Sophistication
"Have you ever wondered if humans aren't the most sophisticated creatures on planet Earth?"
"Huh?"
"Well, have you?"
"No."
"Well I have. What if we aren't? What if humans aren't the most sophisticated creatures on Earth?"
"...But we are the most sophisticated creatures on Earth."
"You say that with such certainty, but what if we aren't?"
"...I knew I shouldn't have lent you my copy of Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
"No, no, I'm not saying that mice are really super-intelligent beings from another dimension! I'm just saying that what if humans aren't the most sophisticated creatures on Earth because we have the wrong idea of sophistication. I mean, think about it: what is it that makes human beings the most sophisticated creatures on Earth?"
"Well we're the only ones who've invented the laptop."
"Exactly! And we think that makes us sophisticated!"
"Yeah, duh."
"But we're the only ones with all this technology and fancy houses and blah blah blah, but we're also the only ones who have ever tried to build any of those things."
"Because we're the only ones that can."
"Well a fish is the only kind of animal that can breathe water, and you don't see it being lauded as the most sophisticated animal, do you?"
"What about anphibians?"
"Okay, yeah, those two, the point is, if the definition of being sophisticated was being able to breathe water, we'd lose, right? And as far as fish and frogs are concerned, being able to breathe water is what makes an animal the most sophisticated of all. So it all comes down to what your idea of sophistication is. And to humans, being sophisticated means being able to make iPads, even though we're just the only animals capable of making iPads."
"But why would an animal want an iPad? You don't see deer running around with iPads, because what would a deer want with an iPad?"
"Exactly!"
"...I'm confused."
"Don't you see, deer don't make iPads because they've never even tried to make iPads, because what the hell would a deer want with an iPad? And yet you don't see deer dying of boredom because of an iPad deficiency."
"Now you've completely lost me."
"Look, we think we're the most sophisticated creatures because we've got fancy houses, and technology, and because we're the only creatures capable of making these fancy houses and dishwashers and iPhones and laptops and roller-coasters, but we're also the only creatures on Earth who actually care to make any of these things. Deer haven't tried to make iPhones not just because they can't, but because they don't want to!"
"And this makes them more sophisticated? Because they'd rather hide from hunters than play Angry Birds?"
"Well, yes. Animals have got it figured out. They have figured out the bare essentials they need in order to live a mostly happy, healthy life. They eat, they sleep, they poop, they play, they mate. That's about it, isn't it? And they've learned how to survive that way. Then look at humans. We figured out what we need for base survival and elimination of crushing boredom, and decided that wasn't nearly enough for us. We need more! We need washing machines, and Wi-Fi, and liposuction, and electric razors, and polyester! And that's still not enough! We still need more, and meanwhile animals are running around outside all happy with their minimalistic lives!"
"So that's your basis of why humans aren't the most sophisticated? That we're too needy?"
"Yes. Animals have figured out how to live much more efficient by not bothering with anything beyond the things the basic needs neccesary for survival. Humans need all of that plus a never-ending supply of lots of other things. We always need more: more convience, more entertainment, more technology, more knowledge, more meaning, more everything. Even more of the bare neccesities: more food, more sleep, more sex. We're never satisfied. Animals are sophisticated enough to work out how to live without constantly having to make more of everything we need just to satisfy our neverending want for more."
"But there you just said it! 'Want'! There's a difference between 'want' and 'need'. Humans have got it figured out what are base survival 'needs' are, and after that it's just the stuff we want. We just say we 'need' them in order to make ourselves feel less selfish."
"Well, yeah, but that's kind of part of it, though, isn't it? Animals have their base needs, and after they've worked out how to live and fulfill those as best they can, they've got a few wants left over. And usually those wants are just variations on those base necessities: they want a little more food, or more sleep, or more sex, or more friends, or maybe just want to play. That's pretty much the extent of it. And they either figure out how to fufill those wants, or they decide they can live without them because they're just wants and not needs. They've pretty much figured out how to do everything it is in their power to do about these things, and still live their happy animal lives. Humans can't work out the difference between our wants and our needs, nevermind even prioritizing and deciding that some 'wants' we can honestly live without."
"So, okay, I guess that's starting to make some sense. But humans have managed to survive despite many unfufilled wants."
"Yeah, and we never stop complaining about them."
"Okay, but this all means that animals are more sophisticated than us?"
"Well, they've all figured out the secret to happiness. They do as much as they possibly can do about their situation in life, and are happy with the final results, whatever they are. Humans never stop trying to acheive happiness. We're always reaching for more and more."
