Unlike a certain companion animal that will go unnamed, dogs lose their minds when reunited with their owners. But it’s not immediately obvious why our canine companions should grant us such an over-the-top greeting—especially considering the power imbalance that exists between the two species. We spoke to the experts to find out why.
Call of the Wild
In order to gain an appreciation for dog behavior, it’s important to understand that dogs are descended from wolves (or at least a common wolf-like ancestor). Clearly, the two species, separated by about 10,000 to 15,000 years, share a lot in common.
Like dogs, wolves greet each other with vigorous face licking (Credit: Sander van der Wel CC A-SA 2.0)
That reference to wolves seemed like as good a reason as any to write further about the wonderful wolf. Or more specifically about the wolves of Oregon.
It’s been a busy last few days for Oregon’s wolves and those working to protect them, with new places, new dates, and new pups!
When I wrote to you last, it was about an important Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) Commission meeting in Seaside. But there’s been a change! The agenda for that meeting has moved and the ODFW Commission will now be taking comments on whether to delist gray wolves on Friday, Oct. 9th in Florence, Oregon. Please sign up to attend and testify on behalf of Oregon’s wolves. After all, they can’t testify for themselves!
I also shared with you a video of the Rogue Pack yearlings playing, caught by trail cam. These were Journey’s pups from last year, but it was also reported that he and his mate had produced another litter this year. Thanks to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, we have a look at these new pups.
Here’s that video:
Published on Jul 8, 2015
A camera captured images of three yearling wolves playing in June, providing biologists with confirmation the offspring of Oregon’s wandering wolf OR7 and his mate have survived.
I can well imagine that the majority of the readers of Learning from Dogs will not be able to attend that ODFW Commission meeting in Florence, OR, on the 9th October (as we can’t) but that doesn’t stop you from wanting to support wolf recovery here in Oregon by signing and sharing the Oregon Wild petition.
When I first started writing this blog, more than six years ago now, I had no idea whatsoever that the community of friends who read and follow Learning from Dogs would develop to the point where the volume of ideas and suggestions sent in are, are by far, the biggest source of creative posts.
Take today’s for example. The link to the article was sent to me by Chris Gomez a little over a week ago and yesterday was the first time that I read the article in full.
It’s a fascinating and incredibly interesting piece.
Unlike a certain companion animal that will go unnamed, dogs lose their minds when reunited with their owners. But it’s not immediately obvious why our canine companions should grant us such an over-the-top greeting—especially considering the power imbalance that exists between the two species. We spoke to the experts to find out why.
Call of the Wild
In order to gain an appreciation for dog behavior, it’s important to understand that dogs are descended from wolves (or at least a common wolf-like ancestor). Clearly, the two species, separated by about 10,000 to 15,000 years, share a lot in common.
Like dogs, wolves greet each other with vigorous face licking (Credit: Sander van der Wel CC A-SA 2.0)
But there’s only so much we can extrapolate from wolves; dogs are categorically different by virtue of the fact that their ancestors actively sought out the company of humans. Making matters even more complicated is the realization that Paleolithic era wolves are not the same as the ones around today. Consequently, any inferences we make about dog behavior and how it relates to wolves is pure speculation.
Neuroscientist Gregory Berns, author of How Dogs Love Us, says there’s a fundamental difference between modern wolves and those that lived long ago.
“The most social of those ancestral dogs who were hanging around humans had to have been the most social of those wolves,” he told io9. “They joined humans and eventually evolved to become dogs. The remainder of the wolf population were among the most antisocial of those animals, and did not want to have anything to do with humans.”
That said, however, Berns says we can clearly see behaviors in wolves that are similar to those expressed by dogs. For instance, wolves greet each other by licking each others’ faces. For these pack animals, this licking behavior serves as an important social greeting, but also as a way to check out and determine what the other wolves have brought home in terms of food.
