[HN Gopher] Are animals conscious? New research
___________________________________________________________________
Are animals conscious? New research
Author : boto3
Score : 229 points
Date : 2024-06-16 02:36 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| ilaksh wrote:
| This doesn't add up to me. The majority of scientists really
| thought that animals didn't feel or experience things? That can't
| be true for scientists that actually observed animals.
|
| I can see how there might some type of conflict with a dualist or
| religious view of the soul though. But not a scientific conflict.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| Decartes, for example, did actually believe that animals don't
| feel or experience things, that they're purely mechanism-like
| entities, with simplistic (I'd even say, "behaviouralistic" but
| that'd be a bit anachronic) stimulus-response built-in
| reactions -- they were not able to geniunely experience pain or
| distress, they could merely exhibit outwards signs of it,
| that's all.
|
| Fortunately, with computer-based AIs we _know for sure_ that
| the analogical beliefs are actually true, and there are no
| future developments that could possibly change that.
| sedan_baklazhan wrote:
| Yes. It is considered normal to make a statement that all
| animals don't have self-awareness. Because, well, you can't ask
| them and prove they do, right? Scientist are even afraid to
| make those statements as they would be ostracized by the
| scientific community. (I've read an actual elephant-studying
| scientist's book which told exactly that).
| npteljes wrote:
| >The majority of scientists really thought that animals didn't
| feel or experience things?
|
| I can buy it.
|
| "As recently as 1999, it was widely believed by medical
| professionals that babies could not feel pain until they were a
| year old, but today it is believed newborns and likely even
| fetuses beyond a certain age can experience pain"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_babies
| dahart wrote:
| 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.
| npteljes wrote:
| 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 overwhelming. Now, where they
| draw the lines differ widely. It's common to take external
| markers and make the separation according to that - a safer
| bet, given that others can see those markers as well, and
| so, maybe more readily validate the discrimination. Skin
| color, gender, age, signs of sickness, mental conditions
| are easy targets for this. In most cases, they are coupled
| with vulnerability as well, so the history of their abuses
| is as old as humanity itself - hence I don't think it's
| that wild that people think such a thing. Unfortunately
| they think the wildest things, myself included. It's
| actually quite scary to me.
| dahart wrote:
| 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?
| dorongrinstein wrote:
| Do people not have dogs? They have more emotional intelligence
| than most humans and love, fear, play, plan, think, reason and
| communicate well. This is true for many animals. I'd say that
| most animals are just like human in terms of consciousness but
| less advanced in thinking and communicating (without debating
| about whales, dolphins, octopuses etc.)
| jbotz wrote:
| Less advanced in _symbolic_ thinking and communicating. There
| are other forms of thinking (like fast tactical thinking, some
| predators are conceivably better at this than most humans) and
| communicating (emotional communication; if we could quantify
| that I would bet on elephants).
| mvid wrote:
| Orcas are better at communicating than humans are, their
| languages more directly resembles telepathy than the "encode
| thoughts into grunts that then need to be decoded" that we
| have. They are essentially beaming waveform pictures to each
| other
| kbrkbr wrote:
| That is a very narrow definition of better it seems.
| ben_w wrote:
| As all the discussion about AI has shown, what we even mean by
| intelligence _in humans_ is a huge and ongoing debate.
|
| IIRC, canine emotional intelligence has been tested, and dogs
| have the emotional intelligence of a 14 year old human.
|
| Just don't take my word for it as I've not been able to find an
| actual citation.
| ozim wrote:
| I have a dog and I know it is dreaming and having all kinds of
| emotions and wants. It can communicate with me in its own way
| and of course has needs for being close and attention. I got it
| from silly people who could not take care of it well and it was
| a lot of work to gain its trust so we could be real companions.
|
| But my dog for sure is not pondering mysteries of the universe
| and is most likely not aware it is going to die one day and is
| not going to have existential dread thinking about it.
|
| We are made from the same things and share a lot - but at the
| same time we are so much different that it cannot be just
| "humans are just the same as animals".
| jschveibinz wrote:
| 92 Billion animals are killed each year for food.[1] That doesn't
| include the 110 million that are killed each year for science.
| [2]
|
| These animals must not be conscious, or we would never do such a
| thing, right?
|
| Oh, and we keep over a billion pets in our homes and call them
| our friends. But they can't be conscious.
|
| The science must be flawed. /s
|
| [1] https://www.humanesociety.org/blog/more-animals-
| ever-922-bil...
|
| [2] https://spsp.org/news-center/character-context-
| blog/killing-...
|
| [3]
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| 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.
| uxcolumbo wrote:
| 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, since having a
| factory farmed burger on our plate is currently more
| important than reducing our carbon footprint, pollution,
| habitat destruction, deforestation or simply not inflicting
| pain and suffering on sentient beings.
| guilhas wrote:
| So our evolved consciousness will be superior to other
| animals that still eat other animals
| uxcolumbo wrote:
| 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 resources to maintain and
| improve our living standards without destroying the
| natural world. But we choose not to vote with our wallet.
|
| We in the Western world don't need to kill and eat
| animals anymore to survive. It's purely out of taste
| pleasure, habit and because 'we have always done it'.
|
| EDIT: watch this video to see the reality of industrial
| animal farming:
|
| http://www.nationearth.com/
| randomdata wrote:
| _> Other animals don 't raise billions of other animals
| to cram them into factory farms_
|
| Sure they do. For example, certain ants are known to keep
| livestock.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| Ants don't go on insect hunts to hoard dead bodies.
| randomdata wrote:
| Or write silly messages on an Internet forum.
| phito wrote:
| All conscioussness eventually die off.
| camel-cdr wrote:
| What's that supposed to tell us?
| searealist wrote:
| Would you prefer those animals never existed?
| jamil7 wrote:
| Yes, obviously.
| salesynerd wrote:
| I sometimes think that animistic belief - objects, places, and
| creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence - is more
| respectful of the ecosystem than some of the modern ones. Lots of
| ancient cultures, across the globe, tried to live in harmony with
| their natural environments. I wish that we can go back to that
| stage.
| chimpanzee wrote:
| I agree. You should check out "Becoming Animal" and "The Spell
| of the Sensuous", both by David Abram
| salesynerd wrote:
| Thanks for your suggestion; I'll read the two books.
| goatlover wrote:
| To what extent did they really, or was it more low impact for
| smaller tribal groups? There's plenty of examples of
| civilization with roads, waterways and larger buildings in the
| Americas prior to the Europeans. Same for most of the rest of
| the world. Humans cleared areas with fire, they damned rivers,
| and built cities.
| gen220 wrote:
| I also often think about this. "Animism" was a super efficient
| way to program a culture for respect towards nature. From that
| perspective it's a shame that it's gone.
|
| I'm hopeful that with all this research, we're sort of
| traversing a longer cultural arc that terminates at the same
| "symptoms" of animism (respect for nature, good stewardship of
| natural resources, following the precautionary principle).
| Those symptoms would now be supported by different load-bearing
| pillars, called "Environmental Science" and "Biology".
|
| I don't think we can go "back", but I think we can go
| "forwards" and still end up in a good (albeit, ironically, more
| or less the same) spot, where capital-S Science basically
| endorses most native land management practices. We've already
| made pretty good progress in the last generation or two.
| poikroequ wrote:
| The trouble I have with much of this discussion is it assumes
| many traits of animal behavior are indicative of consciousness.
| Bees play with balls, therefore consciousness? You can't just
| jump straight to that conclusion. There is so much our brains do
| that is subconscious, that we are not aware of. Heck, even signs
| of self awareness may not be indicative of consciousness.
| Arguably we are at the point that we could train a robot AI to
| recognize itself in the mirror.
|
| I'm in the camp that believes animals are conscious, I'm not
| arguing against that. But what I'm arguing is that the current
| body of evidence doesn't conclude anything. Until we have a
| better fundamental understanding of consciousness, I don't think
| we can make such conclusions merely from observing animal
| behavior. Who's to say that one behavior is evidence of
| consciousness and another behavior is not? What do we base that
| upon?
| jbotz wrote:
| I don't think it's really the case that "much of this
| discussion assumes" certain behaviors as being indicative of
| consciousness. Rather, it has been the case until recently that
| behaviorists pointed to various behaviors as being unique to
| humans, and jumped to the conclusion that this indicates that
| humans are conscious and other animals aren't. What has been
| happening recently is that one by one these behaviors have been
| show as _not_ being truly unique to humans. It is becoming more
| and more undeniable that even when humans are fairly unique in
| the quantity of some of these characteristics, none of them are
| completely absent in all other animals, and many can be found
| to some degree even in very simple animals.
| squigz wrote:
| I think we're going to realize soon that consciousness isn't
| really all that complex
| poikroequ wrote:
| I believe consciousness started off simple but evolved to
| become much more complex. Like how eyesight began with
| simple photosensitive cells.
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| Even if I agree, I still have trouble seeing how simple
| photosensitive cells evolved into even a simplified
| view[0]. If you see what I mean.
|
| 0. https://www.aao.org/eye-health/anatomy/parts-of-eye
| fjfaase wrote:
| It is indeed a hard question that one could also apply to
| humans. There is no way to know if someone else is conscious.
| It might be obvious for all people, but what about babies or
| people with advanced stages with dementia or certain types of
| brain damage? What about people with mental disabilities? (I
| have experienced some of these in family members.)
| andrepd wrote:
| Even for "normal" humans, the point is that consciousness is
| _by definition_ unobservable from the outside, so everyone
| else but you can be un-conscious and you would have no way of
| telling. It 's the p-zombies thought experiment.
| ben_w wrote:
| > so everyone else but you can be un-conscious and you
| would have no way of telling
|
| Indeed, though* all of us should be confident that there is
| _at least_ a second conscious being besides ourselves, the
| one who coined the term.
|
| * ignoring A J Ayer for a moment, even though "there is a
| thought now" would be the only form of consciousness that a
| current LLM could possibly have if it had any at all
| phito wrote:
| What if the subconscious is also conscious
| doodaddy wrote:
| While what you say about drawing conclusions is maybe true, it
| does not seem to have started with modern scientists. Rather,
| my takeaway from the article was that everyone is still playing
| by Descartes' rules: that is to conflate intelligence,
| language, and consciousness. So instead of trying to redefine
| that basis, researchers are simply going with it (however
| flawed it may be) and saying, "well, if language and
| intelligence are the only sure ways to detect consciousness,
| then here are a whole bunch of animals that exhibit
| intelligence, language, or both."
| ilaksh wrote:
| I don't think the word "conscious" is generally used in a way
| that is the least bit scientific. So that's the first problem.
|
| Here you combine "self-aware" with "awake" or "stream of
| experience" and possibly intelligence.
| ssijak wrote:
| I think a lot of people are conflating illusion of free will
| with consciousness.
| jerrygoyal wrote:
| consciousness is a spectrum. Humans are more conscious than
| animals.
| jbotz wrote:
| I agree but would word that as "...more conscious than _most_
| _other_ animals. "
|
| Humans are animals, and we don't have an agreed upon definition
| of consciousness that would allow us to quantify it so
| precisely that we can be sure of the way you worded it. Many of
| the smarter animals may have just as much (but somewhat
| different) consciousness as humans, and you we can definitely
| come up with a reasonable definition of consciousness under
| which some animals may have more of it. For example, if one of
| the major measurable dimensions of consciousness involves
| spacial awareness (and it might, as it helps delimiting self
| from other) then cetaceans could easily have more of it.
| jerrygoyal wrote:
| Some animals have better senses than humans (as you pointed
| out) but that doesn't make them more conscious than us. Maybe
| 2 aspects to measure degree of consciousness is intelligence
| and metacognition.
| kbrkbr wrote:
| Speaking about this topic is already hard. It's not like the
| words needed can be learned in observing the world. There is a
| lot of reflection going on to sharpen their meaning to the nuance
| that's needed for serious discussion.
|
| Conscious, self-aware, sentient, thinking, to name just a few,
| mean quite different things - not only in themselves, but also
| per philosophical school of thinking their connections and
| subdivisions are different.
|
| Plenty of room for misunderstanding...
|
| I think it was Augustinus who said about time "when no one asks
| me I know what it means". And then went on a journey to try to
| understand what it is that he knows.
| erelong wrote:
| 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 instead governed by
| instinct, which is why we don't put animals on trial for crimes
| as it is presumed they have no consciousness of what is right and
| wrong like humans do
|
| It might be worth reviewing many of the characteristics unique to
| humans to by way of contrast appreciate how different humans are
| from other creatures
|
| Animals lack the "moral consciousness" and dignity that is unique
| to humans which is why most people are comfortable even killing
| animals and eating them as food, while "cannibalism" is thought
| to be a barbaric immoral practice contrary to unique human
| dignity
|
| Articles like these in our view are being pushed possibly to
| degrade humans to the level of animals so as to justify animal-
| like immoral behavior
| defrost wrote:
| 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 holding it first, for
| having better evidence, and Darwin holding the home court
| advantage being in England and able to present in person to the
| Royal Society.
|
| > which is why we don't put animals on trial for crimes
|
| You may not but many animals have been put on trial for crimes
| throughout history.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_trial
|
| > Animals lack the "moral consciousness" and dignity that is
| unique to humans
|
| Your _opinion_ is noted .. although appears to have been
| eronously made as if a statement of _fact_ which is debated, as
| discussed in the article.
| sitkack wrote:
| > 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.
| dekhn wrote:
| If there is a holy temple of science, Darwin (along with quite
| a few others) would be worshipped.
|
| (if you walk into an old physics building where experiments of
| import have been done, there is often a vestibule filled with
| the old hardware. In some ways it feels like a holy temple of
| science containing relics....)
| guilhas wrote:
| Should we stop eating chicken, fish, and other small animals, in
| favour of bigger ones like cow? That would reduce farm animal
| suffering by more than 80%
|
| What about the meat alternative insects? Are they conscious? If
| so there are people investing millions. to kill gazillion lives a
| year
|
| Or are they definitely "inferior"?
|
| Do we even know what suffering and consciousness is?
|
| Why did nature evolved for animals to eat each other?
| 39896880 wrote:
| > Should we stop eating chicken, fish, and other small animals,
| in favour of bigger ones like cow? That would reduce farm
| animal suffering by more than 80%
|
| We should stop eating all animals.
|
| > Why did nature evolve for animals to eat each other?
|
| Because evolution "cares" only about gene propagation. The
| nourishment obtained from eating animals allows that.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| > Why did nature evolved for animals to eat each other?
|
| Animals are inherently different than Humans when it comes to
| food choices. They do not have a choice, we do and yet, being
| an 'intelligent' animal does not equal to being 'wise'. Humans
| will kill and eat anything and everything that their senses
| like and that only happens when you trade sense pleasure for
| intelligence.
| elicksaur wrote:
| Regardless of whether you agree with the proposition, this seems
| to be the conclusion society is trending toward.
|
| Personally, I fear that instead of treating animals and machines
| more like humans, we will end up treating humans more like we
| currently treat animals and machines.
| jraph wrote:
| 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.
| epgui wrote:
| 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
| developmentally and pathologically. And to some extent,
| physiologically too.
|
| I find it annoying how we're even entertaining the idea that
| animals wouldn't be conscious. Like what does that even mean?
|
| All these people who aren't convinced that animals are
| conscious... I'd really like to know what specific behaviour
| would convince them one way or another. Pick pretty much any
| behaviour, and you'll find animals (and even insects)
| displaying it.
| delecti wrote:
| 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.
| panarky wrote:
| Could you prove that another person is conscious? Could you
| prove that you are conscious?
