In the search for the presence of culture, language, and consciousness in animals, authors such as Frans de Waal and Derek Bickerton have presented a case which is, at best, highly anthropocentric. De Waal has allowed for the development of culture in other organisms, but has limited the scope of culture to primates, organisms which are the closest living relatives to the human race. Bickerton has defined consciousness in such a way that only humans can possess it. It seems as though the underlying theme of the study of animal culture is that it is humans who are the superior species and that organisms’ cultural merits are based on a linear scale of how closely related they are to Homo sapiens sapiens. This anthropocentricism is a throwback to the old notion of a cosmic chain of being and is not congruous with the current view of evolution as a continuously branching tree of life. Why should such anthropocentricism exist? This bias has limited researchers to a very narrow view of animal culture and has blinded them to the possibility of the existence of language, culture, and consciousness in other families, and even other phyla, of organisms.

At the beginning of The Ape and the Sushi Master, Frans de Waal makes the bold statement that he intends to push back the boundaries of culture to include non-human animals. De Waal defines culture as follows:

"Culture is a way of life shared by the members of one group but not necessarily with the members of other groups of the same species. It covers knowledge, habits, and skills, including underlying tendencies and preferences, derived from exposure to and learning from others. Whenever systematic variation in knowledge, habits, and skills between groups cannot be attributed to genetic or ecological factors, it is probably cultural. The way individuals learn from each other is secondary, but that they learn from each other is a requirement. Thus, the “culture” label does not apply to knowledge, habits, or skills that individuals readily acquire on their own. (de Waal, p. 31)."

De Waal addresses his dislike for anthropocentricism and expresses a desire to eliminate it, arguing that culture is not solely the domain of humanity. Yet for all his bluster and bravado, he doesn’t push culture back very far. De Waal’s argument for animal culture focuses on such creatures as rhesus monkeys, bonobos, chimpanzees, and other primates. The few cursory arguments he makes for culture in other organisms are poorly supported and even more poorly defended. His own definition provides for the potential for culture in myriad other organisms, yet he fails to recognize this potential. De Waal is deceiving himself if he thinks that he is challenging anthropocentric notions by allowing only humanity’s closest relatives into the realm of culture. (de Waal, 2001).

Bickerton’s argument for consciousness is much less ambiguous than de Waal’s argument for culture. While he never actually offers a full definition of consciousness, he does present all of the necessary prerequisites for its development. In Bickerton’s model, consciousness is the result of a secondary representation system, namely, language. In order to achieve consciousness, an organism must first have the ability to develop concepts. Concepts, however, are formed within the secondary representation system. Without an SRS, concepts cannot develop. Under this model, no organism can possess consciousness without first having access to language. Once an organism has developed a series of concepts with which it can describe its world, it then has the potential to become self-aware, able to create a concept of self and distinguish it from the rest of the world. However, none, of this can happen without language. To Bickerton, only the most rudimentary forms of thought, utilizing protoconcepts, processed through the primary representation system, and only concerning objects which can be immediately observed, are present in non-human organisms. Without language, thought cannot occur. Again, this bars all living organisms, with the exception of humans, from access to conscious thought. (Bickerton, 1990).

Of course not all researchers have refused to see the potential for language, culture, and possibly even consciousness in other organisms. Some fields, such as language patterns studies in humpback whales and self-recognition studies in certain cetaceans, have been investigated for years and have yielded many positive results. Other fields, like the potential for cultural transmission in orcas, are relatively new, yet the results are very promising. Research in cephalopods, such as the giant pacific octopus (Enteroctopi dofleini) has yielded the most controversial, and also the most exciting results, suggesting the potential for consciousness in cephalopods.

There is no good reason to limit language and culture to only our closest kin. Using De Waal’s definition, culture, or at least the potential for it, can be identified in several marine mammals. Language has also been observed in aquatic organisms. Because of the anthropocentricism prevalent in studies of language and culture, research on marine mammal language and culture is still in its early stages, but the potential for the development of language and culture is clearly observable.

Language, according to Bickerton, is a secondary representation system which allows organisms to perceive the world beyond what is immediately visible. The SRS in useful in that it makes it possible to refer to objects which are not present, intangible ideas, or actions. It is a hierarchally structured system with levels of ascending generality (Bickerton, 1990). Consciousness is a function of the secondary representation system and, without the SRS, it cannot develop. In the search for language, the vocal patterns of many cetaceans, including humpback and killer whales, have been studied for many years.

