I had to do the exact same thing once -- the mother ran off as I tried to gather her and the sac into a box -- and you could see both the panic as she watched the sac being taken away, and the relief when she was reunited.

As a counterpoint, how could you possibly see panic on a spider's "face?"

Panic isn't merely a facial expression. It is body language, actions and may be some other things.

There was no mention of "face", I suppose it is about the whole body expression.

We are all alive in the same way

That's not really a given. Maybe arguable for mammals, but arthropods? What about sponges? Fungi? Trees?

Not OP. I think the brain is more a receiver of consciousness than a generator, and there are many types of receivers, beyond neural cells.

Trees will form a network with the cooperation of fungi, to exchange information and nutrients among each other. Plants will grow better when they are planted with companion plant, or cultivated in guilds (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_(ecology)

Funny that you mention this consciousness thing.

A few years ago I've been out, seeing blackberry bushes in full bloom, ripe with berries,

many already dropped to the ground. One could even smell them from dozens of meters away.

That was on a former industrial/commercial zone in the harbour, everything torn down,

leveled up a few meters with massive earthworks, compacted, graded.

Since a few years, no activity. Barren and bare execpt for a few weeds and bushes,

some colorful wild flowers, thistles(also very colorful!) some small birches. "pioneer plants" AFAIK.

Anyways, hords/squadrons of all sorts of insects swarmed around those bushes,

really darkening the air and making a loud buzz/hum/drone.

But strangely no birds.

Whatever, I wanted some of those blackberries, too!

So I thought about what I intended to do in terms of movements, actions, and so on, all visually,

and thought about projecting that outwards in crystal clear HYPER-IMAX-3D-whatever, for every single step,

slowly stepping into the swarm, thinking the same way about every hand movement, exactly from where I'd pluck the next one,

thinking don't sting or bite me, stay away from my face, there is enough for all of us...

And none have stung or bitten me, also they left me alone, with the exception of a few landing on my bare arms,

and resting there for a few moments, before taking off again.

But it seemed mostly unnecessary, because most of them seemed to be in a holding pattern,

waiting for space on the ground, to gorge themselves there on the juices of the fallen berries.

So I only needed to watch my steps.

The berries were exceptionally good :-)

I took about 1,5 to 2kg back home in foldable plasic bags, which I always have in my backpack for shopping.

But before doing that, I took my time, squatting down, and watching the bees, wasps, bumblebees, flies, whatever, flying erratically,

like they were drunken from the juices of the fallen to the ground berries, away, maybe a hand width above the ground.

That was their pattern, coming in high, going out low, like drunken. Still no stings or bites! :-)

One of the weirdest experiences I've had.

I'm still doing that with my cats, which I got later. Not speaking,

but thinking visually about things I'd like them to stop, and why,

what can be dangerous when I'm working in the kitchen, or soldering electronics,

how I like the ways they move, and so on.

We mostly communicate in silence.

Typical "catness" stubbornly ignoring everything aside, it feels like it's working in about 80 to 90%.

No stress with "herding cats" here. (3 of them)

Maybe we lost this stuff, the ability to perceive things like that, or it has been selectively bred out of us,

by the environments we created, which in turn shape us.

Back to topic (somehow):

Long before I got my cats, I had a 'stray' calico coming to me for about a month, from who knows where.

One night, while she was resting on a four times folded sleeping bag I'd layed out for her on my bed, I heard her loudly meowing.

No clue about what was going on because out of sight. I went there, and she stood on her hind legs, looking afraid,

slowly walking backwards into the farthest corner on her hind legs, meowing miserably.

At first I didn't get what was going on, then I saw a small spider, brown white, whith pale green backbody,

not larger than a pea, whole spider maybe an inch at maximum with fully extended legs.

The cat was terrified of that spider! Even when I've put the spider into a glass and thrown it out onto the balcony.

When I came back she still warily sniffed the spot from where I put the spider into the glass, meowing annoyed.

Took some time to soothe her.

I've never seen, or heard of cats being afraid of spiders before, nor I can imagine how that should work,

since outdoor cats should have plenty experience meeting them in the wild?!

Humans … or I should say, modern humans have a bias towards consciousness structured as language. So yeah, it doesn’t normally occur to people that mind-to-mind contact can come in other forms. Among the (obviously non-techie) friends and communities who experiment and cultivate skills like these, using a visual channel for communicating with animals, plants, and insects is a thing. One example I heard, was a shaman telling me how she communicated to her dog that they will be gone a few days. Dog don’t understand clock time like we (modern humans) do. Dogs do understand the rising and setting of the sun though. Three of the rising and setting sun would be three days.

In the visionary shamanic community, we might call these intelligences animal, plant, or insect teachers.

Spiders have a special, very profound medicine. Many beings are afraid of them, and moving through that fear is part of the test to learn from the spider teacher. There is something similar with snakes. The venom is transformative.

I noticed too that you talk about pioneer plants and you seemed to have skill at foraging. I’ll make a bold assertion that’s out of place for this forum: I think that a civilization that are organized around local food resiliency and sovereignty using such things as permaculture design can free up the time for humans to really explore consciousness. It requires time and awareness and not better machines and technology.

Feel free to contact me by email if continue this conversation interests you. Talktohosh on gmail.

>I watched her there for a while in her new location, and there is absolutely more than just instinct at play.

One could also conclude the opposite. What we perceive as concious thought or emotion is just instinct.

As a parent I can say that a lot of urges in parenting come from somewhere deep and intuitive, rather than as a result of some higher level erudition on the situation.

Still, the urge for care ones young, while not necessarily very - cerebral? - at least creates a feeling of familiarity and connection - ie. empathy. When this empathy comes across from an arthropod to a higher mammal it's still humbling and awe inspiring, even though it might tell more of our autonomous nature than the intellect of the arhtropod.

It feels like there’s some interplay between instinct/emotion and intelligence/decision-making in the behaviours we’re describing, which I felt was a sign of awareness or consciousness.

I wouldn’t say what I experienced was much more than instinct and making a new web, but the emotional response of a mother protecting its young was relatable across very different species, which is useful for building empathy and respect.

The examples in the article are much more interesting from an intelligence standpoint though.

> One could also conclude the opposite. What we perceive as concious thought or emotion is just instinct.

Pretty sure this is what doctors said as their justification for not using anesthetic on babies during medical procedures.

"Oh, they're just crying and screaming because baby, duh"

We now look back at that as being quite a barbaric practice/way of thinking.

But babies don't logically reason that crying is how to express their pain, it is instinct. The error was downplaying instinctive behaviors as separate from the total consciousness. Basically equating all instinctive action to the knee reflex test: harmless reactions that our bodies happen to do, rather than the essential part of our psyche that most instincts are.

"Conscious thought" is an undefined term applied to non-verbal subjects, except where sequential reasoning is demonstrated, and then becomes a metaphysical morass. Emotion is well-defined and interpretable from behavior, and is not the opposite of instinct, but a pathway it operates by.

At that point isn't it a bit a matter of semantics? I do agree with your point though. I think the way we think of instincts is far too simplistic and lacks an appreciation for how complex, adaptive, and context-aware instincts are

This is something I’ve thought about quite a bit. IMO, emotions are probably the drivers for “instinct”; are nature’s way of getting organisms to do things.

> You could feel the panic and protective instinct in her movements.

This comment reminded me of a great book I read called Mama's Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves.

https://www.amazon.com/Mamas-Last-Hug-Animal-Emotions/dp/039...