Sometime in my early 20’s I began to experiment with imaginally experiencing the form and activity of other living things. Particularly birds, since the experience of flight is charismatic and intriguing. The goal is to feel and see what some other organism feels and sees.

Effectively, one forms an intimacy of mind with the creature in question, watching it and imagining the feelings of its appendages in motion — the rhythms. Its sensations. Then, one imagines what it sees. Then both together… and so on. The result, over time, is rather spectacular, although it takes practice and focus to achieve it. Sustaining it and expanding it are bother open developmental directions…

But what I find particularly interesting is the discovery of mirror-neurons that, for example, allow a monkey to vicariously experience (brain activity similar to that which would accompany) eating when seeing a human being eating. What is interesting, and was, perhaps overlooked, is the significance of the fact that the mirror-neurons do not appear to be species-selective… or at least, the ordinary degree or extent of their selectivity is not clear (to me).

But what I wish to suggest is this: a: that they can be trained in ways that produce unexpected results. And b: that our ancestors were informally yet profoundly aware of this, and may have developed related abilities to degrees beyond our capacity to imagine or even describe.

The implications are familiar to me, but nonetheless astonishing: that other living beings, in ways somewhat similar to our hands, have a direct developmental impact on our brains, our minds, and how our perception and perspective evolves. They comprise living evolutionary extensions to our minds and nervous systems. Not unlike our hands, other animals can lead us into developmental opportunities that there are no other avenues of access to, and these opportunities can radically alter the basis and functionality of our brains, minds, and nervous systems.