Customer Reviews

Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind

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The intrepid team of Cheney and Seyfarth has done it again. Their work has a long-standing and deserved reputation for being both pioneering and sensible, a rather rare combination. This book traces implications for human evolution of their research on baboons in the Okavango Delta of Botswana. I have had my camps in the Delta raided by baboons who must be close relatives of Cheney and Seyfarth's friends. I formed a healthy respect for their intelligence. They can bring off a raid with military precision and scientific thoroughness, taking advantage of the least opportunity to steal everything usable and wreck everything else.
The title comes from Darwin: "he who understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke." Of course, we don't really learn about the baboons' metaphysics here; we learn how their behavior can change our metaphysics, as Darwin intended. (I don't know if baboons have metaphysics or not, but if they do, they surely believe that God is a huge dominant male baboon who mercifully sends endless parties of humans with crackers and bacon and peanuts.)
This book describes baboon social behavior and communication, and then goes on to show how it is and is not similar to human equivalents. They argue, convincingly, that human communication, complex thought, and high intelligence could and did evolve from primate social interaction. We need our smarts for our social life more than for toolmaking or feeding or avoiding predators. Their discussion of language is particularly good--a really thoughtful, excellent, up-to-date discussion of how human language differs from animal communication, and how this might have come about.
The authors also compare baboons with dogs, jays, and other highly social creatures. This leads them to many of their best insights.
I have three minor criticisms. First and worst, they take philosophy too seriously. We hear a lot about "theory of mind," "consciousness," "concept of the self," and other ineffable and "metaphysical" entities. The authors do as well as anyone could with these concepts, but one can go only so far in making a plate of cooked spaghetti stand up straight. Daniel Dennett's book CONSCIOUSNESS EXPLAINED pretty well devastated philosophers' talk about consciousness, as opposed to the good old testable folk notion that contrasts being conscious with being knocked out, drunk, or asleep. And how do you really assess what an animal knows? I have spent thousands of hours listening to mockingbirds and still have no idea whether they actually think of or remember a jay or killdeer when they imitate one. I suspect they think only "This is a fun sound to work into my song." I suppose we will never know. At least we can know that they do NOT merely repeat mindlessly; they subtly change the imitations to fit their song patterns, such that the imitations change over time, according to a real if rudimentary plan. Cheney and Seyfarth try bravely to make operational science out of "theories of mind" and "the self," and say some very important things in the process, but one can go only so far in applying abstract, debatable, mentalistic concepts to animals, or even to humans.
Conversely, it seems to me that the real difference between people and baboons (and other animals) is that people can form deep hierarchic plans. We can go from tactics to strategy to goals, or from words to sentences to books to life work to whole literary genres. A baboon has trouble with "to be," and could never discuss how "to be or not to be, that is the question" fits with Shakespeare's oeuvre and the history of western drama. Baboons have tactics, strategy, and goals, but only at a quite simple level. They can raid camps and manage troops brilliantly, but can't do much beyond that. In communication and foraging, their plans are excellent but simple.
Second, somewhat related: The authors are somewhat primate-centric, and a bit unaware of how different other animals' communication and "consciousness" may be. Dogs, notably, live in a world of scent that is closed to humans. Dogs are alleged to have "no self-concept" because they don't make a big deal of mirror images of themselves. But, if you put a dog in front of a mirror for the first time, you learn why: the dog is startled by the strange dog in the mirror, sniffs it, and immediately loses interest--realizing that this is a trick of the light rather than a real dog. Similarly, when dogs meet, they don't communicate just by barking or whining; they interact by visual displays (which are exceedingly complex in their own right) and by pheromone releases. These latter are not detected by humans, so humans don't usually realize how complex the interaction really is.
Third, the baboons' very real abilities get somewhat short-counted here, because the interest is so much on humans. If baboons could talk (and read), they would surely say: "All very well for these stupid humans to talk about what we can't do, but let's see them execute a perfect campsite raid! Let's see them get into a 'guaranteed animal-proof' container in five minutes! Let's see them give up their fancy gear and still detect and escape lions, leopards and crocodiles!" Evolution gives us the minds we need, and documenting that is more interesting to this reviewer than trying to make sense of theories of "theories of mind" and self-consciousness about "consciousness of self."
That said, this is a totally delightful book. Cheney and Seyfarth write well; no dry scientific dullness here. You will find yourself getting fascinated with even the most arcane matters of baboon social life.