Wolves, says University of Trento neuroscientist Giorgio Vallortigara, greet each other in different ways depending on the type of individual relationships they’ve forged. Feral dogs, he says, behave in similar ways. But the big change in terms of adaptive sociality has been the ability of domesticated dogs to interact with humans using our own communicative signals, such as gazes and gestures.
Dog expert Jessica Hekman, who blogs at DogZombie, has witnessed greeting behaviors among wolves first hand.
“When I’m at Wolf Park in Battle Ground, Indiana, I am always struck by how much some of the specific wolf behaviors resemble behaviors I see in dogs—but so much more ritualized, and sort of writ large,” she told io9. “I witnessed one behavioral study there in which wolves who knew each other well had been separated for a few days and were put back together. The greeting rituals were fascinating, with lots of crouching and chin-licking from the subordinate wolves. You do see these behaviors in dogs, but more sporadically, without such intensity.”
At the same time, dogs exhibit behaviors that are markedly different from wolves. As Hekman explained to me, one of the most dramatic differences between dogs and wolves is the ability of dogs to accept novelty. Simply put, dogs are less fearful than wolves.
“It may sound a little odd to say that a wolf, who can easily kill you, is afraid of you, but that is precisely why they can be dangerous: because they may choose to take proactive measures to protect themselves, using their teeth,” says Hekman. “Dogs are a lot less likely to do this.”
Indeed, given their wolf ancestry, it’s remarkable that dogs get along with humans so well. But as Berns pointed out to me, sociability has turned out to be a rather powerful adaptation, one that has worked a lot better for dogs than it has wolves.
“I mean, look around the world and see how many dogs there are,” he says. “With dogs, it’s proven to be a highly effective evolutionary strategy. There are in the order of tens of millions of dogs in the world, so in many ways, dogs have out-evolved wolves.”
Berns says that whatever the sociality that dogs have evolved, one of the defining traits of a dog is the degree to which they will interact with humans as well as other animals.
How Dogs See Humans
A key aspect of Berns’ brain imaging research is to study how dogs perceive us. We humans know that dogs are a separate species, but are dogs cognizant of this as well? Or do they see us as members of their pack, or as some kind of weird dog?
Callie gets outfitted with ear protection prior to entering the noisy fMRI machine. The research team includes, from left, Andrew Brooks, Gregory Berns and Mark Spivak. (Credit: Bryan Meltz, Emory University)
According to Berns’ research, dogs that are presented with certain smells in scanners can clearly tell the difference between dogs and humans, and also discern and recognize familiar and strange odors. In particular, the scent of a familiar human evokes a reward response in the brain.
“No other scent did that, not even that of a familiar dog,” Berns told io9. “It’s not the case that they see us as ‘part of their pack as dogs,’ they know that we’re something different— there’s a special place in the brain just for us.”
Berns stresses that dogs are social with us not just because of their scavenging tendencies.
“What we’re finding with the imaging work is that dogs love their humans—and not just for food,” he says. “They love the company of humans simply for its own sake.”
Hekman says it’s hard to know what dogs are thinking, but she suspects they understand that we’re not quite like them. As evidence, she points to aggressiveness in dogs as it’s directed to other dogs and humans—differences that aren’t correlated. She says it’s quite common for a dog to have a problem with one and not the other. In other words, dogs appear to perceive other dogs as one group, and humans as a separate group. What’s more, dogs will seek the help of humans and not other dogs—a possible sign that dogs understand that humans have resources that dogs do not, and are thus a different kind of social entity.
But do dogs see us as part of the pack?
“It’s important to note that a pack of wolves is a family—literally, usually mom, dad, puppies, and some young offspring from previous years who haven’t gone off on their own yet,” says Hekman. “Do dogs see us as part of their family? I think they do.”
So Happy to See Us
Virtually all experts agree that the happiness dogs feel is comparable to what humans experience, and that it’s similar to how humans feel towards each other.
One happy dog (Credit: Lars Curfs/CC-A-SA 3.0)
“All the things that we’ve done with the brain imaging—where we present certain things to the dogs and map their reward responses—we see analogous brain responses in humans,” says Berns. “Seeing a person that’s a friend or someone you like, these feelings are exactly analogous to what a dog experiences.”
