Loon Learnings

Hence the fact that they [animals] do better than we do, does not prove that they are endowed with mind, for in this case they would have more reason than any of us, and would surpass us in all things. It rather shows that they have no reason at all, and that it is nature which acts in them according to the disposition of their organs, just as a clock, which is only composed of wheels and weights is able to tell the hours and measure the time more correctly than we can do with al1 our wisdom….. For next to the error of those who deny God, which I think I have already sufficiently refuted, there is none which is more effectual in leading feeble spirits from the straight path of virtue, than to imagine that the soul of the brute is of the same nature as our own, and that in consequence, after this life we have nothing to fear or to hope for, any more than the flies and ants.
-- René Descartes, Discourse on Method

The child learns this language from the grown-ups by being trained to its use. I am using the word "trained" in a way strictly analogous to that in which we talk of an animal being trained to do certain things. It is done by means of example, reward, punishment, and suchlike. Part of this training is that we point to a building stone, direct the attention of the child towards it, and pronounce a word. I will call this procedure demonstrative teaching of words.
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Blue Book

We are spending the month of July in Blue Hill, Maine, renting a house that sits right on the water’s edge of Third Pond. The lake is beautiful, and has a reputation for loons. Our cottage is on Loon Lane, as a matter of fact. We are fortunate to have two adult loons and a chick living on the lake this summer. No matter what we are doing, when one of us spies the loons, our work stops and our rapt observation begins. We’ve watched them from the living room, but our best observations have come when we are in the canoe.

Watching the chick and the adults, I have no question that the adults are training and initiating the chick into full loonhood, and that the chick is actively learning. I know that some very eminent philosophers have argued that animals are not even sentient beings who can feel pain. Others have argued that animals are sentient (at least they can feel pain) but that their development into adulthood is purely an instinctual matter. On this instinctual view, the latent potential simply begins to unfold itself, with no prompting or help from anything external. Nothing like teaching and learning transpires between adult animal and offspring. The natural unfolding may be impressive on some level—even Descartes admits this—but its impressiveness shows that animals are capable of only mechanical movements.

Descartes’ discomfort with the possibility that animals could think stems from his view that only things that think can have souls. Allowing for animals to think would entail that animals have souls. Having souls, they would thus be candidates for admission to heaven. And as Descartes intimates, we really do not want bugs in our eternal afterlife.

Had Descartes’ stove-heated cabin been on a lake populated with loons, he may have been led to revise his opinions. Watching the loons, I find Descartes’ argument to be a feat of hubris. It takes audacity to conclude, as Descartes does, that our superiority is evidenced by our being inferior in certain regards.

The training and education of young children and loon chicks do bear similarities, especially in the earliest stages. Ostensive training plays an important role in the education of young children. We regularly point at an object while saying its name. And there are parents and teachers who are intentionally engaged in training and initiating the young into membership into the community. Parents and educators have plans and methods. They read books, count objects, say words, and do all sorts of things that are so familiar that we fail to notice them. They move from simple picture books to books that challenge the child more. How about the loons?

The loons clearly have an educational curriculum and set of lesson plans that would satisfy the most stringent measures of the (grossly misnamed) Leave No Child Behind legislation. They have a pedagogy. Over the nine days, we have watched various teachings and learnings. One day was diving day: the adults would, with ease and grace, dive under the water immediately next to the chick. The chick tried and tried to get all the way under the water, but could barely manage to get its head into the water on that day. A week later, I saw the chick dive. It was swimming along when it tipped its head and managed to get its tail under water. Was it smooth and effortless? No, but it was a successful dive. Check that requirement off the list.

Another day was location and distance day: the adults would dive and surface varying distances from the chick. If the chick moved in the wrong direction, one adult would make a sound, which appeared to my ears as a very simple and gentle Ah ha. As this training session progressed, the adults increased their distances from the chick. We found the Ah ha sound quite useful too; we often needed more help than the chick in locating them. When the chick and adult met, the adult nudged the chick in what appeared to be a gesture of reward.

Adult loons have clear calls that reverberate in a resounding manner. There is no mistaking the calls of a loon. The chick, on the other hand, could easily be mistaken for a squeaky toy. It sounds like an inflatable kayak that has a tiny hole (a sound we know well). While the adult loon is calling, the little one squeaks along with the same cadence. These must be the voice lessons. We hope for a solo performance by the time we leave.

We have not seen any take off and landing practice yet. We have no doubt that our chick will acquit itself quite well in that skill set.

I certainly do not feel threatened by acknowledging the fact that animals train and educate their young, and that they do it amazingly well. Unlike Descartes, it does not challenge my humanity. It does, and it should, challenge easy presumptions of human superiority.