In the Mind of a Fish

The voice in the speaker at the aquarium that December a few years ago told me something very interesting about fish that I had never really thought was more than something contrived by story tellers to make movies more interesting. The speaker said that the fish did some things after they considered other things and, basically, deduced that this action was the best of several they could take.

The speaker said that the fish thought about what it should do and made a decision based on that thought. The rest of the visit that day had me trapped in thought about all the different things that these fish were actually thinking. It was quite funny. I know because I was reporting the fish thoughts to people and then I would laugh at the fish for thinking those things.

That is why one of my daughters suggested that I name my blog "In the Mind of a Fish". Or, it is why I thought of naming it that if they hadn't actually suggested it as I imagine they did. In any case, the name has to do with faith.

I imagine that some people who go to the aquarium believe the speaker when it tells them that the fish have thoughts like we have thoughts and that is curious. Some people, I suppose, already think that fish are really people and they have thoughts because they read about that in stories and saw it on TV. But, some probably just take the words of the speaker as if the words were actually accurate in describing how the fish came to the point of doing one thing instead of another. (I personally think that the fish do what they do because they don't know that they can do something else.)

What is happening in this situation is that the speaker (the actual electronic speaker mounted in the wall) seems to have some kind of superior knowledge about fish that us humans couldn't possibly have attained while eating our dinners, going to work and raising our families. I don't know if it is because the speaker doesn't have a body, or if the speaker speaks with such confidence. But, for some reason, no one at the aquarium that day seemed to feel that the statements might actually be inaccurate when reporting the thoughts of the fish.