Berns says that dogs don’t have the same language capacities as humans, and that they’re not capable of representing things in their memory like we can. Because dogs don’t have labels or names for people, he suspects that they have an even purer emotional response; their minds aren’t filled with all sorts of abstract concepts.
It’s also important to consider the dog-human bond and the degree of attachment each feels toward each other. When used with dogs, the “Strange Situation Test” devised by developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth, suggests that during absence and then at the rejoining with the owners, a dog’s behavior is very similar to that observed in children and mothers in similar situations. As Vallortigara pointed out to me, it’s appropriate and correct to speak of the dyad dog/owner in terms of “attachment.”
A dog’s particular greeting, however, is dependent on several factors, such as the dog’s temperament, the personality of the owner, the nature of their relationship, the level of stress and anxiety, and the dog’s tendency/capacity for self-control.
It’s important to note, however, that stress manifests differently in dogs than it does in humans.
“The separation from the owner for the dog is not voluntary,” says Vallortigara. “It is always unnatural for a dog to detach and abandon the pack.”
Dogs will sometimes go solo on a temporary basis if they’re sufficiently motivated to do so, but they do it knowing that social contact can be resumed at virtually any time.
“The exaggerated level of greeting that can be observed in some dogs is likely due to the fact that they have not yet learned to accept the possibility of non-voluntary detachment,” says Vallortigara.
When trying to appreciate a dog’s over-the-top greeting, Hekman says we need to imagine what it was like for a dog to be alone all day while we were gone.
So bored. (Credit: Pixabay/Pinger/10 images/CC0 Public Domain)
“This dog probably had a pretty boring day without much enrichment, and moreover may have been alone all day, which is unpleasant for a social animal,” she told io9. “So in addition to being glad to see us, they are probably feeling some relief that they will get to do something interesting, like go for a walk, and have someone else around. Some people are able to have a dog walker come in or send their dogs to daycare—this is a great solution to what can otherwise be a difficult lifestyle for a dog.”
And as Berns points out, the greeting ritual is a social bonding mechanism—but it’s also a function of curiosity.
“When they jump up, they’re trying to lick you in the face,” says Berns. “Part of that is a social greeting, but they’re also trying to taste and smell you to figure out where you’ve been and what you’ve done during the day. So some of it is curiosity. If I’ve been with other dogs, for instance, my dogs know it, and they resort to sniffing intensely.”
How to Greet Your Dog Back
It’s obviously important to respond to your dog when you get home, but according to Marcello Siniscalchi, a veterinary physician from the University of Bari, how you should react will depend on the context of the situation and the needs of the dog itself.
“The greeting ritual will vary from dog to dog because any individual dog perceives and reacts to detachment from the owner in a very personal way,” he told io9. “Some dogs need to be greeted, in others it is better to avoid any escalation in the level of excitation, others need to learn strategies for coping with the stress associated with detachment.”
Hekman says there’s definitely a tension between our buttoned-down greeting rituals (“Hi, honey, I’m home!”) and theirs (“I want to lick you on the face repeatedly!”).
“My dog Jenny is a very enthusiastic greeter, and I hate having her jump all over me in her efforts to get at my face,” she says. “So I have taught her to get on a couch when I come home. I generally have to remind her to ‘get on your couch,’ but now she does with great enthusiasm, and waits for me to come over. The couch puts her more on my level, so she doesn’t have to jump, and I can bend forward and let her lick my cheek, which is a very important part of the ritual for her.”
Hekman stresses that, for any dog, it’s important for us not to tell them what not to do (e.g. “don’t jump on me!”), but to tell them what to do.
“Many is the retriever owner who has taught their dog to get a toy when they come home to channel their excitement,” she added.
The main point, she says, is that it’s important for dogs to have the greeting ritual, but it can be redirected in ways to make it easier on the owners such that everyone enjoys it.
