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Equine & Elephant consciousness, ontology and collective intentionality.
M.Kiley-Worthington. Centre d’Eco-Etho Recherche et Education. La Combe, Bezaudun sur Bine, 26460.
Drome
Abstract.
There is much disagreement between cognitive scientists, philosophers, psychologists and ethologists
concerning whether or not non primate mammals have or have not any form of consciousness, and if so
what form this consciousness might take. To avoid being stuck in the wide ranging debates concerning what
consciousness is or might be, in this paper we outline a methodology to begin to better understand another
species ontology, or first person /subjectivity. This is called Conditional Anthropomorphism.
Recent advances in ethology and experimental psychology, as well as the ideas of some philosophers
at least allows the question of what it might be like to be a member of another human-related species.
Examples of what the conditional anthropomorphic approach is, and how it may be useful to help with
debates concerning consciousness, collective intentionality and social ontology are drawn from studies over
many years of all aspects of the body and mentality of social ungulates and elephants. The approach involves
collecting and critically assessing information on all aspects from field and experimental scientific studies,
from history and folk knowledge of the domestic members of these groups who have been taught and lived
with humans for some 6,000 years, as well as philosophy of mind in order to draw together what we know
about their mental abilities. We start from the position of recognising that evolutionary continuity is more
likely than not to have allowed similar mental events to take place in related species. Then we must
understand where the differences may be, and finally, acknowledge and outline the effects of passed
experiences on the individual’s ontology.
A quick assessment of the mental attributes that we know some of these species have in order to live
the lives they do live is given, including perception, emotions and feelings, learning , remembering and the
knowledge they must acquire in order to survive.
Instinctive predispositions, and the necessary effect of different bodies and abilities on the ontology
and how this may differ are discussed, as well as sub or pre conscious behaviours, habits, habits of mind,
self-awareness and awareness of others intentions and needs and collective intentionality.
All of this critically assessed information concerning mental attributes of these mammals indicates ,
animals ‘hard wired’ that they are aware and conscious of being where they are. What may be a helpful is to
is recognise the two dimensions of knowledge which every individual has: the objective and subjective and
how they intermingle in order to better understand species and individual experiences. In this way, we may
begin to better acknowledge other mammalian beings, and in the process throw light on other ways of
viewing the world which might enrich our own, as well as contribute to understanding consciousness a little.
Introduction.
I am a bit of a fish out of water here as an ethologist, but am here to learn to think carefully and
defend arguments. In a group fundamentally interested in careful scholarship and linguistics, I am rather
supposed at some of the unsupported statements made concerning animals during the conference, just a
couple of examples, the pre frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex is the human piece of the brain... so what does
it do in no humans, a hole or what? Dogs can’t reason, animals have no idea of themselves, animals are hard
wired ... and so on, just a few I have caught. What I would like to do today is to try to point out to you that
such statements wont really do anymore! Perhaps to ask you to think as carefully about animals and
collective intentionality as you have about humans in the end. I hope you follow my somewhat jumpy
arguments.
The possession of “consciousness” is often believed to be one of the distinguishing features between
human and non-human mammals, even though there is no agreement among scholars on what it is.Whether
it is believed that animals are conscious or not seems more to reflect the cultural background interests and
beliefs from which the speaker comes!
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Here I propose to outline some evidence for the various mental attributes that non-primate
mammals, particularly ungulates and elephants have. Some will say this is ‘consciousness’, others, whose
definition is different, will not. My aim is to try to better understand these animals’ ontology by presenting a
multi disciplinary approach.
The uniqueness of human consciousness I suggest, has usually been based on ignorance of other
species, surely not an adequate argument.
We must collect, critically assess and clarify with examples evidence that has been gathered from all
the relevant scientific disciplines (anatomy, morphology, physiology, ethology, ecology, experimental
psychology, neuroscience) for that particular species. Since many non-primate mammals have been
domesticated for at least some 7,000 years, it would be foolish to ignore information that people who keep,
teach, live and work with many of these species may have. But…preconceived notions in any
branch of knowledge are rife, nowhere more than beliefs concerning different animals’ behaviour and mental
attributes. Thus all statements, whether from science, folk knowledge, personal experiences or philosophers
must be very critically examined.