| delecti wrote:
| I can prove that I am conscious, at least to my
| satisfaction, because I can think the thought "I am
| conscious". Outward behavior of other humans also proves
| to my satisfaction that they're conscious. And when
| interacting with animals, I see many of the same
| qualities that lead me to believe other people are
| conscious, with the difference largely being a matter of
| degree.
| epgui wrote:
| Before you can prove anything about consciousness, even
| "to your satisfaction" or in relation to yourself, you
| would need to propose a clear and unambiguous definition
| of it.
| ang_cire wrote:
| 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.
| klyrs wrote:
| My understanding of the history here is that scientific
| understanding of the nature of animals was based on
| folklore, attributing supernatural properties to animals
| and their behavior. Scientists agreed to throw all that
| out, and rightfully so, in preference for an evidence-based
| approach. And what we're seeing today, is that despite a
| couple centuries of assuming that animals are pure
| instinct-driven automatons, we have tons of evidence that
| they are individuals with intelligence, memory, feelings,
| preferences and even language. Where "they" spans the range
| from bees to whales.
|
| The assumptions of the recent centuries weren't so much
| anthropocentric, but a rejection of folklore as literal
| truth. While some are still attached to an anthropocentric
| worldview, that perspective seems dead among people who
| study animal behavior.
| epgui wrote:
| I have a few nits to pick here...
|
| > scientific understanding of the nature of animals was
| based on folklore
|
| Popular, pre- or proto- scientific understanding perhaps,
| but not scientific understanding per se.
|
| > despite a couple centuries of assuming that animals are
| pure instinct-driven automatons, we have tons of evidence
| that they are individuals with intelligence, memory,
| feelings, preferences and even language
|
| These things are not mutually exclusive. The words
| "intelligence", "memory", "feelings", "preferences" and
| "language" can refer to purely automatic/mechanical
| processes, even when we're speaking in reference to
| humans. There's no real reason why we need non-
| mechanistic magic to explain the human experience. The
| two ideas are compatible: animals are conscious, and
| humans are "just" really complex machines. It's all the
| same stuff, viewed from different lenses.
|
| > The assumptions of the recent centuries weren't so much
| anthropocentric
|
| They were, and they still are. Folklore itself is for the
| most part very anthropocentric.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| The human attitude towards our relationship with animals
| cannot be described as anything other than
| anthropocentric for the vast majority of people. Whether
| the origin of that attitude is due to the rejection of
| certain traditions assuming animals to be sacred or the
| adoption of traditions treating humans as sacred, it
| exists, and causes horrific mistreatment of animals on a
| global scale.
| epgui wrote:
| > the origin of that attitude
|
| I suspect the attitude is the default / most primitive
| one, because any other attitude requires higher-order
| cognitive processes that can abstract one's own
| experiences (which is the only real input one has) with
| the behaviours of entities that appear to be very
| different from oneself. In other words, the capacity for
| empathy is a "positive feature", in the sense that it is
| absent by default.
|
| The ability to make this kind of abstraction is a pretty
| sophisticated thing, and either requires time to evolve
| (as an instinct), and/or requires socialization/learning
| (as a partly or totally-intentional practice).
| DangitBobby wrote:
| True. It's also sophisticated to have the ego required to
| believe you should inherently have dominion over the
| entire planet and all animals on it. I don't think it's
| an idea most people would have adopted themselves without
| being born into a society formed by religions that
| perpetuate such a belief and it's consequences [1].
|
| As an aside, it's not clear to me how "having dominion"
| should justify such mistreatment, anyway.
|
| 1. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2
| 01:25-...
| epgui wrote:
| > It's also sophisticated to have the ego required to
| believe you should inherently have dominion over the
| entire planet and all animals on it.
|
| Is that really "sophisticated", or is that just what
| happens when an entity outcompetes all others for
| resource utilization by chance (ie.: in the context of
| ecology / evolutionary pressure)? This is basically how
| cancer happens, and yet I wouldn't call cancer cells more
| sophisticated than healthy ones. I call it dys-regulated.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Yeah, I think it's sophisticated. Our brains are
| hardwired for empathy, and people are able to mostly
| ignore their social/emotional programming through a
| system of beliefs that would be difficult to propagate
| without language.
| epgui wrote:
| You seem to think we're somehow "empathetic by default",
| but that's something I'd disagree with.
|
| Our primal instinct is one of tribalism and auto-
| centrism, but over long periods of time we've developed a
| (fragile) capacity to empathize with 1) other people that
| look like us, and 2) other people that don't look like
| us, and 3) perhaps animals. But we didn't always have
| this capacity, and we see it break down all the time.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| What makes you think we "didn't always have this
| capacity"? Or that other animals don't have it? We have
| it from a very young age, children like animals, want
| them as pets, and cry when they see them hurt or killed.
| We've had at the very least a desire to commune with
| animals for 100,000 years or we wouldn't have dogs in
| their current form.
| epgui wrote:
| I haven't claimed that animals don't have it.
|
| In general, empathy can be either an evolved behaviour, a
| learned behaviour, or both.
|
| In humans this is largely-but-probably-not-exclusively
| socialized behaviour. Most cases of (human and non-
| abused) feral children exhibit behaviour that is not
| particularly compatible with empathy.
|
| I shared my rationale for why we "haven't always had this
| capacity" a few comments up this thread, and you seemed
| to agree with it before immediately making the
| contradicting statement.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| If you think I'm contradicting myself, then I didn't know
| what "abstraction" was referring to in "sophisticated
| abstraction". (FWIW, it's pretty difficult to review the
| conversation and formulate good responses on mobile,
| since all I can see easily without switching back and
| forth is the comment I am replying to). I think it's
| "sophisticated" to have the language and philosophy
| required to follow a moral system that you prioritize
| over your own instincts--in this case, the prioritization
| of members of your species. I don't think it's
| "sophisticated" to not attempt to maximally exploit
| everything around me for even the most modest benefit to
| the deteriment of all else. Maybe I have too high an
| opinion of people. Maybe it's just a consequence of
| scale.
|
| I see empathy alone as being much more basic, requiring
| only a very low-level "theory of mind", likely arising
| from the type of evolutionary pressure that leads to
| social species. I would be surprised to learn that was a
| recent adaptation in our evolutionary line. Maybe most
| species have it "off by default", if you consider the
| "default" to be a constant state of duress and resource
| scarcity.
| Jensson wrote:
| > children like animals, want them as pets
|
| It was very recently evolution wise that humans started
| to keep animals as pets, before then we just hunted and
| ate animals. We would empathize as much with those
| animals as cats did with mice.
| ang_cire wrote:
| This is not true.
|
| We literally discovered a 32,000 year old burial site
| where a hunter _put a mammoth bone in their deceased dogs
| mouth when they buried him_.
|
| https://www.boehringer-ingelheim.com/animal-health/our-
| respo...
|
| That's not utilitarian, to give funerary care.
|
| Another grave site in Germany from 14,000 years ago had a
| dog buried with a man and a woman, treating it as a
| family member.
|
| We literally have had fur babies since before we had
| civilization.
|
| Once you get there, there's far more evidence: ancient
| Greeks burying pets and writing inscriptions about how
| they loved them, dogs and baboons were kept as pets in
| ancient Egypt, and given names, which was a big deal in
| Egyptian religion, and wasn't done for utility animals at
| all.
| epgui wrote:
| Yes, and in the evolutionary time scale of primates,
| that's all very recent.
| ang_cire wrote:
| Now you're backtracking. Those other primates weren't
| humans. In human history, pets are not recent by any
| measure.
|
| We have no evidence of a specific period of homo sapiens
| in which we know they did _not_ keep pets.
|
| Also, other animals have been observed keeping pets.
| epgui wrote:
| I'm not backtracking, you're simply not operating within
| the proper context boundary, or perhaps getting hung up
| on the least important[0] semantic imprecision in the
| thread[1]; regardless of whether we're talking about
| "human" or "primate" evolution (of the kind that is
| relevant to this discussion), it simply does not happen
| at these time scales. We're talking about evolution of
| _highly conserved_ behavioural traits, not about "the
| History of homo sapiens sapiens" stricto sensu.
|
| [0] It's the least important imprecision because in
| general, when we talk about the evolution of a species,
| we typically also consider common ancestors that don't
| necessarily have the same label as the modern species.
| When we speak of "human evolution", we're referring to
| proto-humans and human-primate common ancestors as well.
| Anyone would gloss over this in context.
|
| [1] Note also that the imprecision was someone else's,
| not mine.
| BirAdam wrote:
| Eh, plants too. Many plants react to the environments,
| recognize kin, seem to communicate with each other, etc
|
| People don't like it, just like many people don't like
| animals being aware.
|
| I had a fascinating theological discussion with a guy
| once. He was a farmer and he believed strongly that
| animals lack souls. I, on the other hand, believe that
| even amoeba have souls. I feel it's just a condition of
| being a living thing while he felt that this was unique
| to humankind. Obviously, he has an interest emotionally
| in viewing animals as soulless. Easier to slaughter them
| that way.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| > I find it annoying how we're even entertaining the idea
| that animals wouldn't be conscious. Like what does that even
| mean?
|
| it means that "science" has been infiltrated with grifters
| living off research grant gravy trains producing conjectures
| entirely obvious for hundreds of thousands of years...and
| reproduced by the previous round of grifters a handful of
| years earlier. i say that as someone who sees these faux
| revelations recur every few years. it's ridiculous...as if
| we're as a species not conscious of the pattern, ironically.
| epgui wrote:
| That's for the most part nonsense / a distorted perspective
| on what happens in science... and I say this as someone who
| used to be a biochemist.
| dheerajvs wrote:
| Especially when you consider humans are animals too.
| lkdfjlkdfjlg wrote:
| 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.
| croes wrote:
| Do they?
|
| It's easier to test humans than other animals because it's
| easier to communicate.
| copirate wrote:
| > How do you "prove" that other people are conscious?
|
| For sentience scientists mainly look at behavioral cues:
|
| > For example, "if a dog with an injured paw whimpers, licks
| the wound, limps, lowers pressure on the paw while walking,
| learns to avoid the place where the injury happened and seeks
| out analgesics when offered, we have reasonable grounds to
| assume that the dog is indeed experiencing something
| unpleasant." Avoiding painful stimuli unless the reward is
| significant can also provide evidence that pain avoidance is
| not merely an unconscious reflex (similarly to how humans
| "can choose to press a hot door handle to escape a burning
| building").
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience#Indicators_of_sentie.
| ..
| lkdfjlkdfjlg wrote:
| Exactly. All of that is reasonable and the behavior
| described are obviously present as anyone who's ever had a
| dog would tell. So I don't understand why "are animals
| conscious" is being debated at this point.
| npteljes wrote:
| I mean, same with gravity, right? In ascending order of
| complexity, noticing gravity, using gravity for benefit, and
| explaining gravity are orders of magnitude different.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| For a while, science didn't admit to a female orgasm, either.
| There was "no evidence" in the sense that no one had bothered
| to perform scientific observation and collect data. There was
| common sense, and reasonable assumption, but no studies. Then
| there were studies.
|
| Common sense tells you and I that animals are conscious to some
| degree. But as there is no current scientific definition of
| what the system of consciousness actually is (and I'm
| speculatively calling it a system) it's difficult to say
| animals have it through observation. We know they respond to
| anesthetics just like we do. We know anesthesia can shut off
| consciousness, so there's some physicality to whatever
| consciousness is. We just don't have a classification for it
| yet.
| newzisforsukas wrote:
| > science didn't admit to a female orgasm, either
|
| Science doesn't admit anything. It is a methodology that is
| practiced.
| greenavocado wrote:
| Apparently someone in the NIH disagrees since they actually
| performed the sandfly experiment on beagles.
| klyrs wrote:
| > 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?
| kaycey2022 wrote:
| Neither do most people. Which implies ...
| klyrs wrote:
| ... we won't need to understand the rules, we'll just yell at
| the referees whether it's bees or humans handling the ball?
| unclenoriega wrote:
| They said "intelligent", not "superintelligent".
| dumbo-octopus wrote:
| 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.
| qingcharles wrote:
| I heard a rumor from a guy on Twitter that GPT5 can explain
| it...
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> 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 mimicry. IMO I think we're doomed to move
| the goalposts on intelligence for a while, like with the
| statistical abilities of LLMs to manipulate language and insects'
| ability to use tools. Moravec's paradox keeps rearing it's ugly
| head as more and more complex systems turn out to be relatively
| easy compared to basic cognition (the system that keeps them
| flying and identifies threats, flowers, etc.).
|
| It'd take a lot more to convince me that bumble bees are
| conscious just because of the their brains' simplicity compared
| to humans or other animals that appear more intelligent like
| pigs, corvids, octopuses, etc. I'm not categorically against such
| a possibility, but I think the bar for recognizing intelligence
| in general has been set too low.
|
| This sidesteps the main problem anyway: What is consciousness? I
| don't think we're any closer to rigorously defining that anymore
| than intelligence.
| albertopv wrote:
| "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 mimicry."
|
| Replace bumble bees with human beigns and "pull a string" with
| an engineering task and you'll find we are not so different.
| /sarcasm, but not too much, average human being is quite dumb,
| tbh.
| Jensson wrote:
| > average human being is quite dumb
|
| Compared to what? Average human beings are geniuses compared
| to animals.
| BirAdam wrote:
| Well, I think that depends upon what is being measured. Is
| this general intelligence, or is this mastery of a single
| thing?
| vixen99 wrote:
| And compared to what manner of assessment of that genius?
| Animals had the Earth to themselves for millennia. Humans
| for a very short period. You judge!
| lkdfjlkdfjlg wrote:
| That's ok. Moving the goalposts (in good faith) is part of the
| proceed of understanding the question we're trying to answer.
| Some times you don't realize you don't understand the question
| until you start thinking about it.
| illuminant wrote:
| 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.
| apantel wrote:
| Even an LLM couldn't generate this.
| illuminant wrote:
| Information is the removal of uncertainty, if it does not
| remove uncertainty it is not information.
|
| Uncertainty is the soft synonym for entropy.
|
| Entropy is the distribution of potential over negative
| potential.
|
| It is not that Truth is impossible to find, it is that
| undeceiving the self is difficult.
|
| Undeceive yourself of your own words if you will find
| something you have not anticipated.
| maxbond wrote:
| What about if I think I know something and then realize I
| don't? Didn't I receive information that increased my
| uncertainty?
| illuminant wrote:
| When you do a math or logic problem you would intuitively
| use parentheses, allowing the problem to be split into
| scopes. Use parentheses in your mind and then regard
| where uncertainty is increased and where it is decreased.
|
| In nearly every circumstance, new information will
| generate MORE questions. To the untrained mind this may
| sound like more uncertainty, however in actuality you did
| not know what questions to ask until some preliminary
| uncertainty was resolved.
|
| For one scope, uncertainty is resolved, in doing so new
| domains are revealed.
|
| Uncertainty (or information for that matter) isn't a lump
| sum that grows or shrinks. One question is resolved
| revealing more separate and further uncertainties, which
| are very specific and reduced from chaotic infinity by
| some resolve . In this case, realizing you didn't
| actually know that "something" to begin with.
|
| The tendency to jumble these delicate distinctions into a
| single glob of unknowns obfuscates otherwise simple
| (however numerous) truths. And by "truth" I mean,
| anything consistent with existential reality.
| maxbond wrote:
| It's an interesting perspective. I understand that the
| language choices they made were strong and thus not for
| everyone, but I don't see a reason to be rude about it. If
| it didn't make any sense to you it's probably because you
| didn't find it worth your time to parse it out, or
| similarly that there was unfamiliar terminology you didn't
| judge it worth your time to look up. That's fine, but
| that's a choice you made, no sense blaming them for it.
| qarl wrote:
| > IMO I think we're doomed to move the goalposts on
| intelligence for a while
|
| I'm old enough to remember back when we thought language was
| the defining element of intelligence. Dogs can't talk - dogs
| aren't intelligent.
|
| Now LLMs can talk, and we've shifted intelligence to mean
| animal intelligence - being able to predict the motion of a
| falling ball, wanting to protect your children, etc.
|
| Some people truly cannot tolerate the idea that our
| intelligence/existence isn't magical, so they'll desperately
| move it again and again and again... forever. Watch.
| goatlover wrote:
| There is some conflation between consciousness and
| intelligence going on. Consciousness is subjective
| experiences. Intelligence is cognitive ability. There isn't a
| necessary link between the two. We can say LLMs are
| intelligent but not conscious. We could say a lizard is
| conscious but not that intelligent.
| andoando wrote:
| I still feel like animal intelligence is completely
| downplayed.
|
| Dog's can learn new environments and tasks. The simple act of
| recognizing what a door is and how they work takes quite a
| bit of intelligence.
|
| As far as I can see, AI still can't make a robotic dog.
| sitkack wrote:
| Bees even play!
