesch, M., and C. Olson. 2004. “Neuronal Activity Related to Reward Value and Motivation in Primate Frontal Cortex.” Science 304: 307– 310. Russon, A. 2004. Orangutans: Wizards of the Rainforest. Buffalo: Fireºy. Santos, L., et al. 2005. “Means-Means-End Tool Choice in Cotton-Top Tamarins (saguinus oedipus): Finding the Limits on Primates’ Knowl- edge of Tools.” Animal Cognition 8: 236–246. Sapolsky, R., and L. Share. 2004. “A Paciªc Culture among Wild Ba- boons: Its Emergence and Transmission.” PLOS Biology 2: 534–541. Schaik, C. van 2004. Among Orangutans: Red Apes and the Rise of Human Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ————. 2006. “Why Are Some Animals So Smart?” Scientiªc American 294.4: 64–71. Schaik, C. van and C. Knott. 2001. “Geographic Variation in Tool Use on Neesia Fruits in Orangutans.” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 114: 331–342. Schaik, C. van, E. Fox, and A. Sitompul. 1996. “Manufacture and Use of Tools in Wild Sumatran Orangutans: Implications for Human Evolu- tion.” Naturwissenschaften 83: 186–188. Schmidt, E. M. 1980. “Single Recording from Motor Cortex as a Possible Source of Signals for Control of External Devices.” Annals of Biomedical Engineering 8: 339–349. Silk, J. B., S. Alberts, and J. Altmann. 2003. “Social Bonds of Female Ba- boons Enhance Infant Survival.” Science 302: 1231–1234. Small, M. 2001. “Review of de Waal, Sushi Master,” Scientiªc American 284.4: 104–106. Smuts, B. 2004. “Orangutan Technology.” Scientiªc American 287.12: 112–114. Stephens, D., C. McLinn and J. Stevens. 2002. “Discounting and Reci- procity in an Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma.” Science 298: 2216–2218. Talwar, S., S. Xu, et. al. 2002. “Rat Navigation Guided by Remote Con- trol.” Nature 417: 37–38.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 380 Animal Consciousness: Paradigm Change in the Life Sciences

Tanaka, M. 2001. “Discrimination and of Photographs of Natural Objects by Chimpanzees (pan troglodytes).” Animal Cognition 4: 201–211. Taylor, D., S. Tillery, and A. Schwartz, 2002, “Direct Cortical Control of 3D Neuroprosthetic Devices.” Science 296: 1829–1832. Visalberghi E. and D. Fragaszy. 1990. “Food-Washing Behavior in Tufted Capuchin Monkeys (cebus apella) and Crab-Eating Macaques (macaca fasicularis).” Animal Behaviour 40: 829–836. Vogel, G. 2002. “Can Chimps Ape Ancient Hominid Toolmakers?” Science 296: 1380. ————. 2003. “Orangutans, like Chimps, Heed the Cultural Call of the Collective.” Science 299: 27–28. ————. 2004. “The Evolution of the Golden Rule.” Science 303: 1128– 1131. Vonk, J., and S. E. MacDonald, 2004. “Levels of in Orang- utan (pongo abelii) Categorization.” Journal of Comparative Psychology 118: 3–13. Waal, F. de. 1996. “Macaque Social Culture: Development and Perpetua- tion of Afªliative Networks.” Journal of Comparative Psychology 110: 147–154. ————. 1997. “Food Transfers through Mesh in Brown Capuchin Monkeys.” Journal of Comparative Psychology 111: 370–378. ————. 2000. “Primates: A Natural Heritage of Conºict Resolution.” Science 289: 586–590. ————. 2001. The Ape and the Sushi Master: Cultural Reºections by a Primatologist. New York: Basic Books. ————. 2003. “Silent Invasion: Imanishi’s Primatology and Cultural Bias in Science,” Animal Cognition 6: 293–299. ————. 2005a. “How Animals Do Business.” Scientiªc American 292.4: 72–79. ————. 2005b. Our Inner Ape. New York: Riverhead. Watts, D., and J. Mitani, “Boundary Patrols and Intergroup Encounters in Wild Chimpanzees,” Behaviour 138 (2001): 299–327. Wenner A. and P. Wells. 1973. “Do Honey Bees Have a Language?” Na- ture 241: 171–175. Whiten, A . et al., 1999. “Culture in Chimpanzees.” Nature 399: 682– 685. Whiten, A. 2000. “Primate Culture and Social Learning.” 24: 477–508. Whiten, A. and C. Boesch. 2001. “The Cultures of Chimpanzees.” Scientiªc American 284.1: 60–67.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021 Perspectives on Science 381

Wickelgren, I. 2004. “Brain-Computer Interface Adds a New Dimen- sion.” Science 306: 1878–79. Wilson, E. O. 1980 (1975). Sociobiology: the New Synthesis. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/posc.2006.14.3.354 by guest on 27 September 2021