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VI. Life’s Cerebral Cognizance Becomes More Complex, Smarter, Informed, Proactive, Self-Aware

1. Animal Intelligence, Persona and Sociality

Laland, Kevin and Bennett Galef, eds. The Question of Animal Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009. A further contribution to how wise and social our furry, feathered, and finned friends are, as if this needed to be quantified. But once the very idea, long taboo, is admitted then all sorts of primate, cetacean, rodent, avian, and so, groupings can be seen to have extensive and familiar cultural systems. But have we humans evolved beyond the meerkats as on Animal Planet TV where each clan or tribe is driven to annihilate the other. From Sri Lanka and the Sudan to Kurdistan and Northern Ireland are we powerless to stop the carnage.

Loukola, Olli, et al. Bumblebees Show Cognitive Flexibility by Improving on an Observed Complex Behavior. Science. 355/833, 2017. Queen Mary University of London experimental psychologists find that social insects have a more expansive behavioral repertoire than expected, including rapid learning and tool use.

Lucon-Xiccato, Tyron. Intraspecific variation in invertebrate cognition: a review.. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 78/1, 2024. In a paper for a special Toward a Cognitive Ecology of Invertebrates collection, a University of Ferrera, Florence biologist lays out an approach to similarly study an array of invertebrate abilities and behaviors which have so far been found equivalent precursors to the backbone beings to follow.

From mammals to fish, numerous studies have revealed different cognitive phenotypes among individuals. But intraspecific variability in cognition has received much less attention in invertebrates, despite evidence of remarkable abilities in this group. In this review, we describe how certain invertebrates exhibit all the key features observed in vertebrates. We suggest that invertebrates can serve as alternative, complementary models, contributing to a deeper understanding of cognitive evolution. (Excerpt)

Lyon, Pamela and Ken Cheng.. Basal cognition: shifting the center of gravity (again).. Animal Cognition. November, 2023. Lyon, Pamela and Ken Cheng. Basal cognition: shifting the center of gravity (again). Animal CoUniversity of Adelaide and of Macquaire, Australia introduce a special issue with this subject title. It is composed of 17 papers such as Interspecific differences in developmental mode determine early cognitive abilities in teleost fish, Thoughts from the forest floor: cognition in the slime mould Physarum polycephalum and Chemical cognition: chemoconnectomics and convergent evolution of integrative systems in animals (search Moroz) which keep building a stronger case that life’s evolution is more about brains than bones. Into the 2020s, a view of a quickening evolutionary development which forms adaptive behaviors, intelligent groupings and personal agencies on its way to our worldwide retrospect becomes ever more evidentgnition. November, 2023.

Rapidly accumulating evidence suggests that behavior mediated by what is readily regarded as cognition in humans and other mammals (to say nothing of bees, flies and nematodes) is found in more evolutionarily basal, aneural phylaas well. Moreover, a wide variety of mechanisms known to implement cognitive capacities in animals are also found to implement cognitive capacities in these earlier-appearing phyla (Lyon et al. 2021). These mechanisms include—in bacteria alone—network activity in chemical signal transduction pathways, oscillations, ion channel-mediated bioelectricity, oscillations coupled to servomechanisms (Cheng 2022), and hormone- or neurotransmitter-like molecular action-at-a-distance. This basal cognition special collection, we hope, will be part of that ‘rethinking’ process. (1)

MacIntosh, Andrew, et al. Temporal Fractals in Seabird Foraging Behavior: Diving Through the Scales of Time. Nature Scientific Reports. 3/1884, 2013. With self-similar topologies now proven to suffuse nature at every spatial and temporal phase, researchers from Japan, France and Australia, along with New Zealand penguins, further verify that avian activities are graced by these same vital geometries. By what imaginations then, whereby each of these myriad findings appears as an iconic portal, might we collectively realize an ordained greater reality suffused with this mathematical genome?


Animal behaviour exhibits fractal structure in space and time. Fractal properties in animal space-use have been explored extensively under the Lévy flight foraging hypothesis, but studies of behaviour change itself through time are rarer, have typically used shorter sequences generated in the laboratory, and generally lack critical assessment of their results. We thus performed an in-depth analysis of fractal time in binary dive sequences collected via bio-logging from free-ranging little penguins (Eudyptula minor) across full-day foraging trips. Results from 4 fractal methods show that dive sequences are long-range dependent and persistent across ca. 2 orders of magnitude. This fractal structure correlated with trip length and time spent underwater, but individual traits had little effect. Fractal time is a fundamental characteristic of penguin foraging behaviour, and its investigation is thus a promising avenue for research on interactions between animals and their environments. (Abstract)

In conclusion, we show here that penguin dive sequences exhibit a complex fractal structure through time, and relate this structure to a combination of extrinsic (environmental) and intrinsic (self) organizational control elements. The application of fractal tools to temporal sequences of animal behaviour should be explored further, particularly in, though far from limited to, organisms that are often used as indicator species for climate and environmental change, like the penguins examined here and many other top predators in marine ecosystems. The merger of bio-logging and fractal analysis represents an important opportunity to do so, promising to advance our understanding of the many interactions that occur between animals and the environments in which they are found. (7)

Marcus, Gary. The Birth of the Mind. New York: Basic Books, 2004. Noted in the previous section, in this regard Marcus see the procession of organisms from microbes to social insects, mammals and onto humans to be distinguished by a vectorial advance in neural architecture, premeditated aware behavior and presently the “sum total of the library of knowledge.” And it all begins with a true “bacterial brain.”

