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Are animals conscious? New research

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Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#441

Post by byproxy »

captainclam wrote: post #86
mgh2 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure that is not just mimicry of mechanisms left by evolution? Is like saying ChatGPT has conscience because it can talk or "think" like us...are we missing something here? I am not opposing your view, just trying to understand the logic - perplexed by downvotes on a simple question...

“Mimicry of mechanisms left by evolution” would be a much less parsimonious explanation than just having those mechanisms, i.e. Occam’s razor.

"Occam's razor" is not some natural law so I fail to understand how invoking it goes towards proving anything.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#442

Post by Vegenoid »

LawrenceKerr wrote: post #416
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.…

Can we deduce from your comment that you are in fact, not conscious? We all know what it's like to be conscious (I presume - my theory of mind is intact but may be flawed). It's obviously the quality of being, i.e. experiencing qualia. And since we as human beings are conscious, it stands to reason that there are probably other living beings (or matter in general) who are not. (Living) matter that doesn't experience…

> And since we as human beings are conscious, it stands to reason that there are probably other living beings (or matter in general) who are not.

I'm not following this line of reasoning. It seems be exactly opposite to panpsychism, which reasons "since I experience qualia, it stands to reason that everything experiences qualia, because I don't know of a state that does not result in qualia". I'm not a confident panpsychist, but that logic seems to make more sense. Unfortunately, it is just as unproveable as the opposite view, just like pretty much everything around qualia.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#443

Post by dahart »

npteljes wrote: post #314
dahart wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it widely believed? That statement seems bizarre to me, as pretty much all pediatricians have poked infants with needles and witnessed them start to cry, ever since needles were invented. Same goes for other medical procedures since long before needles, and for parents since forever.

Wouldn't be the wildest thing people, or medical professionals, believe. Even clearly displayed aversion to assumed-painful stimuli doesn't mean that people will believe that it's pain that the organism is feeling. Where this comes up pretty often is how crabs are often cooked, when cooks just chuck them alive into hot water. The other thing that people have to do is drawing lines, life's issues are otherwise overwhe…

You are rationalizing some assumptions and making overly broad generalizations about “people” and what they believe. Some people ignoring evidence doesn’t mean everyone does. The temporary misguided academic debate over pain in babies was specifically about the displayed aversion to painful stimuli.

I do not buy that a significant number of people nor practicing pediatricians ever thought babies can’t feel pain. This claim that it was “widely believed” babies didn’t feel pain is a narrative that prioritizes the opinions of a few academics, who were wrong, above the opinions of parents globally.

The same is true of the abstract idea of drawing lines. If you say that people drew lines and it lead to abuse, and therefore it’s wild what “people” believe, you are talking about the abusers who were wrong. The people on the other side of those lines didn’t have such wild beliefs, but the framing of your story is implicitly ignoring them. You’re choosing to focus on the “wild” beliefs of one group and make that the conclusion of your argument on human behavior. There’s another story you’re not telling where “people” did not have “wild” beliefs, and turned out to be right.

It’s not clear what “widely believed” means; what evidence there is for that claim, or who its referring to, or how many people it’s talking about. They don’t mention that it was widely believed by many others that babies do feel pain, nor how many of those people there were in comparison. Just because a few academics argued about it at conferences doesn’t mean it was actually believed by a significant number of real practicing doctors. Some academics have a very bad habit of thinking nothing exists outside of other recent academic papers they can reference in their own language.

BTW why does the Wikipedia link cite 1999? The paper arguing babies feel pain is from 1987. Digging further, the academic idea the babies didn’t feel pain seems to have originated in the 1940s with some academic papers that had methodology problems. So what about before that? If the assumption was babies did feel pain until then, summarizing this as being a belief that changed in 1999 is totally misleading. What about other countries? Was this temporarily incorrect belief about babies shared by doctors in Asia, Africa, and India?

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#444

Post by ok_dad »

jsz0 wrote: post #394

Here's one of the most simple practical examples that proves to me cats are conscious. When my cat sleeps in my bed occasionally I accidetanlly kick or bump into her in the dark. Instead of fleeing, hissing or attacking me she lets out a very unique earnest meow that clearly means 'hey I'm here' and she goes back to sleep like nothing happened. She clearly understands my motivation wasn't to harm her. She clearly und…

Cats are definitely conscious in my mind, but when I kick my cat at night she gets up and looks at me like I just beat her on purpose, then usually attacks my foot. I guess my cat is an asshole at night! Thankfully she’s cuddly and nice when I’m not disturbing her cat naps.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#445

Post by Vegenoid »

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…

> 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.

People often find this line much harder to draw after they have experienced qualia that is radically different from from what they have experienced before. The most common avenues for such an experience are psychedelics or deep meditation, and the experience is often called ego death.

There is much written on people's subjective experiences, but many people would say that they have experienced qualia which was not based on either awareness or the present moment. Of course, the experience still happened within a human brain, which is known to exhibit awareness of the present moment - but the subjective experience can feel as if neither of those concepts matter, or even exist, while still feeling very real.

These experiences often cause people to start thinking a lot more about the distinctions between consciousness, awareness, and qualia. I get that most people use 'awareness' to mean 'experiencing qualia', but I think most people using 'awareness' in that way have not experienced qualia that is bafflingly different from normal human qualia.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#446

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

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

The hilarious part here is that you claim that animals must be conscious, and that humans aren't special and that only the religious would dispute this. But the only reason that we think there is a special quality to human cognition is religious, and now you're wanting to extend that to animals. I see no evidence of human consciousness in my day to day activities, and I would be hard-pressed to describe any evidence I've ever stumbled across in my half-century life. You people keep looking for a soul, even if you're reluctant to use that word. It's bizarre. Have you ever been without a consciousness, such that you can compare the two states and confirm that there is this big difference? Can you deduce consciousness from first principles? Philosophers who believe in inane bullshit like consciousness need to pull their heads out of their own asses.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#448

Post by jfyi »

wruza wrote: post #414
InDubioProRubio wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ability to reflect non-heuristically on stimuli and not fall back into stress-reflex behaviour like schizophrenia. A animal that things god/the government/everyone is after them like a mice, is less concious then somebody able test that hypothesis and leave that fear filled fever dream. Its a scale though, and in my opinion, with considerable overlap, depending on situation and adaption.

Afaict, you are describing intelligence, not consciousness.

I agree.

I also agree with the article that "consciousness" is an overloaded term. I believe you and I would agree to it as something more akin to "sentience" but that is not the case for everyone.

I feel this topic always seems to unknowingly devolve into disagreements on first principals.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#449

Post by mc32 »

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 Bible does not explain the Chinese, Japanese, etc. take on consciousness. So it must be something other than religion guiding this thought.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#450

Post by zzo38computer »

bowsamic wrote: post #244
maxbond wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you, as an adult, had a relationship with an animal, like a cat or a dog? I was thinking about this once, why I believe my cat was conscious and was a person. I came to the conclusion that the relationship was a sort of epistemology, and that I knew my cat was a person, had a personality, and loved me because I understood the relationship. When my cat was passing, all they wanted to do was spend time with me. I…

People swear they have emotional relationships with their pet lizards, who totally lack the part of the brain that can feel emotions…

Scientists may have made mistakes in the past, what is "emotion" and if emotion is just one part of the brain (which lizards lack). Furthermore, having emotions is not necessarily same like humans emotions, anyways. My guess is probably lizards (and insects) do have emotions, but not same like humans emotions (although, what are the similarities and the differences, is a question that remains, and you would have to know what is the proper way to measure such a thing).

I am not saying that I am necessarily correct about any of this, but you should not be so certain them the other way either.

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