(Inspired by all the studies that 'discover' that animals can think & feel)
A group of aliens visited Earth because they heard that among the 8.7 million different species of animals on the planet, only one had consciousness and was therefore superior. Wanting to learn more about these beings called humans, they started by meeting with non-humans. Their discussions are summarized below. (Aliens utilized a universal translator system similar to what was in the Star Trek series).
“It’s cute,” said Fred, the dolphin, “how humans think they know so much about the world when they only have five senses. They can’t even echolocate. It’s a miracle they aren’t bumping into each other more.”
“Are you kidding me?” Marvin the Mexican bat chimed in. “They are always bumping into each other and things. I live in a colony of almost a million bats, we all come out at night at the same time and we never ever bump into each other… I’ve seen humans run straight into a chair that’s been in the same place in their own house for decades”. Marvin started pretending he was a human crashing into a chair and grabbed his shin while hopping around on one leg, cursing. Bats look really funny when trying to walk upright. Everyone had a good chuckle before composing themselves to continue the interview.
“Humans can’t even go 20 miles without carrying around an external GPS device”. Said the homing pigeon. “They used to make and read maps which was a cool talent, but seriously, imagine not being able to see magnetic fields. We pigeons can go 1100 miles easy peasy. Humans have to put up signposts and numbers on every street just to find their way around… and they have the nerve to say ‘bird brain’ as an insult.”
Numerous other migratory animals nodded in solidarity. “I have to remember a 1000-mile trip I made only once when I was young.” said a salmon.
“Humans think they know what the world looks like and how it works” interjected Blippy, the mantis shrimp. She reminded us how she can sense electromagnetic fields, and see a wider spectrum of colors than anyone else, including circularly polarized light. Then she bragged a bit about how she can even pre-process visual signals before they reach her brain. “They simply don’t know what they don’t know, while at the same time, they think what they know they know is the only way to know something. Humans are missing MOST of reality.
The aliens referenced the many papers written about new ‘experiments’ designed by humans to determine if other animals have consciousness. They asked if the animals considered themselves to have ‘consciousness’ as defined by humans. The animals replied in unison with their own very logical question: “How do humans define consciousness?”
The aliens flipped through their papers and stammered in run-on sentences that somehow still managed to be incomplete while the animals waited patiently, sometimes cocking their heads.
The aliens then explained that every research paper humans write about consciousness start by saying that they don’t have a clear understanding of what consciousness really is. The animals as a group cocked their heads to the other side and waited.
The aliens started to piece together different definitions they often saw cited:
To be conscious is to have conscious thoughts and feelings
“I thought you weren’t supposed to use a word to define itself,” said Sally the gorilla. “What does it even mean to have a conscious thought or feeling?”
“You know you’re having it, I guess,” replied the alien. “OK. I know I am having feelings and thoughts”. Sally said. “I’m about to have another thought about this banana… Yup, there it is, and now I feel happy.”
“Yeah, but how do the humans know you are having these thoughts and feelings?” asked another alien.
“Don’t know. Don’t care. Just because a human can’t figure out if I’m having a feeling doesn’t mean I’m not… Especially if they are coming from a preconceived notion that I don’t.” The gorilla sat back.
The aliens moved on and said that humans sometimes described consciousness as the ability to be aware of internal and external environments.
“Who is a human to be the judge of someone else’s internal and external awareness?” said an exasperated monarch butterfly. “I don’t see them walking around thinking: “I see a wall… Oh I see a tree. I better translate that to the language of every other living creature on the planet so they know I am conscious”. Then he added: ‘if I had a palm, I would be putting my face in it right now’.
“And as far as internal awareness”, the butterfly continued, getting noticeably agitated. “Don’t get me started. Humans tattoo my image onto their body - They talk all the time about their ‘personal transformation journeys’ yet they never actually transform into ANYTHING.
The aliens continued: Another way humans measure consciousness is if you can identify yourself in a mirror. It’s called the mirror self-recognition test. They place a mark on an animal’s forehead (either with a laser pointer or a bit of paint) and observe its reaction when it looks in a mirror. If the animal attempts to remove the mark, the humans think it suggests that it perceives the reflection as itself.
“Oh is THAT what they were doing? Asked a magpie named Shoopy. “They gave me a mirror and oh boy did I give them a show. I love those things, because well, have you SEEN how gorgeous I am? It was weird, though because they kept putting a red thing on my gorgeous head and I had to keep wiping it off. It was kind of annoying. When I was done they said 'I was conscious'. I thought: well, duh, I mean I’m a walkin’ and a squakin’ aren’t I?”
