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Are animals conscious? New research

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Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#201

Post by cupcakecommons »

taneq wrote: post #186
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…

Huh? You can absolutely have long in-depth discussions with a blackout drunk person about their current experiences. Are you claiming there’s some level of inebriation where you become a p-zombie? Of course, there’s also ’incoherently drunk’ which is getting closer to that.

I think there are levels of inebriation disable your ability to contextualize sensory experience within a self. I think it basically amounts to becoming a p-zombie with some caveats.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#202

Post by sitkack »

defrost wrote: post #28
erelong wrote: post #27

I think this ultimately becomes a religious discussion; even the article (wrongly in our view) calls Darwin "god-like" and suggests that belief in animals having consciousness is "heresy" (this perhaps borders on theological error, rather than heresy?) It is a long-standing religious belief that animals do not possess a rational immortal soul and neither do they possess the ability to choose good or evil but are inst…

Just for reference: > the article (wrongly in our view) calls Darwin "god-like" It does not. The exact quote is: Charles Darwin enjoys a near god-like status among scientists for his theory of evolution. It's an idiom that does NOT claim Darwin is like an actual god, it's also a statement that I disagree with as not all scientists consider Darwin to hold that status, a good number credit Wallace with the theory, with…

> Animals lack the "moral consciousness" and dignity that is unique to humans

This is a ridiculous statement! Step on a dog and apologize and it will understand, step on a dog and don't apologize and it will be angry. Animals definitely have a moral code.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#203

Post by anotherreaso »

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…

[flagged]

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#204

Post by etrautmann »

randomdata wrote: post #193
etrautmann wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way would be possible assume that animals are not conscious? It's such a bizarre question

Most philosophers have assumed that animals are conscious. Science, however, cannot assume – fundamentally. This comes from the science side of life.

I'm a neuroscientist who used to work with animals, and while I didn't focus on consciousness, I don't think it's a reasonable scientific perspective to start from the assumption that animals don't and require proof that they do. Clearly there's a spectrum of intelligence across species, but plenty of animals appear to have theory of mind, complex emotions, object permanence, tool use, long term memory, spatial navigation, some idea of the self, etc. Humans are better at language, and math, and destroying the planet, but that doesn't explain why our feeling of consciousness wouldn't be substantially similar to a great ape or an Australian shepherd.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#205

Post by defrost »

etrautmann wrote: post #204
randomdata wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most philosophers have assumed that animals are conscious. Science, however, cannot assume – fundamentally. This comes from the science side of life.

I'm a neuroscientist who used to work with animals, and while I didn't focus on consciousness, I don't think it's a reasonable scientific perspective to start from the assumption that animals don't and require proof that they do. Clearly there's a spectrum of intelligence across species, but plenty of animals appear to have theory of mind, complex emotions, object permanence, tool use, long term memory, spatial navig…

Is that casting shade on Australians or on shepherds? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn1_vUe_Vws

Leonard Webb was an Australian shepherd, he grew out of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Webb_(academic)

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#206

Post by lolinder »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #199
lolinder wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, as a parent of three I'm not at all convinced that human infants lack object permanence, much less adult dogs. I've never observed anything in my infants that would indicate they lost track of something's existence, and I've seen plenty of things that suggest the opposite. See also the section of that article entitled "Contradicting evidence".

As a parent also, I think it simply varies from child to child. There is a point in time between vision developing and object permanence being learned where peek-a-boo is absolutely magic.

Peek-a-boo is a ton of fun with infants but I don't buy the explanation that it has to do with object permanence. At the same stage where peek-a-boo is hilarious my kids have also each been perfectly capable of watching me hide something and then going looking for it.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#207

Post by katbyte »

cupcakecommons wrote: post #159
timeon wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It’s not that your friend “woke up” it’s that his BAC dropped enough for his brain to start correctly forming memories again not that his consciousness “came back online”. It never went away just that no memories were formed during that time

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#208

Post by QuantumGood »

Are humans conscious? I have learned to note when they are not, when they are talking and unaware of their surroundings, and stand next to them and say to others "They're not conscious right now, they can't hear what I'm saying". You would think this would be incredibly rare, but it's more common than I ever expected. Awareness of surroundings does not equal consciousness, but "consciousness" measures can can assume things that are not always true.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#209

Post by lassoiat »

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…

This is why the concept of consciousness is largely nonsense.

The person that is blacked out is not unconscious. They just are not storing memories in order to remember the experience after the fact.

Can you see it? It is right in front of you that consciousness doesn't exist. It is right in your own example. It is a 21st century superstition and English language flaw. People cling to this idea the way people use to cling to the idea of a soul and some still do.

Like the soul, if you just get rid of the idea and word, nothing changes other than clarity in the language of what we are actually talking about instead of this ill-defined nonsense.

Do animals have a soul? It is the same question.

To come at it a different way. We can't be free of superstition and nonsense in 2024. There must be things we believe are true that simply aren't true and will look silly 300 years from now. What else do people believe in so admittedly in 2024 even though there is not just zero evidence for but we can't even define what we are talking about? It is prime suspect #1 to me when it comes to this category.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#210

Post by Jensson »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #144
Jensson wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Animal language is obviously on the same level as human laughter and cries and whimpers. Animals don't teach language to each other like humans do. But I don't see what that has to do with consciousness, to me animal language is much closer to consciousness than human language. Consciousness is all about emotions, not language, and animal language that humans also has is directly tied to emotional expression. Our ML…

> Animal language is obviously on the same level as human laughter and cries and whimpers. Animals don't teach language to each other like humans do. Obviously? There’s no reason to assume that. It is known that cetaceans acquire their language and dialects through social learning. It was very recently discovered that some whales even have names for each other. Their language may be different from ours, but it is not…

That is one example, I am talking about the animals humans think about when they think animal language: dogs, horses, cats etc.

Maybe some animals have language closer to humans, but it is far from the common definition for "animal language".

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