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So a huge thank you to all of you that send in remarkable items for Learning from Dogs.
Pixel, 10-week-old french bulldog, tries to reclaim bed from cat.
Big thanks to Chris Snuggs for sending me the links to these two videos.
10-week-old french bulldog Pixel finally got his revenge on the cat, who keeps stealing his bed, even though she has her own. Fun fact: he drags the bed and puts it back in his corner, where he always sleeps.
A few weeks ago, I read a book entitled The Republican Brain written by Chris Mooney and to quote WikiPedia:
The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science — and Reality is a book by the journalist Chris Mooney that is about the psychological basis for many Republicans’ rejection of mainstream scientific theories, as well as theories of economics and history.
On page 83, Chris Mooney writes (my emphasis):
Here also arises a chief liberal weakness, in Lakoff’s view (*), and one that is probably amplified by academic training. Call it the Condorcet handicap, or the Enlightenment syndrome. Either way, it will sound very familiar: Constantly trying to use factual and reasoned arguments to make the world better and being amazed to find even though these arguments are sound, well-researched, and supported, they are disregarded, or even actively attacked by conservatives.
When glimpsed from a bird’s eye view, all the morality research that we’re surveying is broadly consistent. It once again reinforces the idea that there are deep differences between liberals and conservatives – differences that are operating, in many cases, beneath the level of conscious awareness, and that ultimately must be rooted in the brain.
(*) George Lakoff, Berkeley Cognitive Linguist and author of the book Moral Politics.
What Chris Mooney is proposing is that the difference between liberals and conservatives could be genetically rooted, at least in part.
That underlines in my mind how each of us, before even considering our gender differences, is truly a complex mix of ‘nature and nurture’ with countless numbers of permutations resulting.
That there are deep differences, apart from the obvious ones, between man and woman goes without saying. In earlier times, these differences were essential in us humans achieving so much and leading to, in the words of Yuval Noah Harari from yesterday’s post., ” … few would disagree that humans dominate planet Earth; we’ve spread to every continent, and our actions determine the fate of other animals (and possibly Earth itself).”
Speaking of earlier times, let me turn to dogs, for it is pertinent to my post, and I would like to quote an extract from what Doctor of Veterinarian Medicine, Jim Goodbrod, writes in the foreword of my forthcoming book:
But what exactly is this human-dog bond and why do we feel such an affinity for this species above all others? My feeling is that it may be associated with our deep but subconscious longing for that age of simple innocence and innate human goodness that we supposedly possessed before we became truly “human”: that child-like innocence or what Rousseau referred to as the “noble savage”, before being corrupted by civilization, before we were booted out of the Garden of Eden. We humans, for better or worse, somewhere along that evolutionary road acquired consciousness or so-called human nature and with it we lost that innocence. What we gained were those marvelous qualities that make us uniquely human: a sense of self-awareness, an innate moral and ethical code, the ability to contemplate our own existence and mortality, and our place in the universe. We gained the ability to think abstract thoughts and the intellectual power to unravel many of the mysteries of the universe. Because of that acquired consciousness and humans’ creative and imaginative mind we have produced the likes of Shakespeare, Mozart, and Einstein. We have peered deep into outer space, deciphered the genetic code, eradicated deadly diseases, probed the bizarre inner world of the atom, and accomplished thousands of other intellectual feats that hitherto would not have been possible without the evolution of our incredible brain and the consciousness with which it is equipped.
No other living species on this planet before or since has developed this massive intellectual power. But this consciousness was attained at what cost? Despite all the amazing accomplishments of the human race, we are the only species that repeatedly commits genocide and wages war against ourselves over political ideology, geographic boundaries, or religious superstition. We are capable of justifying the suffering and death of fellow human beings over rights to a shiny gold metal or a black oily liquid that powers our cars. We are the only species that has the capability to destroy our own planet, our only home in this vast universe, by either nuclear warfare, or more insidiously by environmental contamination on a global scale. Was it worth it? No matter what your or my opinion may be, Pandora’s Box has been opened and we cannot put the lid back on.