"But we've got a much greater potential than animals do; we may have all these extra wants, but we have the intelligence and capability to make what we need to make and do what we need to do to fufill them."
"And have we fufilled all of them?"
"Well not yet."
"Mmhmm."
"But we will eventually."
"Mmmmmhmmm."
"It takes time!"
"Yeah, I know."
"Then what the blazes are you looking so smug for?!"
"You've just made my point for me. We may have the potential to match our appetites, but we still haven't caught up with ourselves yet. Our wants still outnumber our accomplishments. Now look at the rest of the creatures on Earth; their potential has caught up with their wants. Everything they can't do they've decided isn't as important as what they can."
"And that makes them more sophisticated?"
"Yes."
"...you know I think this is actually starting to make sense."
"It all comes down to capability. Fish know how to breathe underwater because they need to know how to live underwater. They have gills to breathe underwater to make up for living underwater. Humans have the potential to keep inventing more and more kinds of technology to make up for our insatiable need for more things to entertain us. Fish haven't figured out how to make a laptop because it doesn't want to. It wants to swim around and eat plankton, so that's what it does. It wants to not get eaten, so if figures out places to hide, or how to camoflage itself."
"And that's sophistication?"
"If that's your defintion of sophistication, yes. If being sophisticated means having figured out how to live according to the wants and needs of your species, then animals are much more sopisticated than we are."
"...because they're much more minimalistic than we are."
"Yes."
"So what you're saying is that we need to dump our cellphones and go back to living in the wild with the zebras."
"Heavens, no! That's not what I'm saying at all!"
"But you just said that that's what makes animals more sophisticated than us!"
"No, my whole point was that humans are so needy that we can't survive with just the minimalistics that animals thrive on; that's why we aren't as sophisticated as they are. We need more than they do to be happy, and despite the potential to fufill all our needs and wants, we still haven't done it, whereas animals have. If we tried to be as minimalistic as a zebra we'd be taking an enormous step backwards, because we can't possibly be as content with simply eating, sleeping, mating, and not getting eaten by lions. We're too spoiled. We get bored so quickly that we have to keep making new things to satisfy all our new wants."
"So now you're saying we're incapable of minimalism, and that's our problem?"
"Yes. Oh sure, so you've got the occasional Amazonian tribe or Henry David Thoureau who have figured out how not to be so wanty and needy, but the most of us will always at least secretly want more than we can currently have, and try to do something about it. Maybe that's part of it, too. We can't even agree on what we should want. Kind of hard to go about deciding how to fufill our wants if we can't even work out what they are."
"And that's why we aren't the most sophisticated creatures on Earth?"
"Yes."
"But that's all on the premise that sophistication doesn't mean what we like to think it means. It all comes down to relativity."
"Of course it all comes down to relativity. It always comes down to relativity. That's why philosophers and English majors hate it so much. So yeah, if you look at the criteria for sophistication as being the ability to make a laptop, then we win; but if you look at is as the ability to get our lives as fufilled as they possibly can be, then we kind of lose. In fact, I could probably twist this whole argument around on itself. Maybe we don't make laptops because we want laptops. Maybe we want laptops because we can make laptops. See? Relativity. It's an endless circle of humans wanting and making never quite matching up. Animals don't seem to have that problem. That's why I say they win."
"...That...but...wow. That...that actually makes sense. I mean, it's insane, and twisted, but it makes sense. This is among the most ridiculous conversations I've ever had, and yet it totally makes sense."
"Or at least it totally appears to make sense?"
"Yes! It's like Catch-22: it's completely crazy but it makes sense. It makes sense because it's crazy. I feel like I've just dropped into Wonderland."
"I know, right? Absurdist logic. It's fascinating. I think lawyers must thrive on it."
"So do you seriously think that animals are more sophisticated than humans?"
"I don't know. Don't really care. I'm fine with being the least sophisticated creature as long as it means I'm the species with access to Mario Kart."
"But you just argued that...what was with that entire conversation?"
"Oh, I'm just fascinated with the idea of it. Maybe that's what makes humans the most sophisticated creatures; we're the only creatures who bother to have lengthy conversations about these things."
"...are we back to relativity again?"
"Yes, I think we are."
"Damn."
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So I've been reading Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. I absolutely love it. It's one of the most insane and brillian books I've ever read. I finished Resteraunt at the End of the Universe yesterday, and just got started on Life, the Universe, and Everything. It's got my head in such a wonderfully funny way of thinking. I love absurdist literature. Anything can happen and usually does, and the rules are all made up as they go along, so you can never see what's coming. Anywho, it got this little gem of an oddity stuck in my head as I was gardening.