Out for a walk yesterday, we encountered a pair of robins doing what comes naturally at this time of year. They were not interested in us, except to keep clear because people are scary. I suspect that there was not much thinking going on with the birds. A robin's little brain is good for migration, mating, evading people; but all of that is inherited instinct. Daniel Dennett (no longer with us) would call it Darwinian behaviour, reflex built into the neural network through evolution with little experience or imagination or reason involved.
I don't mean to disrespect the robins. Their tiny brains serve them well. But they learn very little, and they have no foresight or imagination or reasoning. Robins don't obsess about a nest full of eggs hatching into hungry little birdies needing to be fed, and then decide to stay single because the family thing is too much bother. It's all about now. Then will look after itself. They see a potential mate and go into their dance. They see us coming on the sidewalk, and fly off to dance elsewhere. They find a likely place to build a nest following a blueprint written in their genes. I recall years ago, when a robin claimed our front porch for nesting and spent hours attacking his reflection in the window because he was programmed to defend his territory against rival males. To give him credit, that usually works; but in this case, not so clever.
Dennett postulated several other potential modes of mental activity given a sufficiently well-developed brain. Skinnerian behaviour involves trying something out at random, and if it works, do the same thing next time. Popperian thinking imagines likely outcomes of possible actions, and then tries what is most promising. Gregorian thought makes use of tools (language, books, videos) for gathering and transmitting knowledge and evaluating it critically.
The birds may get as far as learning from first-claw experience. Good for them. But it takes a human brain to access the past and make a rational plan for the future based on accumulated wisdom, i.e. first-hand experience plus all the rest: myth, legend, history, all the books in the library and bytes on the Internet. Furthermore it takes a lazy self-absorbed human brain to think like a bird when accumulated wisdom is available. So in my opinion, if a human is so obsessed with the task at hand (getting elected by ignoring the real cost of energy) that the future doesn't come into it (preventing climate disaster), that birdbrain should get out of the way when actual humans are deciding what to do.
Apologies to the birds.
Apologies to grandchildren who are already suffering the consequences of a century of human ignorance.
Apologies in advance to great grandchildren who may decide that having a family isn't worth the bother in a world that is unravelling...
...unless we value then enough to pay what we owe now.
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The Insanity of Carbon Capture Deception: Just Have a Think, March 16, 2025
CO2 Pipeline Leak in Mississippi: CBC News, March 16, 2025
Carbon Pricing 101: David Suzuki and Ian Hannington, April 2024
Axe-the-Tax Poillievre: CBC News, Jan 2025
Climate Action is Less of a Priority. Trump Isn't Helping: Kyle Bakx, CBC News, March 15, 2025
Predictions of Future Global Climate: UCAR
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research: take a look before it gets Trumped
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