Once we have a well researched and argued assessment of the different species mental abilities, in so
far as we know them, then we can discuss these mental abilities in the light of various beliefs and definitions
of ontology, ‘consciousness’ and collective intentionality.
Some may feel that some of the conclusions given here are “flying with the fairies” (Clark 1987)..
But, these suggestions and ideas have not been produced out of a hat; they are the result of long years of
critically studying, observing, experimenting, training, living with as well as reviewing others’ work to
uncover the ontology of these species, and attempting to explain their behaviour in the simplest possible way.
What ever you believe, perhaps “flying with the fairies” is more illuminating, than “ploughing with the
robots”, (an approach adopted by many, often with as little evidence, and sometimes with even less rational
arguments!). Either way it is certainly more fun and encourages serious studies of individual species. But, it
is a tall order to summarise the mental events in any one species within a few minutes, all that I can attempt
is to precis what we think we know (further information, evidence and detailed arguments in KileyWorthington 2000, & 2003).
Evolutionary continuity
If one believes in evolution, then the first consideration is to recognise that, in order to be classified
as a mammal, certain characteristics of morphology, anatomy, physiology and behaviour must be fulfilled. If
adaptive advantages such as warm blood, moving around with a common structured appendage, learning,
suckling and looking after the young, having mental attributes such as emotions and
awareness/intentionality/consciousness has arisen in one species during the course of evolution, one would
expect something similar, although possibly not identical, to have arisen in other related ones.
Example: All mammals are recognised as having similarly structured bodies (fig 1),
Although the bodies of different mammals have underlying similarities, there are differences; some
climb trees, some run fast, some live in the sea and swim fast or slow, some even fly, some are very big,
some very small. All these differences cause superficial differences in the skeletons, the muscles, and the
conformation of the whole body, the life and behaviour of the species.
But, statements and beliefs, whether from science or folk knowledge, need to be very critically
assessed since even scientists are subjects in the world and have preconceptions and beliefs. Thus to assess
an individuals awareness or consciousness of the world and how it may be similar or different from mine, we
first need to find out as much as we can about (a) the species, and it’s differences and similarities to humans
in body and mind, and then (b) assess his/her passed experiences to know what particular individual
interpretations of the world s/he may have. This approach I have called “Conditional Anthropomophism”
(see also Burkhart 1991, Fisher 1991, Kiley-Worthington 1987, 2000, 2005). Although there remains much
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unknown about the mentality of other mammals, I will try to convince you that we now know enough
about some species and individuals to be able to make a useful assessment of their awareness of the world.
Communication, Human Language and Consciousness.
One of our research topics has for many years been the origin, evolution and function of
communication in many mammalian species. We have measured over 100 behaviours in equines, rhinos and
elephants to try and understand in more detail what and how one animal is communicating to another, and
thus the degree to which their communication fulfils the criteria for human language. A somewhat surprising
finding is that the meaning of much of their communication is context dependent, that is the same behaviour
means different things in different contexts. Thus to arrive at the full meaning of a message, the recipient
must observe and interpret the context as well as the display (Kiley-Worthington 1998, Kiley-Worthington &
Randle in press). This is unlike human language which is characterised by being linearly arranged in time
and context independent.
Example:1) A neigh of the same structure may indicate to another horse I am lonely, I am excited, I am frustrated, I am delighted to see you….
depending on the context.
2) Head shaking in an elephant may indicate: I am feeling aggressive and may charge you, I am delighted to see you, I am feeling like playing…
and so on.
These animals must be very aware of their surroundings and skilled at interpreting the current social
situations if they are going to correctly understand the meaning of the message. This must ensure they have
an awareness of what others are feeling and desiring. In fact more than is often necessary for the context
independent human language user. This, then is a different type of public language, but difficult for us to
come to grips with.