The songs of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in Alaska and Hawaii have demonstrated both a hierarchal pattern and flow between two distinct groups. Whale songs are structured as “an ascending hierarchal structure series of units, themes and songs,” (Cerchio, 2001). Between the whale populations in Alaska and Hawaii, the songs share several similarities, but vary according to which population the whale belongs. However, changes in song units carry between populations, most likely due to the traveling of humpback whales between areas inhabited by separate populations, (Cerchio, 2001). Whether or not these whale songs are a language in their own right or a complex mating song is still up to debate, but the fact that they have not been studied in depth until relatively recently is indicative of the anthropocentricism in researchers studying animal language.

If culture is the result of acquiring knowledge, skills, and habits through exposure to and learning from others, than it can hardly be denied that several marine species demonstrate the development of culture. Humpback whales still serve as a prime example, with the transmission and variation of their songs among populations. Killer whales’ (Orcinus orca) maternal lineages can be identified by “vocal clans”, unique groups of orcas with different dialects vertically transmitted from generation to generation maternally.

The humpback whale’s songs vary from season to season. Major changes in a whale song occur between mating seasons and spread out from the point of origin to other whale populations. Whales picking up on the new changes then incorporate these changes into their own songs. During the mating seasons, minor variations occur in whale songs which then spread through the population, but very rarely carry over to other populations. This flow of whale songs has been interpreted “as evidence of learning and cultural transmission among individuals, and therefore indicated that progressive change is an example of cultural evolution,” (Cerchio, 2001).

Killer whales form clans based on maternal lineages. It is very rare for members of a clan to join another and so there is a tradition of unique calls down the generations. “Traditions are expressions of conserved information that are not coded genetically but learned socially and are stable for several generations,” (Yurk, 2002). Each separate clan has its own unique dialect which can be recognized accurately even by human observers. Killer whale clans interact with each other regularly. However, unlike the humpback whale, there is little to no transmission of dialects among different clans (Yurk, 2002). More interesting is the fact that killer whales in captivity attempt, often unsuccessfully, to mimic the calls of whales from different clans. Only the youngest members can successfully mimic these calls. (Yurk, 2002).

In the particular groups studied, the number of different calls used in the whales’ dialects ranged from seven to seventeen. This range of calls is much greater than that of Bickerton’s vervet monkeys, and is only surpassed by higher order primates. (Yurk, 2002). “The evolution of parallel cultural and genetic lineages in resident killer whales shows similarities to the development of parallel lineages in humans. In humans and in killer whales the similarities of vocalizations within genetically distinct lineages is in sharp contrast to distinct vocal differences among lineages,” (Yurk, 2002).

Genetic test on killer whales have been performed in order to determine whether or not these calls are based on inheritance. Because the killer whales always adopt the vocal habits of their mothers, paternal genes have been ruled out. Tests on the mtDNA of the whales and the sex-linked female chromosome have determined that there is little to no genetic pre-determinism for these dialects. (Yurk, 2002). Killer whales rarely leave their maternal clan, but mating of killer whales is extremely rare between members of the same maternal clan. Mating occurs almost exclusively between members of different clans, so there is a significant influx of new genetic material every generation. “Therefore, the most parsimonious explanation for the existence of vocal clans is that killer whale calls are socially learned from maternally related individuals,” (Yurk, 2002).

One of the major prerequisites for the existence of consciousness, according to Bickerton, is the ability to recognize the self. Self-recognition is vital to forming concepts and identifying other organisms as individual creatures. To have the concept of ‘octopus’ is one thing, but before an organism can have consciousness, it needs to have concepts like ‘that octopus’ and ‘this other octopus’. Even more importantly is forming the concept ‘I’. Without ‘I’, an organism cannot self-reflect, analyze its goals and motives, or plan ahead. (Bickerton, 1990). “To recognize its own mirror image, an individual may need a representation of itself; it may be aware of its own existence and process the ability to monitor its own mental state: it may experience perceptual and reflective consciousness,” (Delfour, 2001).

