Is the Sense of Wonder Restricted Only to Humans? [View all]

[MineralMan]

About 30 years ago, I went out one evening about sunset to a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It was not far from my house and had a nice trail leading to its edge. I thought I'd go and contemplate the solar system there as the sun set.

I arrived about half an hour before the actual sunset, and sat down to observe that phenomenon. Shortly after I sat down, I noticed that about a dozen western ground squirrels, which have a maze of burrows near that cliff edge, had emerged from their burrows and were sitting on their haunches, looking westward. I scanned the cliff edge, and saw more squirrels, along with a mule deer doe and two fawns, which were also standing near the edge of that cliff, looking west.

At the predictable time, the sun slowly disappeared as the earth turned on its axis. After the horizon completely cut off the view of our local star, I noticed that the squirrels and deer were gone. I found this entire thing very interesting. Why had those animals taken up positions facing west just at sunset? Were they contemplating the same thing I was?

I don't know. We have no way to communicate with those creatures about why they did what they did. Nor can they look into my mind to determine why I was there. I know my reasons for observing the phenomenon, but not theirs. It's easy to believe that they, too, were simply observing the rotation of the earth and its effects, just as I was. The same event happens daily there. Is their observation a ritual or simply something they do at the end of the day for some other reason?

We humans can wonder about such phenomena, so we do. We concoct theories of causes. As time passed in our history as a species, we came to understand that the sun appears to set behind the horizon because our planet is rotating on its axis. Before we understood that, most of humanity believed that the sun was the moving body. Our wonder led us to seek the answer, which we found.

But, do the western ground squirrels wonder? The mule deer? We do not know. They were there. They were clearly watching the sunset, since there was no other reason for them to be there at that specific time, looking in that direction. Why were they there? We don't know that, either, nor can we ask them.

Three mammal species, all engaged in an observation of a natural event. Were we all wondering? Who can say?