Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind (47 page)

The essence of the difference between the human and the animal mind is often claimed to be that man can reflect upon his actions while animals, lacking words, cannot. Crucial to this view is the underlying and unspoken premise that language is the only possible means of reflection. Without language how can we ask an animal what it is thinking? And without language how can it tell us? And if it cannot tell us, how can we legitimately assume that it is thinking?

Once, while riding in the car through the woods with Kanzi’s sister Panbanisha, I noted she appeared to be very quiet and pensive. I was moved to ask her what she was thinking—a question I generally avoid since I have no means of validating the answer, nor even of determining if an ape understands the question. Occasionally, when I have posed this question in the past, I have generally been ignored. However, at this moment Panbanisha looked literally lost in thought, and so I dared. She seemed to reflect upon the question a few seconds and then
answered “Kanzi.” I was very surprised, as she almost never uses Kanzi’s name. I replied, “Oh, you are thinking about Kanzi, are you?” and she vocalized in agreement, “Whuh, whuh, whuh.”

Similarly, one time I was riding in a car with Heather, one of the normal children in our project, through the very same area of woods. Heather was two years of age and just beginning to form sentences. She, like Panbanisha, typically ignored questions like “What are you thinking about?” But, like Panbanisha, at this moment she appeared lost in thought and so I dared to inquire. She replied “Mommy.” I asked, “Do you wish your Mommy was here?” and she nodded her head.

I cannot be certain that either Panbanisha or Heather was really thinking. Currently there is no way to establish scientific consensus regarding the inner thoughts of another person. Yet it seems that credence should be given to the fact that both Heather and Panbanisha, on occasions when they appeared pensive, elected to answer the question. On other occasions, when they were engaged in other activities, the question was ignored as though it were nonsensical. These observations suggest that it is possible that children and apes think in a reflexive sense, even before they are competent language users. Could it be that they think in some way other than with words?

Thought, or the manipulation of one’s mental model of the world, surely must take place in the absence of language, utilizing neurological machinery that services the channels of perception through which the world is viewed. It requires but a moment’s reflection to recognize that humans engaged in complex nonverbal activities—such as in dance, music, sculpting, and athletic skills—depend on wordless thought. To suggest otherwise “is a notion that only a college professor or other professional wordsmith could have ever taken seriously.”
¹

Mary Midgely, the British philosopher of science, puts the issue more generally: “If language were really the only source of conceptual order, all animals except man would live in a totally disordered world. They could not be said to vary in intelligence, since they could not have the use of anything that could reasonably be called intelligence at all. . . . The truth seems to be that—even for humans—a great deal of the order in the world is
pre-verbally determined, being the gift of faculties we share with other animals.”
²
Nonhuman animals quite evidently live in ordered worlds, an outcome of their own cognitive processes. Without such mental ordering, the management of the myriad interactions among other members of a community and the efficient exploitation of a diverse resource base would be nearly impossible. There is no question that language enhances thought processes, permitting a more intricate and powerful manipulation of mental worlds. But this is surely an extension of faculties already in place, not the establishment of something novel. Spoken language, and the thoughts it mediates, is built on the same neurological foundation that underlies thinking in nonhuman animals.

The apes I know behave every living, breathing moment as though they have minds that are much like my own. They may not think about as many things, or in the depth that I do, and they may not plan as far ahead as I do. Apes make tools and coordinate their actions during the hunting of prey, such as monkeys. But no ape has been observed to plan far enough ahead to combine the skills of tool construction and hunting for a common purpose. Such activities were a prime factor in the lives of early hominids. These greater skills that I have as a human being are the reason that I am able to construct my own shelter, earn my own salary, and follow written laws. They allow me to behave as a civilized person but they do not mean that I
think
while apes merely
react
.

Although I gain a fuller understanding of the thoughts of apes when they elect to use the keyboard, it is possible, even without words, to perceive much of what they are thinking. More important, one does not need to be especially intuitive or insightful to do so. One simply needs to be observant of their behaviors and receptive of their communications, while recognizing that these communications take into account our common knowledge of the surrounding events—a sort of joint awareness that leads to joint perception and joint knowing.