It may be the case that language opens up particular doors in thinking .But, in some ways it’s all
invasive effect may be a cognitive handicap, for example in emotional or perceptual experiences and
interpretations of the world. (see Kiley-Worthington 2000 & Stoerig (page 221, Blackmore 2005). Just as
photosensitivity requires light, so, human language requires a symbolic linear structure which governs much
of humans thinking to such a point that it is frequently believed that it is the only way in which thinking can
take place. This attitude has inhibited many questions being asked concerning other types of thought.
Emotions & feelings.
We need to recognize that, at least until we have strong evidence to the contrary, non human
mammals at least feel and think. The interesting question is what do they feel and think, not if they do (Lea &
Kiley-Worthington 1996).
The study of comparative emotions and/or feelings is in its infancy. We all use these when
interpreting other mammals behaviour including humans from shared emotions (Merlau-Ponty 1962). The
success in the use of shared experiences and feelings, is illustrated by animal handlers and teachers. Although
some are better than others. even people ignorant of other mammals behaviour agree on what they think
another mammal is feeling (e.g. Welmesfelder 1993 & Welmesfelder et al 2000). Like it or not, other
mammals mind about things (Stamp-Dawkins1993), but the subtlety of their emotional lives remains largely
unknown, mainly through ignorance. They have some emotions unknown to us, perhaps and us to them too.
Often we can make reasonable guesses as to what his/her feelings might be once we understand the context.
The animal equally reads human emotions.
Example: A naïve human is frightened of approaching a young elephant but shows this only in his body tension. The elephant sees this, possibly
also smells his sweat and interprets this as fear and something to be frightened of. He tenses, moves away, trumpets and shakes his head… signs
of unease.
The role of ‘instinct’ in these species behaviour?
By definition instinct means that it is genetically coded, inflexible, non-adaptive, hard wired and
consequently requires no awareness. Exactly how such information is hard wired into the brain has not been
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investigated as far as I know. But, there are ‘genetic predispositions’, or ‘tendencies’ for a mammal of a
particular species to do this or that (e.g. walking on two legs for humans or four for an elephant), but when,
where, how and even if this occurs depends on the individual’s experiences during his/her lifetime.
Example. Many of the children brought up by wolves did not walk on two legs when they were found, even when teenagers (Candland 1993).
The genetic component of the majority of mammalian behaviour therefore is pre-dispositional rather
than hardwired and inflexible. To demonstrate this point, here are some detailed recordings of the behaviour
of a filly foal for the first twenty four hours of her life.
Example: Fig 3.
It is clear that within the first 24 hrs outside the womb, the foal learn how to do a variety of things.
Although she had a genetic predisposition to get up, find the teat, suckle walk etc, if, when, where, and how
she did them was rapidly learnt. Of course this does not mean that she was consciously aware of doing all of
them all the time. But, she had to do some mental work, for example, to choose when to try and stand up,
then work out how to balance. If she got it wrong she fell down, and then had to try again. She even had to
learn how to move her legs in the different gaits and started off by hesitantly moving one leg at a time, then
with somewhat confused leaps. After 23 hrs she had mastered the 4x walk, 2x trot, and 3x canter. She had a
genetic predisposition to develop these gaits, but it took her 23 hours of experience. They are not genetically
hardwired, robotic non-mental events, they are flexible, adaptable behaviours that require some sort of aware
mental work which is also illustrated by how every individual does them differently.
Perception.
Different species have somewhat different acuity of the various sensory receptors and use them to a
greater or lesser degree. Horses a sophisticated visual world,
Example 1)Elephants have a combined nose/hand: their trunk which has an enormous area of olfactory sensitive mucosa, and a large olfactory
lobe in the front of the brain to analyse the smells. They move their trunk around constantly, smelling and manipulating the world (39% of 84
behaviours in 2410 interactions involved smell, 5x as much as the use of audition. (Kiley-Worthington & Rendle in press).
