After my recent post on communication (or “training” as its called in certain circles, or “teaching” as its known in still other circles), I was pleasantly surprised to see Bernie DeKoven’s recent post on the DeepFun blog.

Bernie doesn’t say much, rather, he quotes extensively from an article written by Jessica Pierce and Marc Bekoff, titled “Moral in Tooth and Claw.”

Pierce and Bekoff are also the authors of the recently (last year) published book “Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals“

Bekoff and Pierce’s argument is that all animals have “morality,” it just looks different for different species.

I don’t see why not!

I’m still working on this idea, and appreciate your feedback on it, or any sources you may know of, but basically – emotion, morality, “justice,” or any other ABSTRACT name we give something, is a representation of an event.

In animals, that event is, specifically, a physiological event.  Every action is an outward expression of something occurring within the animal.

“Morality” is a word (an abstract symbol) that we have created to capture a host of physical attitudes and emotions that we associate with a certain quality (“being moral”).  That is, “morality” (the word) is an abstract symbol that stands-for (in language) a variety of physiological happenings that we think are interrelated.

The Problem With Symbols

I think this area of learning is called “semiotics” – the study of signs or symbols.  I’m not too familiar with it, but will read up on it soon.  If you know about it, please add to the discussion.

In the time being, I’ll make some general statements about what I observe as being “the issue” with this type of approach to “animal” behavior.

First, let me say that I think that human beings are animals.  Specifically, human beings are mammals.  Just like dogs, cats, mice, cows, etc.  As mammal, we have things in common with every other mammal that exists on this planet.  Granted, there are things that separate us from one another – capabilities, physical attributes, etc. – but we are also very very similar in many ways.

Most folks don’t think in these terms.  In fact, if you go to Pierce and Bekoff’s article and look at the comments, the very first comment says:

“Do not compare animal with man.Animal have not developed brain just like man.They are innocent compare to man.Developed brain is more selfish.Just watch child she had also innocent brain compare to adult.”

This is, I think, highly indicative of the problem with language.

Origins and Insertions

First off, we must agree that every animal communicates.

The definition of “communication” is “a process of transferring information from one entity to another.”  Though single-cell and multi-cellular organisms may use different forms of communication, it still occurs.

Human beings, thanks to certain evolved structures, developed the capacity to communicate in a different way than other mammals.  We probably began communicating the same way that they do – through body language, vocalizations, tonal qualities, etc.  But eventually, we figured out that we could make certain things (tones or hand signs) represent other things.

The birth of symbols.

Once that occurred, we probably started to experiment with a variety of symbols to represent different things.  Initially, it would make sense if we just used very easy representations – representations of communications we were used to hearing or seeing already.  For instance, if we were hungry, we might make a sad face and grab our bellies, as we do when we get TRULY hungry.  If we saw a buffalo on our trip, we might make horns on our head with our fingers when we got back to the tribe.

Things became more advanced with more advanced mimicry.  We may have begun to use the sounds we associated with certain things – sounds alone.  For instance, when the sun warms you, as you lay on a hot flat rock and relax, you make a certain sound with that feeling in your body.  “Aaaaaah.”  Feels good, right?  If you get hurt, that “aaaah” might turn into “AH!” or “OH!”

Further along, the abstraction became more and more complicated.

At some point, something happened where we realized that we could represent certain things with drawings.  In the beginning, it may have been exact replicas, precise drawings of the things we had seen.

The Birth of Alphabets

During this period, maybe we figured out that a simple circle could represent the sun.  The Chinese ideographs are full of direct-pictorial representations of the physical things they stand for.  Their language is not “alphabetic,” but symbolic, purely.

Other languages abstracted those symbols further, into individual symbols representing certain sounds.

Now, remember, those sounds represent certain physiological experiences – certain bodily experiences.  At least, they did at first.

Once we could do that, we could begin to make words.  But how do you make words?  Have you ever thought about it?

One theory, which I agree with, is that the sounds (the physiological experience) come first, and then the letters that represent those sounds (those physiological experiences) are put into order, and a word is made.

Once we have words that we can agree on – in the beginning, likely very simple things, very accessible things, and not too many of them – we can begin to string those words together to form more detailed communications.

Distraction by Abstraction

We get to a place where we can reference words (abstractions, or symbols, of physiological occurrences) with other words.

We are referencing symbols with symbols.  We are modifying meanings of symbols with the use of other symbols.  This is “meta-symbolism.”

But what happens when we do that?

I think things become very confused.  Our attention spans are very short, and we tend to focus on one or two things at a time (maximum, whether we try to convince ourselves that we’re “multi-tasking” or not).

Eventually, we forget that those words stand for something physical.  We forget that they are representations.  We believe that the symbol is real.

But it is not.  It’s just a symbol.

At this point, we’ve taken the land, put it on a map, and then moved to outer space.

We begin to modify our words, our symbols, and their meaning, through convenience, through culture, through geography.  Which is great, don’t get me wrong!

Get to the Point, Leeger

Alrighty, then.

Here’s the point – the meaning I give to a word (a symbol) may be a completely different meaning from the meaning you give to that word.

Even if we do agree on the meaning of the word, the associations you have with that word may be very different from the associations I have with that word.  If you’ve experienced physical abuse firsthand, and I have not, when I say the word “abuse,” a very real and very different physiological event will occur in you than will in me – and it will lead us to different (more or less “emotional”) forms of communication about that word.

But the real point is this – “morality” is a word.  It is a symbol that we have created to represent a series of actions, of visible communications, abstracted into words.  “Justice,” is a similar word.  It represents an “idea,” which represents a physiological experience.

Why does any of this matter?  I think that this is one of the keys to expanding human potential.  We have to admit that we are animals, first.  Then, we have to admit that our modes of communication (our dominant mode – spoken or written language) are actually hiding us from the experience of our animal-ness.

Why does that matter?  Take a look around you.  Look at the “obesity epidemic,” or “non-communicable diseases,” or “global warming.”

None of those terms, those phrases, has any direct meaning to you (unless you are obese, or have a non-communicable disease).  Yet these terms are bandied about as if they are meaningful.  They become “hot topics,” and nothing changes.

Why does nothing change?  Because we are divorced from the physical experiences that those words represent.

I’m not saying “do away with language.”  Instead, I’m saying – understand it better.  Learn language more clearly.  Feel it in your body.

As my Sensei, Mick Dodge says – “We should quest for the most direct sensory touch that we can endure in order to awaken our animal, our animus, our spirit.”

Find your “morality” in that.