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000334722...
| zzo38computer wrote:
| > I think the bar for recognizing intelligence in general has
| been set too low.
|
| I think that the problem is not being too low, but being not
| very clearly defined, and by assuming that you can just be
| quantified by numbers; I think that intelligence (and
| consciousness) cannot be properly quantified by numbers.
|
| > What is consciousness? I don't think we're any closer to
| rigorously defining that anymore than intelligence.
|
| It is a valid point. You will have to define such things
| clearly in order to know them scientifically, properly.
| dsego wrote:
| > 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 mimicry.
|
| Humans are the same, try teaching basic math equations to kids.
| When I was in school, most of us learned math by memorizing
| steps to solve the problem instead of understanding it. Then on
| the test if we found something we couldn't recognize, we
| wouldn't be able to solve it. There were usually only a couple
| of kids in the class who really practiced and understood the
| principles. I believe most humans usually learn patterns and
| rarely have genuine insight or grasp of the subject.
| solardev wrote:
| Even as an adult I don't really know how anything works, lol.
| I just copy whatever's on Stack or GPT, get paid in magical
| numbers, and exchange those numbers for food like my mom did.
| At least a bumblebee knows how to make flowers. When we want
| to grow something, we end up copying them...
| protonfish wrote:
| If a rigorous definition of consciousness existed, how would
| you be convinced that it was correct?
| Supermancho wrote:
| Same way I am convinced of relativity without having
| recognized experiencing the effects. Deduction and consistent
| observation. That's just me. Getting people to believe in
| things, is not a hard problem.
| self_awareness wrote:
| 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 food, ate, went over to
| the bowl of water, drank some water, and ran off again. A little
| while later, he woke up. That's when I invited him to eat. Since
| that time, I have never doubted either that animals have some
| kind of consciousness or that animals can dream.
| ang_cire wrote:
| 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.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Studies have been done where they deactivate the sleep
| paralysis chemistry from dogs and they literally run at full
| speed while dreaming. Pretty wild.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| 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!
| brandall10 wrote:
| When my late female pug was young she would regularly
| 'sleepwalk'. She'd stand up and start digging into the mattress
| for about 30 seconds, then collapse back to the bed and resume
| snoring. Almost every night for awhile, waking us up in the
| process.
|
| Once I coo'ed to her while doing this and she snapped awake,
| jumped backwards a few inches with this freaked out look on her
| face.
| lxgr wrote:
| > An early effort came in the 17th century, by the French
| philosopher Rene Descartes who said: "I think therefore I am." He
| added that "language is the only certain sign of thought hidden
| in a body".
|
| That line of reasoning is exactly how some people can consider
| LLMs conscious, yet seriously doubt whether any animals are.
| ajuc wrote:
| Obviously they are. If consciousness even means anything.
|
| They have theory of mind:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saRsq9pe9Hc
| workingdog wrote:
| If they weren't conscious, then their love for us would be
| meaningless.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Meaning is something you create for yourself.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Sometimes... believing is all we have.
| luxuryballs wrote:
| 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?
| reso wrote:
| We need to ban the word "conscious" until people can agree on
| what it means.
|
| That being said, its obvious to me that many animals have similar
| emotional complexity to humans, and many outperform humans on
| some cognitive tasks.
|
| Humans have complex language, and that's about it, to separate us
| from other animals.
| goatlover wrote:
| There is a philosophical definition. Our sensations which make
| up perception, dreams, imagination. Or subjective experience.
| orwin wrote:
| > We need to ban the word "conscious" until people can agree on
| what it means.
|
| In modern philosophy, it ultimately mean self-awareness, if i
| read Chalmers correctly. Which is hard to prove (we do have
| mirror tests that only some animal pass, which prove they do
| have self-awareness, but failure to understand it doesn't mean
| the animal isn't self-aware, as young children also sometime
| fail the mirror test when left alone in front of it).
| dmbche wrote:
| I had understood it was nociception as it relates to a
| physical property
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nociception
| lolinder wrote:
| > 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 assumption would be that animals and
| humans exist along a spectrum and there isn't a sharp cliff where
| humans are 100% conscious and empathetic but dogs are 0%. The
| claim that humans are categorically different than other animals
| is the extraordinary one, not the claim that we are made of
| mostly the same stuff.
|
| The only reason why animal consciousness has been controversial
| historically is a religious one--the Bible has typically been
| read as placing humanity in a category of its own. And yet we see
| countless secular scientists clinging to that perspective when
| even a cursory glance at the evidence and a basic application of
| Occam's razor would suggest the opposite.
| mgh2 wrote:
| > a cursory glance at the evidence and a basic application of
| Occam's razor would suggest the opposite.
|
| Care to elaborate/expand?
|
| PS: Being downvoted for a simple question shows how biased
| (sometimes toxic) HN can become...
| lolinder wrote:
| The evidence: animals exhibit numerous behaviors that
| resemble our emotional responses in various ways. Anyone who
| has ever had a pet dog or a cat will have countless
| anecdotes.
|
| The explanation with the fewest moving parts is that our
| brain and hormonal systems look an awful lot like the brain
| and hormonal systems of a cat or a dog and therefore the
| simplest explanation is that cats and dogs have emotions and
| thought patterns that resemble ours in very meaningful ways.
|
| The actual scientific explanations that people tend to put
| forward (as discussed in TFA) revolve around us projecting
| our own thoughts and emotions onto the animals. To me that
| seems substantially less rational than just believing that
| similar neurological structures produce similar neurological
| results.
| mgh2 wrote:
| 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...
| lolinder wrote:
| I'm not sure about the downvotes, I couldn't even
| downvote you if I wanted to because you replied to me.
|
| I'm operating on the assumption that evolution happened
| as Darwin described it. As another reply to you notes,
| darwinian evolution precludes sharp divides between
| species in favor of a gradual development of complexity
| over time. A believer in darwinian evolution should
| expect consciousness and emotions and other mental
| processes to manifest on a continuum, which means that
| the question of animal consciousness should be about as
| controversial as the question of our own consciousness
| (which is definitely an open topic of philosophical
| debate but is also impossible to solved with an
| experiment).
| jemmyw wrote:
| Not that I believe this, but there could be an
| intelligence cliff where you get to a certain level and
| suddenly consciousness and self awareness appear. That is
| a mechanism where gradual change could lead to stepped
| differences.
| lolinder wrote:
| Right, but barring evidence against the simpler model we
| should prefer it to a more complex one.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| There could, but then you would have to explain why some
| permutations of matter create a new dimension of
| sensation which previously didn't exist, which then has
| the ability to reach back into the dimension of matter
| and exert will on it (are we opening a wormhole to an
| alternate reality of the soulbots or something??).
| jemmyw wrote:
| I'll reiterate that I don't believe it to be the case
| that animals with smaller brains are not self-aware, but
| wanted to counter that it HAS to be a smooth gradient of
| level of consciousness between simpler and more complex
| brains. It can be stepped.
|
| However, if it were the case, you don't need to explain
| it, only observe it. For example, I think we can say from
| observation that there needs to be a minimal complexity.
| n-neurons cannot be self aware and n+1 can. I'm sure it's
| not just the number, but you get the point. The gradient
| of self-awareness need not start at the gradient of
| intelligence, nor need it have the same slope.
|
| I don't believe in non-physical explanations. We don't
| know the mechanism though, so we do actually do need to
| explain why some permutations of matter, as you put it,
| (i.e. the permutation in brains) has this sense, and
| others (matter in rocks, matter in computers?) does not.
| Although I'd think process, rather than just arrangement.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| We have already enough evidence to assume that such cliff
| does not exist.
|
| I can recommend the book ,,How language began" by Daniel
| Everett, where he demonstrates convincingly that our path
| to language, culture and consciousness was not a single
| switch, but evolutionary process. Recent research of
| cetaceans shows that their language and culture may
| overlap in sophistication with our ancestors.
| captainclam wrote:
| "Mimicry of mechanisms left by evolution" would be a much
| less parsimonious explanation than just having those
| mechanisms, i.e. Occam's razor.
| byproxy wrote:
| "Occam's razor" is not some natural law so I fail to
| understand how invoking it goes towards proving anything.
| timeon wrote:
| It is still possible that it is just mimicry. But same
| for Homo sapiens.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Ever since Darwin, the scientific view has been descent with
| modification. We're all branches of the same phylogenetic
| tree, and many of those branches are very close to us, such
| as other mammals. We have topologically similar digestive,
| immune, circulatory, respiratory, nervous, and reproductive
| systems. While there are important differences between, say,
| the foods that a cat and a human can digest, the differences
| in how the overall system works are small compared to the
| similarities.
|
| Therefore, it's a reasonable starting guess that humans and
| closely-related animals would have many structural
| similarities in their mental experience, although with some
| differences. It tilts the balance towards needing evidence
| that other animals are _not_ conscious, rather than needing
| evidence that they are.
|
| And when we look for evidence, we see intelligence even in
| branches as far away from us as crows and octopuses,
| suggesting that maybe consciousness (which we guess might
| correlate with intelligence) has deep roots in that tree, or
| else emerges independently quite easily.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| Speaking of consciousness and tress:
|
| https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcs.
| 1...
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| There's definitely more going on with trees than we once
| thought, but I'm at least confident that wherever human
| consciousness comes from, it certainly must be tied to
| the nervous system. If we inherited consciousness from
| our ancestors, then the most distant common ancestor that
| we could possibly have inherited it from would be at most
| around the point where we branched from jellyfish. So if
| trees or other plants are conscious in their own way,
| then they also must have independently evolved it in
| their own way; it's not a trait that they share with us
| based on common heritage alone.
| deanCommie wrote:
| 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 entirely cultural and
| contextual. A harsher world (like one that most of humanity
| existed in for our entire history) causes earlier maturity. A
| gentler one (that we are obviously all trying to create) delays
| it.
|
| So with animals, I see the spectrum, and I see that we are
| seeking to set a line...somewhere. Some set it just after
| humans. Humans are special, and everyone else is fair game.
| Vegans also have a pretty clear line.
|
| Everything else, vegetarians included, are pretty "fuzzy". I'm
| an omnivore myself, but if you asked me for a concrete logical
| reason why my personal ethics allow me to eat pig but not dog,
| I don't think I could give you a ethically consistent one other
| than "pigs are delicious, and dogs are my friends".
|
| Personally, I do believe that the same way that our generation
| asked our grandparents how they could've been ok with the
| racial discrimination & segregation that was ubiquitous in
| their youth, I think my grandchildren will ask me the same
| about my consumption of meat.
|
| The reasons will likely be a mixture of climate impact (species
| of fish going extinct), and cost (because of the energy cost
| required to create pigs and cows). Society will form an ethical
| consensus about why it's not appropriate to eat animals to help
| reduce WW energy costs the same way that early people in the
| Levant found it helpful to create rules about not consuming
| pigs or shellfish (for sanitary reasons).
|
| And there'll be "scandals" about rich people that have secret
| animal farms similar to what we have today about finding out
| about billionaires in dubai basically having secret house
| slaves. (AKA, outrage, but no meaningful change)
|
| BTW from where I stand, it seems fairly reasonable to deduce
| that all mammals are in some way conscious/sentient, and have
| intelligence comparable to our own. Mammals play, mourn their
| dead, have a common signal that generally causes us to protect
| the young of all mammal species and find them cute.
|
| I also think that there is a strong case for a very unique type
| of intelligence and conscience in Cephalopods. I have
| personally taken a stance to not eat cephalopods. Because I
| think they are in greater danger of going extinct vs. mammals
| (since their stock counts are so invisible to humanity), and I
| have decided (subjectively) that consuming a distinct type of
| intelligence from my own constitutes a form of crime. I don't
| know if I can defend that in court though.
|
| I am not convinced about the rest of the animal kingdom.
| jamesmontalvo3 wrote:
| > I am not convinced about the rest of the animal kingdom.
|
| What about crows?
| carlosjobim wrote:
| > Not to mention that "maturity" is entirely cultural and
| contextual.
|
| I cannot agree with this. Maturity has a very clear meaning:
| it is when a human (or animal) has developed enough to be
| able to sexually reproduce. That people use the word wrongly
| in everyday conversation is something else.
|
| As for what you write about mammals, I completely agree. Just
| looking at them and interacting with them in real life and
| it's clear that they're our brothers.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| > 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 nyaya 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.
| Coffeewine wrote:
| 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.
| cupcakecommons wrote:
| 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 immediately - which can be credibly argued is part of
| why many humans drink alcohol.
| timeon wrote:
| > 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.
| cupcakecommons wrote:
| 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.
| p_j_w wrote:
| Did your friend actually wake up or did they start
| forming memories again?
| cupcakecommons wrote:
| Great question. I would guess he woke up and that this
| was subsequent to him forming memories again. Memory
| seems to be a requirement for the kind of self-
| referential conscious experience that appears to be
| basically unique to humans. An anesthetic that acts
| entirely on memory formation and paralyzes the body is in
| many ways the ideal anesthetic. It's not super unlikely
| this is how many anesthetics work to at least some
| degree. If you were administered such a perfect
| anesthetic it's likely that subjectively you'd experience
| a distrinct discontinuity in time. Even if you received
| surgery during that discontinuity, you wouldn't ever
| suffer from it - not even on some deep non-conscious
| level. There is no suffering in the now, suffering
| requires a self which requires memory.
| p_j_w wrote:
| >There is no suffering in the now, suffering requires a
| self which requires memory.
|
| If there's no suffering in the now, then how can one
| remember that one suffered?
| cupcakecommons wrote:
| I don't think there's a way define suffering without
| invoking contextualized pain and an entity that suffers
| (a self). A self is a complex phenomenon that has a bunch
| of additional requirements not least of which is the
| capacity for bridging multiple moments of sensory input
| that happen in the now.
|
| One can remember that one suffered because one can
| experience pain in the now and bridge that into a context
| where the self exists. Selfing is the trick of
| consciousness, it's not necessarily the natural state of
| all creatures with sensory equipment or memory - it's an
| additional trick that only a handful of creatures have.
| layla5alive wrote:
| You are so stunningly Dunning-Kruger wrong here.
| Neurotransmitters, cortisol and other stress hormones,
| protein expression, epigenetics, the gut microbiome, all
| of these and more can lastingly be affected by trauma
| which is not committed to long term memory.
|
| Nevermind the fact that even if it is forgotten, an awake
| mind will suffer greatly in the moment - pretending that
| suffering did not occur because it was forgotten is some
| next level self-deception.