Smell is likely to be used to describe the elephants world much more than in humans with their relatively
vestigial olfactory sensitivity and analysis. By contrast, humans verbalize, so deafness is a much greater
handicap than not being able to smell.
Example 2. Horses are very sensitive to visual cues, particularly very slight movements, and their eyes are at the side of their heads consequently
they have 2 very large monocular visual fields, as opposed to the smaller mostly binocular visual field of humans. The ‘Clever Hans’ story
illustrates how sophisticated they are at picking up sub liminal visual cues from humans ( Candland 1993),
What can be perceived is, of course, going to affect the individuals ontology, but “what it is to be” is
the result of the perception and analysis of the information. Thus, a horse is likely to have beliefs, intentions
and memories based on a visual public language, although other senses such as touch and smell will also
play an important role (Kiley-Worthington 2005). To an elephant, it may be that “thought” is predominantly
based on combined feeling and smelling cues.
The better we know the different species and individuals, the more shared experiences we have, the
more likely we are to have a better understanding concerning their experiences, and them ours.
Learning & Conditioning.
Learning increases the flexibility of behaviour, and although all mammals have an inbuilt tendency to
learn, what, where, if, how and when they learn is the result of their lifetime experiences, and demonstrably
not ‘hard wired’ in the sense of being genetically programmed. And they learn, like humans in various
different ways, and indeed acquire knowledge about their worlds:
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1)
The acquisition of ecological knowledge: becoming a good natural ecologist.
Different populations in different environments acquire different information. An equine, elephant or
a human who has been born and raised in a captive urban environment, compared to that of his conspecifics
of the same age raised in wild or rural or environments have very different environmental knowledge.
Example .African elephants and feral thoroughbred horses survive in the Namibian desert. They can survive in this marginal environment
because they have acquired the appropriate ecological knowledge (where to find water, grass, the baobab tree etc), and this is passed on to the
next generation by social learning,
Equines and elephants as well as other herbivores, have to become natural botanists to know what to
eat and where to find it, geographers: how to find their way around, where to shelter or find water; natural
zoologists in order to recognize other species; natural ethologist to be able to predict the behaviour of other
species, particularly different predators; meteorologists to predict weather and where to move to find shade
or shelter, avalanches or storms; natural geologist to know where they can safely move or not on different
rock surfaces. In effect, they have to become good natural ecologists if they are going to survive and leave
offspring. All this information will be acquired using all types of learning, by making choices, decisions,
simple plans and predictions. The clear differences in this knowledge indicates the existence and importance
of traditions and cultures in these animals, as well as humans.
2) Social knowledge. Becoming a natural psychologist & having a ‘theory of mind’.
The mother-young bond is the basis of social living in mammals (Midgley 1978). But these species
groups have innate tendencies, to live in groups of more than two and to organise their societies in slightly
different ways (elephants in female family groups with visiting males, equines in one male with several
female and young, humans one male with one or several females and their young and so on).
Nevertheless, when, where, how and if they develop these types of social associations is the result of
the individual’s lifetime experiences, that is her ‘culture’. An elephant or zebra, kept by herself all her life in
the zoo, just like a human kept isolated, when reintroduced to others of her own species will not immediately
know the rules or want to join their society.
Examples.
(i) One of the major problems encountered in zoos today is mothers rejecting their young. This is frequently because the mother herself has had
no experience of motherhood, or watching others with infants, even though she may have the normal maternal hormones circulating though her
body.
(ii) Detailed experiments to get beef cattle to adopt second calves, found that one of the most important variables was the mothers own experience
of whether she was raised with an adoptee or not. (Kiley-Worthington 1983).
To be accepted and live in any type of society requires each individual to learn to recognise and
predict the behaviour of others (see above). They thus have expectations of another’s likely behaviour by
interpreting their signals and knowing their personality, age and sex class. To do this, each must be able to
tell from the others’ behaviour something about what they are feeling: who may attack whom; who to avoid,
who to approach and when, and so on. That is, they have what has been called a “theory of mind”. If social
mammals were not socially aware in this sense, then they would not be able to live in any organised social
group where individuals know each other.