A common test to determine whether or not an organism possesses self-recognition is the mirror-image test. The mirror-image test involves marking an animal on a part of its body that it cannot see, such as its face. The animal is then presented with a mirror. If it can identify the animal in the mirror as itself, it will reach up and touch the mark on its face, not the mirror. Other behaviors in front of the mirror are observed, such as using the mirror to look at parts of its body that it normally cannot see. The mirror test is considered a standard for determining whether or not an organism is capable of self-recognition. An organism that does not possess self recognition will assume that the animal in the mirror is a separate creature and behave accordingly. Chimpanzees and other primates regularly pass this mirror image test. (de Waal, p. 59). However, not until very recently have mirror image tests been performed on marine mammals and other marine species. These results display an impressive level of self-recognition in whales and dolphins.

The likeliest marine candidates for self-recognition are the big-brained marine mammals. Because of their immense size, it is nearly impossible to confine the largest of the marine mammals in order to accurately analyze their performance on the mirror-image test. Furthermore, baleen whales, such as humpbacks, are filter feeders and there is much debate over the extent to which they use their eyes. However, predatory cetaceans such as killer whales and dolphins are also excellent candidates for the mirror-image test.

Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) have consistently passed the mirror-image test. Dolphins’ success on the mirror-image test has been well documented for many years because of the relative ease in keeping them and the number of subjects in captivity (Cerchio, 2001). Recent tests on killer whales have been equally successful. The killer whales preformed many of the same behaviors noted in chimpanzees. They checked parts of their body that they could not otherwise see, such as the inside of their mouths and their undersides, and they attempted to remove the marks placed on their faces. They would look in the mirror, swim to a tank wall, rub the area where the mark was against the wall, then return to the mirror to see if the mark had been removed. Not only did the killer whales demonstrate self-recognition, they also failed to display any social behavior towards the reflection, indicating that they never assumed the reflection to be anything other than a reflection of themselves. (Delfour, 2001).

Mirror-image tests were also performed on false killer whales (Psuedoorca crassidens) and California sea lion (Zalophus californianus). The false killer whales acted similarly to the killer whales, but they did not spend as much time in front of the mirror as the killer whales. The California sea lions also displayed similar behaviors, but they acted socially towards the mirror as well, indicating that they also perceived the reflection to be another sea lion. (Delfour, 2001).

Though the behaviors displayed by the cetaceans were very similar to those behaviors displayed by primates, the time frame for the cetacean behaviors was much shorter. Killer whales and false killer whales spent less time in front of the mirror than did dolphins, which spent less time than chimpanzees. California sea lions spent the least amount of time in front of the mirror. This is probably due to the fact that marine animals rely less on eyesight than do primates (Delfour, 2001).

With all of this new information available, the question remains: Why haven’t certain marine organisms been considered for the possession of language and culture until very recently. In part it is because of the relative newness of the studies; however research on bottlenose dolphins and humpback whales has been going on for years with many positive results. In The Ape and the Sushi Master, de Waal argues that the reason it took so long for the possibility of primate culture to be accepted was do to anthropocentrism (de Waal, 2001). Even though the doorway to culture has been opened for primates, perhaps our anthropocentrism has prevented us from recognizing the potential for language, culture, and consciousness in creatures wholly different from ourselves.

Octopuses are one of the most unique and bizarre candidates for consciousness. Unlike any other organisms so far considered octopuses are invertebrates. They show many of the hallmarks of intelligence. They have shown a tendency to ‘play’, a concept previously reserved for higher mammals such as primates. They are capable of learning. They even appear to develop individual, unique personalities. They have demonstrated the ability to plan ahead. And although they are not social, they can learn from watching other octopuses. In some cases, the actions they perform are not possible without first being able to form concepts. All of these factors combine to make octopuses a strong candidate for the potential for consciousness.

Octopuses are central place foragers. They have a set den where they live and actively search for food around their den. The navigate using spatial memory, preformed maps of their environment which they recall from memory. They often return to their dens using different routes and hunt different areas each time. This suggests that they are not only able to remember which way they came, but they can form a map of their environment and remember which places they have already been. (Mather and Anderson, 1998).

Octopuses have the largest brains relative to body weight of any invertebrate and even many vertebrates. They are surpassed only by mammals and birds (Scigliano, 2003). The octopus lacks any hard structure with the exception of its beak, including a skull, so its brain, instead of being protected within a cranial cavity, wraps around its esophagus (Scigliano, 2003). However, its brain does possess folded lobes and distinct visual and tactile memory centers. Electroencephalograms, a way of measuring an organism’s electrical brain activity, reveal the octopus’s brain activity is more similar to that of mammals than of mollusks (Scigliano, 2003).

