What Animals Could Tell Us

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The problem with most scientific experiments is that they presume that a species' intellect is best demonstrated through its ability to respond to some form of human language. When researchers are unable to fit an animal's oftentimes 'round' response into the 'square' structures they develop to facilitate analysis, they conclude that the animal who just failed their elegant but human-focused language test lacks the ability to communicate symbolically. But the animal is never treated as a co-respondent or designer of the experiment; it is forced to mimic human intellectual models in return for the basic necessities of food and companionship.

Clearly, a dialogue that adopted both species' preferred syntax and vocabulary would demonstrate not only how and what an animal can learn, but also what an animal already knows. But only strict control produces replicable data, say researchers, and without it, scientific credibility evaporates. Yet 'strict control' always means research from the cage, the house trailer, the concrete pool. Journalist Wyatt Townley concludes that captive studies create a catch-22 situation. Relinquishing rigorous control nurtures communication even as it invalidates science.

Animals are wise beyond the systems of language we impose upon them, intelligent beyond our training regimens, creative beyond the behavioral tricks we watch them perform. The most sentient forms of communication--Koko's fib, for instance--are both circular and transparent. When it's happening, both parties simply feel it. It cannot be measured any more than creativity can be measured. Or love.

Some visionary scientists argue that both sentience and communication are universal within nature, operating as one aspect of 'nonlocal' mind. The brain may not be the seat of the mind, but instead the conduit of consciousness, a sort of radio receiver linking us to an external cosmic record where all knowledge and wisdom reside. Every species possesses the ability to tap into any part of it, although the size of an animal's receiver limits how much can be held at once. When a parrot is taught to think like a human, it is actually learning to tap into the human part of the nonlocal spectrum. This radical concept has been investigated by several noted consciousness researchers, including Rupert Sheldrake, Larry Dossey, and Ken Wilbur, in an attempt to understand such disparate phenomena as species morphogenesis, disease remission through prayer, and the basis of herbal knowledge. The Gaia Hypothesis postulates that some as yet unknown communication linkage among species is responsible for stabilizing the chemical composition of Earth's atmosphere for a billion years. For Gaia to be true, a vibrant communication network among and between the species would have to be the norm rather than the exception.

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