| cupcakecommons wrote:
| What about what I said implied anything about various
| other systems like stress hormones not being lastingly be
| affected by trauma?
|
| I don't think most surgical patients are concerned with
| the kind of trauma their cells or gut microbiome sustain
| during surgery. In fact, if these systems recollected
| zero trauma it's doubtful the surgical outcome would be
| positive. When most people discuss suffering they are
| usually discussing the suffering of their selves. The
| self requires coordinated effort from the brain. When
| surgery occurs, it could be well argued you would want to
| use the least anesthesia necessary to avoid the kind of
| suffering the patient wants to avoid.
|
| What are you actually on about? Why be purposefully
| insulting?
| cupcakecommons wrote:
| ah I see what I wrote. "not even on some deep non-
| conscious level" yeah that was sloppy nm.
| katbyte wrote:
| 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
| cupcakecommons wrote:
| I was trying to explain the relayed subjective experience
| there. The relayed subjective experience is a
| discontinuity occurring that's similar to waking up. The
| self is the thing that relays the experience to other
| people. You're probably right that consciousness in some
| expansive sense didn't go away, but that's not what I was
| referring to. I was referring to what it was like to be
| the part of my friend that relayed the story to me.
| prmoustache wrote:
| There is an event that made me reconsider driving by
| night when sleep deprived.
|
| I was driving back home after spending night at friend's
| place. It was around 4am, the whole family sleeping in
| the car. I didn't have any alcohol in my system because I
| always kept a 0 alcohol policy if I have to drive. I knew
| the trip well because I was driving it several times a
| months. A few km before reaching home I realized I had no
| recollection of having driven past a number of the usual
| landmarks. Yet I couldn't have possibly been completely
| asleep as the highway had a number of curves and I would
| have smashed the guardrails had I been totally
| unconscious.
|
| So my theory was that I was so tired that my brain wasn't
| recording anything but I had been conscious enough to
| actually follow the road.
|
| That was still frightening enough that the next time I
| just asked to bring inflatable mats and sleep at our
| friends living room before going home in the morning.
| psychoslave wrote:
| > That was still frightening enough that the next time I
| just asked to bring inflatable mats and sleep at our
| friends living room before going home in the morning.
|
| Excellent move for your family and yourself,
| congratulation.
| cupcakecommons wrote:
| There are flow states that seem like this. It can be
| pleasant and it can also be unnerving. Something about
| memory and the sense of self fall away and it leaves you
| with a discontinuity despite some part of you obviously
| carrying on the show while the self was away.
| cupcakecommons wrote:
| "Idea that one mammal has unrelated thinking/sensing from
| other mammals does not makes sense."
|
| Sure it does, you can see it all around you. It's so
| incredibly apparent that its actually possible to miss
| it. It's like a fish denying the existence of water.
| taneq wrote:
| 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.
| cupcakecommons wrote:
| 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.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| I think I'll title my memoir: "Drunk people are
| p-zombies, and other facts I learned on the Internet."
| cupcakecommons wrote:
| Is someone under twilight anesthesia or in a deep k-hole
| approaching the state of being a p-zombie? I would think
| so. Maybe I misunderstand the definition of p-zombie?
| lassoiat wrote:
| 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.
| czl wrote:
| I somewhat agree with you. The concept of consciousness
| needs rethinking. 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 these
| attributes are not binary all vs nothing. As for the soul
| a better definition for the soul of something is the
| information required to recreate it. If due to lossy
| compression or information corruption you can only
| recreate an approximation then _some fraction_ of the
| original soul has been lost.
| krzat wrote:
| There is a condition called aphantasia, in which people
| are unable to visualise things, but are perfectly capable
| of doing visual tasks, such as art.
|
| The question "is this animal conscious" is quite close to
| a question "does this person have aphantasia", and both
| seem to be perfectly valid and answerable.
| cupcakecommons wrote:
| I'm not fully grasping the experiment your proposing here
| cupcakecommons wrote:
| I think the self can come and go. I don't think a blacked
| out person is always unconscious, but they do seem to
| lack a subjective self while sometimes still being
| clinically awake and engaging in complex behavior. When
| the subjective self comes back online later, it makes
| understanding the self easier for them by creating
| contrast.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| > The only reason why animal consciousness has been
| controversial historically is a religious one
|
| In your sentence I would substitute ''religious'' with other
| more specific terms like ''Judeo-Christian'' since Jainism and
| Hinduism have been talking about a continuum of consciousness
| in all living things for almost 3,000 years: specifically
| described by them as the Atman and the Jiva.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%80tman_(Hinduism)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiva
| lolinder wrote:
| Yep, I meant that to be included, that's why the sentence
| ends with a reference to how people usually read the Bible.
|
| I'm a Christian myself but I definitely think that the Indian
| religions get animals and animal rights far more correct than
| we usually do.
| slibhb wrote:
| Sure but in Hinduism and Buddhism, humans are higher than
| animals. In general, only humans are capable of escaping
| samsara.
| lolinder wrote:
| Right, but that concept is itself very compatible with
| darwinian evolution. Humans are the current pinnacle of
| evolution when it comes to intelligence, but that doesn't
| mean everything else is entirely unintelligent.
| psychoslave wrote:
| When we are judge and party, it's easier to come with the
| scoring scale that put ourself on the top of the board.
|
| If intelligence definition is not imposed on us by nature
| itself, then we can only conclude that we are indeed
| great at producing evaluation scales that will flatter
| our egos. I guess many other animals are also very good
| at that game though.
|
| If you take "survival of the fittest" (species, not
| individuals, should I recall?) as the criteria, then we
| measurably can't bluster anymore. Many other species
| survived for far longer than we did, and maybe will
| outlast us after we finished to disturb so much the
| environment condition on which our lives depend.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains generally see intelligence as
| a continuum. Humans are at the top and are capable of
| escaping samsara but there is an idea of being able to fall
| down or up the continuum due to karma.
|
| It's not a coincidence that these are the religions that
| have created the largest food cultures around eating
| vegetarian and vegan.
| kshri24 wrote:
| I can't speak for Buddhism but you got Hinduism wrong.
| Hinduism explicitly allows all Jivas to attain Moksha.
| There is an entire song on this called "Gajendra Moksha"
| where Gajendra (the Elephant) is caught by Makara
| (crocodile) and is rescued by Lord Vishnu, who grants
| Gajendra Moksha from Samsara. Another example would be that
| of Jatayu where Lord Rama gives him the status of his
| father (King Dasharatha) and performs his final rites, and
| then granting him Moksha. There are innumerable tales of
| animals getting Moksha in Hindu scriptures. Just provided 2
| such instances.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| Yes, but don't forget the law of karma and how most of the
| humans come from animal bodies in the past life. Everybody
| has a chance to burn their karma as an animal with no free-
| will and end up with a human-birth where you do have a
| free-will, and intelligence to use that free-will.
| rodcon wrote:
| They are also considered conscious in Islam :
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animals_in_Islam
| robwwilliams wrote:
| No, it has been controversial for at least one other major
| reason discussed in the BBC article and by Anil Seth---the near
| equivalence made between language and consciousness that goes
| back to Descartes. Descartes viewed the body as machinery, the
| mind as imbued and linked in a nebulous way to the body, but
| distinct at some fundamental level.
|
| This split enabled the behaviorist tradition to dominate animal
| psychology for much of the 20th century.
| lolinder wrote:
| But that reason relies on a presupposition that human
| language is categorically different than animal language,
| which is also a claim that relies on presupposing a
| categorical distinction which must be disproven, rather than
| starting from the assumption that human and animal
| communication exists along an evolutionary spectrum.
|
| And how did we arrive at this categorical distinction
| becoming axiomatic? As you say, by way of Descartes, who was
| a devout Christian who famously tried to derive the existence
| of God from the fact of his own consciousness.
|
| Far from being a separate and distinct reason for downplaying
| animal consciousness, my sense is that animal language is
| downplayed precisely because it would imply consciousness,
| and we're working within a system that axiomatically believes
| animals are not conscious.
| Jensson wrote:
| 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 models
| managed to mimic human language before animal language,
| human language is more robotic.
|
| Sci-fi shows tend to also do this, robots talk with voices
| that lacks the animal components of humans and instead just
| do the human language. So the popular view is that animal
| language is the conscious parts and human language is the
| computational/intelligence part.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| > 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 just
| emotions.
|
| And then of course there are primates, elephants etc...
| Jensson wrote:
| 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".
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Are you saying that domestic animals don't have language,
| but wild animals might?
| LocalH wrote:
| Quite the human-centric view of the animal world you have
| there
| czl wrote:
| > Animals don't teach language to each other like humans
| do.
|
| They do not teach language like humans because they are
| not humans. However studies show that some animals do
| teach their young language.
|
| Many bird species, such as zebra finches and canaries,
| learn their songs through a process similar to human
| language acquisition. Juvenile birds listen to adult
| tutors and practice their songs, receiving feedback and
| adjusting their vocalizations accordingly.
|
| Dolphins and whales use complex vocalizations for
| communication. Mothers and other group members have been
| observed teaching calves specific calls and whistles,
| which are essential for social interactions and
| identification within pods.
|
| Meerkats exhibit teaching behaviors where older members
| demonstrate specific alarm calls and foraging techniques
| to pups. These calls convey different types of
| information, similar to vocabulary teaching in humans.
|
| ...
| andoando wrote:
| I don't see how language and consciousness are equivalent in
| any sense. Does someone who never learns to speak not
| conscious?
|
| I suppose we mean the ability to learn language.
| swader999 wrote:
| Hellen Keller is an interesting take on your question.
| https://scentofdawn.blogspot.com/2011/07/before-soul-dawn-
| he...
| fattegourmet wrote:
| >the near equivalence made between language and consciousness
| that goes back to Descartes
|
| more like Aristotle
| antisthenes wrote:
| > And yet we see countless secular scientists clinging to that
| perspective when even a cursory glance at the evidence and a
| basic application of Occam's razor would suggest the opposite.
|
| That's not a reason to distrust scientists, or science in
| general (although it does display that a fraction of
| "scientists" had very poor observation skills).
|
| It IS a reason to look for religious dogma, oust it whenever
| possible, and dismantle it systematically until it no longer
| exists.
| okasaki wrote:
| > The only reason why animal consciousness has been
| controversial historically is a religious one
|
| Fundamentally it's really "practical" issue. We want to use,
| abuse and kill animals and we make up justifications.
|
| It won't change until the material conditions we live under
| change.
| goatlover wrote:
| Why would material conditions matter? Hunters and gatherers
| used animals they hunted, and began domestication. And so has
| almost every society since. Even if it's to help plow their
| crops or to fend off wild animals and keep the vermin
| population in check.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| I think this is entirely it - and while we are still reliant
| on animals for meat and food production, they are no longer
| made to toil to anywhere near the degree they once were in
| the developed world, and so this has allowed a shift in our
| sensibilities.
|
| As you say, it's a practical issue. In much the same way as
| esteemed 19th century scientists argued that black people,
| brown people, Irish people, _women_ , were not truly people,
| as this made for an easier moral justification for ill-
| treatment, slavery and genocide, they argued that animals
| were also insensate simulacra, only giving the appearance of
| life - for again, it is harder to beat and enslave a living,
| feeling, thinking being than it is a dishwasher.
|
| Much of what we take as straightforward facts of reality are
| actually just old, bad ideas, and only in the cold light of
| the morning after do we start to see the error of our ways in
| the dark that came before.
| czl wrote:
| Good to remember these observations during war time when
| "your side" has de-humanized the "other side".
| slibhb wrote:
| > The only reason why animal consciousness has been
| controversial historically is a religious one--the Bible has
| typically been read as placing humanity in a category of its
| own. And yet we see countless secular scientists clinging to
| that perspective when even a cursory glance at the evidence and
| a basic application of Occam's razor would suggest the
| opposite.
|
| It's not just the Bible. It's virtually every religion and it's
| probably pre-religious. There's also no reason to assume that
| animals don't think the same way. It's probably the case that
| crows, for example, place themselves in a separate category
| than other animals. That's how they recognize each other, mate,
| etc.
|
| I think most animals are conscious but a qualitative
| distinction between humans and animals is very reasonable.
| Animals didn't land on the moon or discover quantum mechanics.
| Whatever it is that allowed humans to accomplish things like
| that is a worthy basis of a distinction.
|
| And are all animals conscious? Amoebas? Virions? Bacteria? I
| reject panpsychism as going against common sense; I think there
| probably are very simple (read: small) animals that aren't
| conscious.
| ben_w wrote:
| I'd guess at the continuum, too -- "going against common
| sense" is, unfortunately, a thing I have seen often enough of
| _true_ things to reach the conclusion that "common sense" as
| a phrase means only "inside the Overton window of the person
| who just said or wrote that".
|
| But it's a guess, it has to be, especially as we're not all
| agreed on what the thing even is in the first place:
|
| > About forty meanings attributed to the term consciousness
| can be identified and categorized based on functions and
| experiences. The prospects for reaching any single, agreed-
| upon, theory-independent definition of consciousness appear
| remote
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness#The_problem_of_
| d...
| lolinder wrote:
| > I reject panpsychism as going against common sense; I think
| there probably are very simple (read: small) animals that
| aren't conscious.
|
| Yes, I can definitely agree with this. I'm more reacting to
| the idea that it's somehow an unresolved scientific question
| whether dogs and cats and other mammals have emotions.
|
| There isn't a sufficiently large difference in neurology
| between humans and other mammals for me to believe that
| they're entirely unconscious machines while we're not.
|
| > I think most animals are conscious but a qualitative
| distinction between humans and animals is very reasonable.
| Animals didn't land on the moon or discover quantum
| mechanics. Whatever it is that allowed humans to accomplish
| things like that is a worthy basis of a distinction.
|
| Yes, it's a worthy basis of distinction, but is it a
| qualitative one or a quantitative one? Do we possess
| intelligence that is orders of magnitude higher than the next
| smartest mammals, or do we actually possess something that
| other mammals have none of?
|
| It's not clear to me that landing on the moon and discovering
| quantum mechanics require a different _kind_ of mental
| process than building a beaver dam or discovering a use for
| medicinal herbs. That feels more to me like the same sort of
| thing multiplied a thousand fold.
|
| And if it is the same sort of thing, then we're not
| projecting emotions onto our dogs, our dogs actually do have
| emotions of the same general sort that we do.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| Dogs definitely have Theory of Mind. There was a study done
| that placed a treat in a room where the dog was instructed
| not to eat it. A handler was in the room with the dog. When
| the lights were turned out, the dogs would eat the treat,
| because they knew that the human couldn't see in the dark.
| squigz wrote:
| Wouldn't another explanation be that the dog thought the
| human literally didn't exist?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_permanence
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| No, because the dog could smell and hear the human, just
| like they could smell the treat.
| squigz wrote:
| Haha, fair enough.
| solardev wrote:
| It's possible the human ceases to exist once the treat is
| present. The same thing happens to me when there's
| dessert next to the salad.
| lolinder wrote:
| 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".
