Instinct or Reason

Over the years I’ve discovered many of the things I was taught to be true have turned out to be false. It’s happened often enough to have engendered a healthy amount of skepticism in me. Now, when someone tells me something is absolutely true, part of my brain almost invariably whispers, “Really? Maybe.”

One thing I was taught as a child was that animals operate on instinct, not by rational thought. I’ve learned there are two things wrong with that belief. First of all, I haven’t detected an overwhelming amount of rational thinking among humans. People regularly operate on emotion and make decisions contrary to even their own self-interest. I know that’s true, I’ve done it often enough myself.

Secondly, the assumption that animals are incapable of rational thought has been proven over and over to be a gross simplification. Animals regularly make decisions that are, apparently, thought out. Animals are capable of learning, just as we are.

Recently I read the story of Rakus. Rakus is an orangutan who lives on the island of Sumatra. Researchers have, for years, followed orangutans around as they forage for fruit to eat. On June 25, 2022 scientists noticed a wound on Rakus’ face. They also observed he began applying kuning, an anti-inflammatory and antibacterial plant to the wound. Orangutans rarely eat that plant but they saw him eat a small amount as well. He continued this treatment in subsequent days and five days after they first observed the wound it had closed and, less than a month later, “healed without any signs of infection.”

It has also been reported that orangutans in Borneo rubbed the chewed-up leaves of a shrub with anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties onto their legs and arms, presumably to soothe sore muscles.

Other primates have been observed chewing the bitter pith of a plant to treat worm infections. Civets swallow the leaves also likely to get rid of worms. Birds and bees have been observed using insects and flower extracts to prevent other maladies. We already know crows have the intellectual capacity of a seven-year-old human. Crows have also been known to teach other crows about a human they believe harmed them or another crow which has resulted in that person being attacked. We have much to learn.

Clearly, we’ve underestimated the capacity of animals to reason and to learn from experience. Their behavior is at odds with pure instinct. It seems our assumptions of virtually infinite superiority were simply expressions of our own arrogance.

The question then is, have we achieved sufficient understanding to admit to our own failings in order to cooperate with nature rather than blindly assert our dominance?

Seems to me, if we quit assuming it is our right to dominate and control nature for our own uses, we would have fewer problems and would likely be more spiritually healthy as well.

Arrogance is deadly to spiritual health because it centers knowledge and value within ourselves rather than engendering connectedness with the rest of Creation.