Chapter 3 tucson zoo

Most of the information in science is obtained by reduction, which is to seek the details, and then the details of the details, until all the smallest pieces of a structure, or the smallest parts of a mechanism, are in plain view. for counting and scrutiny.Only when this is done can the research work be expanded to include the whole organism or system under consideration.We say so. But sometimes, doing so is to suffer some losses.Much of the public anxiety about science today is that we may perpetuate and obsessively fixate on the parts, permanently ignoring the whole.I had a brief personal experience of this anxiety.One afternoon, when I was in Tucson, I had a little free time, so I went to the zoo, which was just outside the city, so it was very convenient.The people who built the park dug a deep passage between two small artificial ponds, with transparent glass walls on both sides.In this way, standing between the two walls, you can see the depth of each pond, and at the same time, you can see the water.In one pond, on the right side of the passage, was a family of beavers; on the other side of the passage, a family of otters.Within a few feet of your face, on either side of you, otters and beavers are frolicking, diving in and out of the water, swimming toward you, and then gliding away.I have seen many animals in my life, but I have never seen them so full of vitality.The only thing missing is the glass, otherwise you can reach over and touch them.

I froze for a moment.Looking back now, there is only one feeling in my heart at that time: it was deep joy, mixed with wonder at that perfect skill.I floated from one side to the other, and my mind seemed to be spinning, staring at the beaver in amazement for a while, and staring at the otter in admiration for a while.I could hear the two sides of the corpus callosum in my skull calling to each other, from one hemisphere to the other.I remember thinking--a little bit of my mind was not out of control--I don't want science about the parts of otters and beavers; I never want to know how they perform that feat; Their scientific news, don't know about their respiratory physiology, their muscular coordination, their vision, their endocrine system, and their digestive tract.I hope I never have to think of them as collections of cells.All I wanted was the whole, unscathed, whole complex organism of the otters and beavers, all plump, furry, and lively, before my eyes at this very moment.

This feeling, I regret to say, lasted only a few minutes, and then I was back in the late twentieth century, a reductionist as ever, curious to recall details by force of habit.But this time, it wasn't the details of beavers and otters.Instead, it's the details about me.Something memorable happened in my mind.I am unequivocal on this point.If I could do it, I'd put it somewhere in the brainstem; maybe it's my limbic system at work.I became a behavioral scientist, an experimental psychologist, and an animal behaviorist.For a moment, I completely lost that sense of curiosity and fascination.I froze all of a sudden.

However, when I left the zoo, I still seemed to have gained something.That was a message about myself: I was somehow coded to feel beavers and otters.I acted instinctively when they were theirs, and when they were exhibited behind the glass and within reach, they jumped up and down together.I have receptors for this performance.In ethological terms, otters and beavers have a "release stimulant" for me, and that release is what I was experiencing.What have I released?is behavior.what behavior?To stand there, to turn and turn in amazement, to feel ecstasy, and a sudden sense of camaraderie.After this conversation I cannot tell you anything that is not known about otters and beavers.I didn't learn anything new about them.If you know, just about me, and I'm afraid you, and maybe about the whole human race: we are endowed with genes that code our responses to otters and beavers, and probably to each other .We have a printed, immutable pattern of responses ready to be released.And, the act that is unleashed within us as a result of this encounter is essentially an emotion of wonder.It is a compulsive act, and we can only avoid it by exhausting all the powers of our conscious mind, creating conscious subterfuge all the way through.Left to ourselves, to act functionally and automatically, we will beg for friends.

Everyone says, don't get entangled with ants.They have little to teach us.They are flimsy little contraptions, inhuman, incapable of self-control, less bred and less soulful.When they come together in large groups, touching each other and exchanging bits of information that are carried like memos in their jaws, they become a single animal.Beware of this, it's a devaluation, it's a loss of character, it's unnatural, it's unnatural. Sometimes this view is claimed to be serious and well thought out.The message is to be yourself, to be aloof, to be selfish.And altruism—that's a jargon term that used to be called love—is worse than weakness, downright criminal, and against nature.Separate each other.Don't be a social animal.The argument is hard to convince, though, when you have to state it with the help of words.You have to print a brochure or publish a book, and then you have to sell it, distribute it.You have to be on TV and have the attention of millions of people at once, and then you have to talk to all of them while they watch at the same time, all listening to you calmly and attentively: be alone; depend on each other.When you talk like this, I'm afraid you can't keep your face from changing color and your heart beating.

Perhaps altruism is our most primitive attribute, far away from us, and there is nothing we can do about it.Or, it's just around the corner, within reach, just waiting to be unleashed.Now, in our civilization, it takes on various guises called affection, friendship, or attachment.I don't see why all humans shouldn't have strands of DNA curled up in chromosomes, encoding our useful and beneficial nature.The attribute of usefulness may end up being the hardest test of survival of the fittest, more important than aggression and, in the long run, more potent than greed.If this is the message that biological science has left for future generations, not only for ants, but also for us, then I support science with all my hands.

There is one thing that I most want to know.That is, when those ants build an anthill, gather together, touch each other, communicate, and the whole colony starts behaving like a single huge living thing, and starts thinking, what is that thinking?While you're thinking about this, I'd also like to know a second thing: When this happened, did any of the ants know what was going on?Will it make its hair stand on end?