‘There is no inevitable disconnection between humans and the rest of nature’

For writer James Bridle, the gibbon is the ultimate example of how blind people can be to the intelligence of other organisms. “That species of ape was long seen as much dumber than the gorilla and the chimpanzee, so was classified by scientists as less ape across the great apes.” But scientists only recently realized that the way they measure intelligence and self-awareness in animals is very much based on how humans perceive the world. “They did this for decades, for example, by looking at how animals react to their reflection in the mirror, or by giving tasks and assignments by placing objects in front of them,” says Bridle in the lobby of his Amsterdam hotel, where it is for the promotion of their new book Ways of being [Bridle gebruikt de non-binaire voornaamwoorden die/hun].

Putting tests before animals works nicely in species with more or less the same senses and bodily orientation as we do. But not for the gibbon. Gibbons don’t live horizontally like humans, but vertically because they live in trees and swing from branch to branch. If you put a mirror in front of them, they simply perceive it differently than we would. But if you hang the tests from the ceiling instead of the floor, they turn out to be able to perform many more tasks, they turn out to be very intelligent animals that are not necessarily inferior to gorillas.

“It shows how poorly we can shift our perspective, and how binary we think about the rest of nature. Intelligent or not intelligent, higher or lower,” says Bridle (1980), who wears strikingly fluttery black trousers with brightly colored shoes underneath, a bushy mustache in an otherwise soft face.

The Briton is also difficult to pigeonhole professionally: artist, writer, BBC radio presenter, researcher. Their previous book New Dark Age was about the dangers of technologies such as artificial intelligence. In the new book the writer sketches a broad pallet of other, sometimes wonderful, non-human intelligences. From slime molds that can solve complex puzzles, to octopuses that have ingenious ways to escape from enclosures and recognize individual divers.

Plants also appear to communicate with each other in all kinds of surprising ways, there are studies that suggest that they even have something like memories. For example, Bridle describes experiments in which mimosa plants, which roll up their leaves when touched, can learn whether a specific touch is threatening. After a number of times, they can decide whether or not to roll themselves up when they are touched again. The plant then also ‘remembers’ that for the next time.

Is that just instinct, a reflex, or can you call that “intelligence” as Bridle does? After all, the term intelligence also implies a certain degree of intention and experience. “The embodiment of intelligence is intelligence,” says Bridle. “Intelligence is not something that only takes place within an organism, but that arises from the relationships it forms with its environment.”

In short: intelligence does not only take place in a brain, but in the world. The book is a stimulating argument about that other definition of intelligence, and weaves it with recent scientific insights about fascinating smart behavior in the plant, animal and fungal kingdoms.

kaleidoscope

From bees to fungal networks to trees: all sorts of research shows that there is a kaleidoscope of other worlds of experience (“environment”). A bat experiences the world completely differently than we do because it has echolocation and we do not. Due to its shape and lifespan, a tree behaves in very different ways than humans, for example much more slowly.

But a tree does respond to stimuli such as light, touch, sound, even smell. It ‘warns’ conspecifics of danger, negotiates nutrients with fungal networks in the soil. It’s about asking a fundamentally different question about intelligence in other creatures, according to Bridle. “Not: ‘Do you look like me?’ But: ‘What’s it like to be you?’”

This way of looking at intelligence in nature may come from a suspicious angle to some, the angle of the new age, the mystical, the irrational. “But it doesn’t have to be that way at all woo-woo to be,” says Bridle. “You can look at the intelligence in nature in a different, curious way without having to completely abandon rational thinking or the scientific method. What is needed is an openness to change our mind about our position in relation to the rest of nature.”

In the book, Bridle does flirt with mind-altering substances such as ayahuasca, quotes a researcher who says he can communicate with plants, only to express his skepticism about it. In the end it is especially peer-reviewed science on which the book is based, albeit with some poetic license. In this too, Bridle wants to push the boundaries of compartmentalised thinking, beyond binary thinking about the boundary between the purely rational and the experiential world.

Sensory experiences

If it is indeed the case that the nature around us is packed with intelligent interactions and sensory experiences, this also raises deep ethical questions. What then possesses us to treat other living beings in this way?

Bridle is very concerned about this, and tries to describe how people can have a better relationship with all the other intelligences around us. According to Bridle, we urgently need a “different way of being” in the world: more attentive, more curious, more playful, more open to all radically different worlds of experience that surround us, “a new form of solidarity based on cognitive diversity”. The writer stays away from all too concrete political and policy proposals, it is mainly about the different attitude that we as people can adopt ourselves.

But is that possible at all? Since we already have such a hard time empathizing with an animal as close to us as the gibbon, it seems like an almost impossible task. Will a human being ever be able to move in the environment of a slime mold if it doesn’t work with another primate?

“There is no inevitable disconnection between humans and the rest of nature. The fact that we feel so alienated from the rest of nature is the product of a deliberate, self-imposed cultural and social blindness to everything that surrounds us.” But it can be changed, as the example of the gibbon also shows, according to Bridle.

What new ‘way of being’ is he proposing? For example, what has Bridle herself been doing differently since the book was published? “It starts with paying constant attention to the life around you. From trees to birds to lichens: really look at it. Think about it. Touch them gently. Smell it. Use all your senses.”

Tree huggable

That will still seem a bit tree-hugging to some, but Bridle doesn’t care: “I was recently at a conference in Switzerland. And I really needed a break. So I walk outside to a big tree and wrap my arms around it. I can tell you that some scientific studies show that your heart rate drops when you do that, or that it is good for your microbiome [de miljarden bacteriën in ons lichaam] to have contact with plants and trees that changes your mood immediately and measurably. Or I can just do it, give the tree a hug because I feel like it.”

Bridle tells it half-seriously, half-jokingly – emphasizing the importance of a new kind of playfulness with nature, a looseness and openness that we may have forgotten. “I live on a Greek island where you can dive, with octopuses, with lionfish, those beautiful white-red fish, with amazing sail-like fins, which are also surprisingly intelligent and playful. Diving with those animals means you’re going to dance with them a bit, play with them. Then you spend time with them, and you really find out how intelligent they are.”

Learning to play in this way, to be curious, to practice empathy with the rest of nature is an important first step towards a better relationship with it, says Bridle. But that’s just where it starts. We still have a long way to go before we as humanity have an equal relationship with non-human life, that is clear. “But all kinds of worlds will open up to us if we succeed.”