What can we do now to reverse this trend and help improve the quality of life for humanity and ensure the well-being of our planet? I think, if we recognize the problem and look very critically at ourselves as a unique species with awesome powers to do both good and bad, and put our collective minds to the task, it may be possible to retrieve some of the qualities of that innocence lost, without losing all that we have gained.
Dogs represent to me that innocence lost. Their emotions are pure. They live in the present. They do not suffer existential angst over who or what they are. They do not covet material wealth. They offer us unconditional love and devotion. Although they certainly have not reached the great heights of intellectual achievement of us humans (I know for a fact that this is true after having lived with a Labrador retriever for several years), at the same time they have not sunk to the depths of depravity to which we are susceptible. It could be argued that I am being overly anthropomorphic, or that dogs are simply mentally incapable of these thoughts. But nevertheless, metaphorically or otherwise, I believe that dogs demonstrate a simple and uncorrupted approach to life from which we all could benefit. I think the crux of Paul’s thesis is that, within the confines and limitations of our human consciousness, we can (and should) metaphorically view the integrity of the dog as a template for human behavior.
“Dogs demonstrate a simple and uncorrupted approach to life …”
I closed yesterday’s post with these words, “It is my contention that humankind’s evolution, our ability to “cooperate flexibly in large numbers”, is rooted in the gender differences between man and woman.”
The premise behind that proposition is that until, say one hundred years ago, give or take, that co-operation between large numbers of humans was critically important in so many areas: health; science; medicine; physics; exploration; outer space and more. (And whether one likes it or not: wars.) My proposition is that it is predominantly men who have been the ‘shakers and movers’ in these areas. Of course not exclusively, far from it, just saying that so many advances in society are more likely to have been led by men.
But (and you sensed a ‘but’ coming up, perhaps) these present times call for a different type of man. A man who is less the rational thinker, wanting to set the pace, and more a man capable of expressing his fears, exploring his feelings, defining his fear of failure, and more. I don’t know about you but when I read Raúl Ilargi Meijer words from yesterday, “And if and when we resort to only rational terms to define ourselves, as well as our world and the societies we create in that world, we can only fail.”, it was the male of our species that was in my mind. As in, “And if and when we [males] resort to only rational terms to define ourselves …”.
Staying with Raúl Meijer’s words from yesterday (my emphasis), “And those should never be defined by economists or lawyers or politicians, but by the people themselves. A social contract needs to be set up by everyone involved, and with everyone’s consent.”
Dogs demonstrate a simple and uncorrupted approach to life but that doesn’t extend to them making social contracts. Women do understand social contracts, they are predominantly caring, social humans. Less so for men. But for that social contract to be successfully set up by everyone it must, of course, include men. And that requires men, speaking generally you realise, to find safe ways to get in touch with their feelings, to tap into their emotional intelligence, using positive psychology to listen to their feelings and know the truth of what they and their loved ones need to guarantee a better future. What they need in terms of emotional and behavioural change. And, if I may say, sensing when they might need the support of subject experts to embed and sustain those behavioural changes.
It was the fickle finger of fate that led me to the arms, metaphorically speaking, of a core process psychotherapist back in Devon in the first half of 2007. That counselling relationship that revealed a deeply hidden aspect of my consciousness: a fear of rejection that I had had since December, 1956. That finger of fate that took me to Mexico for Christmas 2007 and me meeting Jean and all her dogs. That finger of fate that pointed me to the happiest years of my life and a love between Jeannie and me that I could hitherto never ever have imagined.
However, as much as I love and trust Jean, wholeheartedly, it comes back to dogs.
For when I curl up and wrap myself around a dog and sense that pure unconditional love coming back to me, I have access to my inner feelings, my inner joys and fears, in a way unmatched by anything else.
Where learning from dogs is a gateway to learning from me.