Ok, that's a little hype. But the earlier chapters especially were practically as charming. Several thousand undergraduates will be assigned this book and for many of them it will be one of the most memorable things they read in college. Who's Simon and who's Garfunkle in this team of authors I don't know, but their style is very engaging. This is one aspect of the work, the pure ethology, and it's very good. How many of us have been chased up a tree with a bunch of monkeys by a lion? Me, only once or twice.

Another aspect is a running series of experiments done by the authors interspersed with others carried on by other researchers on monkey (and a little ape) behavior designed to "get inside their minds" in order to obtain a sense of how they view the world. No doubt many readers will have encountered many of these results here and there in their other reading. It's nice to have so many collected in one book and I can't help feeling up to speed on the subject now.

The BIG IDEA is that "social intelligence" is a precursor to language as it appears in humans, and I'll let the reader make her own judgments on that. It at least gives one a lot to think about and despite the remarks of one professional reviewer, it's not a particularly "challenging" book if that means hard-to-read. It is challenging for sure in that it-makes-you-think.Anyone interested in origin of language theory will need to read this book.

((I would only negatively remark as a onetime philosophy teacher that the authors have an inordinate amount of respect for the (current) folk philosophy of D. Dennet and the philosophy speak of intention and recursiveness. That's probably why the book is called "challenging". It's not really part of the science in the book, though reading the book you might think it is. Pain is a "mental state" and it doesn't have a referent. And is "belief" a mental state? Is it really that simple? Oddly, though the title "Baboon Metaphysics" is supposed to refer to the baboon's world-view, it would be more accurate to think of it as a book about baboons PRESUMING a particular metaphysics. Like all metaphysics it assumes a particular epistemology, fashionable but questionable. However, this does little to diminish the book or its interest, the philosophy is mostly irrelevant being mostly a fill-in for ideas that are simple and unexceptional in this domain of science. I hope all non-philosophy people ignore these remarks, it's a great book.))

Charles Darwin once wrote of his belief that if we would learn something very important if we could but understand the behavior of baboon.

The authors of this enthralling book are widely known for their studies of primate behavior in the Okavango in Botswana, and set out to do just that: understand how behavior baboons live and organize their lives.

Baboons live in groups of up to 150 individuals, which include a few males and eight or nine matrilineal families of females. The account of the daily life of the group reads like the script of Survivor!

There is a complicated mix of personal relationships ranging from short-term bonds for mating to long-term friendships that lead to cooperative rearing of the young. There are intrigues that may involve alliances of two or three individuals all the way up to battles that involve three or four extended families.

What this tells us is that the survival of an individual baboon and his or her family depends on an ability to predict the behavior of others and arrange to form the most advantageous relationships. So are these just reflexive behaviors, or do baboons form models of the world and their place in it? In such a fluid social environment, to what extent can they deduce the motives of other baboons?

This book sets out to discover the intelligence that underlies this social organization. In the process we learn a lot about ourselves.

The book is divided into twelve chapters:
1. The Evolution of Mind
2. The Primate Mind in Myth and Legend
3. Habitat, Infanticide, and Predation
4. Males: Competition, Infanticide, and Friendship
5. Females: Kinship, Rank, Competition, and Cooperation
6. Social Knowledge
7. The Social Intelligence Hypothesis
8. Theory of Mind
9. Self-Awareness and Consciousness
10. Communication
11. Precursors to Language
12. Baboon Metaphysics

These are followed by an appendix, references and a good Index.

The social lives of baboons are fluid and highly complex, and that reflects a complex and adaptable social intelligence. This will not surprise most people who live with animals: Many of them have quite elaborate social systems, sophisticated emotions and quite well developed concepts of social propriety and even of right and wrong.

The authors write very well indeed. They share their enthusiasm and the implications of their work.

This is a terrific book that deserves a very wide readership, not least because it helps put to bed the notion that humans are the only species with a complex social life.

Humans may be different, but we are not that different.

Highly recommended.



