When I was thirteen years old, the BBC made a nature series called Supersense that explored the miracle of animal senses. It helped sparked my interest in the natural world and animals in particular. Now, Sentient by Jackie Higgins has reignited those feelings, offering a thrilling kaleidoscope of new knowledge. Building on discoveries, both new and old, Higgins gives us a new way to feel about ourselves.
Sentient is neatly set out in chapters that relate to different animals and senses that we are familiar with. Higgins explains how there are loads of different senses, not just the ‘five’ we are most aware of. As the beautifully-written narrative reveals, we have more sensory capability than we know. Individually, we are all a bit exceptional – this comes from how we have grown up to perceive our environment.
Your unique sentience superpower
As our brains develop, we specialise, meaning each of us has a little bit of a superpower. Reading this book might help you uncover something about how yours: about how you experience the world differently. It did for me.
As a kid, I was a little unusual. I walked the country rights of way around my home village in the Cotswolds at night. Knowing the paths well, I’d head out without a torch, using the light of the moon and stars to see. I had been inspired by The Darkness is Light Enough by Chris Ferris. Due to a rare illness induced insomnia, Ferris spent time among nocturnal animals. Just recently I went to the optometrist and discovered that my right eye is unusually hyper-sensitive. At night, LED traffic lights can be an impediment (sitting in LED room lighting gives me a headache). I’m still comfortable walking in the dark. A Tawny Frogmouth recently shadowed me while I strolled around my local park the other night.
Higgins’ book begins with the sense of sight and this is why it immediately intrigued me. We’re all a lot more sensitive and in ways we don’t even know yet.
Just how sentient are animals?
The bloodhound, as Higgins reveals, detects molecules at ‘parts per trillion dilution’ and the silkmoth can smell molecules at parts per quadrillion. Our most advanced molecular detection devices, are around the parts per trillion level.
A few years ago I worked alongside Professor Richard Banati at the Australian Nuclear Science Technology Organisation who was using the $80 million Melbourne synchrotron to detect the origin of trace plastics in seawater. The equipment is capable of detecting ‘a glass of wine diluted in a volume of water the size of Sydney Harbour’.
But as Higgins explains, our connection to ecosystemsHow ecosystems function An ecosystem is a community of lifeforms that interact in such an optimal way that how ecosystems function best, is when all components (including humans and other animals) can persist and live alongside each other for the longest time possible. Ecosystems are fuelled by the energy created by plants (primary producers) that convert the Sun's heat energy More isn’t simply about how sensitive we are, it’s also our ability to discern billions or even trillions of smells, colours or sounds. We don’t need a machine loaded repeatedly with substances and machine learning, we are the embodiment of millions of years of evolution and can achieve these remarkable feats in an instance. Collectively, eight billion humans and trillions of animals are doing this all of the time, all over planet Earth. This is the secret to how we can have stable and habitable ecosystems.
Professor Banati once said to me ‘if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it’. That’s true, as long as the ‘you’ refers to all animals. Animals are almost singly responsible for building habitable ecosystems but it’s their supreme collective ability to ‘measure’ the environment around them, that makes this possible. Thanks to Jackie Higgins, I’ve just worked out another reason for their conservationWhy is animal conservation important? Animal conservation is important, because animals are the only mechanism to create biodiversity, which is the mechanism that creates a habitable planet for humans. Without animals, the energy from today’s plants (algae, trees, flowers etc) will eventually reach the atmosphere and ocean, much of it as carbon. The quantity of this plant-based waste is so More.
We will never match the collective ability of animals to ‘manage’ ecosystems solutions for us, because we cannot possibly match their sensory capabilities at an individual, let alone a planetary scale.
Our senses are as diverse as our behaviour
I write about ecological diversity and the role of animals in stabilising planetary ecosystems. It’s impossible to separate this from behaviour. Why? Because, how else do animals connect to the environment? It’s why I personally loved reading Sentient.