It is only socially handicapped elephants, equines or humans who as a result of having inappropriate
lifetime experiences, or neurological problems, consistently behave in socially inept ways. The fact of the
matter is that they learn about each other, communicate with each other, recognise individuals and like them
or loathe them (Galef 1986), some are more socially involved than others, some receive attention from
others, and are carefully observed, some not… just like in humans (Kiley-Worthington 1998). Thus, they
have varied social desires, make choices have beliefs about individuals, work for particular goals and even
sometimes demonstrate desire
independent reasons.
Examples of Desire Independent Reason.
(i) Zebra stallions have been observed returning to attack predators trying to kill youngsters of their own group.
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(ii) Non related members of the matriarchal elephant group will put themselves at risk to help rescue a youngster.
(iii) Several of our horses have learnt that if they are caught in a fence when their desire is to run, by attempting to run, they become
further tangled, so they stand still, and one of them even calls , having learnt in this way how to attract our attention.
In order to be accepted into their societies, these species must have a social contract (rules which they
learn)..
Examples.
(1) A zoo elephant who has lived by herself for all her adult life is introduced to other younger females but attacks them and withdraws as far as
possible away from them. This behaviour continues for 6 months.
(2) A breeding stallion is isolated from others after weaning early at 4 months and kept on his own. When he breeds with introduced mares, they
are strapped up so they cannot move and he can rape them. When let loose with free mares, he is unable to read their signals , tries to leap on top
of them, and is ferociously kicked until he is seriously injured.
Memory & Imagination.
To learn to perform voluntary acts, and acquire knowledge, there is a prerequisite to have some form of
memory.
Memories when recalled, are often slightly changed until they may hardly resemble the incident that
occurred in the first place. This, ’unreliability of memories’ would seem to be the basis of dreaming and
imagination (a mental faculty forming images of external objects not present to the senses. Oxford
dictionary), In this case, equines, elephants and bovines have some sort of imagination.
Memory allows us to learn and acquire information, it may also allow all us mammals to take trips
into the past, and in this way, affects our interpretation of the present.
Learning ‘that’ and ‘how’.
They also have to acquire both decalarative and proceedual knowledge in order to perform tasks
appropriately.
Examples. 1) Teaching a horse to do the spanish walk results first in the individual lifting his front legs in sequence, but not moving his back
legs. Here he has learnt “that” ( life the front legs in an exaggerated way), but not “how” (walk forward with the back legs too).
2) The donkey with a cart has to learn “that” he must pull the cart through the narrow gap, and then “how” to do it by judging the
distance in the gateway in order to bring the cart through.
3) The elephant learning to pick up a bale by the strings has to first, learn “that” the bale is to be picked up without breaking, and
“how” to do this which involves pushing his trunk through both strings and lifting, or the bale will fall apart.
Attention.
There are general rules concerning what attracts attention. For example, sudden, loud or high pitched
noises will tend to attract attention from any mammal that can hear the sound, but further than a few such
generalities, whether or not they pay attention depends on the species and the passed experience that that
individual has had.
Body Self-awareness & Reflexive consciousness.
Elephants and equines must be aware/know that at least certain parts of their bodies are theirs
because:- (a) they can be taught, learn by themselves, and imitate others’ novel movements voluntarily with
different parts of the body: legs, head, trunk, tail and so on, (b) they can see as well as feel potions of their
own bodies, (c) they suffer pains, itches, pleasant sensations in different locations, and do something about
them ( e.g. scratch, rub, lick, touch).
Perhaps human language allows for more subtle symbolism and thought, but in view of what we now
know about these other species, it would be rash to consider that they do not reflect on themselves in some
way, are not moral agents or have an aesthetic sense in some simple form at least, that is they have some
simple social ontology.