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| 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.
| lolinder wrote:
| 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.
| jprete wrote:
| OT but maybe peekaboo works on the emotional tension and
| release of potential threats being revealed as friendly
| faces.
| newzisforsukas wrote:
| Or they tried the strategy in the past, and they had
| learned behavior that by eating things at night, they can
| get away with it. If you read the methods of this study,
| they used dogs that lived as pets [1].
|
| 1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/
| S00033...
| llamaimperative wrote:
| And how do you think humans acquire a theory of mind
| other than learning behaviors and figuring out what works
| and what doesn't?
| mannykannot wrote:
| The question is one of what has been learned. It seems
| possible that an animal could learn, from experience,
| that outcomes can be different depending on whether it is
| light or dark, without developing any intuition as to why
| that might be so.
|
| I'm all for the 'consciousness as a spectrum' view, but
| as TFA says, anyone looking for a eureka moment [in this
| matter] will be disappointed.
| stoperaticless wrote:
| But sadly they dont have theory of rope.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Hilarious comment. Without fail, my neighbor's dog wraps
| himself around the tree within 30 minutes of being
| outside. It's been 2 years now, and he just can't get the
| hang of it.
| zeekaran wrote:
| Cats do the same thing if you take them outside on a
| leash. My cat is dumb enough to get tangled, but smart
| enough to know that I will guide her in reverse every
| time.
| mikestew wrote:
| 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 do it...", they
| will course correct and go around to avoid trouble. It's
| the oddest thing. I have never come up with a plausible
| theory, but it sure is nice.
|
| (And it is not our dog handling, as our control groups
| are happy to wrap circles around a tree.)
| farhaven wrote:
| I mean, I'm pretty sure rats also have a theory of mind.
| My data point is exactly one of the little buggers who
| used to be my pet. Whenever he was running around my
| room, he'd peek around to see if I was looking at him
| before jumping on the couch. If he couldn't see me, he'd
| jump. If he could, he wouldn't.
| hnfong wrote:
| > It's not clear to me that landing on the moon and
| discovering quantum mechanics require a different kind of
| mental process than building a beaver dam or discovering a
| use for medicinal herbs.
|
| To the contrary, I _do_ think landing on the moon and QM
| requires a different kind of mental process than a beaver.
|
| However, the problem is that this implies that
| consciousness is a function of intelligence, and if only
| exceptional intelligence is sufficient evidence of
| consciousness, then would less intelligent people be
| considered having no consciousness, just like animals?
|
| If one entertains the additional argument in the form of
| "all humans are the same, and some are shown to be smart
| (spaceships, QM, etc), thus all humans are conscious", then
| the question becomes why don't we apply the logic to all
| animals/mammals/apes, since it's clear the biologically we
| are constructed with the same parts?
| shinycode wrote:
| My cat can't comprehend code written on my screen and the
| world that is internet. Maybe other being exists and our
| notion of intelligence would collapse the same way a cat
| can't possibly understand what internet is. Compared to
| them, would we be conscious beings ? Would they consider us
| conscious beings ?
| jaharios wrote:
| >My cat can't comprehend code written on my screen and
| the world that is internet.
|
| My grandma is the same.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| I reject panpsychism on the grounds of the Standard Model.
|
| There are no possible fields at the energy levels we've
| explored that could have an effect such as panpsychism claims
| (and fields at any other energy levels couldn't have such an
| effect). Sean Carroll published a paper on this, and it's
| worth a read, as is his draft response to Phillip Goff. [1],
| [2]
|
| [1] The Quantum Field Theory on Which the Everyday World
| Supervenes: https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.07884
|
| [2] Consciousness and the Laws of Physics:
| https://philarchive.org/archive/CARCAT-33
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Haven't read the first paper but the second is a fairly
| naive straw man argument. If anything, it's arguing against
| free will, which many panpsychists reject anyway. Free will
| or "outside forces" is not at all a prerequisite for
| panpsychism.
|
| Actually his paper is a (decent) argument _for_
| panpsychism: we know that we ourselves (as individuals) are
| conscious, and we know that there's nothing special at the
| physical level about our brain-stuff as compared to tree-
| stuff or rock-stuff or anything else. Particles in a brain
| are not somehow _specially_ imbued with consciousness
| "energy", yet they obviously have it. Ergo the reasonable
| prediction would be that other things have it too and it's
| much more a question of configuration that yields more or
| less of the emergent property of consciousness (much like
| different configurations and states of atoms can yield more
| or less magnetic force, conductivity, energy, temperature,
| etc) - all of which are only possible in certain
| configurations of energy/matter because all energy/matter
| itself has the properties required to yield those effects.
| _That_ is the panpsychist argument, and it has nothing to
| do with free will.
| timeon wrote:
| > Animals didn't land on the moon
|
| Isn't this conspiracy theory? One species of mammals actually
| did.
| BatFastard wrote:
| But animals(dogs) were first to go into orbit!
| czl wrote:
| The first animal in orbit was Laika, a Soviet space dog.
| She was launched aboard Sputnik 2 on November 3, 1957.
| The first animals in space were fruit flies, launched by
| the United States aboard a V-2 rocket on February 20,
| 1947.
| hnfong wrote:
| I wonder whether some large asteroid hit the earth and
| blasted some poor animal into space some millions of
| years ago...
| nick-of-time wrote:
| If an animal were imparted enough energy to be thrown
| into space, it would not get there intact.
| sitkack wrote:
| You just did it! You made the Tu Crowque fallacy.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Animals are definitely fully conscious in Buddhism
| rodcon wrote:
| Also in Islam :
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animals_in_Islam
| damsalor wrote:
| > Whatever it is that allowed humans to accomplish things
| like that is a worthy basis of a distinction.
|
| Probably due to walking upright and eating meat
| heikkilevanto wrote:
| > Animals didn't land on the moon or discover quantum
| mechanics
|
| For most of the history, neither did humans.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| > There's also no reason to assume that animals don't think
| the same way.
|
| Indeed. I wonder do they see us as special at all? It'd be
| pretty funny if they didn't
|
| > Animals didn't land on the moon or discover quantum
| mechanics
|
| Humans existed for hundreds of thousands of years before they
| did either of these things
| robofanatic wrote:
| > It's not just the Bible. It's virtually every religion and
| it's probably pre-religious. There's also no reason to assume
| that animals don't think the same way.
|
| except Hinduism.
| sgu999 wrote:
| I _think_ it's also the case for buddhism and taoism, so
| the shift may have happened somewhere in-between proto
| religions and abrahamic ones
| hughesjj wrote:
| And Jainism, and while I don't know much about the
| religions I'd imagine there's a ton of new world ones that
| don't treat animals as conscious
| robofanatic wrote:
| > Animals didn't land on the moon or discover quantum
| mechanics. Whatever it is that allowed humans to accomplish
| things like that is a worthy basis of a distinction.
|
| Not every human knows how to land on the moon or understands
| quantum mechanics, so how do you make the distinction?
| sgu999 wrote:
| > And are all animals conscious? Amoebas? Virions? Bacteria?
| I reject panpsychism as going against common sense; I think
| there probably are very simple (read: small) animals that
| aren't conscious.
|
| Probably worth mentioning Kristof Koch's book,
| "Consciousness" - who happens to be a Christian. He puts it
| as a gradual thing correlated to complexity, which makes it
| more likely that it "feels like something" to be a mycelium
| network or the internet than an mussel.
| ysavir wrote:
| > I think most animals are conscious but a qualitative
| distinction between humans and animals is very reasonable.
| Animals didn't land on the moon or discover quantum
| mechanics. Whatever it is that allowed humans to accomplish
| things like that is a worthy basis of a distinction.
|
| Is this not a very self-serving assertion, though? Pointing
| at things that we humans have accomplished and are proud of,
| and saying that sets us apart, or are in a sense
| categorically higher than other animals?
|
| Other animals may well look at this and look down at us for
| having to do all these things in order to feel accomplished.
| Octopuses may draw a qualitative distinction between them and
| us because we lack the means to alter our appearance--surely
| they're more physically manifest than other animals due to
| their color shifting abilities! Plants must belittle us for
| our inability to passively absorb energy from the sun.
|
| We could definitely say that our ability to get to the moon
| sets us apart. But in doing so, we also have to acknowledge
| each and every other trait that would set an animal species
| apart from the rest, and there's no shortage of those unique
| elements.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| "Man has always assumed that he is more intelligent than
| dolphins because he has achieved so much--the wheel, New
| York, wars and so on -- while all the dolphins had ever
| done was muck about in the water having a good time. But,
| conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were
| far more intelligent than man -- for precisely the same
| reasons."
|
| - Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.
| gadflyinyoureye wrote:
| I'm at a lost as to why I should care? Everything comes
| down to force. Those animals can opine all they want, but
| humans have the means, motive and opportunity to make them
| into tasty food. Their conscious or lack there of has no
| impact.
| ysavir wrote:
| I'm not sure what this is responding to. Can you explain
| how this relates to the parent and grandparent messages?
| meristohm wrote:
| Does having gone to the moon or formalized quantum mechanics
| make us better than other animals?
|
| What harm has our manner of animal had on the rest of life on
| earth thus far?
| mi3law wrote:
| What you explain here also explains the current problems in AGI
| research. _sigh_ Humans keep thinking that reality, like the
| sun once did, revolves around them.
| cupcakecommons wrote:
| Humans seem pretty categorically different to me based on their
| behavior alone.
| makk wrote:
| Agree. Humans, unlike other animals, film themselves mating.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Even if there was no Bible, it is clear as crystal to anybody
| who thinks about it that humans are in a category of our own.
| Any animal that could do even a thousandth of what people are
| capable of would be the most extraordinary animal.
|
| It is also crystal clear that animals have consciousness. A
| person would have to be without much consciousness themselves
| to think otherwise, in my opinion.
| maxbond wrote:
| 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 realized this was true not just of my cat, but with every
| human in my life, as well. How do I know my friends are
| people? How do I know they care for me? Because I have a
| relationship with them and I understand the relationship.
|
| That's not the sort of factual knowledge I can express and
| transfer to you. But it's real all the same.
| bowsamic wrote:
| People swear they have emotional relationships with their
| pet lizards, who totally lack the part of the brain that
| can feel emotions...
| maxbond wrote:
| Zhuangzi: See how the minnows come out and dart around as
| they please! That is what fish enjoy!
|
| Huizi: You're not a fish - how do you know what fish
| enjoy?
|
| Zhuangzi: You're not I, so how do you know that I don't
| know what fish enjoy?
| bowsamic wrote:
| Oh then demonstrate your supernatural abilities to know
| what a lizard is feeling to us
| maxbond wrote:
| I've no such ability (and never claimed to), but I'll
| share what I can.
|
| A few years ago I was standing on my balcony. I saw a
| lizard sunning itself on a rock, a story below. On
| impulse I made a shadow puppet of a bird, and that lizard
| took off running. I don't know what the emotional
| experience of a lizard is like, but I'm as certain as I
| am of anything that the lizard feared for it's life,
| whatever fear means to a lizard. Maybe fear isn't an
| emotion to a lizard, maybe it's more like a state of
| mind. I have no idea, that question is unanswerable.
|
| I've had mouse problems many times. I can tell you that
| mice have distinct personalities. I catch them with live
| traps and release them. Some of them leave immediately
| when the box opens. Others cower and must be coaxed out.
| They have favored places and such. If you study then and
| learn their habits, you can place traps very effectively.
|
| There was a mouse that would go behind my toaster and
| chew on stuff. The first time I walked over to see what
| the sound was, they threw themselves off the counter and
| tumbled down the spice rack. The second time they darted
| out and climbed down the spice rack. The third time, they
| came out at a relaxed pace, easy as can be, and
| gracefully climbed the power chord down to the floor.
| Presumably they learned I was all bark and no bite.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Why am I being flagged for comments that should not be
| flagged at all?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| From the site guidelines:
|
| > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't
| cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
|
| > Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including
| at the rest of the community.
|
| > Eschew flamebait.
|
| > Please don't post shallow dismissals...
|
| That's why that comment was flagged. (To me personally,
| your comment was harsh enough to be worthy of downvoting,
| though I'm not sure I would have flagged it.)
|
| Also from the guidelines:
|
| > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It
| never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
| bowsamic wrote:
| My response was completely fair and sincere and civil.
| You must have projected tone into it
| maxbond wrote:
| You probably wouldn't have been flagged if you'd said
| something like, "I remain skeptical. Could you
| demonstrate your ability to tell what lizards are
| thinking?" In my experience comments are usually flagged
| for tone rather than content.
|
| If my comment was overly provocative, I apologize. I was
| trying to get a laugh out of you. It's a passage from my
| favorite book. Based on past interactions, I thought that
| book fell into your area of interest, so I thought you
| may have read it and get a chuckle out of the reference.
| But perhaps that was overly familiar on my part.
| zzo38computer wrote:
| 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.
| lebuffon wrote:
| Harari gave me some insights when he explained that when humans
| lived closer to nature, as hunter gatherers, we tended to see
| the continuum of life on earth. "God" was in everything. After
| the advent of agriculture and animal husbandry it became
| necessary to change our views in order to raise animals to
| slaughter and eat them.
|
| Religions after that time separated humans from the rest of the
| animal kingdom and provided the justification we needed from a
| "higher power".
| agumonkey wrote:
| Do you know any other author discussing this topic ?
| lebuffon wrote:
| Sorry, no I do not.
| brotchie wrote:
| 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 doesn't have the same sharpness of
| interior experience vs. a human. Dogs have wildly different
| sensory modalities, species specific social behavior, and
| aren't as intelligent, but that wouldn't "dull" their conscious
| experience.
| kazinator wrote:
| > _It 's not the case that the more "intelligent" human is,
| the more "conscious" they are._
|
| Why not?
|
| > _Consciousness is the individual experience of the
| "interiority" of a world model constructed in the brain._
|
| The more complex and detailed the model, the more conscious.
| Why not?
| taneq wrote:
| Because that's not what consciousness _means_! Because it
| never means anything, because it's never defined in any
| useful way.
|
| 'What is it like to be like a HN thread?' This is just
| pushing the missing definition into 'to be' .
|
| (Metzinger's transparent self-model description is the
| closest I've read to something actually useful.)
| whodidntante wrote:
| Dogs can hear far better than people. They can see far
| better. They not only smell better, but they smell
| differently - two independent nostrils, with the ability to
| hold a smell across breaths - they smell in stereo and can
| sense past movements of animals by smell differential. They
| can also sense emotions, infer intent, and are very aware
| of, respond to, and participate in social interactions and
| hierarchies across species.
|
| Their sensory world is richer, deeper, and more complex
| than ours, and their ability to interact within that
| environment is, in many ways, quicker and more efficient
| than we are able to do in our environment.
|
| We obviously have far greater intellectual capability. And
| have created an environment where these capabilities are
| needed/required, one where dogs rely on us to survive.
|
| So, I would say that we are more conscious in some ways,
| dogs are more conscious in other ways.
| sethammons wrote:
| Consciousness is your mental model of your environment.
| Dogs have theirs and we have ours. That does leave the
| question on the scope of consciousness. More processing
| power equals more, expanded consciousness it would stand
| to reason.
| sameoldtune wrote:
| I do think that in a kind of way intelligence and
| "interiority" are related. I might have the same "amount" of
| consciousness as a worm but my ability to investigate my
| experience is (I think) undoubtedly greater.
|
| "A dog can miss his master, but he can't expect him to return
| on Wednesday"
| tzs wrote:
| > "A dog can miss his master, but he can't expect him to
| return on Wednesday"
|
| Wednesday might be pushing it, but I've seen dogs who
| expected their masters to return at specific times of the
| day.
| mrkstu wrote:
| Yep, have had cats and dogs that would wait at the door
| at specific times of day for my returning spouse.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachik%C5%8D
| czl wrote:
| > 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 these are not binary all vs nothing.
| brotchie wrote:
| 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.
| czl wrote:
| Intelligence can be defined as the ability to accurately
| predict the future consequences of one's actions. And the
| only way to make such predictions is by having an
| internal model of how the world works.