The concluding part of Hariod Brawn’s wonderful essay.
Haroid’s opening part was republished by me in this place yesterday, under the blog title of Alone in a sea of many. For the concluding part, I have named this blog post in accordance with Hariod’s chosen name. Thank you to all who read Part One and I hope you find Part Two equally stimulating.
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Synecdoche (Part Two): Little Person
Fool’s Cap Map of the World. Unknown origin c.1580-1590
In the first part of this article, we discussed how each person, in coming to understand how they construct themselves as the self-entity they take themselves to be, must in the process come to understand how all others do too. In other words, self-knowledge is not particular to the individual, because the self – in essence an embedded, accumulating and by graduation morphing narrative and body schema – comes into being by identical means in our species. Each of us remains unique in many ways, such as in our formative experience, our psychological make-up, conditioned traits, genetic inheritance, and in our individuated physicalities. Yet that which we regard as our quintessence, the enduring internalised construct we each unquestioningly hold as the self and the aspect of ourselves which we most intimately cling to, is little more than a formulaic pretence determined and governed solely by means of evolved, unbidden and unconscious processes.
Each character has a given name, societal position, cultural identity and perhaps a hierarchical status; yet all such markers are in part a figure of speech, or synecdoche, denoting an undeniable correlation with countless others. The markers delineate superficial distinctions alone, and the greater the number of them, the more we remove from our understanding the underlying truth of the other’s commonality with us. In much the same way, in our coming to understand how the worlds we ourselves inhabit are constructed, we see also that same world as a synecdoche for all others. How I relate to my home and environment, my relatives and loved ones, those I engage with out of chance or necessity, and those whom I depend upon or those who depend upon me, human or non-human, all make up my little world. It is a relational world, an interactive adventure forged from myriad connections, surprisingly few of which do I have great control over.
The argument against this is to assert that such correlations are facile, that how can I, a materially secure Westerner living in a largely strife-free state, possibly share any commonality with the oppressed and malnourished other on, say, the Indian sub-continent? Are these conditions not worlds apart, if only qualitatively? Well, in examining human suffering, we find it has a common genesis, proceeding as it does from the mind. For example, we commonly mistake unpleasant bodily sensations for suffering, failing to distinguish between physical pain and the attendant overlay of mental anguish. Is the suffering of the wealthy financier who contemplates suicide at her portfolio’s decimation greater than that of the homesteader in sub-Saharan Africa facing a crop failure of a few sacksful of grain? Objectively, then yes, these are worlds apart, yet the subjective suffering of each may be qualitatively indistinct, even in their wildly differing experiential settings.
Geography of Twitter. By Eric Fischer, Washington, DC
And what of care and affection; are we to suppose that our world as comprising love is any the lesser or greater than others? Ought we to suppose the human instinct to loving solicitude is greater than that of our fellow creatures? Who amongst us knows what human love is as distinct from other forms of animal love, and whether it is qualitatively superior? Am I so arrogant as to suggest my altruistic benevolence is any the greater than that of my pet Border Collie, for it seems far from being so? If I am unable to define precisely what constitutes this world aspect, how am I to know that those of other animals are not simulacra of my own, there being no original and authentic love-world other than the one as represented by the many – is this not a truth hard to refute? I may describe a personal world of felt affection, yet in doing so prescribe but a figure of speech alone, a synecdoche for all worlds inhabited perhaps by most beings of sentience.
My little world is forged at the interface between psyche and otherness, between ideas and the world as impressed upon my senses. Those impressions and the precise nature of that otherness differ in every detail from the next person’s, yet the means of forging are identical. This shared action results in distinct narratives of course, and it is these that are held to in our bids to assert the pre-eminence of individuality over commonality. I want to believe I am, if not special, then unique; yet that is only true in the differing stories of what I am and what my little world is. To those without privilege to my narratives of self and world, my assumed mantle of uniqueness is meaningless, and the same is true of theirs to me. We may here be at a cold and sterile juncture, yet it also is a starting point from which we may begin to introduce the binding agents of humankind – our innate qualities of kindness and compassion, of empathic understanding.
