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Are animals conscious? New research

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Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#151

Post by dmbche »

orwin wrote: post #140
reso wrote: post #65

We need to ban the word "conscious" until people can agree on what it means. That being said, its obvious to me that many animals have similar emotional complexity to humans, and many outperform humans on some cognitive tasks. Humans have complex language, and that's about it, to separate us from other animals.

> We need to ban the word "conscious" until people can agree on what it means. In modern philosophy, it ultimately mean self-awareness, if i read Chalmers correctly. Which is hard to prove (we do have mirror tests that only some animal pass, which prove they do have self-awareness, but failure to understand it doesn't mean the animal isn't self-aware, as young children also sometime fail the mirror test when left alo…

I had understood it was nociception as it relates to a physical property

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nociception

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#152

Post by cupcakecommons »

Humans that are blackout drunk are emotional but non-conscious. They can carry on full conversations without a sense of being. Basically every animal exists in this state continuously. It's why human behavior is vastly different from animal behavior. Self-referential consciousness is as much of a curse as it is a blessing. It's spoken about in this way by basically every human religion for a reason. This article is misses the mark entirely. This kind of sloppy thinking about consciousness exists in part because it's incentivized by fiat economics that require replacing economization-resistant traditional human food staples (like meat) - with less expensive alternatives to hide economic mismanagement.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#153

Post by carlosjobim »

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…

Even if there was no Bible, it is clear as crystal to anybody who thinks about it that humans are in a category of our own. Any animal that could do even a thousandth of what people are capable of would be the most extraordinary animal.

It is also crystal clear that animals have consciousness. A person would have to be without much consciousness themselves to think otherwise, in my opinion.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#154

Post by lebuffon »

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…

Harari gave me some insights when he explained that when humans lived closer to nature, as hunter gatherers, we tended to see the continuum of life on earth. "God" was in everything. After the advent of agriculture and animal husbandry it became necessary to change our views in order to raise animals to slaughter and eat them.

Religions after that time separated humans from the rest of the animal kingdom and provided the justification we needed from a "higher power".

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#155

Post by gunapologist99 »

poikroequ wrote: post #111
squigz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even if I agree, I still have trouble seeing how simple photosensitive cells evolved into even a simplified view[0]. If you see what I mean.

0. https://www.aao.org/eye-health/anatomy/parts-of-eye

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#157

Post by timeon »

cupcakecommons wrote: post #148
Coffeewine wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely. Anyone who spends even a cursory amount of time with a companion animal such as a dog or cat can see that they are emotional beings, and the notion that you can be emotional without also being conscious seems to strain credulity.

Ever met a person who was blackout drunk? Easy example. They are very often not conscious but still emotional. You could easily imagine animals that exist in this state continuously without requiring chemical assistance. It makes sense on a neurological level as well. The more robust and evolutionarily older parts of the brain like the brain stem take much more ethanol to inhibit. The PFC is inhibited almost immediat…

> Easy example.

As currently drunk person, I admit that my senses are impaired. But doubting my consciousness makes me doubt yours. Yes there can be scale of drunkness so is different scale of thinking. Idea that one mammal has unrelated thinking/sensing from other mammals does not makes sense.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#158

Post by [deleted] »

timeon wrote: post #149
slibhb wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 an…

> Animals didn't land on the moon Isn't this conspiracy theory? One species of mammals actually did.

[deleted]

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#159

Post by cupcakecommons »

timeon wrote: post #157
cupcakecommons wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever met a person who was blackout drunk? Easy example. They are very often not conscious but still emotional. You could easily imagine animals that exist in this state continuously without requiring chemical assistance. It makes sense on a neurological level as well. The more robust and evolutionarily older parts of the brain like the brain stem take much more ethanol to inhibit. The PFC is inhibited almost immediat…

> Easy example. As currently drunk person, I admit that my senses are impaired. But doubting my consciousness makes me doubt yours. Yes there can be scale of drunkness so is different scale of thinking. Idea that one mammal has unrelated thinking/sensing from other mammals does not makes sense.

I'm talking about being extremely drunk. I have a friend that "woke up" walking in a park after a night of drinking. If he was already walking exactly who woke up? My friend the human-animal was walking already. My friend the human-consciousness woke up. It was his consciousness coming back online as the ethanol was metabolized in the parts of his brain that afforded his consciousness.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#160

Post by brotchie »

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…

Consciousness and intelligence are orthogonal concepts.

It's not the case that the more "intelligent" human is, the more "conscious" they are.

Intelligence is the ability to abstractly reason and adapt to novel stimulus.

Consciousness is the individual experience of the "interiority" of a world model constructed in the brain.

Given we're all in the same evolutionary line, there nothing to make me believe that a Dog doesn't have the same sharpness of interior experience vs. a human. Dogs have wildly different sensory modalities, species specific social behavior, and aren't as intelligent, but that wouldn't "dull" their conscious experience.

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