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Are animals conscious? New research

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Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#51

Post by delecti »

epgui wrote: post #42
jraph wrote: post #36

It doesn't take a genius to notice animals are conscious. Only to prove it and convince their human peers that this is the case. I guess.

To prove this would require being able to very clearly define consciousness, but we know that consciousness is not “a thing”— it’s rather “a collection of things”, and it’s not either there or not; rather it’s largely a question of degree. And I don’t just mean this as inter-species variation either: even if we only look at humans, humans exhibit the whole spectrum and/or patchwork of states of consciousness, both de…

I can't help but believe that people who think animals aren't conscious are starting from that assumption. If you start from the belief that there's some inherent "human-ness" (soul, etc), then nothing you see will convince you that animals have it too.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#53

Post by ang_cire »

epgui wrote: post #42
jraph wrote: post #36

It doesn't take a genius to notice animals are conscious. Only to prove it and convince their human peers that this is the case. I guess.

To prove this would require being able to very clearly define consciousness, but we know that consciousness is not “a thing”— it’s rather “a collection of things”, and it’s not either there or not; rather it’s largely a question of degree. And I don’t just mean this as inter-species variation either: even if we only look at humans, humans exhibit the whole spectrum and/or patchwork of states of consciousness, both de…

People out there with so little to feel good about they got to pretend animals don't think to feel better about themselves.

Anthropocentrism is a hell of a drug.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#54

Post by illuminant »

throwup238 wrote: post #38

> We now know that bees can count, recognise human faces and learn how to use tools. I was curious what that means in this context and found this research (co-authored by Prof Chittka mentioned in the article): https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou... 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…

Consciousness is the inflection upon the potential of existential being. Literally life technology animating the quantum sieve within our neurons. Consciousness isn't a complex deck of cards, it is the singularity inside the quantum sieve.

Intelligence is the mitigation of uncertainty. If it does not mitigate uncertainty it is not intelligence. All that other stuff about more or faster or sophisticated is something else. obviously we're describing a scalar domain. Your expectations overload and out leverage the simple truths.

This may be the moment to evaluate our questions.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#55

Post by lkdfjlkdfjlg »

jraph wrote: post #36

It doesn't take a genius to notice animals are conscious. Only to prove it and convince their human peers that this is the case. I guess.

How do you "prove" that other people are conscious?

This isn't a gotcha question: to me they're both obviously true. The question is what kind of evidence do you require, and why do people require different evidence for people vs other animals.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#56

Post by ang_cire »

self_awareness wrote: post #41

Once I had a dog and I watched him as he slept. One minute, he suddenly started moving the tips of his paws as if he were running somewhere. A moment later, he began to move his jaw as if he started to eat something. Right after that, a bit more paw movement, and he began to smack his tongue as if he were drinking something. Then again, he started moving his paws as if he ran off somewhere. So: he ran to the bowl of…

Dreaming in animals is a well researched and proven phenomenon.

https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/lifestyle/what-do-dogs-dre...

> One of the most famous of these dream experiments involved lab rats. Rats in the experiment spent all day running in a maze. Scientists monitored the brain activity of the rats in the maze and compared it to the brain activity of the rats during REM sleep. What they discovered was that the same areas of the rats’ brains lit up during REM sleep as when they were running the maze, suggesting that the rats were likely to be dreaming of the maze. By comparing the data, the researchers could figure out where exactly in the maze the rats were dreaming about.

There's more in that article on dogs specifically, including studies where they chemically disabled the pons, which is the part of the brain stem in vertebrate mammals (humans included) that stops us from acting out our dreams while asleep (and which is involved with disorders such as sleep walking and night terrors).

Just like you deduced, the dogs are just literally dreaming about all the stuff they usually do while awake.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#57

Post by mensetmanusman »

self_awareness wrote: post #41

Once I had a dog and I watched him as he slept. One minute, he suddenly started moving the tips of his paws as if he were running somewhere. A moment later, he began to move his jaw as if he started to eat something. Right after that, a bit more paw movement, and he began to smack his tongue as if he were drinking something. Then again, he started moving his paws as if he ran off somewhere. So: he ran to the bowl of…

Studies have been done where they deactivate the sleep paralysis chemistry from dogs and they literally run at full speed while dreaming. Pretty wild.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#58

Post by dumbo-octopus »

klyrs wrote: post #37

> Prof Chittka’s experiments showed that bees ... seemed to be able to play, rolling small wooden balls, which he says they appeared to enjoy as an activity. But can they understand the offside rule?

Call me when they not only understand the offside rule and the reasons for its introduction, but can provide a comprehensive summary of the ways it has contributed to the perception of soccer as a slow paced & uninteresting sport, and go on to advocate for its removal in favor of a more tactical distribution of players on the court and higher points per game, along with the various benefits those entail.

Now that'd be intelligence.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#59

Post by luxuryballs »

Does this mean self-awareness? I feel like this topic is sometimes mincing words, why would an animal not be conscious?

My computer knows exactly how much free memory it has, which is more than I know about my own capacity… why is it not considered conscious? Isn’t this ultimately all just inputs, outputs, and the ability to keep record of things changing over time?

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#60

Post by SoftTalker »

self_awareness wrote: post #41

Once I had a dog and I watched him as he slept. One minute, he suddenly started moving the tips of his paws as if he were running somewhere. A moment later, he began to move his jaw as if he started to eat something. Right after that, a bit more paw movement, and he began to smack his tongue as if he were drinking something. Then again, he started moving his paws as if he ran off somewhere. So: he ran to the bowl of…

I think few people could deny that animals can dream, or feel pain, or fear, or happiness, or change behavior in response to reward/punishment, or figure out how to use simple tools, or how to work together to hunt or find food, as all these things are trivially observable.

I don't think that animals have a higher-order awareness of these things in other creatures. A bird will eat an insect, or a cat will hunt and kill a bird without troubling itself over whether its prey is conscious. They just see it as food.

So maybe not so different from humans, after all!

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