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Are animals conscious? New research

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Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#531

Post by RoyalHenOil »

diffxx wrote: post #248
vasilipupkin wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way you are phrasing your disagreement with prevailing consensus is just semantics. Ok, let’s say animals are not 0% conscious, let’s say a certain animal is 24% conscious. It’s reasonable to say that, in comparison to a human, this animal is not conscious. Clearly, my cat exhibits some awareness of what’s going on, it’s not totally mindless. But to call it conscious in the way that we apply this term to humans i…

Do you believe that all humans possess equal amounts of consciousness?

Not even the same human possesses equal amounts of consciousness!

There are times when I am particularly conscious because I am concentrating, there are times when I am less conscious because I am in a flow state, and there are times when I am essentially not conscious because I am snoozing. I was also much more conscious when I was a child (because I was more frequently presented with novel experiences and had a focused awareness of them) and much less conscious now as an adult (because most of my experiences are familiar, so I autopilot more easily).

But I certainly would not consider these to be categorically different from each other (except possibly being in a sleep state). I am simply constantly shifting around on the consciousness scale.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#532

Post by mikestew »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #494
mikestew wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly, I’ve found that pit bulls won’t wrap themselves around a tree. We’ve had several in our house that are/were walked daily, and we volunteer at a dog shelter where my wife and I walk other pit bulls on a regular basis. There are exceptions, but my experience is that the vast majority will not let anything (like a tree) between themselves and their handler if on leash. Just when I think “ah, ha! You’re going to d…

I am not an pet owner. Are you saying that other breeds do this, but pit bulls are exceptional in this manner? If yes, do you have any thoughts why?

Yup, other breeds won’t pay attention, and get a signpost between themselves and their handler, and now the leash is stuck. And then they can’t figure out how to undo it. Pit bulls don’t do that. Why? I have no idea. I mean, I suppose you can breed for anything, but seems like a slightly odd feature to breed for.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#533

Post by zzo38computer »

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.…

Of course that is a good question, although I would expect that with the most useful or most reasonable or best definition (which is itself not entirely clear, though), that the answer will probably be, yes, animals are conscious (although not always all the time; unconsciousness and partial consciousness can occur too).

Scientific experiments can detect specific things and specific details (if tested in an appropriate way), but this would be something specific rather than just being called "consciousness", is what I should think.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#534

Post by taneq »

sdenton4 wrote: post #507
taneq wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A p-zombie is something that looks and acts indistinguishably from a person, but doesn’t have an internal consciousness, ie. it provides sensory data, remembers past events, and exhibits behaviour, but it doesn’t “feel” or “experience” anything. A heavily sedated person who’s barely conscious is just a regular ol’ zombie.

Traditional* p-zombies presumably form and act on memories, as well - another strike against the 'drunk people are p-zombies' argument. (* - Not to be confused with the 'fast p-zombies' which were briefly popular in 90's existentialist cinema.)

Not if they're super drunk. ;) But yes.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#535

Post by Aerbil313 »

uxcolumbo wrote: post #21
Aerbil313 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is killing conscious stuff bad? I see absolutely no reason for that. And if you do, that won’t be normative, because you’re a fallible person just like me and there’s no reason for why I should live my life according to your reasoning instead of mine.

With conscious stuff I’m assuming you mean conscious beings. It is against the law to murder another human. In many countries it is also against the law to kill or torture your pet. Are you not living your life according to those agreed upon ‘reasoning’? As humanity evolves, the circle of compassion and common sense will expand to also include those conscious beings that we currently don’t deem worthy of compassion,…

It's important to notice that you are not providing any counter-argument here at all.

One can live his life one way due to practicality and believe in another. In fact, if this is any news, almost everyone disagree with their country's laws in at least some matters. This doesn't mean anything.

I believe that killing some conscious stuff is OK and others bad, but not because me or others feel bad or good about it or because the ones I agree to kill taste good. Because believe in a complete moral system that isn't based on another human's fallible reasoning or worse, feelings.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#536

Post by Aerbil313 »

uxcolumbo wrote: post #31
guilhas wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So our evolved consciousness will be superior to other animals that still eat other animals

Other animals don't raise billions of other animals to cram them into factory farms, deprive them of natural surroundings, pump them full of hormones and antibiotics and then send them off to slaughterhouses to turn them into burgers and other meat products. Animals live with nature. We don't. We created our own world on top of the natural world, which we are slowly destroying. We have the brains, skills and resource…

Please realize that you are not, in fact, providing a counter argument.

I agree that the modern livestock raising and slaughter practices are not good. But not because it just doesn't look wholesome. Neither surgical operations nor the sewage system look very wholesome.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#537

Post by cupcakecommons »

sdenton4 wrote: post #527
cupcakecommons wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would consider people that are blackout drunk to be p-zombies given this definition. The part of the blackout person other people interact with, their self, simply isn't there - but they are still animated (mostly) like other people with selves. If you are truly blackout drunk I don't think you experience the moment in a traditional sense (a moment from the perspective of a self). There might be an experience there…

The definition of blackout drunk is not remembering what happened. This /could/ simply be a failure to form lasting memories, rather than a loss of 'self-ness.' If we imagine a switch which put a person's long-term memory in read-only mode, would flipping that switch necessarily remove consciousness? Consider also that brains have different mechanisms for short and longterm memory; functionally, I think we're typical…

When my friend found himself walking around in a new place after a complete discontinuity in experience. Was this discontinuity entirely driven by the impairment of lasting memory formation? Seems possible to me. Problem is, I've never experienced this myself - only heard his story from a close friend (repeatedly) and similar stories from others. The stories could be unreliable - but they suggest that the self was offline and came back while the body was still performing complex externally awake actions. Seems p-zombie-like to me.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#538

Post by cupcakecommons »

sdenton4 wrote: post #507
taneq wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A p-zombie is something that looks and acts indistinguishably from a person, but doesn’t have an internal consciousness, ie. it provides sensory data, remembers past events, and exhibits behaviour, but it doesn’t “feel” or “experience” anything. A heavily sedated person who’s barely conscious is just a regular ol’ zombie.

Traditional* p-zombies presumably form and act on memories, as well - another strike against the 'drunk people are p-zombies' argument. (* - Not to be confused with the 'fast p-zombies' which were briefly popular in 90's existentialist cinema.)

That's fair. Being blackout drunk is more than just memory impairment though - significant parts of the brain unrelated to memory also have impaired function during drunkenness. I would also suggest that there is a level of impairment where the impaired person lacks a sense of self while still being animated and seemingly conscious. This is what makes me think a blackout drunk person seems like a p-zombie (albeit temporarily).

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#539

Post by etrautmann »

defrost wrote: post #205
etrautmann wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

apologies if I'm missing your implied /s tag, but in case you're serious, it's a dog breed.

Re: Are animals conscious? New research

#540

Post by matt-attack »

User23 wrote: post #349
defrost wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was impressed because I wouldn't have noticed those books being out of place. Orthogonal to any argument about conciousness in cats, the most probable explanation is your cat was aware of your scent freshly attached to a book that previously didn't carry it. In my experience cats are acutely aware of scents, particularly known and especially unknown scents in new places. Had you been an unknown cat the chances ar…

This reminds me of Feynman’s famous essay about the rat mazes and how the rats used all kinds of unexpected cues to navigate like the sound of their feet in the floor and the position of the room lights.

Funny you should mention that Feynman story. Because probably more apropos is the story he talks about being able to identify which book on a shelf was recently manhandled - SOLELY BY THE SCENT. I kid you not it if you’re not familiar with that one but I distinctly recall that story from one of his books.
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