TIME
Animals lack the dimension of time. Humans inhabit four dimensions (length, breadth and height, plus time) whereas animals are limited to the first three, i.e. the spatial dimensions.
In his lecture “Biological clocks: Human and animal concepts of time” (26.02.04) Professor Keith Kendrick put the situation as follows:
‘The way we humans conceive of time is…highly egocentric in that we usually put present, past or possible future events in the context of our own personal experience. This immediately implies a requirement for self-consciousness to conceive of time in this way… It seems likely…that most other species cannot have a similar concept of time as us.’
All organic life is subject to duration, but only humans have come to terms with that fact. They have invented a concept called time, “which is set up by thought to represent succession” (David Bohm). On a deeper level, the passage of time confirms to us that we are alive, a fact that necessarily entails the knowledge (unique to our species) that at some moment in the future we will die.
Having this perspective makes it very difficult for humans to conceive how life must be for all other organisms. The real present in which animals live is, in effect, a point in time without extent. And at each moment all of the animal’s sensory channels – eyes, ears, nostrils, whiskers – are open and receiving sense data, and the animal responds to that data on the instant.
Sensory input passes via afferent nerves to a central nervous system, from which immediate responses run directly to the efferent nerves that activate the relevant muscles. This is one continuous, and continual process.
There is no evidence that animals have the capacity to interrupt or modify that neural flow (occasionally they may appear to hesitate, but that simply reflects a temporary change of input in the sensory flow – signals from a different direction, or in another mode).
The senses of non-human animals work together to achieve what is needed to survive. Any deviation from the stimulus-response sequence – in order for example to change some element in the neural sequence – would be totally disruptive and probably fatal.
The objection may then be raised, that slow-moving creatures, like slugs, would be unable to survive. However, slugs (and other creatures that do not rely on speed of response) have evolved over a much longer time (500mya) than mammals (60mya), and employ successful survival strategies which are not time-governed (toxic fluid emission, burrowing). Insects, such as leaf-cutter ants, or the spider portia fimbrulata, also have very elaborate behaviours.
Birds, arriving a bit later but before mammals (160mya), have evolved such deceptive ‘tactics’ as the broken-wing display. In mammals, hares lying motionless until danger gets really close might be regarded as displaying an evolved survival behaviour, but for most prey mammals the survival behaviour is flight.
Human senses are coupled to time and its passing by the operation of their conscious minds, whereas animals’ senses are instantaneous and direct in operation. The human brain could be said to have created time as an aid in controlling the continuous stream of sensations that bombard the nervous system.
This situation of living-in-the-present is graphically stated by Richard Gregory:
“The present is signalled by afferent inputs from the senses. So there is no problem for ‘primitive’ organisms, controlled straightforwardly from input signals. But there is a very real problem for highly cognitive organisms—for which real-time afferent inputs are a small part of perception. They have a problem identifying the present” (in ‘From Brains to Consciousness’, ed S Rose, p 200).
If a person tries to identify the present, for instance by saying emphatically “It is NOW!” she is aware at that same instant that the present has already become the past. Homo sapiens is in fact the only example of a species having this problem. All other species, which live entirely in the present, are incapable of consciously identifying anything.
To identify, i.e. to label correctly some other entity, requires abstract thought. It involves awareness of time, use of language, and volition (i.e. choosing to do so). As Gregory says, primitive organisms respond directly to input signals (both interior and exterior). Their central nervous systems are not scaffolded to reify ‘the future’ or ‘the past’ in the way that the human mind does.
Animals obviously undergo duration, i.e. grow and change over time, but they are not aware that they do. Humans usually know what they will be doing next Tuesday, whereas animals have no way even of engaging with such an idea. This is just one of the abyssally large differences in kind that distinguish animals from humans.
Laboratory rats can be trained to obtain a food pellet by pressing a lever at a set time (20 seconds) after a signal. This does not demonstrate that they are aware of the passage of time: it shows they are very trainable. It may be that they have neural circuitry which operates as human brains do in measuring time, but the fact is they exist in the present moment throughout the whole exercise.
Animals might be considered fortunate because they live in the present (as Robert Burns points out in his poem To a Mouse*). But to lack the dimension of time is a considerable drawback if pain is encountered, for the animal then is locked into unrelieved suffering.
This is the inevitable condition of creatures that live in the present. Those who have dealings with animals know that, if injured, they should be swiftly dispatched to put them out of their misery. This realisation may derive from some atavistic awareness that the animal’s suffering cannot be effectively halted in any other way. Animals have no way of understanding that the painkillers will start to kick in, or that the vet is on the way.
In this context Jeremy Bentham’s observation is the most relevant: “The question is not can they reason, nor can they talk, but can they suffer?” The case has been made earlier that they can neither reason nor talk, but the issue of pain is less clear-cut. For an animal that appears to be in pain the precautionary principle should apply: they should be treated as if they do experience pain, and every effort should therefore be made to keep their suffering to a minimum.
* “Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me:/ The present only toucheth thee:/ But och! I backward cast my e’e,/On prospects drear!/An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,/ I guess an’ fear!” (final verse of Robert Burns’ poem To a Mouse, this writer’s emphasis added)
