Contemplating Critters

     I recently took an online course in animal behavior from a Dutch university. As part of the lessons, we were asked to develop our observing skills by spending at least 10 minutes watching an animal. We were encouraged to take notes and to be as detailed as possible. I pondered how I might take on this assignment, given that many of my local animals would be very unlikely to stay in one spot for that long. I also felt that if I got too close to a critter, my presence would alter its behavior, and thus my observations may not be representative of it or its species.

        I love to watch birds at the feeder—which gets lots of avian traffic, but rather than stick around, each bird flits in, grabs a seed, and flies off. There's no chance of watching it for more than a few seconds. I could possibly watch a specific bird over several minutes, as it repeatedly returns to the feeder, but I can't tell one individual bird from another, so I might be seeing several different individuals.

So that brings up a question: If I were able to watch one critter for 10 minutes and wrote down my observations, how indicative of the species' behavior would that individual be? Maybe instead I could learn something about bird behavior by watching many different species of birds come to the feeder. That's one of my favorite activities anyway.  So maybe I could learn as much about animal behavior by contemplating groups of them, rather than just one.

Well, I've done this for several years now and have noted the varying behaviors of a number of different species. For instance, chickadees and titmice fly in, grab a seed, and fly to a perch, where they lodge the seed between their feet, and then bang away, breaking through the shell for the meat inside. A dove will sit at the feeder, downing one whole seed after another. A finch will pick up a seed and crack it with its powerful bill, and pick out the meat with its deft tongue. A Carolina wren will squat in the middle of the feeder, fastidiously poke at one seed or another, tossing away all but the fattest ones.

These observations have shown me over years how one species of bird behavior at the feeder differs from another species. But even within one species I see differences. For example, that goldfinch there was behaving much more aggressively than the others. That cardinal seems uncertain and slower than the others. That chickadee was far more meek than the others. That titmouse just challenged and chased off a wren, when most of the other titmice wouldn't have dared.

So what do I think about these individual differences I see? Which behaviors are species-specific and which are just the peculiar behavior of that individual bird? Like most of my observations of nature, I soon see a far more complex picture than at first. I guess I've no alternative but to put in a few more years of observation time.

Dreading Death

        Humans have been fascinated with and fearful of death for most of our existence. We are likely the only creature to be aware of the fact that the day will come when each of us dies, and so our inquiring mind ponders that fact and creates beliefs and stories of what might follow death. We are caught up in the effort to stay alive (as all animals are) and have a natural instinct to ward off our death. Throughout history people have dreamed of immortality as a way of cheating death. Our dread of dying has compelled humans to conjure up various stories of the afterlife. We don't want to believe that our existence simply ends, so we fashion beliefs of the hereafter.

        Eastern cultures have often dealt with the problem by conceiving of reincarnation, by which our soul inhabits a new body after death; thus, we do not face absolute termination. Western cultures, in contrast, have leaned towards some kind of afterlife, where our soul resides everlastingly. These different beliefs are often tied closely with religious teachings, in which some form of deity is in charge of our destiny.

The ancient Greeks were convinced that their lives—and deaths—were controlled by a pantheon of gods, who were very interested in humans. The gods played a major role in the fortunes and misfortunes of the Greeks—either favoring an individual or group, or choosing to harass them. Much of their lives were consumed by fretting over being punished by a god or rejoicing when being rewarded. Since the gods were capricious, it kept the Greeks off balance—never quite sure whether they'd be curse or blessed. The gods were also competitive with and jealous of each other, so you had to be careful not to piss off one god, as you curried favor with another.

This fear of the gods led the ancient Greeks to view the afterlife as a grim place—a place where one may be condemned to spend eternity in torment and suffering. There was a way to eventually inhabit a heaven-like existence, but most souls never got there, as the underworld gods seemed bent on abusing them. Thus, the lives of the Greeks were tainted by their dread of death.

One school of Greek philosophy, headed by Epicurus, took a very different stance on death. Epicurus maintained that it was foolish to experience so much anxiety and mental pain that arise from the fear of death and of the gods. He asserted that the gods were really not interested in the petty details of humans’ lives. He was, in fact, skeptical about even the existence of the gods. Regardless of whether the gods were real or not, he counseled that our life is largely under the control of each of us, and not the fickle whims of the immortals.

Thus, Epicurus maintained, if the gods do not interfere in our lives, they also would play no role in any kind of afterlife. Again, they have their own interests. Again, regardless of whether they exist or not, our life is our own responsibility... ours to make the most of, or waste. In other words, don’t blame your misfortunes on the gods. You are in control.

Furthermore, the fear of death robs us of the chance to make the most of our lives. The fear (or adulation) of the gods keeps us from fully maturing and taking charge of our lives. We are not puppets, but agents of our own destiny.

Epicurus did not come down firmly on the side of saying either the gods exist or do not, so he was not a card-carrying atheist. Rather, he said that it really didn't matter. If one lived a moral and frugal life, it would be one full of meaning and fulfillment. He also was ambivalent about the afterlife; again saying it doesn't really matter, since if you live the moral life, what happens after death—if anything—will be fine.

I find it fascinating that the human fear of death has led us to formulate stories about the afterlife—but these stories are overwhelmingly about hell, rather than heaven. The ancient Greeks constructed elaborate tales of what condemnation of the soul was like, after death. Dante's The Divine Comedy is a lengthy description of the soul's journey through hell. Why do we not have as thorough a description of what heaven is like? Is it because we are obsessed with death and dread finding our soul being subjected to everlasting torment? Fear seems to guide our lives far more than hopefulness.

Socratic Midwifery

 One of the ancient Greek philosophers that I have learned a lot from is Socrates. I know that my leanings toward him are due to some extent to the fact that I identify with his lifestyle: living simply and listening, rather than lecturing. He was very critical of the Sophists, who he regarded as pompous orators, because they used rhetorical methods to persuade their listeners to their way of thinking. Socrates was adamant that he was not wise and was not interested in impressing anyone with his erudition. Instead, his skill was to question his interlocutors—using Socratic dialog—to draw from them their innate insights. He helped them to realize truths that they then owned, rather than force upon them his knowledge.

In a dialog with a young man named Theaetetus, Socrates one day explained why he used this form of dialog. Theaetetus was complaining about how difficult it was to learn this way. It made his head hurt. Socrates replied that this was an appropriate sensation, because his student was feeling the pangs of labor, as something within his head was trying to be born.

He told his student that he is like a midwife. His dialog may indeed be driving his interlocutors to their wits' end, because he is helping them birth understanding. While midwives attend to the bodies of their patients, he is attending to their souls. Just as the most accomplished midwives were once mothers themselves, because their own experiences of giving birth helped them to empathize with a mother in labor, Socrates, as an old man, had the experience to understand the struggles of his students.

He explained that his goal was to assure them that what comes from the minds of the youths he dialogs with is true and not false notions. In fact, Socrates claimed that the gods compelled him to birth ideas, rather than teach. No, he did not deem himself wise—just one who births wisdom from others. Thus, the gods allowed his students to astound themselves, through Socrates' birthing dialogs; they did not learn from Socrates, but from themselves.

So the Socratic midwifery process is intended to be painful—just as childbirth comes with pain. He might well have been the first teacher to tell his students, “No pain, no gain.” (I doubt that rhymes as well in ancient Greek.)