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We fell in love with tomorrow
What animals show
The idea of ending your own life must have occurred to a first person, who realized they could do it. Animals don't show this in the same way. Birds and chimpanzees do things seemingly just because they enjoy them: birds fly, chimpanzees play with water, and they do it simply because they enjoy existing and the sensations that come with it.
The theory
In his theory, humans became complicated enough mentally to understand that a problem could be solved by leaving, and that leaving isn't actually a solution. Much of our qualia and experience came about so that we would love to be alive. The ones who were fit and survived fell in love with tomorrow.
Time and hope
An understanding of time and the future is part of it: seeing a future makes it possible to be afraid of something that wouldn't end. Hope, and other people, evolved as the solution. A creature without that understanding, such as a cockroach, doesn't need either.
What did Humphrey's blindsight monkey show?
In the 1970s, Humphrey worked with a monkey named Helen whose visual cortex had been removed. She was effectively blind at first but, over years of training, learned to move around obstacles and reach for objects. The case helped draw attention to blindsight, in which people with damage to the visual cortex can point to objects they say they cannot see. Humphrey later wrote about consciousness in his 2011 book Soul Dust.
How can scientists tell animals are playing?
Researchers define play by behaviors such as exaggerated movements, role reversal, and repeated sequences that have no immediate survival payoff. The neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp found that young rats give off high-pitched ultrasonic chirps during rough-and-tumble play and when they are tickled. Play has been documented in many species, including crows, otters, and dolphins.
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