Animal Gods

Their gods are fully present and a daily part of their lives.

Sam, Aggi, and Bentley (left-to-right). Three wonderful and beloved dogs from my recent past, far past, and present. Memorable characters each.

I’ve lived with a Beagle, a Keeshond, a Belgian Shepard, a Great Dane, and a Black Labrador. I’ve dog-sat a German Shepard, a tri-colored Collie, two more Labs, and the delightful Bentley, an American Bully.¹

I’m not bragging or claiming expertise (many have much more and far broader experience with dogs). Just saying I’ve spent some solid hours with dogs, and — to the point here — I’ve long pondered what the world looks like to them, how they perceive things.

It’s often struck me that, while humans may imagine and believe in gods (or not), our pets live in a world where apparent gods walk among them. Dogs, and some other animals, live with their gods, depend on them, and are subject to their every whim.²

Humans imagine gods. Animals know them as real.

The thought occurred to me while driving on the freeway and noticing crows flying towards, and then veering away from, the speeding cars. I wondered what, if anything, they made of these large beasts moving at 65 MPH. Their eyes are good enough to see humans inside — the same flightless humans they see wandering around the ground.

Do they have any theory about the nature of such things? How do we fit into their worldview?

When I take my morning walk, I often notice the crows. Birds of many other varieties, but the crows seem to be watching things, whereas the other birds just go about their business. The phrase “bird brain” has a legitimate origin, but crows and others very much belie that description. On these walks, I often wear the same or similar clothes, and at least some birds recognize faces. Do they know me? Am I a part of their expected daily pattern?

I keep meaning to take appropriate food so I can try to make friends with the crows. I saw a nice video with tips on how to do that, so now I’m fired up to give it a try. (I wish I had a balcony or porch. A regular location with some shelter.)

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Crows aside, the thing about dogs is how our dogs depend on us for everything. Food and water come visibly and directly from their gods. Even something as natural and necessary as peeing or pooping requires godly permission and intervention.³

And sometimes the gods provide treats!⁴

When I turn a light on or off at night, I wonder what the dog thinks (if anything) of my power over light and dark. Dogs accept reality as it is, so they’re used to our godlike powers, but it must seem a kind of magic. Their gods do all sorts of magic.

Once she was old enough to be more aware of her surroundings (and to have built some of those “life is like this” patterns), I remember how freaked out my Black Lab Sam was the first time I took her for a car ride. Poor thing was confused and whining — quite upset. I stopped several times to let her walk around to reestablish contact with known reality. I’m sure the experience of 25 or 30 MPH was blowing her mind.

Very soon, of course, she came to love “go for a ride?” She’d learned the pattern (and that it provided huge benefits, such as walks around the lake or park). Even now I continue to wonder what dogs make of car rides. Speed far beyond their ability.⁵

Imagine it from their point of view. They live with beings possessing powers far beyond their ken. Beings they can’t hope to understand, but on whom they depend for every aspect of their lives. Beings that can be whimsical or strict, capricious or predictable, loving or angry, demanding or distant. Beings that control light, water, and food (and treats).

Gods.

What it is like…

In 1974, Thomas Nagel published a paper that seems as misunderstood as it is famous (or perhaps infamous would be a better word). It’s called “What is it like to be a bat?” and it gave rise to the notorious phrase, “something it is like” [to be a bat].

“But no matter how the form may vary, the fact that an organism has conscious experience at all means, basically, that there is something it is like to be that organism. [...] But fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is to be that organism — something it is like for the organism.”

~from his paper (two of the three times the phrase occurs)

Nagel’s paper addresses the distinction between our personal subjective experience of consciousness and an objective view of (someone else’s) consciousness. No other aspect of science, or of our world, has this divide. Based on what others report, we can (I think safely) assume all humans share a roughly similar experience of consciousness. But only our own do we view from the inside.

That notorious phrase simply picks out the roughly similar shared experience of what it is like to be a (conscious, self-aware) human. There is something it is like. Our appreciation of music, stories, and jokes, demonstrates this.

If we grant that bats, as higher mammals, also have some sort of roughly similar shared experience of the world — albeit one based largely on sonar — then there is something it is like to be a bat. One of Nagel’s points is that we don’t share the bat’s roughly common experience of reality the way we do ours. Even though we can potentially know all the objective facts about bats, we can’t fully imagine the subjective nature of sonar. We can’t “walk a mile in their shoes” (or more aptly, fly a mile with their ears).

By extension then, the apparent divide in any system capable of having and reporting subjective experience. A system for which there is something it is like to be that system (i.e. any sentient system). We are forever on the outside of such systems (except our own).

A Gulf of Mutual Incomprehension

One of my all-time favorite quotes is due to W.G. Sebald:

“Men and animals regard each other across a gulf of mutual incomprehension.”

Bats, certainly, but dogs, as well. In their case, it’s not sonar but an amazing sense of smell that’s the basis of their experience of the world.⁶ So, though they share our daily lives — often sleeping in our beds — there is surely still a gulf of mutual incomprehension. Even of mutual confusion.

In part because we’re gods, and who can hope to understand gods? That way lies madness! For that matter, can gods ever truly understand their subjects? The gulf, after all, is mutual.

The mind of a dog. What does she see (and smell), think, and feel?

What is it like to be a dog?

Anyone who looks into the eyes of a dog knows someone is home. You can’t interact with a dog and not know that. They obviously have thoughts and — more noticeably — feelings.

My suspicion is that it doesn’t go much beyond feelings. I think dogs are purely emotional in-the-moment (clearly conscious) beings. There isn’t a lot of intellect going on in their heads, though. They’re not philosophers, they don’t ponder the meaning of life. Or much of anything.

They just are.

Things We Can Learn from Dogs

Or see this great piece from Lake Wobegon.

We would do well to learn a few lessons about life from dogs. And I agree with the common sentiment that you can judge the character of a person by how they relate to dogs.

Discworld Gods

I’ll leave you with this closing thought:

On Discworld, belief manifests. Gods exist because they’re believed in — they are born of imagination and sustained through belief.⁷ The more who believe, and the more fervently they believe, the stronger the god’s powers (whatever they are imagined to be, so be careful what you wish for).

As such, on the Discworld, gods exist. Beliefs, once established, don’t go away until they are completely forgotten by mind and matter. (Active disbelief is just the flip side of belief.) Those on the Disc are rather in the position of dogs — the gods are a concrete aspect of daily life.

Until next time…

1. According to her DNA test. Until then, I didn’t realize the Bully was an actual breed. I thought the name was short for “Bulldog”.

2. I’m not ignoring the other common pet, cats. It’s just that, as far as I can tell, cats see themselves as the gods and us as mere disciples.

3. Cats are too godly to require human assistance in these matters.

4. For many dogs, life exemplifies the notion of a “dog’s life”. In fact, it’s a form of perpetual infancy, hence the need for a human “parent”.

5. I wonder if elevators — which must seem like teleportation — surprise them.

6. Bentley doesn’t go for a walk so much as go for a smell.

7. For two good examples, see Pyramids (1989) and Small Gods (1992).