Professor Brian Cox recently retweeted physicist Brian Greene (author of Until the End of Time) who said “We spend our lives floating on a sea of repelling electrons. We never actually touch anything.” Our senses are the way we perceive atoms that float around us.
It’s what allows us to fit in and respond to our environment’s energyEnergy and nutrients are the same thing. Plants capture energy from the Sun and store it in chemicals, via the process of photosynthesis. The excess greenery and waste that plants create, contain chemicals that animals can eat, in order to build their own bodies and reproduce. When a chemical is used this way, we call it a nutrient. As we More. It’s how we make choices, rebuild ecosystem function(Of an ecosystem). A subset of ecosystem processes and structures, where the ecosystem does something that provides an ecosystem service of value to people. More and ultimately, determines whether any of us live or die.
For me, Sentient by Jackie Higgins’ is more thrilling evidence for the critical importance of these parallel sensory dimensions. Survival of any animal depends not just on its own behaviour, but the outcomes of all animals working together. That word ‘diversity’ is the key to everything. Diversity both within our own species and across all lifeforms is the secret to a healthy planet. In sensory terms, it’s no different.
The smell of a rhino
Of all our senses smell is one of the most foundational. Reading Sentient I learn that it is also the one that has the shortest synapse pathway to the brain. Our emotions can be triggered by smells that hark back to our childhood. For me, it’s the aroma of sweetened strawberry ice cream.
Higgins explains how even these senses can be trained and how we only use a small proportion of our superpowers. The brain filters out what we, as individuals, deem useful. One time that would have been a survival instinct. For example, in the tall grasslands of the terai in Nepal, you can smell rhinos long before you dangerously stumble upon them. But as a tourism interloper, you’re not aware of this, until the guide points it out. It can be learnt though, just like you can learn to be a wine-taster. Smell, as Higgins describes, is the main factor in taste. It’s the combination of many different senses that connects us to our environment.
Long ago in the UK I was taught to smell the scent of foxes. I smell them everywhere I go in southern Australia now, and I’ve learnt to find koalas the same way. In the heat of the Australian bush, these molecules vaporise, to form a pungent wall of fragrance.
A rich sensory experience is more rewarding than we can imagine
How much have we diluted this sensory experience, not just for us, but all animals? We’ve reduced dark sky nights, impregnated our oceans and homes with lo-fi sound of human origin and filled our houses with synthetic odourisers. We’ve substituted companionship and human touch for social media and text-messaging. And now our children are being lured into the ‘metaverse’. What is the consequence of ‘dumbing down’ our living experience? What impact is this having on mental health and what does this tell us about the consequences for our lives as animals on Earth?
Human perception is still vastly superior to what technology can give us but animal sentience, collectively, is beyond the most powerful thing we can imagine. Rather than reshape our world to match our limited technological ability, shouldn’t we be celebrating and protecting nature? Science, as Higgins explains, is only just beginning to understand.
Jackie Higgins leaves me wondering about this, more than anything else.
Sentient by Jackie Higgins, presents a lovely picture of the animal sensory world and connects it to us, humans. It’s a window into how much more sophisticated we really are.
There is so much to gain from reconnecting with our own senses. More to gain, perhaps, from recognising how little we know of perception across the whole animal kingdom. This book is a great way to marvel at some of the diversity of life. It’s a humbling gesture and a great contribution to public understanding of the intricacies of nature.
I hope, like me, others who read this will be thinking about what to do, to protect it, because leading less ordinary lives is better for everyone.
About Sentient by Jackie Higgins
- SBN: 9781529030785
- Format: Trade Paperback
- Pub Date: 10/08/2021
- Society & social sciences / Animals & society
- Imprint: Picador
- Pages: 368
- Publisher: Atria Books (February 22, 2022)
- Length: 320 pages
- ISBN13: 9781982156558
Read an extract from Sentient