Richard G. Petty, MD, author of Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life

Humans have minds. We know this indirectly, or a least we think we do. By examining the actions and vocalizations of others we seem able to infer, or at least to guess at, the mental states of others. If we witness some moral degenerate kicking a cat out a window while yelling "%$!# cat!" we may assume that the kicker had a negative mental attitude towards the now plummeting feline. In such cases humans engage more in "mind inferring" than "mind reading." As of now we seem capable of little else, for other's mental states sit locked in the Fort Knox of their minds. Not much hope there. So what about other animals? Do they infer thoughts from actions? How could anyone prove this? The authors of "Baboon Metaphysics" take up this challenge and follow Darwin in their choice of "brute" to study. The father of modern evolution, Darwin was also a budding metaphysician. He thought that baboons provided a good model for the early evolution of the human mind. The authors agree and so begin with the premise: Baboons, like humans, have minds. Building off this, they then ask a series of questions: Can baboons infer the mental states of other baboons? Do they feel empathy? Do baboons have a sense of self? What do baboons "know" about their environment and their existence? Do baboons utilize an internal or external language? And, finally, what do the answers to these questions tell us about human minds?

In the first chapter the authors divide the book into three sections: Chapters 1 through 5 discuss general information on baboons; chapters 6 through 11 delineate scientific research carried out on a group of baboons in the Okavango Delta in Botswana; Chapter 12 summarizes the research findings and explores the implications of these studies for the human mind. After a short historical survey of baboons, which includes the eyebrow raising tale of a baboon "hired" as a railroad track switcher and the equally intriguing Ahla the goat-herder, the book delves into baboon culture. They have rather stressful lives. Lion attacks. Crocodile attacks. Uncertain and dangerous water crossings. Not to mention the wandering alpha males. When a female with an infant sees a new male enter into her social network, she runs away as fast as she can. And who can blame her? Males dominate each other, and thus increase their reproductive success, not only by rigorous wahoo contests but also by killing the infants of previous alpha males. Given the data presented, Shakespeare could have penned a gripping baboon drama. While the males dominate, procreate, and murder, the females hold together an intricate, almost inexplicable, social nexus. With a dizzying complexity that would make Gödel proud, the women maintain numerous social strata, protect their infants via platonic male friendships, and maintain a steadfast, almost chivalric, loyalty to their kin. Their main stressors remain changes in the social rank, which creates uncertainty, wandering power hungry alpha males, and loss of a loved one through predation or infanticide. The text reveals some startling correlations between baboon and human life, which peaks when a member of the royal family visits the research site. After they relate baboon life and social rankings to the young aristocrat, she screams with glee that baboons provide evolutionary proof for her own elevated position. "Shortly thereafter," the authors relate, "she returned to her entourage, spirits lifted, leaving us to ponder the wider implications of our work." Did the authors point out to her that alpha male baboons typically reign for only six to seven months? Then, like ancient kings, they get deposed by a bigger wahoo.

Next, the book takes a decisive philosophical turn. The authors turn their focus from baboon life and biology to baboon theory of mind (the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others), self-awareness, social intelligence, communication, and language. To what extent are baboons "aware" of their standing in the world and their relation to other baboons? By measuring glucocortocoid levels, an indication of stress, and performing sound experiments within the group itself, the authors draw several conclusions, though several require further experimentation. Baboons don't seem able to attribute mental states to others. As such, empathy seems beyond them. Though the authors do find some evidence for attribution of basic intentions. Looking at language, baboons use grunts and vocalizations, but not in the way that humans use language. Both humans and baboons do possess great amounts of social knowledge, and the authors argue that this intelligence provides a possible foundation for language. The basis of this argument lies in "the language of thought" that the authors claim predated spoken language. Over time mental concepts relating to objects, events, and relations in the world became vocalized. Thought first, then language. Thus, baboons may represent a living model of our evolutionary linguistic development. From this basis humans evolved into beings with a theory of mind that then spurred the development of language and vocabulary. Recursive thought then allowed our ancestors and us to form mental representations of themselves, others, and even of thoughts (i.e., we can think about the thoughts of others).

Accessible enough for most general readers, "Baboon Metaphysics" does not assume prior knowledge of baboons, biology, or philosophy. Anyone dedicated enough can pick it up and digest its fascinating contents. Nonetheless, the book has its challenges as it prods into new territory and the mental states of animals. Doubtless others will follow the path that this book has trodden and build upon the experiments and observations of a team that spent fourteen years with a group of baboons in Africa. Anyone seeking appreciation of the complexities of both animal and human life will find it here. Rev up your recursive thinking abilities and dive in.

In Sociology 101 we learned about human communities - habitat, communication and eating practices. The advanced course, Soc202 brought us the teachings of Jane Goodall and the habits our social primate cousins, the chimpanzees exhibit - some familiar, others rather alien. Now, in grad studies, Cheney and Seyfarth relate the world of another cousin, baboons. "Baboon metaphysics", to those jolted by the title of this excellent work, derives from an 1838 entry in Charles Darwin's notebook: "he who understands baboon would do more toward metaphysics than Locke". Both the entry date and the reference are significant, as the authors go to some effort to point out.