|
| Moreover, for social species that live and evolve in
| groups, like humans, this world-model must crucially
| include a model of oneself and other minds. We need to be
| able to predict how others will think and react to our
| own behaviors. This is what gives rise to self-
| consciousness and "theory of mind" - a world-model that
| is recursive and includes representations of itself.
|
| That said, while our conscious experience seems deeply
| linked to our world-model, the world-model likely
| encompasses much more than just conscious awareness. It
| runs in the background, guiding our reflexes, breathing,
| balance, and myriad other functions below the level of
| consciousness. It takes in raw sensory data and
| interprets it, and uses feelings and emotions as a
| communication channel to influence conscious thought.
|
| There are known critical developmental windows during
| which an animal's world-model is shaped by early sensory
| experiences and social interactions. If key stimuli are
| missing during these windows, the world-model may remain
| stunted in certain ways even if the missing stimuli are
| later provided. The animal may compensate through other
| means, but its overall intelligence - its ability to
| model and predict - will be constrained by the
| limitations of its world-model.
|
| So in that sense, a highly sophisticated but narrowly
| specialized world-model, as in a mathematical or musical
| savant, may produce an individual who is brilliant in one
| domain but quite limited in general intelligence.
|
| Whereas a broad but shallower world-model, as in many
| animals, can enable robust if limited intelligence that
| is well-adapted to the animal's ecological niche.
|
| Evolution tends to select for world-models and
| intelligence that are "just enough" for an animal's
| lifestyle and no more. The metabolic cost of excess
| intelligence makes it maladaptive. So we see each species
| with a world-model and associated intelligence that is
| tailored to its particular environment and survival
| needs.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| > Intelligence can be defined as the ability to
| accurately predict the future consequences of one's
| actions.
|
| That's not what is most essential to intelligence. What
| is most characteristic of intelligence is intentionality.
| From there, we can talk about inference, analysis, and so
| on, which presuppose intentionality. Whereas most animals
| maintain only a concrete image of the world they
| encounter, human beings can abstract from the concrete
| into the general and the universal, so the paradigmatic
| example of intelligence, as opposed to what may be
| considered analogues, is human intelligence.
|
| Predictability is effectively a question of practicality.
| Intelligence is not the ability to predict, but rather,
| intelligence entails that ability as a consequence of
| intentionality and reasoning (by sufficiently
| comprehending the nature of a thing, you can make
| predictions about how it will behave under certain
| conditions, something that goes beyond mere cargo cult
| statistics and enters the realm of reason, which is to
| say concern for causality).
| czl wrote:
| >What is most characteristic of intelligence is
| intentionality.
|
| Intentionality refers to the quality of being directed
| toward an objective or purpose. It involves conscious
| decision-making and goal-directed behavior. Given that
| insect have intentionally do you consider insects
| intelligent?
|
| While intentionality might motivate and guide our
| actions, the ability to foresee the results of these
| actions is what defines intelligent decision-making.
| Prediction requires a deep understanding of cause and
| effect, which is a hallmark of intelligence. When we
| predict, we infer potential outcomes based on our
| knowledge and reasoning. This process involves not just
| abstract thinking but also practical application.
| Accurate prediction involves the synthesis of various
| cognitive functions, including inference, analysis, and
| reasoning.
| paol wrote:
| If you enjoy fiction I urge you to read Blindsight by Peter
| Watts. One of the central concepts in the plot is "what if
| consciousness were unnecessary for intelligence"? Along the
| way it explores all sorts of angles on consciousness and
| cognition.
|
| Still ranks as one of the best SF works I've read this
| century.
| lordnacho wrote:
| > what if consciousness were unnecessary for intelligence
|
| Kind of interesting given we are currently in the midst of
| a revolution in artificial intelligence. From my playing
| with it, it seems something like ChatGPT is intelligent in
| the GP sense of "can abstract stuff and respond to new
| stimulus" but isn't conscious in the sense of having an
| interior.
| kazinator wrote:
| Projecting human traits, feelings and behaviors onto _other
| people_ has no scientific basis, because there is no way of
| testing what 's going on in their minds (assuming they even
| have minds).
|
| The dismissal of the idea that animals could be conscious is a
| form of solipsism.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| and Solipsism is nothing but egocentrism at the end of the
| day.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| > The only reason why animal consciousness has been
| controversial historically is a religious one--the Bible has
| typically been read as placing humanity in a category of its
| own.
|
| Did you just make this up? Because it's obviously not true. And
| you conflate two concerns, namely, "having consciousness" and
| "placing humanity in a category of its own".
|
| First, you don't see denial of consciousness in other animals
| in the ancient or medieval world. If anything, it is much more
| natural to conclude other animals are conscious based on
| observation than it is to deny consciousness. Even today, I
| don't know anyone who denies animals are conscious. Everyone
| treats their pets, for instance, as conscious beings, because
| they are. Now, people also anthropomorphize animals, sure, but
| there's a difference between the two degrees of attribution.
| Attributing consciousness is far more conservative than
| attributing human qualities in an equivocal way.
|
| Take Aristotle's _De Anima_ , for example, in which he analyzes
| the varieties of life according to the kind of "soul" each
| possesses, and such that each higher soul entails the powers of
| all the lower souls. The three kinds he identifies, ordered
| from lowest to highest, are the nutritive soul, characteristic
| of plants; the sensitive soul, characteristic of animals; and
| the rational soul, particular to human beings. Even here, we
| can see both a certain uniqueness to human beings alongside
| what you might call the consciousness of animals by virtue of
| the sensitive soul. What differentiates human beings from all
| the animals is not that they are conscious, but that they are
| rational.
|
| Second, where the Bible is concerned, I have no idea where you
| get the idea that it claims other animals lack consciousness.
| Consider just these two passages from the Old Testament:
|
| Genesis 9:2-3: "The fear and dread of you will fall on all the
| beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every
| creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in
| the sea [...]"
|
| Do you see any mention of rocks in this verse? Do things
| lacking consciousness live in fear?
|
| Proverbs 12:10: "The righteous care for the needs of their
| animals, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel."
|
| I _suppose_ you _could_ be kind to an unconscious living thing
| in the sense that can act for its objective good, but it seem a
| little strange to speak of animals in this way, but not plants,
| if animals are as unconscious as plants.
|
| Now, yes, human beings are recognized as different from the
| other animals as early as Genesis, having been created in the
| image of God, which has to do with a relation of _analogous_
| similarity with God, where human beings are understood as
| personal creatures possessing rational intellect and free will
| ( "analogous" cannot be stressed enough; the infinite God is
| very much unlike any created being, and so any similarity can
| only be analogical; see the _analogia entis_ ). However, it
| does not follow that the other animals lack consciousness. The
| ancients and medievals would find this claim ridiculous.
|
| If you want to know where the denial of consciousness in other
| animals began, you can thank modern thinkers like Descartes,
| who posited that the universe is composed of two kinds of
| things, _res extensa_ and _res cogitans_. _Res extensa_ is
| merely extension in space, while _res cogitans_ is the seat of
| thought, sensation and thus consciousness. According to this
| anthropology, of the animals, only human beings are a composite
| of both, and so only human beings are capable of consciousness.
| The angels are _res cogitans_ , while the other animals are
| mere _res extensa_. In other words, according to Descartes 's
| mechanistic worldview, animals are effectively insensate
| machines.
|
| And so this is a recently development in history, very much
| occurring within the ferment of modernity. Materialism also
| finds its roots in Descartes, not because he was a materialist
| himself, as he admitted the existence of _res cogitans_ that is
| not reducible to _res extensa_ , but because he framed things
| in those terms. Materialists, operating within those
| parameters, reject the existence of _res cogitans_ , instead
| claiming that all that has been attributed to _res cogitans_ is
| reducible to _res extensa_. Of course, it isn 't (e.g., the
| problem of qualia, or the problem of intentionality), which is
| why materialism was stillborn, but now transmuting into
| preposterous things like eliminativism among a stubborn remnant
| of believers.
| maxbond wrote:
| I think there is also a misguided razor that people who self
| identify as rationalists often apply, which goes, "the most
| cynical or disenchanted answer is likely the correct one." An
| overcorrection to superstition, perhaps.
|
| I personally did this, and one of the symptoms was being overly
| skeptical of animal consciousness. People would tell me this
| dog was smart or that it was feeling a certain way, and I
| dismissed it, thinking them fanciful. One moment that showed me
| I was misguided was when I took a cookbook out from a low
| shelf, and replaced it. I didn't put it exactly where I'd
| retrieved it from. Several hours later, the cat walked by the
| shelf, stopped, and started examining the cookbooks.
|
| I was impressed because I wouldn't have noticed those books
| being out of place. I realized that my cat knew things that I
| did not. That put a crack of doubt in my facade of cynicism.
| Eventually I realized that cynicism was hollow and obscured the
| truth, rather than revealing it.
| rogerclark wrote:
| That first sentence is one of the best-distilled insights
| I've ever read on HN.
| namero999 wrote:
| I concur, was about to express the same sentiment. I will
| steal this, sorry-not-sorry :)
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| I saw your comment and had to re-read it. Damn insightful
| yes.
| defrost wrote:
| > 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 are extremely high
| your cat would have urinated on your book.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| My thoughts didn't go to scent but to environment change;
| things moving can signify the presence of another animal,
| one that is trying to hide itself. Could be an ambush
| predator.
| iovrthoughtthis wrote:
| this could also be the reason humans notice changes
| zeekaran wrote:
| Any time we move a piece of furniture, especially cat
| furniture that has been ignored for months, it becomes a
| new fascinating object.
|
| Most non-feral cats don't just go around pissing on
| everything.
| devbent wrote:
| I had a dog growing up who'd try to move furniture back
| to its original location anytime we rearranged the room.
| User23 wrote:
| 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.
| coderenegade wrote:
| It's an easy trap to fall into for those who've never spent
| significant time around animals. After owning a few dogs you
| realize that they have their own unique experience of the
| world, and it's probably somewhere along the same continuum
| that we are. They know family, they go through a rebellious
| adolescent phase, they throw tantrums, get bored, excited,
| happy, horny, etc.
|
| I'll never know what it's like to experience the world
| through my nose the way my dog does, and he'll never know
| what it's like to read a book, but it doesn't mean that we
| don't love each other dearly. And I don't need to read his
| mind to know that, because it's plainly obvious in his
| actions and body language.
| exe34 wrote:
| the cat probably discovered a new smell (did you take the
| book to the kitchen? put it on the dinner table? on your
| lap?).
| wruza wrote:
| Since you seem to be one of those who denied(?) consciousness
| of a cat, how do you conceptualize it?
|
| Something like "a cat is just a large finite automaton and I
| am not"? How do you draw the line? Through "soul"? Through
| "neocortex thickness"? Why a cat _would not_ experience its
| life like you do when e.g. drugged or seriously drunk? I
| mean, cats aren't drunk, but isn't it easy to experience or
| at least imagine the "animal mode" in yourself? At times when
| you were startled or in rage or had sex like an animal, so
| that your intellectual parts didn't work properly, did that
| pause your consciousness? Have you thought about it and if
| yes, what's the answer?
|
| Also why is it so surprising to you that a cat noticed a
| change and... how exactly does this connect to yes/no
| consciousness?
|
| (These are all curiosity questions, I'm not an animal rights
| fighter or something like that.)
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| 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.
| wruza wrote:
| Afaict, you are describing intelligence, not
| consciousness.
| jfyi wrote:
| 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.
| fallingknife wrote:
| The most cynical and disenchanted answer (and most likely to
| be true) is that animals are just as conscious as humans and
| that we just made all this nonsense up to justify our
| actions.
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| People identifying as rationalists are also often misguided.
| It's a common trope among programmers who think they're smart
| and think their intelligence leads to them being logical and
| unbiased.
|
| I hate to break it to you but if you think you're smart most
| likely you are more biased than normal.
| qup wrote:
| If a person were actually smart, what would you expect
| their opinion of their own intelligence to be?
| kevin42 wrote:
| One of our cats was very old (18+) and sick. We made the
| choice to have her euthanized to end her suffering and the
| vet came to our house to do it. One of our other (male) cats
| loved her and always tried to cuddle her. My wife took the
| old kitty out of the room where they were cuddling, and after
| it was done she thought she would let him say goodbye. He got
| very upset at my wife and hissed at her for days. He's
| normally very sweet with my wife, but he was clearly
| distraught at losing his friend and seeing her dead. He
| didn't just think she was sleeping, and he blamed my wife.
|
| I've always known our cats have emotions and understand a lot
| about the world they're in, but after that experience, I have
| no doubt that they are conscious.
| nkoren wrote:
| A friend of mine had two kittens -- siblings, who were very
| close to each other. One of them was hit by a car and
| killed. I had adored this kitten, so in memory of her I did
| a chalk drawing portrait of the kitten, and brought it over
| to my friend as gift, about a week after the kitten had
| died. The surviving sibling had, during that time, seemed
| somewhat morose and unresponsive, but also kind of cryptic
| in the way that cats can be. Hard to read.
|
| But when the surviving kitten saw my drawing, he began
| crying so piteously, reaching out and clawing towards the
| drawing -- and this went on for most of an hour -- that
| there was absolutely no mistaking the emotion behind it,
| and soon everybody else in the room was bawling as well.
| (Also, I was impressed that he responded to a drawing; it
| was a decent drawing, but quite abstract relative to (say)
| a photographic representation. Cats usually seem oblivious
| to photos in any case, and this is one of the things which
| confounds animal consciousness research: it's very hard to
| tell the difference between something that an animal _can
| 't_ do, and something an animal _doesn 't want_ to do. I
| suspect that most of the time, cats simply can't be arsed
| to process static 2d imagery, because what's really the
| point of doing so -- but in this case, an overwhelming
| emotional imperative overrode that natural disinclination,
| proving that both the cognitive and the emotional capacity
| is there.)
|
| Anyhow, ever since witnessing that display of emotion,
| anybody who tells me that animals aren't conscious or don't
| have real feelings immediately gets ranked -- per my
| personal hierarchy of the spectrum of consciousness -- as
| being far below the level of that kitten.
| stevula wrote:
| This reminds me of a story of my friend who had two cats
| who were brother and sister.
|
| One time when my friend went on a trip and left his
| roommate in charge of catsitting, the male cat was
| tragically killed by a car. The roommate found the body
| and, not wanting to leave it on the street, put it in a
| duffel bag and brought it home.
|
| Of course the sister cat smelled the bag and knew exactly
| what was in there. She came to her own conclusions and
| carried a grudge against the roommate for years (hissing,
| glaring, etc) until they finally moved out. It was
| especially peculiar because she is one of the most
| friendly, cuddly cats with everyone else.
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| > I think there is also a misguided razor that people who
| self identify as rationalists often apply, which goes, "the
| most cynical or disenchanted answer is likely the correct
| one." An overcorrection to superstition, perhaps.
|
| > I personally did this, and one of the symptoms was being
| overly skeptical of animal consciousness.
|
| This approach wouldn't be inconsistent if you were cynically
| skeptical of human consciousness as well.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I consider the difference between animals and us as ... don't
| laugh .. the difference between an 8bit video game and a
| playstation3/4/5 one. We might have 10, 1000, or 100000x more
| details but the core ingredients are the same.
| ssijak wrote:
| Who says that you have more detail. An eagle can see much
| farther and in more detail than you, and yeah it can fly. A
| bat has sonar. Some orient by Earths magnetic field which we
| do not detect. Etc.
| agumonkey wrote:
| It was just an extrapolation regarding brain size. But
| you're right it's just a napkin theory.
| Thorham wrote:
| Then compare orca brains to ours. Theirs are larger and
| more wrinkly.
| vasilipupkin wrote:
| 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 is a
| stretch.
| stoperaticless wrote:
| I gather that there is no simple definition of concious, and
| it mostly is "same as humans".
| diffxx wrote:
| Do you believe that all humans possess equal amounts of
| consciousness?
