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Are animals conscious? New research

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Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#111

Post by poikroequ »

squigz wrote: post #40
jbotz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's really the case that "much of this discussion assumes" certain behaviors as being indicative of consciousness. Rather, it has been the case until recently that behaviorists pointed to various behaviors as being unique to humans, and jumped to the conclusion that this indicates that humans are conscious and other animals aren't. What has been happening recently is that one by one these behaviors hav…

I think we're going to realize soon that consciousness isn't really all that complex

I believe consciousness started off simple but evolved to become much more complex. Like how eyesight began with simple photosensitive cells.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#112

Post by ang_cire »

Jensson wrote: post #107
DangitBobby wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think we "didn't always have this capacity"? Or that other animals don't have it? We have it from a very young age, children like animals, want them as pets, and cry when they see them hurt or killed. We've had at the very least a desire to commune with animals for 100,000 years or we wouldn't have dogs in their current form.

> children like animals, want them as pets It was very recently evolution wise that humans started to keep animals as pets, before then we just hunted and ate animals. We would empathize as much with those animals as cats did with mice.

This is not true.

We literally discovered a 32,000 year old burial site where a hunter put a mammoth bone in their deceased dogs mouth when they buried him.

https://www.boehringer-ingelheim.com/animal-health/our-respo...

That's not utilitarian, to give funerary care.

Another grave site in Germany from 14,000 years ago had a dog buried with a man and a woman, treating it as a family member.

We literally have had fur babies since before we had civilization.

Once you get there, there's far more evidence: ancient Greeks burying pets and writing inscriptions about how they loved them, dogs and baboons were kept as pets in ancient Egypt, and given names, which was a big deal in Egyptian religion, and wasn't done for utility animals at all.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#113

Post by epgui »

ang_cire wrote: post #112
Jensson wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> children like animals, want them as pets It was very recently evolution wise that humans started to keep animals as pets, before then we just hunted and ate animals. We would empathize as much with those animals as cats did with mice.

This is not true. We literally discovered a 32,000 year old burial site where a hunter put a mammoth bone in their deceased dogs mouth when they buried him . https://www.boehringer-ingelheim.com/animal-health/our-respo... That's not utilitarian, to give funerary care. Another grave site in Germany from 14,000 years ago had a dog buried with a man and a woman, treating it as a family member. We literally have had fur…

Yes, and in the evolutionary time scale of primates, that’s all very recent.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#114

Post by okasaki »

lolinder wrote: post #66

> Attributing consciousness to animals based on their responses was seen as a cardinal sin. The argument went that projecting human traits, feelings, and behaviours onto animals had no scientific basis and there was no way of testing what goes on in animals’ minds. What's always been funny to me about the scientific approach to animal consciousness/emotions/empathy is that in a perfectly rational world the default as…

> The only reason why animal consciousness has been controversial historically is a religious one

Fundamentally it's really "practical" issue. We want to use, abuse and kill animals and we make up justifications.

It won't change until the material conditions we live under change.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#117

Post by camel-cdr »

phito wrote: post #20
jschveibinz wrote: post #4

92 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]…

All conscioussness eventually die off.

What's that supposed to tell us?

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#118

Post by CuriouslyC »

jemmyw wrote: post #100
lolinder wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about the downvotes, I couldn't even downvote you if I wanted to because you replied to me. I'm operating on the assumption that evolution happened as Darwin described it. As another reply to you notes, darwinian evolution precludes sharp divides between species in favor of a gradual development of complexity over time. A believer in darwinian evolution should expect consciousness and emotions and other…

Not that I believe this, but there could be an intelligence cliff where you get to a certain level and suddenly consciousness and self awareness appear. That is a mechanism where gradual change could lead to stepped differences.

There could, but then you would have to explain why some permutations of matter create a new dimension of sensation which previously didn't exist, which then has the ability to reach back into the dimension of matter and exert will on it (are we opening a wormhole to an alternate reality of the soulbots or something??).

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#119

Post by BirAdam »

Jensson wrote: post #106
albertopv wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Apparently only a small minority of bumble bees can figure out how to pull a string to access a reward, but then other bees adopt the behavior by mimicry." Replace bumble bees with human beigns and "pull a string" with an engineering task and you'll find we are not so different. /sarcasm, but not too much, average human being is quite dumb, tbh.

> average human being is quite dumb Compared to what? Average human beings are geniuses compared to animals.

Well, I think that depends upon what is being measured. Is this general intelligence, or is this mastery of a single thing?

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#120

Post by slibhb »

lolinder wrote: post #66

> Attributing consciousness to animals based on their responses was seen as a cardinal sin. The argument went that projecting human traits, feelings, and behaviours onto animals had no scientific basis and there was no way of testing what goes on in animals’ minds. What's always been funny to me about the scientific approach to animal consciousness/emotions/empathy is that in a perfectly rational world the default as…

> The only reason why animal consciousness has been controversial historically is a religious one—the Bible has typically been read as placing humanity in a category of its own. And yet we see countless secular scientists clinging to that perspective when even a cursory glance at the evidence and a basic application of Occam's razor would suggest the opposite.

It's not just the Bible. It's virtually every religion and it's probably pre-religious. There's also no reason to assume that animals don't think the same way. It's probably the case that crows, for example, place themselves in a separate category than other animals. That's how they recognize each other, mate, etc.

I think most animals are conscious but a qualitative distinction between humans and animals is very reasonable. Animals didn't land on the moon or discover quantum mechanics. Whatever it is that allowed humans to accomplish things like that is a worthy basis of a distinction.

And are all animals conscious? Amoebas? Virions? Bacteria? I reject panpsychism as going against common sense; I think there probably are very simple (read: small) animals that aren't conscious.

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