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Are animals conscious? New research

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Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#291

Post by NayamAmarshe »

deanCommie wrote: post #78
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 challenge is that part of an advanced human society is creating black-and-white lines in structures to promote peace and prosperity. For example, everything we associate with the magical age of 18 years old. "Adulthood", sexual consent, voting, drinking, smoking, conscription all begin on an arbitrary day and we take no consideration of the reality of the maturity of the person. (Not to mention that "maturity" is…

> I don't think I could give you a ethically consistent

That's what cognitive dissonance is. Giving one's senses (in this case the taste buds or the ego 'I' or the mind) more importance than something factual or apparent.

> I am not convinced about the rest of the animal kingdom.

If you take consciousness to mean intelligence, then sure. If you take consciousness to be separate from intelligence and senses, being the energy or force that brings forth the signs of what we call 'life', then I see no reason to believe that every single living entity has consciousness.

The only difference is in the type of body provided to that conscious living entity. Just like how some humans are born without sight, some without hearing, some without the ability to speak. It doesn't mean they're less conscious, they still are an observer observing things through their senses.

Unless and until one can come up with a clear definition of consciousness (you don't need to, just read nyāya philosophy and you'll save thousands of years of efforts), they will not be able to get over their biases based on unintelligent thoughts and cognitive dissonance.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#292

Post by brotchie »

czl wrote: post #215
brotchie wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

> Consciousness is the individual experience of the "interiority" of a world model constructed in the brain. A better definition I think is to say an entity or system is conscious to the extent it’s world model is encompassing / “complete” and self-conscious when its world model includes itself and its own internal states. By this definition there are many continuous levels of consciousness and self-consciousness and…

Yeah, I do agree with this.

There must be some strong correlation there: where a better world-model allows you to be more intelligent. Especially if that world-model contains yourself (e.g. self-consciousness).

I do, however, fundamentally believe that our interior conscious experience IS our world model: e.g. There's some property of the information system we live in* such that any tightly integrated and time-coherent partition of information has an interior experience.

A good question: is it possible to build a system that has a highly sophisticated world model, but minimal intelligence, and vice versa?

I think that highly sophisticated world model / low intelligence is possible (and it would have an amazing interior experience).

A non-existent world model / high intelligence seems impossible, since you likely need a good world model to be able to generally reason.

* Our universe / some exterior reality that's running our universe simulation / something weirder we can't even conceive.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#293

Post by nikkwong »

rusticpenn wrote: post #286
nikkwong wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're over complicating it. When people generally talk about consciousness, they're talking about the phenomenology of awareness in the present moment. It's not really hard to define. It's difficult to establish whether or not an animal is conscious in the way that it's difficult to establish whether another person is conscious. The only evidence we have for consciousness is the fact that we personally exper…

As a former owner of several cats, I can say that the cats I had definitely had consciousness. They were able to read my emotions and react to it. They knew how to get what they wanted. One of them loved looking at a mirror while wiping its face (It had observed me doing it). I could go on.

Well—there's a thought experiment of something like a 'dark universe'—a universe devoid of conscious observers, with the absence of awareness and perception while the physical processes continue unabated just as ours does with all of the people walking around, doing business, living cosmopolitan lifestyles, etc. This is theoretically possible because humans are just agents with brains that bring in stimuli, process it, and react. I.e. consciousness is not a necessary part of the equation to realize the universe is currently realized. The only reason we know consciousness is part of the equation, is because we experience it ourselves.

So I don't know if the fact that your cats are agents that are reacting to stimuli is proof that they're conscious. Again, if we were an outside observer, like an alien, we would have no way to prove humans are conscious. The only reason we believe scientifically that other humans are conscious is because we personally perceive conscious, and since other humans have the same neurological structures that we do, we can posit that they experience the same thing. Philosophically though we can't 'prove' other people are conscious, which gets us back to the philosophical zombie thought experiment.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#294

Post by rodcon »

aspyct wrote: post #115

Sorry, why is this even a research? It's uh... pretty obvious they are conscious.

The study of consciousness (or sentience or whatever the appropriate term is) is definitely a valid field of research and one of science and philosophies all-time greatest mysteries. What exactly is the underlying mechanism and theory of consciousness? For example, A sound scientific theory of consciousness should be able to definitively answer the questions (and defend that answer):

  - Is an ant sentient? Why ? Why not? What is it aware of?
  - What about an amoeba? a bacteria? a virus? a cell? At what level does it stop?
  - What about the plant kingdom?
  - A rock? An atom? Why? Why not?
  - An LLM? A program? A computer?.. 
  - Will an AGI be sentient ?
The premise of the article itself is strange - maybe it was intended to stir up debate and controversy. Its one thing to say that study of consciousness lacks sound foundations. But implying the very notion that "animals are conscious" is somehow controversial? If animals aren't conscious whats the point of animal cruelty or animal welfare laws? I can take a power drill to my roomba but can i do the same to a cat or a dog? Most people would automatically say no. Its something most people intuitively understand (but maybe its learned behaviour - kids can be cruel until they learn empathy).

edit : Also the illy-dallying around the question of crustaceans seems shifty. Maybe the authors don't want to confront the moral question of boiling lobsters alive?