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| So a human with a lesser IQ and EQ would be less conscious
| with that logic, hence worth much less and yet the concept of
| justice applies equally.
|
| Intelligence is not consciousness. Consciousness is the thing
| that animates otherwise dead matter.
| sim7c00 wrote:
| i love how humans always put themselves outside of nature, and
| like you point out, that scientists, even though they dispute
| where that notion comes from, cling onto it religiously :D.
| There's even animals with more developed / complex brains as
| us, but surely, they can't be conscious!
|
| My dog isn't dreaming about anything, he's just flapping his
| feet and snorting and making cute sounds in his sleep at
| random, likely just spazms.... Like any normal dog.
| lukan wrote:
| How else could you justify treating them as a mere raw
| ressource in factory?
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| I genuienly think that this is one of the biggest factors
| when talking about this topic. Lots of people seem very
| defensive when talking about it. Because if they admit or
| speculate that animals have some form of consciousness,
| they also admit that they're responsible for killing
| thousands of conscious beings.
|
| As for myself, I can't believe that animals aren't
| concious.
| sim7c00 wrote:
| I never really thought about it that way. killing loads
| of conscious beings. Until for Eid in Morocco I got the
| honour of helping to kill a sheep so the family could eat
| it. (100+ people tribe)
|
| I am still not a vegetarian, but do have a much more
| realistic view on what's really on our plates now. - I
| don't think eating meat is bad though. I _do_ eat a lot
| less meat now. (smaller portions and less frequent).
| Predators eat prey, but they don't mass produce their
| prey.
|
| For some random context: the sheep killing there - it was
| an old sheep, lived a blessed life loved by the
| community, to be eaten at an old age at Eid someday.
| Everyday the women in the village and maybe their kids
| will take the sheep to graze etc. and give them love like
| any farmer loves his animals. He was only scared moments
| before the deed was done as then they are moved to a
| little separate pen and likely realize it's the end for
| them. The families usually own only a few sheep,
| different ages. Occasionally when one ages out it's
| slaughtered. - Cows and other larger animals such as
| Camels are for extremely special occasions and actually
| rarely eaten. (once a year, or at a marriage or something
| special like that.)
|
| I wish it was feasible in my country for example to do
| similar things, which are much more friendly to the
| animals involved, but it's litteraly ILLEGAL. funny how
| that works...
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| > I don't think eating meat is bad though
|
| Yeah I guess just the moment of eating it is not the bad
| aspect, but what comes before this moment. forcefully
| impregnating animals, taking their kids away from them,
| letting them live in concrete buildings without much
| access to fresh air or grass, transporting them in
| inhumane conditions etc.
|
| > the sheep killing there - it was an old sheep
|
| i frequently wonder if it would be possible to switch to
| a model where animals at least get to live a full life,
| before being slaughtered at an old age. probably not
| profitable at all...
|
| to be fair, as romantic as your moroccan story sounds,
| i'm not a fan at all of the practice of just slitting an
| animals throat and letting it bleed out. Sounds like a
| very traumatic, painful experience if you're a conscious
| being. and the more i think about it, i'm not sure if
| giving an animal a good life is enough of an excuse to
| then slaughter it.
|
| don't get me wrong, i do eat meat (would love to stop),
| but for me there's no valid, ethical argument towards
| meat consumption. if people want to eat meat, then they
| should, as long as they're honest about what exactly it
| is they're doing.
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| I can't remember the exact book I was reading. I think
| "Old Man's War" or one of the sequels.
|
| But an advanced alien race captured some humans and was
| basically raising them like cattle. Inseminating women,
| harvesting milk, slaughtering for meat. It really
| affected my perception of how fucked up the whole process
| actually is.
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| Very interesting that you're mentioning this. I had this
| exact plot as a thought once. "maybe a shocking horror
| movie about aliens treating humans like cattle could show
| people why vegans/vegetarians think it's fucked up what
| we're doing. aliens forcefully impregnating young
| women/girls, taking their babies away from them after
| they've been born, genetically raising them so that they
| produce as much milk and muscle-mass as possible and then
| just kill them for consumption. if they're as dumb as us
| they'll even waste more energy doing all of this than
| they get from our meat."
|
| doesn't surprise me that this plot already exists, as
| it's not that creative. i must've been inspired by this,
| somehow, without being aware of it :D
| nullstyle wrote:
| The boss/worker relationship within our current mode of
| production seems to be another way we justify treating
| others like raw resources. Especially in lean financial
| times.
| sim7c00 wrote:
| you are not wrong to draw this paralell. If humans can't
| treat eachother well, how little chance do animals have?
| tdb7893 wrote:
| There are a lot of things that I was taught growing up that
| I used to sort of just accept but from the outside don't
| really make any sense (as an example: where I grew up was
| pretty homophobic but once I was old enough I realized that
| the homophobia just literally made no sense and it was
| stupid to care what other people did). The current state of
| animal agriculture is one of those thing, growing up I ate
| meat and I had all these justifications but once I stopped
| I realized it was all bullshit and the treatment of animals
| just wasn't okay. It's pretty crazy the way we'll just
| accept things that are "normal" even if they are absolutely
| horrifying.
|
| The saddest thing to me is the people that say they "love
| animals" but eat them pretty uncritically (though obviously
| I used to be one of these people).
| psychoslave wrote:
| > it was stupid to care what other people did
|
| Just put like this, it's a bit of an opposite extreme. I
| mean, the rest of your message also give context that
| mitigate the statement, but alone it sounds a bit
| drastic: if some people plot a genocide against some
| other people, the latter would be wiser to care about it.
| lukan wrote:
| Yes indeed. A person who does not care about others at
| all, is called a sociopath.
|
| But what to do, if the society itself is sick?
|
| Well, either find a balance of blocking out the bad parts
| and accepting only the good, or find a better society ...
|
| (To become a immigrant somewhere else)
| wruza wrote:
| I'm sure that consciousness is a spectrum and that big
| mammals are near us on it, if there's any difference at all
| except for intelligence levels.
|
| At the same time I have no issues with animal resource
| factories. I justify their existence by the fact that I'm a
| carnivore and needed meat and fats to properly operate
| since forever, no need for complex philosophy here. The
| necessity to justify that against ethics usually means you
| got way deeper into it than is reasonable.
| lukan wrote:
| Are you sure, you _need_ meet? Personally, I know I want
| meat and I know I despise the meat factories. But there
| are alternatives, cattle raised on actual grass. Or game
| from the forest. More expensive, but I don 't need nor
| want meat every day.
|
| edit: with meat factories I did not talk about industrial
| packaging of meat. That is fine. What is not fine with
| me, is having living animals on conveyor belts, who never
| see the sun or feel the earth.
| delecti wrote:
| If you're human, you aren't an obligate carnivore,
| because humans can live healthily on a fully vegan diet.
| Animal products (meat, dairy, eggs) certainly gave pre-
| industrial humans a big boost as a dense and (at times)
| readily available source of calories and protein, but
| that's a far cry from "needing" it.
|
| Modern usage of animal products for food is purely for
| convenience and pleasure. A point could be made that
| that's sufficent, but it's objectively not necessary.
| abainbridge wrote:
| Not only that, but my dog has enough theory of mind to ignore
| a toy/food resource until another dog turns up, at which
| point she will grab it and parade in front of the other dog
| to show they can't have it. She knows she can demonstrate
| dominance by holding the resource that she thinks the other
| dog wants, even though she doesn't want it herself.
| sim7c00 wrote:
| Haha love it. we had one which would just shake her head at
| certain foods. 'nope, not gonna eat it' and just sit nexto
| the bowl sad :D (we really really tried.. but had to shift
| foods :D)
| dsego wrote:
| My toddler couldn't recognize her reflection in a mirror up
| until some age, we did the lipstick on face test. Same as a cat
| or some other animal that can't do it. Complex emotions and
| consciousness are developmental milestones in kids. Not sure
| why animals would have it differently, they just don't develop
| to the same level as we do.
| User23 wrote:
| Humanity observably is in a category of its own. The human
| authors of the Bible are just some of the many persons who have
| made this observation.
|
| One obvious example is morality. Take climate change. No
| reasonable person says that the life forms responsible for the
| Great Oxygenation Event were doing something immoral. On the
| other hand plenty of people say that humans causing a
| comparatively trivial shift in atmospheric composition is
| immoral.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| I think what you're suggesting has been the prevailing view
| among biologists for decades. It's uncontroversial to say
| they're conscious.
|
| Whether they're self-aware, understand death, how intelligent
| they are, etc. are where the debates are and have been for a
| very long time.
| tejohnso wrote:
| > I think what you're suggesting has been the prevailing view
| among biologists for decades. It's uncontroversial to say
| they're conscious.
|
| Then why do we have a subhead the likes of "A series of
| experiments have led a number of scientists to say animals
| may be conscious."
|
| Makes it seems as though some major discovery is afoot.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Nobody will click on or continue reading to see ad
| impressions if it said "biologists still think animals are
| conscious". Or "biologists differ over the meaning of
| consciousness and which exact animals qualify." Whenever
| you want to know why news sites do what they do, it's so
| they can serve more ads. That's the business model now.
|
| Also most science reporting is not good. They're quoting an
| econ professor. These articles are really written by
| someone with a deep understanding of a subject matter.
|
| Notice they're not giving you examples of noted biologists
| who think all animals are not conscious. There are few to
| none.
|
| The only statement in here that's interesting is that bees
| may be conscious. I think you'd get push back on that,
| depending on your definition, and the article does mention
| the difficulty of definition of consciousness.
| jprete wrote:
| Now that you mention it, I don't remember any Biblical support
| for animals not being conscious. Humans being special, yes -
| animals being unconscious automata, no. A quick Google search
| suggests the opposite conclusion can very easily be drawn,
| although I see no reason to elaborate on those arguments here.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Maybe "Biblical Support" as in a strict reading of the bible
| .
|
| But definitely Christians have 'interpreted' the Bible in
| ways to minimize animals as sub-human, without souls, no
| spirit, etc...
|
| These discussions are ancient times stand-ins for what today
| we might label 'consciousness'.
|
| To say the bible didn't strictly discuss 'consciousness' or
| 'automata' is ignoring that Christians think 'self' resides
| in the 'soul' so if animals don't' have them, then what are
| they? automata seems logical, but they didn't have the word
| for it. What is something that moves around but doesn't have
| a soul to move it?
| jprete wrote:
| I expect that most ancient people believed that animals
| were conscious. It's impossible to spend a lot of time with
| any mammal and think of it as not being aware of anything.
|
| For what it's worth, my Googling suggested that the Bible
| leans in the direction of animals having souls and going to
| the afterlife, as well.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Of course there are a million opinions on the Bible. I
| would have said on my quick search it is opposite,
| animals aren't conscious. But these are rough searches.
|
| My experience with American Christians, Catholic,
| Southern Baptist, is that animals don't have souls, and
| are not conscious.
|
| But, there is some cute story about some cute kid asking
| the Pope if dogs go to heaven, and he said 'good dogs'.
| So that might have accidentally opened the doors.
| psychoslave wrote:
| That's actually an interesting case of using LLM:
| statically what is the mundane perspective of a religious
| perspective.
|
| Here is a prompt to play with:
|
| In Abrahamic religions, what is the ontological status of
| animals in general and other life forms? Are they
| considered generally equals or sometime far superiors?
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| I plugged in your prompt
|
| In Abrahamic religions--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
| --the ontological status of animals and other life forms
| generally places them as part of God's creation, but
| humans are typically seen as having a unique, superior
| status. Here's a brief overview of each religion's
| perspective:
|
| ### Judaism In Judaism, the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)
| describes God creating animals and humans, with humans
| given dominion over animals. This is based on the Genesis
| narrative: - *Genesis 1:26-28*: God gives humans dominion
| over all living creatures. - *Genesis 2:19-20*: Adam
| names the animals, indicating a role of stewardship and
| authority.
|
| While animals are respected and their welfare is
| considered (e.g., the commandment to not cause
| unnecessary suffering, _tsa 'ar ba'alei chayim_), humans
| are seen as having a special role and responsibility.
|
| ### Christianity Christianity inherits much of its view
| on animals from Judaism, with additional interpretations
| from the New Testament: - *Genesis 1:26-28*: Same as in
| Judaism, humans are given dominion over animals. - *New
| Testament*: Jesus emphasizes the value of every creature
| (e.g., Matthew 10:29-31 where sparrows are valued by
| God), but humans are considered more valuable.
|
| Christian thought often emphasizes stewardship and care
| for God's creation, including animals, but maintains the
| superiority of humans.
|
| ### Islam In Islam, animals are also seen as part of
| God's creation with humans given a special status and
| responsibility: - *Qur'an 6:38*: Animals are considered
| communities like humans and are part of God's creation. -
| *Qur'an 16:5-8*: Animals are created for human benefit,
| but humans must treat them with kindness and care.
|
| Humans are considered superior and responsible for
| stewardship of the Earth and its creatures, but there is
| an emphasis on compassion and justice towards animals.
|
| ### Comparative Perspective - *Equality and Superiority*:
| In all three religions, humans are generally considered
| superior to animals due to their unique role and
| responsibilities assigned by God. Animals are valued and
| their welfare is important, but they do not have the same
| status as humans. - *Stewardship*: There is a common
| theme of stewardship and responsible dominion, where
| humans are expected to care for and protect animals and
| the environment. - *Respect for Life*: Despite the
| hierarchical view, all three religions emphasize respect
| for life and the importance of treating animals humanely.
|
| Overall, animals and other life forms are respected and
| valued in Abrahamic religions, but humans are considered
| to have a unique, superior status with specific duties
| towards other creatures.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| and asking GPT in this context, if animals are conscious
|
| In the context of Abrahamic religions--Judaism,
| Christianity, and Islam--there are varying
| interpretations regarding the consciousness of animals.
| While none of these religions provide a detailed
| scientific explanation of consciousness as understood in
| contemporary terms, they do offer insights that can be
| interpreted in different ways regarding the awareness and
| sentience of animals.
|
| ### Judaism In Judaism, animals are seen as sentient
| beings capable of feeling pain, which is reflected in the
| ethical treatment prescribed by Jewish law ( _Halakha_ ):
| - *Tsa'ar Ba'alei Chayim*: The principle of not causing
| unnecessary suffering to animals suggests an
| acknowledgment of their ability to experience pain and
| distress. - *Genesis 9:5*: After the flood, God makes a
| covenant that includes animals, implying their
| significance and value in God's creation.
|
| While animals are recognized as having feelings and some
| level of awareness, they are generally not considered to
| have the same level of consciousness or spiritual
| capacity as humans.
|
| ### Christianity Christianity, building on Jewish
| teachings, also acknowledges the sentience of animals to
| some extent: - *Matthew 10:29*: Jesus mentions that not
| even a sparrow falls to the ground without God's
| knowledge, indicating awareness of their existence and
| experiences. - *Proverbs 12:10*: "The righteous care for
| the needs of their animals," suggesting that animals have
| needs and can suffer.
|
| However, like in Judaism, animals are not seen as having
| the same level of consciousness or soul as humans. The
| emphasis is more on human responsibility and stewardship
| rather than the intrinsic consciousness of animals.
|
| ### Islam Islam also recognizes that animals are sentient
| beings capable of experiencing pain and distress: -
| *Qur'an 6:38*: "There is not an animal on earth, nor a
| bird that flies on its wings, but they are communities
| like you," suggesting a form of consciousness and social
| structure. - *Hadiths*: There are several hadiths
| (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) that emphasize the
| humane treatment of animals and acknowledge their
| suffering.
|
| In Islam, animals are seen as part of God's creation with
| their own purpose, but humans are considered to have a
| higher level of consciousness and spiritual awareness.
|
| ### Comparative Perspective - *Recognition of Sentience*:
| All three religions recognize that animals are capable of
| feeling pain and experiencing distress, which is why they
| emphasize humane treatment. - *Hierarchy of
| Consciousness*: Humans are generally viewed as having a
| higher level of consciousness, with unique spiritual and
| moral responsibilities. - *Ethical Treatment*: The
| acknowledgment of animal sentience in these religions
| forms the basis for ethical guidelines regarding the
| treatment of animals, stressing compassion and kindness.
|
| In summary, while animals in Abrahamic religions are
| considered sentient and capable of experiencing pain,
| they are not typically regarded as having the same level
| of consciousness or spiritual status as humans. The
| ethical treatment of animals is an important aspect of
| these religions, reflecting a recognition of their
| sentience and value within God's creation.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our
| likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the
| sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and
| over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that
| creepeth upon the earth." Genesis 1:26 King James Bible
|
| Don't believe the bible weighs in on animal consciousness. It
| does weigh in on the question of our use of animals.
| Modernity believes that consciousness is special, and that we
| should not eat or use conscious animals, thus, if the bible
| says that we can eat cows, cows must not be conscious
| otherwise the bible would be condoning immoral behavior. It's
| a logical jump, but it is correct moral reasoning based on
| the premise that consciousness is special.
