Sometimes that rabbit can be so surprising. I was about to leave for
Seattle last week, and, on a whim, grabbed a big armload of leaves that had
been accumulating on the far side of the house and threw them into a pile
in her pen. I expected her to begin munching on them as she often does
when I throw leaves in there. This pile was much bigger than anything I
had thrown in there before.
Now, I had been reading some of the great stuff that Artin had sent me on
play, and here I am thinking about that and developmental potentials in
humans, when this bunny begins jumping into the pile of leaves. I mean,
hop-hop-hop around the pile and then, a big HOP over and into the middle of
it! Plowing through the rest, hopping around to the previous launching
point, and doing it again, 3 or 4 times in rapid succession! Stopping for
about 30 seconds to look at me, doing the one-eye again (or perhaps she was
examining the pile with her other eye on the opposite side) and panting
rapidly. Then a more restrained poking around through the pile accompanied
by much munching.
What.... play? Well, Cytowic does write about how the lymbic system
figures highly in the emotional basis of cognition, and he does compare the
relative sizes of lymbic system of bunnies and humans (bunnies' are
comparatively bigger). But I had never seen the bunny play -- or was the
episode with the box 'play'? I don't know. I realized that I see animals
like dogs 'play', catching frisbees and so on, so why was I so surprised?
Perhaps it was that the charged state of prior thinking on development had
prepared me to be surprised. Should I be thinking of the developmental
potential of this rabbit? What unrequited conditions would lead this bunny
to play? How far could we take this together -- certainly not becoming a
'lawnmower bunny' as we don't have the VR equipment, but I wonder, just how
smart can a bunny get?
Bill Barowy, Associate Professor
Lesley College, 31 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790
Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169
http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/wbarowy/Barowy.html
_______________________
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself
and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
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