The complexity of their brain is a mystery. “According to the social theory of intelligence articulated by N.K. Humphrey and Jane Goodall, complex brains blossom in complex social settings; chimps and dolphins have to be smart to read the intentions of other chimps and dolphins. Moreover, such smarts arise in long lived animals: Extended childhoods and parental instruction enable them to learn, and longevity justifies the investment in big brains,” (Scigliano, 2003). Octopuses are neither social nor long lived. The longest living octopus, the giant pacific octopus, lives no more than four years. Socially, octopuses interact with other octopuses only once, to mate, after which they die. While the females do live long enough to protect their eggs, she will not survive to raise the hatchlings. (Scigliano, 2003).

Octopuses are also considered to be tool users. “To be a tool user, an animal had to modify, carry or manipulate an item that was external to itself before using it to effect some change to the environment,” (Mather and Anderson, 1998). Octopuses build walls around their dens out of rocks which they have to move, sometimes over great distances. These rocks are considered to be tools. Even more fascinating is the notion that octopuses use water jets as tools. Unlike squids, which can use their water jets for motility, octopuses are not streamlined enough, so while they can use their water jets for propulsion, they are clumsy, slow, and inefficient. Instead, octopuses use their water jets to change their environment, altering the landscape or expelling waste from their dens by firing streams of water at the offending material. They also use their jets to remove other creatures who have wandered too close to their den. (Mather and Anderson, 1998).

In controlled testing in aquariums, it has been demonstrated that octopuses have the ability to learn, not just from their own actions, but from watching others. Common octopuses (Octopus vulgaris) were trained to identify two identically shaped spheres of different colors and subsequently attack only one of them. After they had been conditioned to attack a certain sphere, they were placed in a tank with two other octopuses that had not been train. The second pair of octopuses was separated from the first by a glass panel. The trained octopuses were presented with the two spheres four times, each time they attacked the appropriate one. After four demonstrations, the pair of untrained octopuses was presented with the same spheres and subsequently attacked the appropriate one. Not only had they learned which sphere to attack from watching other octopuses, but they had learned much faster than the original pair, who had to be conditioned to attack the sphere. (Nielsen, 2003).

For years aquarists have suggested that octopuses have different personalities. Indeed, they are one of the few species that aquarium workers bother to name, and their names are usually indicative of certain behaviors, like Lucretia McEvil or Emily Dickinson (Mather and Anderson, 1998). Recent studies have determined that octopuses do have unique personalities. Multiple octopuses were presented with identical situations and each of them had different reactions to the situations. It is suggested that individual octopuses have very different responses to stimuli because they are extremely dependant on learning. Since octopuses inhabit a wide range of habitats they develop different techniques to deal with their variable habitats, and since they are not social, there is no diffusion of behaviors. “Does this mean that octopuses have personalities and that these individual differences have a major effect on their learning and adaptation? The answer to the first question may be a qualified yes,” (Mather and Anderson, 1993).

The octopus’s ability to escape from its tank has become legendary among aquarists (Furnweger, 2002). The story goes that, late at night, an octopus will open its tank, crawl out, crawl over to an adjacent tank, consume a few fish inside, then return to its tank and reattach to lid. This legend has become so inflated that almost every aquarium that houses octopuses, specifically the giant pacific octopus, has rumors about their octopus escaping. This legend, however, is based on truth, and while it is extremely unlikely to encounter octopus escapes anymore, they did occur. The reason they are no longer often observed is simply because aquarist have become much better at containing their octopuses. (Anderson, 2001).

Octopuses have also displayed impressive powers of foresight. “Mather has observed an Octopus vulgaris, the common Atlantic octopus, catch several crabs and return to its rock den to eat them. Afterward it emerged, gathered four stones, propped these at the den entrance and, thus shielded, took a safe siesta. This strategy suggested qualities that weren’t supposed to occur in the lower orders: foresight, planning, perhaps even tool use,” (Scigliano, 2003).