Although for some the passage has become trite, there are many others who need introduction to and understanding of what it means. Darwin himself had only just realised the implications of natural selection when he penned it. What does it mean to be a primate social species? Cheney and Seyfarth spent many years studying a baboon community in the Okavango Delta of Botswana. Adapting the innovative techniques they had developed in their investigation of vervet monkeys [see "How Monkeys See the World"], they were thus capable of not only merely observing what baboons do, but instigate conditions to assess variations in behaviour. The chief technique is the playback of recordings of individual baboons in selected circumstances. They leave you in no doubt that the research is tricky, fraught with dangers and disappointments, but ultimately rewarding. The work produced a firm foundation for understanding "The Evolution of A Social Mind".

At issue is the motivation and capacity to learn. The authors note that Darwin's challenge to Locke's heritage rested on the latter's idea that experience guided what and how we learned. His idea was that we are born with "blank slate" minds which are formed only by the events we perceive. Even in modern times, they remind us, the notion remained in place through the ideas of the "Behaviourists" following John Watson and B.F. Skinner. Evolutionary roots were unknown or ignored. "Behaviourism" is a method long out of date, now, and research in primates was the major cause of its demise.

Cheney and Seyfarth contest the simplistic view Behaviourism promoted with this intense and revealing study of a primate society under many pressures. The local environment varies widely with weather conditions, and a variety of predators are present - and hungry. The baboons must cope with these factors, and do so with flexibility and innovation. Learning to deal with the challenges around them, baboons that had to relearn each generation how to respond to changes would long ago have gone extinct. Instead, the authors show how baboon society has enabled the passage and reinforcement of behaviours to ensure the best possible chance for survival and continuation.

Baboons have a matrilineal arrangement, which makes status clear to all group members. Interactions are fairly tightly structured, which provides reliability in dealing with other individuals. Given that after predation, infanticide by aspiring alpha males is the greatest threat, those matrilineal arrangements can protect some offspring. The females ally in a variety of forms, and friendship remains a major social buttress. Female friendship with males, rare in other apes, is common with baboons. Yet, these "friendships" aren't the tactile form seen in bonobos or monkeys. Instead, social interactions are primarily vocal. Baboon society is anything simple, and the work of Cheney and Seyfarth goes far in explaining how it works. More importantly, they contrast that society and its intellectual underpinnings with other primates. A revelatory segment of this book uses the collected data to investigate whether baboons have a "theory of mind", a long-debated issue in primate research. The Okavango baboons, at least, seem to have been short-changed in that area. The authors give numerous examples of how a particular behaviour with baboons demonstrates this lack.

Although a detailed treatise, Baboon Metaphysics is a captivating read. The authors write with practised skill and the narrative is clear and not overly laden with academic terms. They are clearly writing for both general and scientific audiences. With photographs portraying events and individuals in the troop, the book is a complete product. Well worth your time and investment. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

This is a work of scientific rigor and intuitive leaps. It clearly describes the social order of baboon society and draws fascinating inferences about the possibility of baboon cognition. The parallels to the evolution of cognition in early hominids are inescapable.

The team of Dorothy Cheney and Robert Seyfarth has collaborated on numerous publications, including a fine book, "How Monkeys See the World." This represents an ambitious addition to their body of work. A takeoff point is a quotation from Charles Darwin's notebooks, from 1838 (Page 1): "Origin of man now proved--Metaphysic must flourish--He who understands baboon would do more toward metaphysics than Locke." The authors use the Cambridge English Dictionary to define metaphysics (Page 2): "the part of philosophy that is about understanding existence and knowledge."

The authors have been studying baboons for many years. This book summarizes much of their work and indicates the ingenious experiments that they have devised to assess baboons' thought processes and to explore if they possess something like a "theory of mind." They consider, in the process, the extent of "social intelligence" in baboons. At the outset, they propose two general points that guide their analysis of "baboon metaphysics": (1) natural selection leads to a brain for any species that are specialized for the relevant survival needs; (2) baboons have great expertise in navigating social life, since they live in relatively complex social systems.

Key chapters in this volume:

Chapter 3: The dangerous world in which baboons live is well portrayed. Predators pose a danger. Another unfortunate factor of baboon life is infanticide. If a new male enters a troop and becomes dominant, for instance, he may try to kill all young baboons. In this manner, the new male is in a position to begin reproducing very soon with female baboons who lost their infants; he is able, as a result, to increase the amount of his genetic material in the troop through siring his own infants.