“That happened to me, too” said a groundhog named Charles. “I sat in front of a mirror, staring at my gorgeous self and then suddenly there was this red dot like from a laser pointer on my head. I froze. I’ve seen too many sniper movies and I wasn’t going to make any unexpected movements. The humans shook their heads in disappointment and let me go.”
“I had a dot, too,” a baboon said. “It was red paint on my forehead. I heard the humans talking about consciousness and thought it was a spiritual ceremony so I just sat there and did a little meditation. I looked into my own eyes, counted my breaths and focused on opening my third eye, where the dot was. It was deep, man. I really felt like I tapped into a higher state of consciousness than I get in my usual meditations. Now I know they were all looking at me like I was a dumb-ass”
Humans are definitely exceptional at recognizing themselves in the mirror but the aliens saw this less as evidence of consciousness and was more about their vanity and narcissism.
The aliens continued. Humans say you are conscious if you have sensory experiences such as color perception, affective experiences such as bodily pleasure, and vivid imagery during dreams, memories, imagination, or planning.
The animals collectively rolled on the floor laughing. “I perceive a hella more colors than humans do” said the mantis shrimp between giggles. The baboon was scratching the horse’s mane and said: “Jerry, you feeling any bodily pleasure?” The horse was stretching his neck out with his nose making a point and clacking his teeth together… he simply said: “Oooohhh yeeeaaaah!”
The sparrows started laughing and pretending they couldn’t remember where all the bird feeders were “Oh no, I can’t visualize what a bird feeder looks like! How will I find food?” A crow picked up a stick then walked in circles saying “Now what was I going to do with this? I must have carried it over here for a reason. Do I have a nest I need to build?”
Peaches the dog rolled his eyes and said: “So they see me sleeping with my legs twitching and making running movements and I’m barking and they aren’t sure if I’m dreaming vividly?”
“Seems so” said the aliens.
Peaches sat up and cocked her head. “So with everything us dogs have shown humans… our ability to read their body language, literally smell their emotions, predict their seizures, learn their cues, be their emotional support, manage to get them to pick up our poop, and be an unlimited source of unconditional love and empathy… somehow they can’t decide if we’re conscious because they don’t know for sure if we see things when we dream?”
The aliens looked at the group of animals: "Have any of you told your dreams to humans?"
“WE DO!!" said a large group of birds all at once.
“What do you think we’re singing about every morning?”
“It’s so weird” said another dog, Brownie, with a bit of an exasperated tone. “They talk to me all the time. They tell me their troubles, what they’re doing, and what we’re about to do… and they ask me lots of questions like if I want to go for a walk, or if I want to go in the car. They even ask me if I’m a good boy. And they ask me at least two times every time… Wanna go in the car? Wanna go in the car? Wanna go in the car? Yes, I want to go in the car. I jump up, wag my tail do a cute little bark while looking you straight in the eye, half run to the door, come back to get you and jump up and down some more. Look at me and how happy I am… I couldn’t make it more obvious….
“And then they have the nerve to say that I don’t have complex communication or emotions? I’m dumbing it down and exaggerating it FOR THEM.” Brownie’s tail went limp and he layed down flat and put his head between his front legs. “I try SO hard.”
The room became silent and everyone held space for the dog’s frustration and sadness. Then 5 seconds later Brownie jumped up and said “I’m OK!” and everyone broke out in joyous laughter.
“If you ask me…”. Everyone whipped their heads around in surprise as the voice came from Silky, the cat, who typically doesn’t engage in conversation with ANYone.
“If anyone is lacking consciousness, it’s the humans. My human is what they call a therapist. If self-awareness is a measure of consciousness, then humans fail at it. All day, every day, humans come in to talk to her to try to figure out their own feelings. They have a million voices in their heads and they don’t understand any of them. They pay a lot of money just to learn how to talk to themselves in a productive way. They spend lifetimes trying to figure out who they are. Have any of you animals ever needed therapy?” She asked.
Everyone shook their head, wondering what it would even be like to feel like you didn’t know yourself. Brownie said: “I knew a dog once that needed some help but that’s because she spent too much time with a mean human. She had devoted her life to her human and I guess they asked her one too many times ‘who’s a good girl?’ without ever telling her that it was HER. SHE was the good girl. She just snapped. Then they told her she was a bad girl and that was it. She took off and found someone else. She’s OK now.”
“Listen,” said the octopus, holding up a helpful graphic he just made, “There’s this thing called the Dunning-Kruger effect where beings with the lowest competence often have the highest sense of self-confidence. This, when coupled with narcissism and a Superiority Complex, will naturally lead to assuming that everyone around you is dumber and 'less conscious' than you, simply because you don’t understand them. When it comes to awareness and knowingness of consciousness, humans are still beginners."
