“Complex is not complicated.”
Nicolas Perony (Ted Talk)
This sums up the NDT model in a nutshell. NDT is the only theory of canine behavior which posits that sociability is simple, it is not the result of high cognition or learning as it is commonly and scientifically entertained. It is a flow architecture organized around a current of emotion. It is not a dominance hierarchy organized around access to resources.
Dogs are the purest embodiment of the basic emotional code by which sensory inputs become information in the animal mind. This is why they were able to be domesticated. Domestication itself is derivative of the basic code.
The author of this talk makes a very telling comment when likening Meerkats crossing a road as acting in a way that’s analogous to particles. He notes that while this may be literally wrong, it nevertheless provides a useful model. I suggest that this is even more useful and can be shown to be even more accurate than as a metaphor.
My premise is that the brain-to-gut connection is the basic code. This initiates motive, a compulsion to move, a movement that follows from a state of attraction, not intention. The balance (brain) and hunger (gut) circuitry enact a given state of attraction that then proceeds according to an inherent principle of conductivity by which an individual is able to assess its actions as to efficacy. In other words did energy (nervous stimulation) run to ground, smooth peristaltic action. Balance relative to hunger is the basis by which sensory inputs become information and elicit emotional affects that feel to the individual just as if it is electrically or magnetically charged. Revealingly, every culture in the world describes emotional affects in terms of electrical and magnetic phenomena.
This is the only interpretation of behavior consistent with the laws of motion and principles of thermodynamics, most especially, the Constructal Law. This is also why complex animal behavior lends itself to mathematical modeling. So the next time one feels harried out of one’s mind and finding oneself launching into irrepressible movement, or a ball crazed dog rocketing out of its skin when presented with one about to be thrown, I propose this would be what one would feel like were one an electrically charged particle. It is simple and it accounts for complexity. Any other interpretation of behavior is human story telling.