Octopuses also engage in an activity previously only thought to occur in higher order vertebrates. They play. The criteria used for assessing whether or not an animal was playing were “change from the first response, object manipulation, simple behaviors, and prolongation over 5 min,” (Mather, 1999). When presented with such objects as a floating pill bottle, some octopuses would grab it and examine it. After examining it, the octopuses would then discover that it could float and would move with the tank currents. A few of the octopuses would then direct water jets at the pill bottle, causing it to circle around the tank where it would return to the octopus. This behavior would be repeated many times, and any observer would say that what the octopus was doing resembled nothing so much as bouncing a ball. (Mather, 1999). The fact that not all of the octopuses participated in this behavior is further evidence of the presence of unique personalities.

Although octopuses do not possess anything that could be described as a language, they do seem to possess a greater level of comprehension than any invertebrate and indeed many vertebrates as well. Bickerton’s claim that language must predate the formation of concepts does not seem to apply. If octopuses do not have a secondary representation system, then they must possess the most advanced primary representation system in existence. Their behavior clearly illustrates that they have a better grasp of their reality than that which is immediately visible.

Their complex spatial memory allows them to navigate vast areas of the seafloor beyond view of their dens. They are capable of learning and altering their behavior based on the situation. In the octopus map of reality, not only are they able to discriminate between many similar objects and respond differently, but different octopuses have completely different responses depending on what they have learned. If presented with a similar situation in which something has been changed very slightly, they are able to alter their behavior accordingly. “When served clams sealed with steel wire, for example, octopuses deftly switch from prying to drilling,” (Scigliano, 2003). If “our moment-to-moment functioning in the world relies, unconsciously but quite implicitly and completely, on our having the equivalent of a map of reality which includes all the things that, at least for our species, are in it,” (Bickerton, p. 29) and “This map enables us to orient ourselves rapidly to fluctuations of the environment and to prepare appropriate responses to them,” (Bickerton, p. 29), then octopuses can function in this capacity as well.

Octopuses are known to be deceptive and mischievous. Like de Waal’s chimpanzees, an octopus will often lie in wait to fire a blast of water at its caretaker before retreating back down into its den. One octopus, the Indonesian mimic octopus (which has been discovered so recently that it does not have a scientific name), can impersonate other marine creatures, such as soles, lionfish, jellyfish, and other organisms. It does this not through naturally evolved camouflage, but by manipulating its chromatophores and altering the shape of its body to resemble whichever creature it wants to be. (Scott, 2001).

Concepts are what allow organisms to think about things that are not immediately visible. When the octopuses escape from their tanks, they often cannot see the other tanks. Usually the only transparent part of the tank is facing out so that the public can look in. Yet “These escape attempts are GPOs [Giant Pacific Octopuses] literally jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, as they may be discovered dead on the floor the next morning,” (Anderson, 2001). These octopuses are taking an enormous risk in leaving their tank environment, and yet another risk in returning to their own. If the octopuses did not have the concept of ‘fish’ and the ability to recognize its own hunger, then why would it take such a risk? The octopus must have a clear concept of ‘fish’ in order to leave its tank to pursue them. In the case of the mimic octopus, not only must if have a concept of ‘lionfish’ or ‘sole’, but it also must be capable of understanding what effect mimicking each creature will have on the animals around it. Impersonating a sole doesn’t do any good if it is surrounded by organisms which eat soles. These are not Bickerton’s protoconcepts. These are fully formed concepts which include not only the basic concepts of ‘sole’ but also the concept of ‘how can I make myself appear to be a sole’ and ‘what consequences will the presence of a sole have on my current environment. Notice that in order for the mimic octopus to form the concept of becoming a sole, it also must possess the concept of ‘I’; it must have self-recognition. Since the octopus clearly does not have language as a secondary representation system, it can only be assumed that language is not necessary for the formation of concepts or that there are other ways to form a secondary representation system.

Octopuses are excellent candidates for the presence of consciousness in organisms other than humans. It would be interesting to see how they perform on the mirror-image test. It could be assumed that they would pass, since they already show other signs of self-recognition by displaying diverse and unique personalities. Their intelligence has been demonstrated numerous times in many different experiments. They demonstrate foresight, intuition, and the ability to alter their behavior according to changes in their environment.

With all of this new evidence, why should language, culture, and consciousness be limited to humans and their nearest relatives? The only real barrier which stands between humpback whales and language, or killer whales and culture, or octopuses and consciousness is our own anthropocentricism. Humanity is not the ultimate goal of evolution and it is arrogant to assume that other organisms aren’t capable of possessing the same impressive adaptations that have allowed us to survive and thrive.