Periodically, we are treated to articles in the popular media speculating about the existence, or extent, of "intelligence" in other species. Lately there seems to have been renewed interest in octopusses and "what their alien minds might tell us". I'm not sure why octopusses would want to "tell us" anything, but it is telling that humans have assumed that octopusses or other creatures would not have experienced the evolution of intelligence in order to thrive in their environments. We might ask: what "kind" of intelligence? Certainly not a human kind of intelligence. Or is that all that really matters?

Even in the intermittent, anthropocentric articles expressing wonder or surprise while recounting examples of intelligent animal behaviour, there seems to lurk an undercurrent of unease. The notion of intelligence in other species can obviously be uncomfortable for anyone who might want to exploit or consume other creatures - or even for those who know someone who does. (Some people apparently feel conflicted enough to cease eating squid and octopusses after they learn of their intelligence.) Individuals who might be possessively proud of any signs of intelligence in their pets, might not be so excited about any evidence of intelligent "alien" species among us. (But people seem to have general problems with the notion of "aliens" and the term appears to have become a cause of hyper-excitation.)

Creatures that inhabit environments vastly different from those humans experience (pretty much all other creatures) could reasonably be expected to have developed very different forms of intelligence from the one our assumptions are based on. (Just how intelligent is it to base one's reasoning on unexamined assumptions?)There are many examples of animal behaviour that show some resemblance to human behaviour, and it is important to recognise such similarities. But it would be a mistake to impose a human mental framework on those behaviours. Other creatures don't need fragments of humanoid essence to increase their legitimacy.

What is this obsession with comparing human intelligence with that of other creatures? Is there no other way to conceptualise our relationships after all this time? Some creatures run faster than humans, some swim better and hold their breath longer...some can fly. We don't bumble into implicit competition with them with regard to those abilities. Humans feel compelled to compete with each other in terms of "intelligence". Considering that the concept is so poorly defined and understood, maybe that's not surprising. It does seem pretty childish, however.

And then, what might we think about people deciding not to eat other creatures if they seem intelligent? It doesn't seem to be just a matter of not wanting to harm supposed "kindred spirits". People know full well that other creatures feel pain, and yet they eat them anyway (and perhaps try not to think about it). We do a lot of destructive things to natural processes that we try not to think about. If we think about them, we might feel compelled to modify our behaviour.

I've been contemplating language usage , mechanisation, and humanity's relationships with various aspects of what we call nature. I don't think people will ever willingly reduce their reliance on mechanical devices (although it might be possible to reduce humanity's blind obsession with them), and I'm certainly not bothering to advocate for that. I also don't think it is realistic to expect most people to consciously re-evaluate and restructure their use of language in order to be more aware of features of the natural world. In fact, increased awareness of the natural world actually seems to upset many people. So why bother writing about it? Well, people learn to be upset by things, and it is at least possible that they can learn something else if that is appropriate.

In part of his book, Wonderful Life, Stephen J. Gould wrote about contingency and the nature of reality - and the reality of nature. Among other things, in this section he lamented the way our use of language has obscured the complexity of the process of scientific inquiry by tending to restrict the concept to a focus on controlled experimental practices. He rightly pointed out that there is much more to science than just controlled experimentation, and that we can come to know things like aspects of evolution, particle physics, and cosmology without being able to directly observe them.

It only makes sense to say that we know something if that something is consistent with many, many other things that careful study has allowed us to know over time. The more we know, the better equipped we are to reject bullshit, and even to imagine potential areas of knowledge not yet discovered. Of course, some new discoveries might apparently contradict established knowledge, but unless they can be integrated with that extensive existing body of knowledge in a coherent manner, they will only remain bullshit.
 
It seems to me that many people don't like what they have come to think of as complexity - that they have been trained to fear and to try to avoid it. (Complexity is sometimes described as "boring", as a face-saving mechanism.) Scientific inquiry, natural processes, social systems...all can be (and often are) presented to students and adults in ways that present a threatening, alienating sense of complexity rather than a multiplicity of interrelated subjects offering deep and varied interest. This seems to be only partly by accident. Complexity actually has a lot to offer, and can be the source of fulfilling life work.

For all society's apparent technological elaboration, humans have only very slowly refined our ideas about our relationship with the natural world. Our language, as currently designed, does not seem to be adequate. We are quite preoccupied with identifying and naming "things", and furnishing them with a cloak of adjectives. We rarely look at "big" trees and also contemplate what is going on under the "parts" we can see - unless their roots start to buckle some pavement. And how many people really care about what is going on under the forest in some distant valley, or What is happening with the subsurface flow of water that is not visible?

Of course, a few people do study the subterranean world of forests and other ecosystems, but they have to work with the language and technological social context within which we currently exist. For example, humans manufacture and use lots of machines. Households in North America generally have some number of machines - automobiles, boats, RVs, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, computers, phones... We are used to interacting with nature and each other using machines. Even the term ecosystem seems to reflect our familiarity, (obsession?) with machines. (Much more can be said about this...)

It seems to me that much of the machinery that structures our interactions with nature performs multiple functions that might be important to be aware of. For one thing, that machinery certainly keeps us busy - in many cases, devices require a person's full attention while using them. In some cases, they can structure and control the way we think, or don't think, about the world. They do this by training our minds to carry out mental tasks. Observant observers have rightly pointed out that as the world becomes more complex, people need to be much better educated in order to cope with reality. Of course, a better educated populace is *not* in the interest of many of those in positions of power, who favour training above education. It's not really possible to train for the unexpected, especially when critical thinking has become so demonised.

In thinking of degrees of understanding, we might say for example that people who engage in bird watching may do so at different levels. The most basic level might involve learning to name and identify different species, and perhaps check them off on a list. Many bird watchers necessarily go beyond that and learn something about the details of various birds' lives - required habitat, feeding, mating and migration patterns, etc. Some people become quite passionate about some of the birds they encounter. Then additionally there are issues regarding the relationship between birds and other species and the broader environment including humanity - especially as the climate crisis alters so much of that environment.

Unfortunately, we can be trained to recognise some of the names of these issues, and to furnish the names with adjectives ( like "frightening", "threatening", "unsolvable") but unless whole populations become much better educated, we won't understand the extent of the complex interrelationships between them - and with humanity.