She went on…"Humans say that they have characteristics unique to humans such as abstract thought, complex language, and self-awareness. The truth is, they don’t know what we (meaning animals-other-than-human-animals) are thinking and they blame us for their inability. Just because they don’t understand what we’re saying, (or even realize that we are saying stuff) it doesn’t mean we’re not communicating.
As for self-awareness - c’mon, seriously? They criticize us if we don’t brush a paint mark off our heads in front of a mirror, meanwhile, humans consistently do things they know are harmful to themselves. THAT is lack of self-awareness if you ask me.”
Impressed by the octopus’s wisdom the aliens asked: ‘‘So what do you think? Are some animals more conscious than others?’ Is it the humans that are unconscious?’ The octopus didn’t hesitate, ‘The point is, it’s pointless to try to categorize beings based on a definition that isn’t defined…. And why would you want to experience life through a narrowly filtered lens instead of being open to the whole experience even if your brain doesn't understand it?”
"Be open to the whole experience even if your brain doesn't understand it."
The Octopus
The aliens sat back in their chairs, and pondered humans’ vague definition of consciousness, and humans’ default assumption that everyone was inferior to them based on their own made-up criteria. It seemed similar to stories about the witch trials where people were executed based on vague and changing definitions of what a witch was.
They wrote in their notes that the humans were right about one thing: out of the 8.7 million animal species, humans were the best at being humans. The aliens noted how strange it was to need to have a contest to see who was the ‘most like humans’. Maybe it was because they felt so alone, they wanted to find others that were ‘as superior as them’, not realizing that it was exactly this kind of thinking that made them feel so alone here on this planet in the first place. That maybe if they thought a little less about themselves they could have a chance of connecting and communicating with the rest of the world in a way, for now, they can’t even imagine.
The aliens realized humans weren’t superior but had a Superiority Complex and extreme Moral Anthropocentrism and decided to shift their research to study why humans start with the assumption that everything else is ‘less than’ them. They wondered why humans were so surprised whenever they ‘discover’ that animals aren’t mindless automotons, noting that they themselves were not as great at self awareness and communication as they think they are. Then they wondered if this actually made humans an inferior species.
At this moment, a stink bug flew towards one of the aliens. Everyone in the room held their breath, hoping for a smooth landing. The alien saw he was coming in a little too fast and ducked to the left, but the bug also turned that direction. They both overcorrected and the bug bounced off the alien’s neck, causing his reflexive emission of the foul odor that gives him his name. “Oh crap, sorry everyone”. The animals with noses covered them, the snakes pulled their tongues in. The dolphins and whales who have no ability to smell things just looked around wondering why everyone had such funny looks on their faces. The stink bug landed on the alien’s leg, did a short flight to his shoulder (landing quite softly this time), then crawled up close to his hearing hole.
“You’re not getting it: When it comes to trying to figure out consciousness… The more you look, the less you see. The more you think, the less you know. You can’t see the picture from inside the frame. You can never use your brain to figure out things that exist beyond the brain. You have to be in the fourth dimension to see the third dimension. You have to move above thinking and just see this is-ness of everyone.”
The aliens recognized they had been using human-like thinking by trying to rate the consciousness of humans and judging them for it. “It’s just so tempting to try to figure out who is ‘better than or less than. The humans seemed so confident about the importance of doing this”. Fortunately, the aliens could instantly recalibrate their minds to incorporate the higher perspective presented by the animals.
"Move above thinking and just see this is-ness of everyone"
~The Stink Bug
A deep silence filled the room. The conversation brought up memories. You could see the pain on the face of the white rats, monkeys, chickens, turkeys, cows, dogs, horses, pigs, and others who had family who had suffered (or still were suffering) horribly at the hands of humans because some humans don’t see them as sentient, conscious beings.
The aliens wondered why the animals could go through life so happily, even though they were constantly insulted by humans. It seemed their practice of accepting each other kept them feeling connected and bathed in a powerful state of love. "Plus, we just don't think about them very much," said the baboon.
Sensing what the aliens were wondering, a squirrel put down the pecan he was nibbling on and said: ‘Yes, some humans meet us in that place of acceptance and love. It’s super cool when they do.”
"Some humans meet us in that place of acceptance and love.
It’s super cool when they do.”
~The Squirrel
Everyone looked around at each other and smiled smiles of curiosity and recognition, like they were both seeing a long-lost friend and seeing someone for the first time... Which made no sense and perfect sense.
The animals stayed in that moment forever and went about their lives. The aliens visited regularly and delighted in appreciation of the playground called Earth and all its interesting inhabitants who (except for some of the humans) see everyone as 'equally amazing, yet different’..
One day, the aliens were sitting in the forest and one looked up at the trees, then looked down at the dirt, then looked at his alien friends and asked: “What about the stuff that’s not animals?”
And that’s another story.