So what, why should I care about such ideas when I have altogether more pressing concerns? What is the point in abstracting notions such as these from the warp and weft of daily living, the place where I earn my crust, feed my children, and work on my betterment as a means of personal fulfilment? Perhaps the answer lies somewhat starkly in the evidence, and which seems to me to be in a state of constant deterioration. We live in a polarised world, where theists fight theists and atheists argue against both, where the wealthy seldom flinch in their impoverishment of others, and where power-hungry and psychopathic leaders crush the potential of all they have dominion over. Is it not time to find our common humanity, or even our common animality? We humans are destroying our sole environment; we are chasing down the darkening corridors of economic systems at the point of failure. Can we not rest awhile so as to perceive our little worlds as one?
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My sense is that for quite a few readers who read yesterday’s and today’s postings, they were not the easiest read that has been seen on Learning from Dogs. But in a world where the dumbing down of the English vocabulary seems ever more present, to read Hariod’s essay slowly and carefully, and let the deeper meanings of her arguments settle within the mind, is a profound and compelling reminder of the beauty and elegance of the English language.
This introspective mood continues tomorrow: you have been warned!
I suspect that many, if not most, originally came to this place expecting the blog to be directly about dogs. And, in many instances, the posts are directly about canis lupus familiaris. But the original idea behind choosing the blog name Learning from Dogs was the sense that we, as in mankind, have to change our ways if we are to offer our grandchildren a viable planet upon which they may live. More succinctly expressed in The Vision for this blog:
Our children require a world that understands the importance of faith, integrity and honesty,
Learning from Dogs will serve as a reminder of the values of life and the power of unconditional love – as so many, many dogs prove each and every day,
Constantly trying to get to the truth …
The power of greater self-awareness and faith; faith that the only way forward for us is through the truth …
If you have read this far you may be wondering if the old guy has lost yet another marble!
So what has prompted this introspection? I’ll tell you.
I subscribe to Hariod Brawn’s blogsite Contentedness.net For those that do not know Hariod’s writings then her About page offers (in part):
We’re here to discuss aspects of human well-being as they relate to our sense of self, our personal identity and whatever other notions we may hold for our own uniquely human sense of being. This means the discussion centres upon the pragmatic or real-life dimensions of experience – things like our sense of contentedness, of personal meaningfulness, and other tangibly perceived aspects of well-being. The discussion is positive, respectful, non-judgemental, considerate.
That, as you can see, resonates very much with me thinking of Learning from Dogs as a means, metaphorically so, of finding greater self-awareness.
On June 10th, Hariod published the first part of an essay called Synecdoche: Little Person. I found the essay extraordinarily interesting and wanted to share it with you in this place. Hariod generously gave me permission, so here is Part One.
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Synecdoche (Part One): Little Person
I am just a little person, one person in a sea of many little people who are not aware of me, yet each potentially a simultaneous understanding of the other; each, in a sense, a simulacrum or synecdoche for all others: if I understand myself sufficiently deeply, then in that moment I understand the other, however remote my presence to them. This is not to say I can appreciate their specific complexities, of course, and the detail, the true intricacy of any given life, remains forever removed from that quota of awareness I am privileged to. Each little person, tagged with their own unique package of characteristics, is still a synecdoche though, potentially at least, for all the little people out in the sea of otherness. The word means literally ‘take with something else’, so conveying the idea that even a partial representation alone is sufficient to apprehend the whole, or vice versa.
This sounds rather fanciful to the contemporary mind, conditioned as it is in a belief as to the total, inarguable individuality of each little person. What an appealing belief this is too, for this same little person here finds a seemingly plausible counter to a reluctantly intuited sense of homogeneity, which word itself derives from the Greek ‘homogene’, meaning ‘of the same kind’: Homo Sapiens. Even though each of the little person’s internal organs are replaceable with those fished from the sea of many little people, even though their blood, hair, bones, limbs, eyes and hands can be substituted with biological or manufactured alternatives, still the little person resists the evidence, demanding their status as a uniquely enduring entity. It is of course the mind itself that insists upon countering the intuited and actual homogeneity, and the mind, so the little person believes, belongs to them.