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Sub-Consciousness,
As time goes by, we are becoming more aware of how much of our behaviour is sub conscious ( e.g.
Gray 2004, Velmans 2000) and therefore cannot dismiss its effects in both humans and non human
mammals.
Habits, and Habits of Mind.
After learning sequences of behaviour, elephants, equines and humans can perform complex
behaviours without attention, that is without a conscious awareness of what they are doing.
However, having learnt by voluntary action, even complex sequences, (like a human driving a car,
elephant stacking logs, a horse performing a liberty act) the behaviour may then be performed without
conscious attention. But, the difference is that it can be bought back to conscious decision making. This is
illustrated when a limb is injured and is painful to use. Here, the individual, whether two legged or four, has
to maintain balance in a different way from normal walking, the sequence and type of movements of the legs
may have to be changed so that little or no weight is born on the injured leg. Conscious decision have to be
made to adjust to the new situation, illustrated by one of our horses and myself.
Example. Shemal, when she had very badly injured a hind leg, was unable to move for the first 3 days But, by day 4 she learnt to hop on her
good hind leg. Her awareness of how she normally moved, and the pain it caused if she tried it, had had to be bought to her consciousness.
Thereafter she made trials and decisions on how to adapt her movement to the changing circumstances. Her behaviour during this trying time
paralleled my own when I had a broken ligament in my right knee. Both of us were only too conscious of our bodies and what we were doing
with them in order to avoid pain, but also keen to move about.
Habits of Mind.
Habits can also be established in the way the mind is used. The K’hung bushwoman’s habits of mind:
what she thinks about, and how she solves problems is not entirely different from a mares or a cow elephants
in the same area. She will, for example, have developed a habit of mind of assessing and acquiring detailed
ecological knowledge on the whereabouts of food or water or where other animals are. The loan male
elephant may have acquired the habit of mind of assessing and acquiring detailed ecological knowledge of
where the next baobab tree is, as well as the location of the bushmans' camp. But neither will have a habit of
mind of reading books, or doing mathematical sums which both the male and female Londoner might have.
Social Facilitation, Behavioural Synchronisation and Imitation.
Social facilitation is a tendency to do what the others are doing. The result is that groups of equines,
elephants or humans tend to do the same thing at the same times, some of this may be controlled by for
example circadian rhythms and synchronised needs, thus not necessarily done with conscious control and
WE intention.
But imitation is not one of these. Here, the subject imitates either a member of their own species, or
another ( such as a human).
Figure
We found that what we have called “ do as have been done by” was very significantly frequent in our
studies of communication in these species.
We also taught some elephants, equines, bovines, dogs, and guanacos to perform simple actions using
imitation.
Figure
Example. (i) We taught several of our elephant and equine subjects to shake their heads; lift their right or left leg when they see the human
teacher do the same movement. They performed the correct behaviour significantly more frequently than the incorrect. In other words, they
recognised and made an association between the right or left leg or head of the teacher, and sometimes made mistakes.
(ii) They also altered the way in which the movement was performed, depending on what they saw and were imitating. If the teacher’s
leg is lifted only a little, then they lift their own only a little, if a lot, a lot, if wiggled about, then they wiggle their leg about.
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We also have examples of where an individual performs a novel act as a result of witnessing the
same
Figure
Example. (i) When demonstrating imitation in the field, Shemal imitated the human teacher when she lifted and pawed with her leg. Shortly
afterwards her younger brother (aged 2), also pawed with one front leg, a novel act in this situation.
(ii) Shemal had a 3 month old foal, and she and Oberlix were, together with the teacher, performing a Spanish walk when the foal also began to
do the same… a novel act not normally in the behavioural repertoire of equines (fig 5).
Collective Intentionality.
Collective Intentionality is defined by Searle as a “we” intention. It is debatable in the above
examples whether either humans or non-human mammals are performing these behaviours with a conscious
‘we’ intention. Nevertheless, there are some examples which do appear to qualify as a ‘we’ intention. One
well researched example from Cape buffalo (Prins 1997).
