Overview

Are animals capable of making conscious choices? Do they "know" what they are doing, or are they essentially "robots" so extensively programmed that they merely give the appearance of consciousness? In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the question of animal consciousness. Charles Darwin deduced that all animals that have heredity in common with humans must show at least rudiments of human-like consciousness. Darwin therefore felt secure in interpreting the consciousness of animals anthropomorphically. Even today it appears that the majority of people feel intuitively that animals, from worms to dolphins and chimpanzees, experience human-like mental states.

In my view, since the mind of the animal is centered on environmental issues (particularly the food chain), proper interpretation of that mind must be in line with natural economics. The interpretations in this book are based on the premise that, at its core, life is driven by solar energy.

In line with the physical law of energy conservation, species form as a result of specialization to maximize efficient use of such energy bound up in food molecules in the various ecological niches found on earth. Any species violating this principle will be ousted from its niche, to be replaced by a more efficient species. Keeping this emphasis in mind results in the resolution of an astounding number of paradoxes now prevailing in interpretations of animal behavior. In line with this theory, the answer to questions about what is the most important drive in nature is simply the food drive. Wild animals appear to know this but humans invariably think the answer is the sex drive. Yet sex is merely subservient to the aim of the food drive, providing the exploratory variability from which nature can select the most efficient genotypes.

Since the liberal, consuming sexual phase of the life cycles is characterized by an extravagant exploitation of energy -- as contrasted with the conservative, producing vegetative phase -- natural selection counteracts overextension of the sexual phase. But the human species, through its ability to override nature, elaborates the sexual phase inordinately. According to the author, this has contributed to the fall of a succession of human empires.