Margulis, Lynn. The Conscious Cell. Pedro Marijuan, ed. Cajal and Consciousness. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2001. From her studies of the symbiotic cell, Margulis perceives the presence in bacterial realms of a rudimentary “microbial mind.”

In my description of the origin of the eukaryotic cell via bacterial cell merger, the components fused via symbiogenesis are already “conscious” entities. (55)

Marino, Lori. Cetaceans and Primates: Convergence in Intelligence and Self-Awareness. Journal of Cosmology. Volume 14, 2011. In this issue on how prevalent sentient brethren might be across celestial reaches, for this online posting about a creative, mindful universe, the Emory University behavioral anthropologist avers that based on a common evolutionary emergence toward a similar cultural cognizance for these widely separated, anciently related species, there is good evidence for such a neighborly presence.

One of the ongoing debates within the astrobiology community has to do with contingency and convergence, that is, whether, if the "tape of life" were rewound, would complex intelligence evolve again on the earth. I argue that cetacean and primate intelligence is a case of cognitive convergence. Evolutionary convergence can occur within any domain of biology, from chemistry to morphology to cognition. Cognitive convergence, specifically, is convergence in those processes that comprise the way an organism processes information. In a general way cognitive convergence refers to convergence in intelligence. Since it is arguably the case that the common ancestor of cetaceans and primates, who lived over 95 million years ago, did not possess many of these shared traits, e.g., self-awareness, symbolic language comprehension, culture, the existence of these traits in these two highly divergent groups of mammals represents a striking case of cognitive convergence.

Marino, Lori. Convergence of Complex Cognitive Abilities in Cetaceans and Primates. Brain, Behavior and Evolution. 59/1-2, 2002. In contrast to the prevailing view, the Emory University neuroscientist cites new results to imply that the rise of intelligent cognition and societies will persistently occur across widely diverse species.

In this paper I will provide evidence that convergent intelligence has occurred in two distantly related mammalian taxa. Despite a deep evolutionary divergence…some primates and cetaceans show striking convergence in social behavior, artificial ‘language’ comprehension and self-recognition ability. (21)

Marino, Lori. SETI Begins at Home: Searching for Terrestrial Intelligence. Shostak, Seth, ed.. Progress in the Search for Extraterrestial Life. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 1995. An early paper about Marino’s extraordinary work in understanding how dolphins interact and learn along with the general principles they can teach.

The bottom line, therefore, is that increasing information processing complexity may be the primary way to escape the restrictions of the physical environment….If this is the case, then for any organisms evolving in a physical environment (and I daresay the presumption is made that this is a universal constant) increasing amount, complexity, and speed of information processing may be the universal direction towards which all organisms move.

Marino, Lori. Thinking Chickens: A Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Behavior in the Domestic Chicken. Animal Cognition. 20/2, 2017. The founding director of the Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy in Kanab, Utah provides a most thorough study and appreciation to date about a personal and communal repertoire that this avian icon actually possesses.

Domestic chickens are members of an order, Aves, which has been the focus of a revolution in our understanding of neuroanatomical, cognitive, and social complexity. At least some birds are now known to be on par with many mammals in terms of their level of intelligence, emotional sophistication, and social interaction. Yet, views of chickens have largely remained unrevised. Here I examine scientific data on the leading edge of cognition, emotions, personality, and sociality in chickens, exploring such self-awareness, cognitive bias, social learning and self-control. My overall conclusion is that chickens are just as cognitively, emotionally and socially complex as most other birds and mammals in many areas, and that there is a need for further noninvasive comparative behavioral research about their intelligence. (Abstract)

Marino, Lori and Debra Merskin. Intelligence, Complexity, and Individuality in Sheep. Animal Sentience. Vol. 4, 2019. This is a new journal all about creaturely sensitivities, along with practical, legal, ethical, sociological, and philosophical aspects. Biopsychologist Lori Marino is a biopsychologist was at Emory University and is now a leading advocate for this overdue reconception of how truly like human persons all manner of animals really are. Debra Merskin is a University of Oregon media scholar working to communicate these actual qualities so to improve the their treatment. (Temple Grandin has long had a similar mission.) Herein a species long viewed as sheepish is found to have an familiar array of emotional behaviors. See also in this journal, e.g., More Evidence of Complex Cognition in Nonhuman Species by Lesley Rogers (Vol.3, 2018) and Animal Sentience: The Other-Minds Problem by Stevan Harnad (Vol. 1, 2016).

Domestic sheep (Ovis aries) are among the earliest animals domesticated for human use. They are consumed worldwide as mutton, hogget, and lamb, kept as wool and milk producers, and used extensively in scientific research. The popular stereotype is that sheep are docile, passive, unintelligent, and timid, but a review of the research on their behavior, affect, cognition, and personality reveals that they are complex, individualistic, and social. (Abstract)

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