The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times(12)

Many animals express their intelligence through art. Pigcasso, originally destined to become ham and bacon, was rescued by Joanne Lefson and taught to paint. She likes to paint with a good view—in the background you see Table Mountain. Her paintings sell for thousands of dollars. (WWW.PIGCASSO.ORG)



“So what exactly about our intellect makes us different from all other animals?” I asked.

“Even though chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, can perform super well at all kinds of intelligence tests, even the brightest chimpanzee could not design that rocket from which crept a robot that was programmed to crawl around the surface of the Red Planet—Mars—taking photos for scientists on Earth to study. Humans have done such incredible things—I mean, think of Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci and Linnaeus and Darwin and Newton and his apple; think of the pyramids and some of the great architecture and our art and music.”

Jane paused, and I started thinking of all the brilliant people who had come up with theories and constructed fabulous buildings with none of the sophisticated tools we have today and who had access to none of the knowledge that has been built up from the past. Jane broke into my musings.

“And you know, Doug, whenever I look at a full moon up in the sky, I get the same feeling of awe and wonder that I felt on that historic day in 1969 when Neil Armstrong became the first human to step on the moon and was closely followed by Buzz Aldrin. And I think to myself, ‘Human beings have actually walked up there. Wow!’ When I give talks I always tell people, when they next look at the moon, try to capture that feeling of awe—don’t just take it for granted.

“So, yes,” Jane continued, “I honestly think it was the explosion of the human intellect that took a rather weak and unexceptional species of prehistoric apes and turned them into the self-appointed masters of the world.”

“But if we’re so much more intelligent than other animals, how come we do so many stupid things?” I asked.

“Ah!” said Jane. “That’s why I say ‘intellectual’ rather than ‘intelligent.’ An intelligent animal would not destroy its only home—which is what we have been doing for a very long time. Of course, some people are indeed highly intelligent, but so many are not. We labeled ourselves Homo sapiens, the ‘wise man,’ but unfortunately there is not enough wisdom in the world today.”

“But we are clever and creative?” I said.

“Yes, we are very clever and very creative. And like all primates and many other animals, we are very curious creatures. And our curiosity, coupled with our intellect, has led to many great discoveries in many fields because we like to find out how and why things work the way they do, pushing the boundaries of our understanding.”

“So what do you think made the difference?” I asked. “Why did human brains evolve beyond chimp—?”

“Language,” Jane said, anticipating my question. “At some point in our evolution, we developed this ability to communicate with words. Our mastery of language allowed us to teach about things that weren’t present. We could pass on wisdom gleaned from the successes and mistakes of the past. And we could plan for the distant future. Most importantly, we could bring people together to discuss problems, people from different backgrounds with different knowledge.”

I was intrigued to hear that Jane believed that language had led to the explosion in the human intellect. Because interestingly, while researching hope, I discovered that language, goal setting, and hope all seem to arise in the same area of the brain—the prefrontal cortex, which is right behind our forehead and is the most recently evolved part of our brain. This region is larger in humans than in other great apes.

For a while we talked about all that humans have accomplished, such as designing machines that enable us to fly through the air and travel under the ocean, and technology that lets us communicate with people on the other side of the globe almost instantaneously.

“So it is really strange, isn’t it, that this amazing human intellect has also gotten us into this mess we’re in,” I said. “This very same intellect has created a world out of balance. One could argue that the human intellect was the greatest mistake in evolution—a mistake that is now threatening all life on the planet.”

“Yes, we have certainly made a mess of things,” Jane agreed. “But it’s the way we have used the intellect that has made the mess, not the intellect per se. It’s a mixture of greed, hate, fear, and desire for power that has caused us to use our intellect in unfortunate ways. But the good news is that an intellect smart enough to create nuclear weapons and AI is also, surely, capable of coming up with ways to heal the harm we have inflicted on this poor old planet. And indeed, now that we’ve become more and more aware of what we’ve done, we have begun to use our creativity and inventiveness to start healing the harm we’ve caused. Already there are innovative solutions, including renewable energy, regenerative farming and permaculture, moving toward a plant-based diet, and many others, that are directed toward creating a new way of doing things. And, as individuals, we are recognizing that we need to leave a lighter ecological footprint and we are thinking of ways to do it.”

“So our intellect in itself is neither good nor bad—it depends on how we humans choose to use it—to make the world better or to destroy it?”

“Yes, that’s where our intellect and our use of words makes us different from other animals. We are both worse and better, because we have the ability to choose.” Jane smiled. “We’re half sinner and half saint.”