Opinion: There’s so much at the mercy of the human devil

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I once bamboozled a whitetail doe. I was quietly treading on granite through a patch of scrub oak above Devil’s Cascade in the Boundary Waters Wilderness. The deer materialized from cover and froze. She was 15 yards away, staring at me, ears twitching. I was also still, staring back, when a light breeze brushed an oak leaf against my cheek, sparking an idea. I slowly turned my head, snatched a leaf with my teeth, plucked it loose, and made a show of chewing. The doe stepped closer, and I repeated the move, acting like a harmless herbivore. She continued to approach — curious? puzzled? hungry? — until we were only 20 feet apart. I was hunting bear and happened to be gripping a rifle. I raised the Winchester to my shoulder and aimed. The doe didn’t budge. Only when I spoke — “I’m teasing you!” — did she bolt. So: If you’re stalking prey and have lost the predator’s advantage of stealth, imitate an herbivore.

I was reminded of that mimicry while reading biologist Bernd Heinrich’s engaging book “Life Everlasting: The Animal Way of Death.” Heinrich is a legendary observer, and E.O. Wilson, no slouch regarding research, called him “one of the finest naturalists of our time.”

A subject of Heinrich’s work has been dung beetles, of the scarab family. Many hundreds of species harvest excrement from such as cows (here in Minnesota) and elephants, and roll it into balls, inside of which they encase their larva. They bury it, the dung providing shelter and nourishment for the larva, which pupates inside. Eventually a beetle rises from the ground, or “from the grave,” as it were.

This beguiling process was noticed by the ancients, perhaps offering hints about the nature of life and death. Most notable, at least in the context of the dung beetle, were the Egyptians, to whom, Heinrich notes, “the dung scarab beetle represented Khepri, the sacred scarab that rolled Ra, the sun god, up into the sky in the morning.” The ability of insects to metamorphose — a seeming resurrection — provided observers more than metaphor. It’s probably no accident that Egyptian mummies resemble the pupa of a scarab beetle, and that corpses so-wrapped were provided with food, writes Heinrich, “in a dark, concealed chamber with a long tunnel (such as that dug by scarab beetles) … .” An acme of mimicry. During the embalming process — end of the “larval” stage? — the Egyptians usually excised the corpse’s heart and replaced it with a carved scarab. The Minnesota junebug, a member of the scarab family, affords you an image.

Keenly minding the natural world is a worthy mission, and while no mummies have emerged, vibrant, from their “pupas,” I admire the ardent observation that inspired the ancients to mimic the life cycle of dung beetles. After all, if it worked for the bugs …

The premise was that humans are related to all life, and if scarabs can transpose from apparent death to apparent rebirth, perhaps we can learn the skill from them. Worth a shot.

Several years ago, partially on the recommendation of a neurosurgeon, I began to practice tai chi. The instructor related an origin story for tai chi involving a Chinese Buddhist monk intently watching a battle between a cobra and a crane, imitating the actions he witnessed. Indeed, several of the movements I was taught were named after animals and incorporated stylized versions of their behavior, including that of deer, tiger, bear, monkey and crane. I find it soothing to picture the specific animal when I perform its routine, albeit without their grace.

Our dog, Freya, is a Staffy we adopted from a shelter five years ago, and early on we noticed a curious behavior. For several minutes almost every day she walks with precise, exaggerated slowness, barely moving — like a kind of stalking — and always beneath some overhanging shrubbery, or indoors under window curtains. Her eyes are blank and staring. We’ve been long associated with dogs, but never witnessed anything like it. It’s called “trancing” or “ghost walking.” Only a very few dogs do it and no one knows why.

What struck me is how much it resembles the basic formula of tai chi – methodical fluidity. In fact, often when I begin a tai chi routine out in the yard, Freya will immediately begin trancing under one of her favored bushes. Imitation all around.

In a 1903 essay “Was the World Made for Man?” Mark Twain wrote, “If the Eiffel Tower were now representing the world’s age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man’s share of that age, and anybody would perceive that that skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would.”

Twain did not seem an avid fan of the human race or the human condition, and since he died in 1910, missed the outstanding horrors of the 20th century. The Holocaust and the atomic bombs dropped on Japan (to name only two) were essentially misanthropic sacraments. Apologists for our species might argue that longevity is not the only criteria for worthiness, and indeed, look how much we’ve accomplished in just the past two centuries: Our understandable intent to reproduce and prosper has distorted the temperature and character of the entire biosphere, to the point that we face mass extinctions, including of ourselves and even more astounding, insects! Now that is power.

Who are we imitating? I suggest it’s the cyanobacteria that initiated the Great Oxidation Event of 2 billion years ago and dramatically altered the biosphere by excreting massive amounts of oxygen that led to widespread extinctions, and eventually to an atmosphere that allowed us to emerge and thrive. We’re mimicking that swerve and crisis, but with carbon and methane instead of oxygen. Unlike the cyanobacteria, presumably, many of us are aware that we’re doing it, but what we don’t know is what lifeforms the new biosphere will engender and encourage. Or maybe it won’t be life per se.

One entity or process that owes its existence to mimicking people is AI. The algorithms gorge on human information — programs, books, periodicals, speeches, etc. — with the goal of producing a mind like ours, without the impediment of a squishy, mortal body. Arthur C. Clarke, James Lovelock and other futurists have postulated that superintelligent machines are the next phase in the grand sweep of evolution, moving from carbon-based beings to the silicon-based.

Meanwhile, current impresarios of AI, like Sam Altman, warn there’s a decent chance that for humans, the emergence of superintelligent machines may be catastrophic. Since they are mimicking us, I’d say a negative outcome is likely. We may consider ourselves lucky if they merely ignore us. Lovelock proposed that the machines, “cyborgs” he called them, will gain knowledge and skills so rapidly that they might categorize us as we do potted plants — present and alive but of little consequence.

While writing this essay, I heard the literally sickening news of the assassination of Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband. Their golden retriever, Gilbert, also died — euthanized due to his injuries. That detail caused me to weep. It’s not that Gilbert’s life was more precious than that of his human companions, or that the Hortmans (or anyone else) deserved to be murdered. It’s that a happy-go-lucky dog was an uncomprehending victim of a human devil. Who was the assassin mimicking? Well, it wasn’t a golden retriever. The bubonic plague bacillus perhaps?

Our species seems to be on a fast track toward doom. It’s a path we’ve chosen to follow, and we could alter course. We could opt for kindness, wisdom, empathy and foresight, but whom would we mimic? Some might suggest a religious figure, but that’s apparently what provided motivation for the alleged assassin, and in human history religious causes have been among the bloodiest and most bitter.

We are the skin of paint on that pinnacle knob, and the rest of the tower has no need for us, will not miss us if we flake off into the wind. Nevertheless, we tend to be uneven practitioners of fatalism. I’ll continue with tai chi. Collectively, we’ll continue to act and hope and disappoint. In the novel “Dandelion Wine,” Ray Bradbury’s protagonist asserts, “I like to cry. After I cry hard it’s like it’s morning again and I’m starting the day over.”

It’s not the worst thing to do.

Peter M. Leschak, of Side Lake, Minn., is the author of “Ghosts of the Fireground” and other books.