This sort of joint understanding of the world around us would be as difficult with a species whose perceptual capacities are unlike our own as Thomas Nagel argues. Dolphins can
inspect space by sound, seeing things underwater that are not apparent to us. Similarly, dogs can hear and smell things that are invisible to us. Therefore it is difficult for us to make sense of many of their actions, as we do not experience the influx of information from the world as they do. However, if we did experience the world in the same manner, it seems to me likely that the processes we call “making sense of that information” would not be too dissimilar.

Fortunately for those of us working with apes, they sense the world much as we do. Their vision, hearing, sense of smell, and so on are all very much like our own. Consequently, what gains my attention is often the same as what gains theirs. For example, when walking in the woods with both chimps and dogs, I once spied a deer from 100 meters when we were in an area where the vegetation had sporadic clearings. When Panbanisha saw me look intently in the direction of the deer, she followed my glance and immediately saw the deer. The dogs, however, did not follow my glance and thus did not see the deer. Because Panbanisha and I readily and quickly follow each other’s glances and because our visual systems are similarly constructed, she and I developed a joint knowledge of the deer’s presence that was shared at once by us, but not by the dogs. Once she had seen the deer, she met my glance to determine my reaction.

There are also times when the dogs perceive things that elude both myself and Panbanisha. One evening we were walking in the woods at dusk when both dogs suddenly growled fiercely and turned toward something just off the trail. The dogs did not glance at either of us, though they did glance at each other. Neither Panbanisha nor I had heard or seen anything that was alarming. Straining to look in the direction of the dog’s orientation, we both dimly made out the shadowy outline of a large feline perched on the branch of a tree. I do not know how the dogs discerned the presence of the big cat, but I do know that Panbanisha saw it just as I did. We immediately looked at each other and her hair stood out three inches around her body; mine did also. No words were needed for us to understand what the other had seen, nor to share the other’s sense of apprehension. It also seemed obvious to both
of us that the direction to head was back to the lab. We needed no words.

Once we returned to the laboratory, Kanzi, Matata, and Panzee seemed aware that something had frightened us. They also inferred that it had happened to us outside in the woods from whence we had just come. This was apparent because after taking one look at us they strained to look out into the darkness and made the soft “whu-uh” sounds that signal something unusual. Panbanisha vocalized toward them, as if to tell them about the big cat we saw in the woods. Matata, Kanzi, Tamuli, Panzee, and Neema all listened and responded in kind with very loud vocalizations of their own. Did she tell them something in sounds I could not decode? I don’t know. I then relayed the story in my own way, with spoken language, to Kanzi and Panzee, as I knew they could understand something of what I said. Both of them listened with rapt attention and huge round eyes. At appropriate points during my recounting Panbanisha embellished my tale with bonobo “Waa” vocalizations, as though to add her own emphasis.

Did they understand what was said or where this had happened to us? I cannot be certain, of course, but both Kanzi and Panzee displayed hesitation and fear in that precise area of the woods the next time they were permitted to go out. Since they had never been frightened there before, it seemed that they must have understood something of what had happened.

Of course, one can conclude little on the basis of this situation alone; however, there are many others, each different. Only by looking at a large number of such situations can one begin to understand whether apes are capable of communicating such complex information. For it is not just a single event such as this that suggests communications of complex information are being achieved, but many other events, each unique and impossible to replicate without sacrificing the novelty of the setting and hence the impetus for communication.

A very different sort of example occurred one afternoon as I was playing with Matata and her daughter Tamuli, who knows no language. Tamuli asked for my keys by pointing to them and looking at my face with a questioning expression. She then
played with them for perhaps thirty minutes before dropping them and becoming interested in some toys I had brought for her. When I was ready to leave I forgot to retrieve my keys. As soon as I walked out of Tamuli’s room, Kanzi, who was in an adjacent area, asked to visit Matata and Tamuli himself.

