INTELLIGENCE IN NATURE ALSO BY JEREMY NARBY The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge Shamans Through Time: 500 Years on the Path to Knowledge (with Francis Huxley) INTELLIGENCE IN NATURE AN INQUIRY INTO KNOWLEDGE JEREMY NARBY Jeremy P. Tarcher / Penguin a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. New York Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA ⢠Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) ⢠Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England ⢠Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephenâs Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) ⢠Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) ⢠Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhiâ110 017, India ⢠Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) ⢠Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Copyright © 2005 by Jeremy Narby All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authorâs rights. Purchase only authorized editions. The Library of Congress catalogued the hardcover edition as follows: Narby, Jeremy. Intelligence in nature: an inquiry into knowledge / Jeremy Narby. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Psychology, Comparative. 2. Animal intelligence. 3. OrganismsâMiscellanea. I. Title. BF671.N37 2005 2004058849 156'.3âdc22 ISBN: 978-1-1011-9089-0 While the author has made every effort to provide accurate Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Futher, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content. To Beatrice AUTHORâS NOTE The endnotes tell a story of their own, and I leave it to individual readers to determine how much or how little to use them. The narrative can be read entirely by itself, but for those who wish more information on a given topic or statement, many passages are calibrated by chapter, page number, and subject matter to endnotes that begin on page 149. CONTENTS Introduction SEARCHING FOR INTELLIGENCE IN NATURE Chapter 1 BRAINY BIRDS Chapter 2 AGNOSTIC VISIONS Chapter 3 TRANSFORMERS Chapter 4 CABIN FEVER Chapter 5 INSECT MINDS Chapter 6 PREDATORS Chapter 7 PLANTS AS BRAINS Chapter 8 SMART SLIME Chapter 9 JAPANESE BUTTERFLY MACHINES Chapter 10 MYSTERY JELLY Chapter 11 CHI-SEI AND KNOWING NATURE NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INDEX BIBLIOGRAPHIC INDEX  ⢠NATURE LOVES TO HIDE ⢠HERACLITUS INTELLIGENCE IN NATURE Introduction SEARCHING FOR INTELLIGENCE IN NATURE For fifteen years I have helped indigenous Amazonian people gain titles to their lands. These are people who believe that plants and animals have intentions, and that shamans communic- ate with other species in visions and dreams. Their way of knowing is difficult for rationalists to grasp. More than a decade ago, I began searching for common ground between indigenous knowledge and Western science, and ended up finding links between shamanism and molecu- lar biology. In the book The Cosmic Serpent, I presented the hypothesis that shamans take their consciousnesses down to the molecular level and gain access in their visions to information related to DNA, which they call âanimate essences,â or âspirits.â In the Amazon, indigenous leaders and shamans expressed broad interest and support for this approach. For them, it was not news that their knowledge is real. But on the other side of the equation, things were more complicated. Western science has some difficulty with the possibility of both nonhuman intelligence and the subjective acquis- ition of objective knowledge. Since its original publication in 1995, The Cosmic Serpent has not gained the attention I had hoped for from scientists. However, several biologists read it with interest and engaged me in dialogue. One biophysicist challenged me to test the hypo- thesis, saying that this was the true method of science. He had a point. As an anthropologist, I am no scientist and had never tested a hypothesis. I decided to take up this challenge. To test the hypothesis, I accompanied three molecular bio- logists to the Peruvian Amazon to see whether they could obtain biomolecular information by ingesting a psychoactive plant brew administered by an indigenous shaman. In the realm of visions, all three received clear answers about their work. One of these molecular biologists, Dr. Pia Malnoe, who teaches at a Swiss University and who directs a research laboratory, concluded: âThe way shamans get their knowledge is not very different from the way scientists get their knowledge. It has the same origin, but shamans and scientists use different methods.â I published an account of this encounter between parallel avenues of human knowledge and ultimately realized I was stuck on getting the approval of the scientific establishment. I decided to redirect my inquiry. One question seemed more important than any other. By digging into history, mythology, indigenous knowledge, and science, I had found clues pointing to intelligence in nature. This seemed like a new way of looking at living beings. I had grown up in the suburbs and re- ceived a materialist and rationalist educationâa worldview that denies intention in nature and considers living beings as âautomatonsâ and âmachines.â But now, there was increasing evidence that this is wrong, and that nature teems with intelligence. Even the cells in our own bodies seem to harbor a hive of deliberate activity. Toward the end of the 1990s I began focusing on the works of biologists who study or- ganisms rather than molecules. To my surprise I found a number of recent studies demon- strating that even simple creatures behave with intelligence. Scientists now show that brain- less single-celled slime molds can solve mazes and bees with brains the size of pinheads can handle abstract concepts. Philosopher John Locke proclaimed in the seventeenth century: âBrutes abstract not.â But, in fact, brutes abstract, and reductionist science recently proved it. I even found contemporary scientists who claim that natural beings can only be un- derstood by attributing humanness to them. This is what shamans have been saying all along. This led me to launch an investigation on the subject of âintelligence in nature,â a concept constructed by combining science and indigenous knowledge. I would later learn that Japanese researchers already possess a term for this âknowingnessâ of the natural world: chi-sei (pronounced CHEE-SAY). But I would begin the first leg of my search in the Amazon, where I had first met people who attribute spirits, intentions, and humanness to oth- er species. Then I intended to do an anthropology of science and visit scientists in their work- ing environment. I set off on a quest not knowing what I was going to find. I went hunting for treasure, whereabouts unknown.  ONE SUMMER DAY just before the beginning of this investigation I visited an old herbal healer living on an isolated farm in Estonia. Her name was Laine Roht, which means âWave Grassâ in Estonian. I was introduced to Roht by the Estonian translator of my previous book. She led us to a small outdoor shelter at the back of her garden, which contained a rudimentary fireplace decorated with empty Russian champagne bottles. Roht spoke only Estonian. I explained that I was an anthropologist and wanted to ask her some questions. Roht nod- ded her consent. She sat upright on a bench, with her two hands joined together on her lap. I started by asking if she could explain how she had become a healer. She said her great-uncle was a healer, and that she was born with the gift. She said that plants speak to her, telling her when they are most potent and when to pick them; this sometimes happens at night, while she is resting; she receives instructions, gets up, and goes to the plants she has just been told about. The information she receives is always correct, she said. And when people tell her of their illness, she feels the sickness in her own body, which acts as a mirror. Later, when she learns which plants will heal the illness, she feels relief in the part of her body that has the empathy with the sick person. She did not elaborate on how she receives instructions from or about plants. Her views reminded me of the notions held by some Amazonian shamans I had met. I decided to go straight to the point and asked what she could tell me about natureâs intel- ligence. She shook her head, and said: âNobody has asked me this before. It is difficult to penetrate nature. I have no words for it. There will never be such words. No one will ever know how plants and humans are made, or what will become of them. This will remain a secret.â I found her pale blue gaze hard to sustain. When she spoke, I could listen only to the melody of her voice. Estonian is not an Indo-European language, and I found it difficult to make out a single word. When she paused, I listened to the translation and noted word by word what she had said.