This raises a problem, for if the little person’s physicality is all but totally interchangeable, then at what point during this theoretical process does the supposed possessor of the mind cease to exist? When does the point arrive at which we can no longer claim the mind belongs to any little person? If we hold to Physicalism, or Hard Materialism, we assert the mind belongs, if not to the little person, then to the organ of the brain. Should we be an Eliminative Materialist, we say there is no mind, and so no such question arises. I resist these philosophical perspectives, for to me there is a non-locality of awareness, meaning it arises both within as well as about what we think of as the little person, and whilst we call this aware experience ‘mind’, I do not adhere to any Cranialism; it’s not exclusively headstuff. In accepting this, we logically must ask whether the mind is under ownership.
Ownership implies agency, or self-determination, and it is belief in this that makes the little person feel unique and autonomous, directing their life just as all others would theirs. Yet this owning agent is never verifiable other than as consciousness, for it is only ever a belief that resides within and as that consciousness. Now, all conscious displays are themselves non-local simulacra, representations of otherness that are neither the little person nor any owning agent, and which clearly may never be evidenced outside of consciousness. This means the little person is always a thought-construct, a put-up job forged by mind and subsisting in otherness but never in essence itself. Should this hypothesis obtain, then the little person is a synecdoche for the entirety of others in kind; this is because every little person, being a fabrication of mind, comes into apparent existence in an identical manner.
Where are we? We heard that the mind persists in countering a reluctantly intuited homogeneity of all the little persons. Further, we said the mind forges each little person as a thought-construct, and that the little person does not exist as an enduringly instantiated entity – just like a house, a car, or a computer, its parts are interchangeable. Beyond this, we learned the mind produces only conscious effects as verification of its own fabrications, and that these subsist universally for all the apparent little persons, being as they are culled from the same sea of otherness. And lastly, we found that the hypothesis as a whole demonstrates that each apparent little person is a synecdoche for the sea of many little people. So, in understanding myself sufficiently deeply, then in that moment I understand the other, which was the assertion of the opening paragraph and a challenge to the curious mind.
In the ‘Ship of Theseus’ paradox, a parallel question is raised: in replacing a wooden ship plank by plank, are the ongoing resultants still the original ship? In point of fact, only the conception itself endures across the constant transitioning. The ship, as known, is not a wooden construct; it is a thought-construct, a fixed conception presenting to any observing little person, all of whom create each the other in identical fashion. Each parallel the ship in that their structure constantly mutates whilst a sense of enduring selfhood smears out across the whole, forged in mind in homogeneous ways. Now, if the little person turns the mind in on itself reflectively, they in time realise that they must be more than a thought-construct, a belief. They see that the little person whom they believed they existed as was a synecdoche: a motif in play which in its perfectly clear seeing brings knowledge of all of its kind.
Shared with me by our neighbours Larry and Janell.
Have a great weekend.
This actually happened to an Englishman in France who was totally drunk.
oooo
A French policeman stops the Englishman’s car and asks if he has been drinking.
With great difficulty, the Englishman admits that he has been drinking all day, that his daughter got married that morning, and that he drank champagne and a few bottles of wine at the reception, and many single malt scotches thereafter.
Quite upset, the policeman proceeds to alcohol-test (breath test) the Englishman and verifies that he is indeed totally sloshed.
He asks the Englishman if he knows why, under French Law, he is going to be arrested?
The Englishman answers, with a hint of humour in his voice, “No sir, I do not!”
He then continues, “But while we’re asking questions, do you realize that this is a British car and that my wife is driving . . . . . on the other side?”
oooo
So, whatever side of the road you drive on, you all stay safe out there!
Learning from Dogs 