I was about to unlock the door between their rooms when I realized I could not do so because I did not have my keys. I turned to Tamuli and asked her to look for the keys, not really thinking that she would understand or cooperate. To my surprise she set about at once looking under all the toys and blankets to try to find my keys. When she discovered them, she rushed over and showed them to me, but refused to let me have them back. I coaxed and cajoled for fifteen minutes, offering to trade many prized items for them, but to no avail. I could see that she was not going to give back the keys.

Finally I turned to Kanzi and explained that I was unable to open his door because Tamuli would not return my keys. It then occurred to me that perhaps I should solicit his help as he often seemed to be able to communicate with Tamuli far better than I could. “Please tell Tamuli to give me my keys,” I implored. Kanzi climbed to the top of his room where wire mesh separated his area from Tamuli and looked at her while making a small noise. Tamuli approached Kanzi, looking directly at him. Kanzi made several multisyllabic sounds to Tamuli. Tamuli listened, then to my amazement quietly walked over and handed my keys back.

Did Kanzi tell her to give me my keys? Did she understand him and comply? It certainly seemed so. If such an event were to occur between human siblings, we would call it language, even if it were in a tongue we could not yet recognize or catalogue.

To further our understanding of animal intelligence we must learn to ask better questions—questions that focus on unusual events, rather than mundane and readily controllable ones. If we were to start with the assumption that animals are conscious and capable of thought, reason, and complex communication, we would find it difficult to come up with evidence that would completely disprove this view. Instead, we start with
the premise that they are incapable of such accomplishments and find it difficult to disprove this view.

We do not realize how deeply our starting assumptions affect the way we go about looking for and interpreting the data we collect. We should recognize that nonhuman organisms need not meet every new definition of human language, tool use, mind, or consciousness in order to have versions of their own that are worthy of serious study. We have set ourselves too much apart, grasping for definitions that will distinguish man from all other life on the planet. We must rejoin the great stream of life from whence we arose and strive to see within it the seeds of all we are and all we may become.

Our definitions of man, readied anew for each additional discovery of capacities in animals, continue to impede our
sense
of belonging to the greater whole. In demeaning the capacities of animals, we found it easy to glorify our own. Having invented language, we turned and looked down upon the well-spring of life from which we arose with something akin to disdain. We catalogued our achievements, chronicling in detail how distinct they were from all other creatures, hesitant even to say that a continuum existed between ourselves and them. Not only did we deny animals the potential for thought, we assumed they had no awareness of their own existences.

Gordon Gallup, a psychologist at the State University of New York, Albany, two decades ago performed what became a classic experiment, as it was the first attempt at a behavioral definition of self-awareness. The experiment was conceptually simple, but not as easy to perform as it might seem. Gallup determined whether chimpanzees were able to recognize their own images in a mirror by placing a red, odorless/tasteless dot on their foreheads while they were anesthetized. Once the chimpanzees awoke they paid no attention to the dot until they happened to glance in the mirror. Then they noticed the dot and immediately set about removing it.

Chimpanzees, like ourselves, are quite concerned about appearances and show mirror recognition early, sometimes even before human children. Panzee has been the most precocious of our apes in this regard, passing her version of the dot test accidentally
at six months of age when she first became interested in her reflection. I noticed that when a mirror was present in the room, every so often she would walk by it and check out her reflection. But I was uncertain as to whether she recognized herself or not. One day, while playing, she nicked her browridge ever so slightly, but enough that a tiny red scrape appeared. At the time, she paid this mild bump no heed whatsoever, continuing her rough and rowdy play as though nothing had happened. About forty-five minutes after this injury, having not once paid attention to the minor scrape in the meantime, Panzee happened to be walking by the mirror and, as usual, stopped to glance at her reflection. This time, however, she paused, sat down, and gazed intently for about forty-five seconds. Then she slowly reached up and touched the red spot on her forehead with her index finger while watching herself in the mirror. After touching the spot, she then looked at her finger, but there was no blood, as the scrape was so slight. She then leaned forward and looked at the spot more closely in the mirror for about fifteen seconds. Then, seemingly having satisfied her curiosity, she moved on to other activities and paid the scrape no more attention at all.