Are animals conscious? New research
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Re: Are animals conscious? New research
#2This doesn't add up to me. The majority of scientists really thought that animals didn't feel or experience things? That can't be true for scientists that actually observed animals.
I can see how there might some type of conflict with a dualist or religious view of the soul though. But not a scientific conflict.
Re: Are animals conscious? New research
#3Do people not have dogs? They have more emotional intelligence than most humans and love, fear, play, plan, think, reason and communicate well. This is true for many animals. I'd say that most animals are just like human in terms of consciousness but less advanced in thinking and communicating (without debating about whales, dolphins, octopuses etc.)
Re: Are animals conscious? New research
#492 Billion animals are killed each year for food.[1] That doesn't include the 110 million that are killed each year for science. [2]
These animals must not be conscious, or we would never do such a thing, right?
Oh, and we keep over a billion pets in our homes and call them our friends. But they can't be conscious.
The science must be flawed. /s
[1] https://www.humanesociety.org/blog/more-animals-ever-922-bil...
[2] https://spsp.org/news-center/character-context-blog/killing-...
[3]
Re: Are animals conscious? New research
#5I sometimes think that animistic belief - objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence - is more respectful of the ecosystem than some of the modern ones. Lots of ancient cultures, across the globe, tried to live in harmony with their natural environments. I wish that we can go back to that stage.
Re: Are animals conscious? New research
#6The trouble I have with much of this discussion is it assumes many traits of animal behavior are indicative of consciousness. Bees play with balls, therefore consciousness? You can't just jump straight to that conclusion. There is so much our brains do that is subconscious, that we are not aware of. Heck, even signs of self awareness may not be indicative of consciousness. Arguably we are at the point that we could train a robot AI to recognize itself in the mirror.
I'm in the camp that believes animals are conscious, I'm not arguing against that. But what I'm arguing is that the current body of evidence doesn't conclude anything. Until we have a better fundamental understanding of consciousness, I don't think we can make such conclusions merely from observing animal behavior. Who's to say that one behavior is evidence of consciousness and another behavior is not? What do we base that upon?
Re: Are animals conscious? New research
#7I sometimes think that animistic belief - objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence - is more respectful of the ecosystem than some of the modern ones. Lots of ancient cultures, across the globe, tried to live in harmony with their natural environments. I wish that we can go back to that stage.
I agree. You should check out “Becoming Animal” and “The Spell of the Sensuous”, both by David Abram
Re: Are animals conscious? New research
#8consciousness is a spectrum. Humans are more conscious than animals.
Re: Are animals conscious? New research
#9This doesn't add up to me. The majority of scientists really thought that animals didn't feel or experience things? That can't be true for scientists that actually observed animals. I can see how there might some type of conflict with a dualist or religious view of the soul though. But not a scientific conflict.
Decartes, for example, did actually believe that animals don't feel or experience things, that they're purely mechanism-like entities, with simplistic (I'd even say, "behaviouralistic" but that'd be a bit anachronic) stimulus-response built-in reactions — they were not able to geniunely experience pain or distress, they could merely exhibit outwards signs of it, that's all.
Fortunately, with computer-based AIs we know for sure that the analogical beliefs are actually true, and there are no future developments that could possibly change that.
Re: Are animals conscious? New research
#10consciousness is a spectrum. Humans are more conscious than animals.
I agree but would word that as "...more conscious than most other animals."
Humans are animals, and we don't have an agreed upon definition of consciousness that would allow us to quantify it so precisely that we can be sure of the way you worded it. Many of the smarter animals may have just as much (but somewhat different) consciousness as humans, and you we can definitely come up with a reasonable definition of consciousness under which some animals may have more of it. For example, if one of the major measurable dimensions of consciousness involves spacial awareness (and it might, as it helps delimiting self from other) then cetaceans could easily have more of it.