Example.(i) Prins in his study of Cape buffalo recorded the number of Cape buffalo that stood up then lay down again during afternoon siestas.
He took compass bearings of the individuals orientations, and found that, after their siesta, the buffalo went off in the direction in which the
majority had faced. He suggests that they “voted” on where they should go to graze in the evening, even though most of them had lain down
again after standing and “pointing”.
(ii) If a small elephant becomes stuck in a waterhole, the whole family will crowded around and several of them perform different activities to try
and get him out: digging, moving earth away, grabbing the infant and pulling him out: working in different ways to achieve a joint goal.
(iii) Equines like to gallop together in groups. When let out into a field after confinement, they will all gallop off as a bunch, this may be
behavioural synchronisation, but sometimes, several of them do not gallop off with the others: some make a decision ‘let us gallop off and
around in circles’, while others, will have a ‘we’ decision: collective intentionality, not to.
The particularly interesting thing is that the buffalo all moved off in the direction in which the
majority had voted, and the minority chose to stay with the larger group rather than go off to their other
selected places, demonstrating that the “we” ( mutual desire to work together towards some goal) collective
action trumped their own individual wishes, thus also demonstrating “desire independent reason”.
There are also examples of collective intentionality between species, particularly non-human
mammals with humans.
Example. When skilled shepherds gather sheep on the moors with skilled dogs. The sheep, the dogs and the humans all have a learnt task to
perform with a collective intentionality. The task is for all to move down to a gathering point more or less together. Each species has a different
role within it. We learnt to our cost after introducing sheep to a new area, how important this is, since our new sheep had a different “collective
intentionality”….. to scatter rather than to be gathered. It took a few more trials until we all arrived at our multi species collective intention.
This resembles the example of ‘we’ intent given by Searle: the playing of different instruments in an
orchestra. A naïve individual, whether human, dog or sheep who does not have the “we” intention can cause
it all to go wrong, ending up with sheep, dogs and humans rushing around chaotically over the moor.
Another example are experienced cow ponies being ridden to move cattle where the pony takes the necessary
actions to achieve the collective goal.
Good riders will often have the sensation of being ‘at one’ with the horse in the performance of
whatever activity they are doing. Even if this is because the rider and the horse are mutually responding to
very slight cues from each other, it nevertheless, illustrates this voluntary ‘we’ collective intentionality.
What one is aiming at if interested in the art of equitation (which has been written about practised and taught
almost as long as visual art forms (see for example Xenophon 1972) is that both the human rider and the
ridden equine, are so tuned into their mutual work that they develop a harmony, a mutual “we”, a willing
cooperation. It is this which, however frequently or rarely experienced, keeps many people striving all their
lives to ride better, and many horses to be very willingly partners.
Let even the occasional existence of collective intentionality between humans and other mammals be
a spur to encourage more detailed empirical & observational work, before concluding that their cognitive
abilities, consciousness and knowledge always falls far short of that of humans.
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Example. Oberlix having been taught to yawn when I yawn, has now taught himself to yawn when I am standing in front of a group talking
to them. He cannot see my face, but he can see the people listening to me. They inevitably laugh, he thus has a secondary reinforcement, and
yawns again, may prolong it or make trial movements before yawning, thus changing the response, being in effect in a simple sense creative. Of
course this is learnt, from others, from reinforcements, from himself, but nevertheless it also requires some conscious decision making and an
awareness of the time and place where it will be effective.
Is this the beginning of humour?
We can then summarise the mental attributes of these species groups ( no time here, but quick summary)
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
They show emotions and mind about things
They learn and do voluntary actions which requires choices and descisions
They acquire knowledge about where they live
They have to learn various social rules, recognise individuals and make decisions concerning their next
likely action to stay in the group.: they have to have a theory of mind .
They show much group behaviour, some like humans, may not be under conscious decision making
control, but it can be
They occasionally show desire independent reason, working together sometimes even against their own
individual interests.
