Intelligence in Nature - Jeremy Narby [46]
âI hope so,â he replied.
âWhy do you hope so?â
He laughed. After a long pause, he said slowly: âItâs probably a problem of the definition of the word think. They have to make decisions, in any case.â He went on to give some examples. Butterflies have to decide which flowers to visit, taking into consideration how hungry they are and which sort of food they want. Depending on circumstances, they may want something more watery than sticky nectar. He said butterfly decision making was not simple. He paused again. We sat in silence for a while. Then he said, âI believe that there must be some primitive form of mind in these animals, or the ability to think in things. I donât think that a simple chain of reflexes is sufficient to explain the whole thing.â
During the silence, I thought about Arikawa thinking about butterfly thinking. This reminded me of the story by Chuang-Tzu, the presumed founder of philosophical Taoism, who dreamed he was a butterfly, and then no longer knew, when he awoke, whether he was Chuang-Tzu who had dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang-Tzu. I asked Arikawa if anybody had studied butterfly dreaming, or brain states associated with dreams known as rapid eye movement (REM). He said that such studies could not be carried out because butterfly eyes do not move, as they are fixed to the head capsule. âEye movement means head movement. There could be some head movement when they are sleeping, but we actually do not have a clear definition of their sleep yet. At night, they are quiet, they do not move, and they hang under leaves, so they look like they are sleeping, but I donât know.â
Arikawa was quick to point to the limits of his knowledge. He also used words carefully, even though English is not his mother tongue. His approach to the practice of science had a well-rounded feel to it. This seemed appropriate as we were sitting in the Graduate School for Integrated Science, a university department where students learn a combination of physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics, in order to develop the ability to produce interdisciplinary work.
True interdisciplinary approaches in science are rare. There was something about the work of Japanese scientists that seemed mature in this regard. I asked Arikawa what made Japanese science special. At first, he answered with modesty, denying that Japan has any more qualities than Western countries when it comes to interdisciplinary approaches. But I knew that showing modesty is traditionally considered a virtue in Japan, even when one is more experienced and knowledgeable than others. According to one Japanese saying, âA clever hawk conceals its talons,â meaning to say that truly competent people do not make a show of their abilities.
I insisted on the wizardry of much Japanese technology and said it showed that something special was going on in Japanese laboratories. He laughed and said, âI know too much about this country. So itâs very difficult for me to say what is particularly Japanese in comparison to other nations. But one thing I can say is that we do not hesitate to break old things. The main part of Japan was totally destroyed during the last war. We discarded things and imported many new things.â He said he sometimes felt sad for the Japanese when he went to Europe and saw how people still live in very old buildings. He also said that the fact that most Japanese people do not live in old buildings gave them the advantage of ânot being trapped in old cultures.â
In deliberate reference to butterflies, I asked whether it was fair to say that Japanese people like metamorphosis. He laughed and said, âIn some sense, yes. We were forced to metamorphose, by the war, and also by the natural environment, because we have plenty of volcanoes, and we have typhoons and earthquakes which destroy everything. So our old buildings can simply not survive because of nature.â
Japan, a volcanic archipelago situated next to a major seabed fault, is one of the most seismically active regions of the world.