Chapters 4 and 5 are critical, as they lay out the very different social worlds of male and female baboons. In either sex, dominance hierarchies are central. Males strive to attain the alpha ranking, that is, being the most dominant male in the troop. Male hierarchies are unstable, leading to considerable social stress. Females' hierarchies are more complex and more stable. Among females, their lineage is important. Each lineage has its own ranking, so one is either born into a top ranking, middle ranking, or low ranking family. Successfully managing to thrive in this social order calls for a high level of social skills.

Baboons, as Chapter 6 emphasizes, have quite good "social knowledge." The understanding of how baboon society works is based on (Pages 118-119) ". . .an innate predisposition to recognize other individuals' ranks and social relationships." Chapter 7 builds on this with a discussion of the social intelligence of baboons, with the authors emphasizing the criticality of baboons' understanding of how to navigate complex social life in a way that facilitates their survival and successful reproduction. The chapter concludes with an interesting discussion of how baboons' social intelligence differs from that of other species, as a result of the evolutionary demands on baboons.

Chapter 8 focuses on the extent to which baboons have a "theory of mind," that is, understanding of the mental states of other baboons. The authors conclude that there might be (page 197) "vague intuition about other animals' intentions," but that there is nothing like a well formed ability among these animals to understand intentions and motivations of others.

The volume concludes in Chapter 12 with a summary discussion of "baboon metaphysics" and with speculation about the relevance of their research for understanding humans. With respect to the former, they conclude that baboons demonstrate that some animals can live in complex societies with a theory of mind and without language--if their mental abilities allow for "making sense" of how to navigate their complex social world. The latter discussion notes what differences could lead to humans having a theory of mind that baboons do not possess.

All in all, a remarkable book. It has value in helping us to understand baboons in their own terms; it helps think about the position of humans in nature and why we are unique (as all species are unique); it provokes reflection on the ability to reflect on oneself and others and try to understand why we behave as we do. Nice touches abound, as illustrated by a charming reference to characters from Jane Austen's novels to make points about individual baboons' behavior.

This is an ambitious work, and there will be questions. The authors seem to overreach when exploring a theory of mind. It's almost as if they are using a human orientation to study baboons rather than focusing on baboons themselves. In some ways, I'm not sure that the theory of baboons' minds is so crucial as the authors do. The social intelligence part of the picture seems to me more important. Finally, using the philosophical term metaphysics in a baboon context may represent another reach too far.

Nonetheless, these are relatively minor points. The bottom line? A terrific book. . . .

This is a scholarly book which is simultaneously entirely suitable for the general reader. None of Baboons, psychology, or metaphysics are my fields but I was utterly fascinated by the authors' research and their contribution to the concept of the social mind as important in the evolution of the human species. READ THIS!

Everyone is talking about apes these days, but this book opened my eyes to the extent to which smaller-brained primates also survive by making social calculations. It shows how a baboon's mind is continually taking account of others as it goes about the business of survival. That is not to say they're "considerate" in the idealistic, anthropomorphic sense, but that they anticipate the responses of others before they act. I enjoyed reading about the clever field experiments used to determine a baboon's thought process. This book strikes a nice balance between science and interpretation. You don't feel like baboons are being forced into some ideological mold, and you don't feel like you're wading through tedious academic debate. The parallels between baboon and human behavior are obvious, but the authors do not hit you over the head with them. They leave you to draw your own inferences. The book left me wondering about the enormous commonalities between the social habits of baboons and other mammals. No mention of the neurochemistry that sparks this "social mind" is included, but interested readers might like I, Mammal: Why Your Brain Links Status and Happiness

Do Baboons think and what do they think about? Do they understand that others have their own thoughts, fears, ideas? How does thought work in a social animal? Do you need a society to have true communication?
Baboon Metaphysics is a wonderful book full of information about the social relationships and interactions within Baboon society and some other animals. It is serious, without talking down to the reader, yet also funny sometimes without being silly. We learn about how Baboons deal with stress, grief and anxiety within their network of friends and family and, by learning about them, we can learn about how we deal with the same issues. Language, self-awareness, and empathy are all subjects that are touched on.
Frankly, I learned a lot from this book and enjoyed it at the same time. I suggest it for anybody interested in social evolution, social organizations, and primates in general.