They show much cooperative behaviour and behaviour to help stick the group together.
They sometimes show collective intentionality “we” conscious behaviour.
They are aware and conscious of where they are and indeed who they are.
7)
8)
9)
10)
11)
12)
13)
14)
15)
16)
17)
18)
19)
20)
21)
22)
Summary of the Mental abilities of equines, bovines and elephants.
23) Equines , elephants and human are all mammals and consequently have homolously similar bodies and
minds. But as a result of their species differences they have different physical and mental expertise. Their
size, ability to do or not to do various movements at various speeds etc will affect their view of the world,
their consciousness.
24) Having and showing feelings, sensations and emotions.
25) Learning about the different environment in which they live,
26) Learning different social rules.
27) Show individual differences and personalities as a result of lifetime experiences.
28) Making mistakes in their assessment of situations. Although they may behave rationally, have cultures
and rules of behaviour, --- the rules can be broken and they can also behave irrationally and unpredictably
because they exercise choices and make decisions.
29) They communicate their intentions, (sometimes symbolically delivered, as in ‘intention movements’),
and read others’ feelings to predict their likely next action. Thus, they must be aware what others are
feeling, an awareness that others have minds/needs/desires.
30) They are aware of their own bodies, aware of others, aware of differences, make simple plans and
predictions, they are to this extent reflexively conscious. They have memories, and consequently some
sort of imagination and reflection.
31) They do not have a language which has all the characteristics of human language, but they have complex
and elaborate multi- sensory, largely context dependent communication systems that enables a very
different, but no less complex, world view.
10
32) They are however capable of at least
learning to comprehend simple human
language, even if humans are not yet making a great deal of effort to understand theirs, and the different
ways of thinking it demands.
33) They occasionally demonstrate collective intentionality, desire independent reason and perhaps social
ontology……To date our knowledge on these matters is controlled by a lack of asking the questions.
These mental attributes illustrate that these species groups are in some sense conscious and ‘at home
in the world’ . Superimposed on these attributes, are their species specific ontological differences. A brief
summary is therefore possible. ( fig 7). The individual differences, as a result of knowing something about
their past experiences can then be superimposed in order to complete the Conditional Anthropomophic
assessment of his or her ontology.
If we consider that equines and elephants have, like us, a whole united being, body, mind and brain
which acts to put what is perceived outside and what is felt inside together to understand the world; that is
meeting and mixing of the subjective and objective, (Seale 1999, Velmans 2000), then we may be closer to
how it is that these large mammals are in the world, their subjectivity, their consciousness, their ontology.
Why are we constantly move the goal posts when investigating other mammalian consciousness and
subjectivity, rather than trying to learn and appreciating commonality as well as differences in their lives?
So far we do not know much about other species, but at least this approach escapes the pursuit of
ignorance, cultural dominance and folk beliefs concerning other species ontology and consciousness. I now
have a reasonable idea what it is like to be the individual equine or elephant with whom I have many shared
experiences. This allows me to have at least a vague understanding of and how, where and when our world
views and experiences are similar and where they differ. Sometimes I make mistakes and learn from them
too.
Other large non human mammals are not stupid mentally handicapped, unconscious humans. It is
more interesting to start looking at what it means to be one of them if we want to start being “conscious” in
Penrose’s sense. It is clear that many individuals of other species that live with us, are doing something like
this, let us not lag behind!
We do not have to throw the baby out with the bathwater and give up being human (as some have
argued). Rather by associating with, and understanding equines and elephants better, we can enrich our own
lives by learning new and different ways of assessing the world, and they ours. Our mutual associations, can,
result in a greatly enriched life for both, without whimsy, quaintness or metaphenomena
From studying these animals in such a multi disciplinary way, we may be able to pick up hints for
furthering our understanding of our own as well as their consciousness, collective intentionality and social
ontology It may be hard work, but it is both possible and profitable to investigate the whole being of
different species and different individuals from a multi disciplinary positions.
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