One of the things that I always, always wonder about in the back of my mind, and the topic that keeps me awake at night (many nights!) is the human way of thinking.

Think about it (pun intended).

We express our views, desires, annoyances, anger, and so on in a way that we humans understand very well now. We articulate these with words, body language, vocal sounds, and so on. We have taken these for granted because we only express this with each other, fellow humans.

And because we believe we are the dominant species on the only planet we know to support sentient life, we use the same way we think and map it onto the other species we share this planet with.

So, this means we believe dogs and cats can be happy the way we humans are happy. We do understand that the motivations that cause happiness in dogs and cats are different (treats for dogs and a good hunt for a cat, perhaps?), but we believe the end product of those actions is happiness. Dogs and cats cannot tell us what their feeling is; rather, they do inform us what they are feeling, but we understand them as happiness in a human way.

Things get even more complex with the flora we share this planet with. Plants are everywhere we turn. And yet, we cannot communicate with them in any meaningful way. We cannot blame them for this, but we, with all our superior, so-called intelligence and mental faculty, cannot understand the sentiments (if at all we can it that) and motivations of plants.

For example, when a climber throws a tendril, like a lasso, all through the day and latches on to another surface, would it feel jubilant? Or is jubilation only a human trait that plants do not feel?

Continuing on this line of thought, here’s an excerpt from a book I’m reading (listening, via audiobook) now – Max Barry’s ‘Providence’.

While I was referring to the other visible sentient life around us, Max makes an interesting argument through a character: humans communicating with the white blood cells inside us! His framing is brilliant: “there’s no overlap in how you convey meaning or understand motivations. You frame concepts in totally different ways“.

I presume the white blood cells cannot live without/outside of us, and that they are dependent on us for them to be alive, but they do behave like they are alive, I suppose. They have a purpose for their existence and perform some functions (which are, of course, dictated by our actions). These cells within us are not conscious like a dog or a cat, but they are sentient in the sense that they can feel, and are filled with crucial information that they share while interacting with each other.

And yet, we, the dominant species of this planet, cannot communicate with the cells inside us. We do manipulate them using chemicals/medicines or other methods, but they actually communicate with us in their own way – their non-functioning produces a physical reaction in our body and we know something is wrong (or right).

The simplest way to understand all this is to remember the phrase, “Put yourself in another person’s shoes”. While we humans can put ourselves in another fellow human’s shoes because we share the same way of thinking, can you imagine yourself putting yourself in the mind (can’t be shoes!) of a jasmine plant? Or, a stray cow on the road?

We generally don’t do that unless the other living being is close to us, say, like our pet dog. But even if we were to think we are putting ourselves into the mind of our pet dog, what would we even feel, think, or imagine, like the dog? We lack the cat’s perspective in every conceivable way.

Dogs possess about 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses, while we humans have just six million in our noses. The part of a dog’s brain that is devoted to analyzing smells is about 40 times greater than ours!! So how can we even begin to think like a dog? At best, what we end up doing is projecting our human way of thinking onto the dog. This is anthropomorphism, of course. Anthropomorphism happens because we lack the intelligence to think like another sentient species.

One of the smartest pop-culture references to what I’m talking above was in the short story, “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang, which was later made into the movie ‘Arrival’.

The crux of the story (spoiler, of course) involves the humans understanding that the aliens they have come in contact with have a language that transcends time. They are able to think beyond time and don’t have concepts of past, present, and the future. We see time as past, present, and the future and our entire thinking revolve around those taken as facts. Our thinking, hence, is linear, while the aliens’ thinking is not. That creates a huge gap in the way both species think.

But, to be fair, we humans have evolved in the way we try to understand other species. For instance, we have understood the chemical composition of plants and helped them grow better as a result (even if it is for our own selfish reasons). I keep reading about the kind of soil required for different plants – rose and jasmine love acidic soil, and adding coffee water is a simple way to give them the acidity they crave.

If you read about rose plant care, most would tell you to cut the branches after a bloom period. They grow more vigorously after you prune them. To my human sense, cutting seems cruel because I map cutting as violence based on my own understanding. But is plant cutting violent too? I don’t have the kind of plant-sense needed to understand that. But the outcome is real – after the cutting, the rose plant does grow vigorously. If I use my limited human-only sense to comprehend what is happening, is it like this? (I know this would sound crude, but please bear with me): a person wants to achieve something. She/he is very non-committal towards it, though. A mentor/coach puts that person through a rigorous schedule and training that involves removing most of that person’s privileges. After a period of abstaining from all the normal human pleasures and excesses, the person gets to his goal.

Beyond plants and animals, we may have to start worrying about another kind of species soon – machines and robots. Already, algorithms are acting on their own guided by our programming, but learning as they go along performing their duties. They are taking decisions that affect us humans too – self-driving cars, for instance. Where would all this self-learning lead to? This is a favorite question dealt by many, many sci-fi novels across ages.

Like my two earlier posts (Humans, aliens and dogs | On sentience, sapience and speciesism) on this really odd topic, I have no specific conclusion or insight to offer you. This is an ongoing thought that absolutely fascinates me and I keep looking for more material to consume to expand this thought in my head – books (both fiction and non-fiction), and movies.

If you know of any relevant books or movies on this line of thought, do let me know.

Of course, this entire premise is an integral part of the overall communications process. “how you convey meaning or understand motivations” (quoting from the book above) is incredibly crucial in marketing and communications!

The only thing I can leave you with is already known to you: do make a conscious and intense everyday effort to consider the perspective of other people around you; on how they think, and why think the way they do, and perhaps you may develop a deeper sense of empathy towards people. Also, try extending that thought towards the flora and fauna around you. The resultant empathy that flows through you is what I call pure love.

Cover pic courtesy: Treehugger.

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