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#295

Post by nikkwong »

navane wrote: post #277
nikkwong wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're over complicating it. When people generally talk about consciousness, they're talking about the phenomenology of awareness in the present moment. It's not really hard to define. It's difficult to establish whether or not an animal is conscious in the way that it's difficult to establish whether another person is conscious. The only evidence we have for consciousness is the fact that we personally exper…

Do all people experience your version of consciousness, awareness in the present moment? Or is this overly represented among people debating whether animals have it? Some people don't have an inner monologue.

That's totally true and something I don't know the answer to. But it's interesting to ponder if the experience of consciousness is the same for each individual. We believe that consciousness is possibly an emergent phenomena of cognitive processing, but since there is a wide amount of heterogeneity in the makeup of the human mind, it isn't extraordinary to claim that this 'presence in the current moment' may have different flavors for different individuals.

The claim that certain individuals lack an inner monologue is a testament to this—I can't imagine what that would be like but that is certainly nothing like my conscious experience is. To me, the lack of an inner monologue sounds very much like the 'dark universe' in which the brain is doing all of the processing and there is no conscious observer to witness the unfolding. I'm sure people without a inner monologue are still conscious.. but—it's interesting to think about how different their experience may be like.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#296

Post by adrianN »

Vampiero wrote: post #290
King-Aaron wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once watched a spider in a web have to rapidly run around it's web and scoop up it's little baby spiders to escape a flame that was coming close to it. The reaction did not appear to be some kind of mechanical automated reaction - it very clearly had awareness of the danger, and an awareness of it's offspring, and made a coordinated effort to rescue them and move them away to safety. To me - as someone who is not a…

Optimize a creature for "survival" over billions of years and you get behavior like this. It doesn't require consciousness however. And it's quite hard to ask a spider whether it is conscious or not.

As the top comment in this thread pointed out, we don’t have a definition of consciousness that allows you to tell whether a spider has it or not. As far as I know, no observable behavior requires „consciousness“ for most layman definitions of the term.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#297

Post by nprateem »

nikkwong wrote: post #295
navane wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do all people experience your version of consciousness, awareness in the present moment? Or is this overly represented among people debating whether animals have it? Some people don't have an inner monologue.

That's totally true and something I don't know the answer to. But it's interesting to ponder if the experience of consciousness is the same for each individual. We believe that consciousness is possibly an emergent phenomena of cognitive processing, but since there is a wide amount of heterogeneity in the makeup of the human mind, it isn't extraordinary to claim that this 'presence in the current moment' may have dif…

Do you ever watch a movie/event or listen to music and notice you're not internally narrating what's happening because you're so engrossed in the action?

Voila, consciousness without the inner monologue.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#298

Post by biztos »

nikkwong wrote: post #258
moi2388 wrote: post #250

I’ve never understood these questions. “Are animals conscious?” Well, could you give me the definition of consciousness? No you can’t. So now you’re asking me both to define it and show if animals have it or not. Are animals aware of their surroundings? Yes. Are animals showing the behavioural signs of pain when you hurt them? Yes. Can animals direct attention? Yes. Can animals remember? Yes. Can animals learn? Yes.…

I think you're over complicating it. When people generally talk about consciousness, they're talking about the phenomenology of awareness in the present moment. It's not really hard to define. It's difficult to establish whether or not an animal is conscious in the way that it's difficult to establish whether another person is conscious. The only evidence we have for consciousness is the fact that we personally exper…

I recently learned that some people do not have an inner monologue.

This knowledge now affects my assumptions about consciousness and whether it’s really knowable.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#300

Post by [deleted] »

nikkwong wrote: post #258
moi2388 wrote: post #250

I’ve never understood these questions. “Are animals conscious?” Well, could you give me the definition of consciousness? No you can’t. So now you’re asking me both to define it and show if animals have it or not. Are animals aware of their surroundings? Yes. Are animals showing the behavioural signs of pain when you hurt them? Yes. Can animals direct attention? Yes. Can animals remember? Yes. Can animals learn? Yes.…

I think you're over complicating it. When people generally talk about consciousness, they're talking about the phenomenology of awareness in the present moment. It's not really hard to define. It's difficult to establish whether or not an animal is conscious in the way that it's difficult to establish whether another person is conscious. The only evidence we have for consciousness is the fact that we personally exper…

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