Caitrin Nicol writes in The New Atlantis
They are not us, but to look into their eyes is to know that someone is in there. Imposing our own specific thoughts and feelings on that someone is in one sense too imaginative, in presuming he could receive the world in the way we do, and in another not imaginative enough, in not opening our minds to the full possibilities of his difference.
Nicol includes this from Peter Mathieson's The Tree Where Man Was Born,
There is mystery behind that masked gray visage, an ancient life force, delicate and mighty, awesome and enchanted, commanding the silence ordinarily reserved for mountain peaks, great fires, and the sea.
Nicoli continues,
The birth of an elephant is a spectacular occasion. Grandmothers, aunts, sisters, and cousins crowd around the new arrival and its dazed mother, trumpeting and stamping and waving their trunks to welcome the floppy baby who has so recently arrived from out of the void, bursting through the border of existence to take its place in an unbroken line stretching back to the dawn of life.
After almost two years in the womb and a few minutes to stretch its legs, the calf can begin to stumble around. But its trunk, an evolutionarily unique inheritance of up to 150,000 muscles with the dexterity to pick up a pin and the strength to uproot a tree, will be a mystery to it at first, with little apparent use except to sometimes suck upon like human babies do their thumbs. Over time, with practice and guidance, it will find the potential Welcome to the world: This newborn hasn’t yet stood up and stretched its legs, let alone figured out how to use its trunk. “Elephant Nature Park” by Christian Haugen (CC BY 2.0). in this appendage flailing off its face to breathe, drink, caress, thwack, probe, lift, haul, wrap, spray, sense, blast, stroke, smell, nudge, collect, bathe, toot, wave, and perform countless other functions that a person would rely on a combination of eyes, nose, hands, and strong machinery to do.
From some combination of existential loneliness and intrepid curiosity, we also have for decades now been calling out for someone past the borders of our known experience. Meanwhile, although we’ve been working on it for millennia, the real depths of terrestrial intelligence are almost as unplumbed. Whether there are millions or just one, what does it mean that there is such a thing as Elephant?
The scientific enterprise, that special activity of human beings, brings us proof of their abilities and tools to unriddle them, but scientific language simply breaks down in describing who they are — as it does with beauty or with love — leaving us at the edge of a vast field of signals out of ordinary range. Listen with your ears, your eyes, your heart, your mind, your soul for the message from these kin as improbable as life itself, different and yet the same. We are not alone.
1 comment:
it makes me wonder, what is it exactly that constitutes soul? I might say its the ability to take moral actions which have eternal consequences, for ourselves and others, the ability to partner with God in taking responsibility for meaningful outcomes in this world, responsibility for harm, and for good, for causing suffering and ending it.
And add to that, I'd say its the intrinsic value God put in man, to think, to feel, to reason, to create, far above and beyond that which he gave the animals. Its not to say that there isn't value in animals, or that they don't feel, think, and remember, but the gap between us and them is still great, and its a difference between a creature of great beauty and value, and an invaluable creature. There's just no comparison.
Next time you doubt there's any significant difference between people and animals, just try to convince a 4-year old. They'll end up convincing you! :)
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