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| The other thing to realize is that the brain's available neuro-
| chemicals are different in different people. For example there
| exists people where you could kill their mom, but as long as
| you replaced it with a sufficiently similar person that
| provides the exact same services, the child would not be sad -
| all the services would exist and therefor the atomaton human
| would operate normally. I've seen this in both autistic and
| non-autistic persons. The bigger issue with that person being
| capable of handling the change in their life is how other
| people push emotional baggage onto them. (For example telling
| people how they should feel - doesn't make them feel it, but
| rather makes them feel wrong and then the sadness comes)
|
| In other words we have described emotions that we attribute to
| all people, but the reality is, not all people have the same
| emotions - they are some idealised state - and in reality
| everyone is very different in their emotional capabilities.
| ojosilva wrote:
| > humans exist along a spectrum and there isn't a sharp cliff
| where humans are 100% conscious and empathetic but dogs are 0%
|
| I disagree, to a certain extent. In my layman terms, I believe
| "consciousness" is how humans define and differentiate the
| human mind, so it's exclusive to humans. Other living beings
| (or even AI) display human-like traits but they should not be
| defined as "conscious" because that's our own definition of our
| innate human experience, of how we describe our inner selves.
| We can grade animals on a scale of human consciousness but the
| "consciousness" threshold is very high, I believe too high to
| be awarded to any known species besides our own. Risking
| becoming a tautology, the "animal consciousness" scale could be
| a thing, but then it should be a thing on its own.
| bangaroo wrote:
| how did you arrive at that conclusion? i feel like there's
| still just an element of "it's this way because it is this
| way" to this argument. the entire point of the article and
| the discussion is the fact that we perhaps assume our
| experience to be unique when it's not.
|
| it could be just as possible that animals experience
| consciousness in the exact way we do but simply have
| different innate motivations and interests that lead us to
| believe they're making decisions with less awareness than we
| do. it's making the assumption that the human approach to
| living and existing is the correct approach and then
| everything around us is "below it."
|
| reading the article you see that there isn't even a clear
| understanding of what denotes consciousness, so it seems
| weird to just say "well whatever it is, it isn't that" based
| on the arbitrary desire to set our species apart from others.
| ojosilva wrote:
| Yes, my definition would be more _originalist_ ( "because
| it has been this way") if you may.
|
| Consciousness has been a definition of the inner human
| experience made by humans themselves, regardless of the
| lack of clear understanding of what precisely denotes
| consciousness. Can animals experience what we experience?
| Well, maybe, but that's not consciousness, as I'm reserving
| that term to define the human inner experience exclusively.
| In particular, I'm here to argue that a "scale" proposed by
| parent is not possible. Why? Because the concept itself was
| born exclusively from the human experience to summarize the
| undefinable complexities and interactions of the human
| mind. Given consciousness is undefinable by specific terms
| and their relationships (ie. there's no "formula"), we
| can't really assign partial consciousness consistently to
| other species. We can say "bees play" or "dogs fear" but
| that can't really be put in a consciousness scale, because
| what would "10% conscious" even mean?
|
| > it could be just as possible that animals experience
| consciousness in the exact way we do
|
| Other species may experience something analogous to
| consciousness as they also experience complex interactions
| of different traits in their minds. But it's always going
| to be their own interaction and I would not call it
| consciousness. And whatever it is it's definitely _not_ the
| exact way we do.
| bangaroo wrote:
| if they are undefinable and unmeasurable i'd argue you
| don't understand them well enough to prove or even argue
| that there aren't similar complexities in other species
| bane wrote:
| There seems to be more dimensions to it though. Trivially, a
| dog and a human might be on one axis, but you can't rank
| differently intelligent humans along that same axis. The
| average dog, while strictly and obviously not as intelligent as
| a human is not impaired, they function at their fullest. While
| as humans go further down and away from mainline human
| intelligence become obviously impaired.
|
| We seem to have a notion that intelligence has multiple
| dimensions to it, so it's more likely that human intelligence
| exists as some kind of probabilistic gradient on a hyperplane
| in a high-dimensional space, and sampling from that plane
| yields any possible human intelligence profile, while sampling
| away from that space yields something decidedly not human.
| Other animals thus must be similar hyperplanes, perhaps in
| their own space, and likely not intersecting with humans at
| all.
| arielweisberg wrote:
| Had to log in to upvote this. The sheer arrogance of this not
| being obvious to people is telling.
|
| Even very stupid animals can think about the future and have
| anxiety which is pretty direct evidence they are thinking about
| the good things and the bad things that happen to them. You
| could argue well yeah, but they don't have an opinion about it,
| but Occam's razor suggests otherwise. We are built from the
| same plumbing in most cases even if ours is better.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| There are a lot of reasons to put humans atop a sharp cliff
| though. Ascending the cliff means devising language, farms,
| fire, steel, math, NFTs etc. Reminiscent of Brin's _Uplift_
| novels about giving dolphins (if you'll pardon the joke) a leg
| up.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| > 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.
| mc32 wrote:
| The Bible does not explain the Chinese, Japanese, etc. take on
| consciousness. So it must be something other than religion
| guiding this thought.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| > humans are 100% conscious
|
| If using humans as a comparative baseline, then sure, that's
| trivially true. I don't see any reason to believe there could
| never be anything 'more conscious' than a human, i.e. >100%
| conscious when compared to a human.
| mathgradthrow wrote:
| Based on the standard definition of consciousness, no one is
| conscious but me.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| Solipsism.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Humans have been thinking for millenia about animal consciousness
| and how to ethically treat other beings. To wit, the Jain
| principle describing animal consciousness:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahimsa_in_Jainism#Overview
| librasteve wrote:
| the article illustrates the low level of achievement in cognitive
| science (particularly in the light of the investment being poured
| into so called AGI / FSD right now) ... we clearly need a
| scientific definition of consciousness that can capture what
| (birds(cats(dogs(humans)))) have in common and the incremental
| distinctions ... literacy, spoken language, non verbal modelling,
| predictive ability, causation/reasoning, dimensions (physical,
| emotional), pain, emotions, empathy, initiation and so on. with a
| research framework that can hypothesize and test the neuronal
| services and mapping.
| aspyct wrote:
| Sorry, why is this even a research? It's uh... pretty obvious
| they are conscious.
| etrautmann wrote:
| In what way would be possible assume that animals are not
| conscious? It's such a bizarre question
| randomdata wrote:
| Most philosophers have assumed that animals are conscious.
| Science, however, cannot assume - fundamentally. This comes
| from the science side of life.
| etrautmann wrote:
| 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.
| defrost wrote:
| 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)
| randomdata wrote:
| Science has proof or nothing. There is no assumptive
| state. You, the philosopher, can make assumptions, of
| course.
| defrost wrote:
| > Science has proof or nothing. There is no assumptive
| state.
|
| And which philospher of science said that then? Which
| others disagree?
|
| Some claim that Mathematics is the Queen of Sciences ..
| and yet Mathematics rests upon assumptions, some that
| contradict each other. You know, _Axioms_.
|
| _Basic_ axioms | assumptions of science, for which no
| proof exists and yet without which science is and has
| nothing include:
|
| * That there is an objective reality shared by all
| rational observers.
|
| * That this objective reality is governed by natural laws
|
| * That reality can be discovered by means of systematic
| observation and experimentation.
|
| * That Nature has uniformity of laws and most if not all
| things in nature must have at least a natural cause.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> And which philospher of science said that then?_
|
| I did. Obviously. Why would I retell what another
| philosopher said? That would be rather silly. If they
| want something to be known, they can let you know
| themselves.
|
| _> Which others disagree?_
|
| Whichever ones disagree. Again, they can speak for
| themselves.
|
| _> Some claim that Mathematics is the Queen of Sciences_
|
| In other words, not science?
|
| _> yet without which science is and has nothing_
|
| I am not sure you have made a convincing case that
| science is more than nothing. If that is what you are
| trying to convince us of, you are not making providing a
| compelling argument.
| defrost wrote:
| > I did. Obviously.
|
| So it's an opinion from your philosophy and not a
| universal absolute as you presented.
|
| > I am not sure you have made a convincing case that
| science is more than nothing.
|
| I haven't, just presented positions held by others .. and
| with no convincing case I guess we must conclude that
| science is nothing.
|
| Or maybe _assume_ there 's something to it <shrug>.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> So it 's an opinion from your philosophy and not a
| universal absolute as you presented._
|
| Wait. If it were a universal absolute, for what reason
| would I present it? A universal absolute offers no
| remaining opportunity for me to learn, and why would I
| enter into a discussion that provides no learning
| opportunity? That would be a pointless waste of time.
| Whichever philosopher gave you the idea that I would
| waste my time like that did not think things through and
| has severely misguided you.
|
| _> I guess we must conclude that science is nothing. Or
| maybe assume there 's something to it <shrug>._
|
| Either way. As feeble humans (or LLM bots), we are not
| science. We can make assumptions that may or may not have
| any basis in reality.
| npteljes wrote:
| Everything is a research, until it's proven beyond belief.
| Obvious doesn't cut it from a scientific standpoint. Noticing
| something, and proving something are two different things. And
| mutually agreeing upon the findings is also something else.
| Consciousness is a central concept for people, and so, there
| are many ideas surrounding it - human and non-human
| consciousness alike.
| rodcon wrote:
| 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?
| aspyct wrote:
| I agree that it's an interesting question worth exploring.
|
| However I'm wondering why we are still at that stage of the
| game. Animals seem like a "duh, of course" answer to me. They
| have a brain, a nervous system, they're so close to us that
| the answer should be obvious.
|
| Now an amoeba yes, that's (to me, at least) an open
| discussion. LLMs and AGIs too, they're too new and unknown.
|
| But animals? Come on, we had thousands of years to figure
| that out.
| animanoir wrote:
| Are animals conscious. Yes.
| cupcakecommons wrote:
| Humans that are blackout drunk are emotional but non-conscious.
| They can carry on full conversations without a sense of being.
| Basically every animal exists in this state continuously. It's
| why human behavior is vastly different from animal behavior.
| Self-referential consciousness is as much of a curse as it is a
| blessing. It's spoken about in this way by basically every human
| religion for a reason. This article is misses the mark entirely.
| This kind of sloppy thinking about consciousness exists in part
| because it's incentivized by fiat economics that require
| replacing economization-resistant traditional human food staples
| (like meat) - with less expensive alternatives to hide economic
| mismanagement.
| timeon wrote:
| Blackout drunks are barely emotional - it is just level of how
| much they are sedated.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Isn't the real question how to rank this level? Is an elephant
| smarter than a dog? Does that mean it feels more emotions?! Is a
| cat smarter than an octopus? Does that mean it knows how to
| better manage time?
| kazinator wrote:
| Suppose a dog is unconscious. For what purpose does it sleep and
| what is the difference between its sleeping and waking state? And
| between those and human sleeping and waking states?
| abeppu wrote:
| What Ghosh chose to include and not include in this leaves some
| really weird gaps. He mentions Descartes, and the "cogito", but
| quotes Seth in attributing to Descartes an "unholy trinity, of
| language, intelligence and consciousness", and then links that
| "trinity" to behaviorism.
|
| This would make one think that until "recently", most scientists
| were in the same boat as Descartes, but I think this is really
| misleading. Descartes believed that mental stuff and physical
| stuff were categorically different ("cartesian dualism"), whereas
| almost all scientists would subscribe to some form of monism /
| physicalism. But the reason for the cogito, which has persisted
| until at least "recently" is that subjective phenomena are
| intrinsically not accessible for objective observation. At best,
| we can capture the "correlates" of consciousness, whether those
| be behaviors, fMRI BOLD signals, EEG readings, etc, none of which
| directly shows that there's an inner subjective experience.
| There's still _maybe_ the possibility of a philosophical zombie,
| who has the right objectively available signals but doesn 't have
| any internal experience.
|
| But scientists have all the while been working under the
| operational assumption that animals have something like our
| experiences. When we study aggression or stress or motivation or
| whatever else in animal models, and draw parallels between the
| brains of mice or monkeys and humans, we're assuming that their
| emotional states feel at least somewhat like ours do. A classic
| protocol for rodents, relevant in testing anti-depressants (where
| the whole point is to change some aspect of our subjective
| experience) is the "forced swim", where you drop a mouse in water
| in a vessel with smooth vertical sides, and time how long it
| takes for them to stop struggling. This is taken to be a measure
| of "despair". If scientists decades ago didn't believe animals
| experienced anything, they wouldn't do this research.
|
| Descartes' "I think therefore I am" was the minimal statement he
| could make with absolute certainty -- but we all operate with at
| least a smidge less solipsism if we assume that other humans are
| conscious. And it's of course only a small extension to guess
| that other primates, who have rich social relations and brains
| similar to ours have a lot of overlapping experiences. And that
| other mammals, like rodents, who have a bunch of stuff in their
| brains like ours, have overlapping experiences. And then suddenly
| you're open to this landscape of different kinds of creates with
| different kinds of mental experiences.
| squigz wrote:
| What's with the title on this post?
| mbfg wrote:
| I can't say this is backed by anything, i don't know, but my gut
| feel is humans are somewhat different in that they have developed
| language both spoken and written to such an extent, that now
| there is a constant journaller as part of most people's minds
| documented everything we do, feel, think. This journaller
| basically happens autonomously, without direction. This
| journalling mechanism, i think, is what most people consider
| consciousness.
|
| I suspect we fool ourselves into thinking this journaller has any
| control over our situation and so we give it more value than it
| has. I don't see how it would give us free will, for instance.
| But it is a powerful illusion, none the less.
|
| I've had lots of dogs, horses, cats, and think they all are on
| the consciousness spectrum, but i'm guessing (couldn't possibly
| know) that they lack this constant overarching journaller in
| their brains. For species that have a richer communication, i
| still don't think they would have this... I think the need to
| write down language, and make it available to others
| asynchronously plays a part in it.
|
| Interestingly, some people report that they have no such
| journaller, or sometimes called inner voice that talks to them. I
| have no way to know what it's like to be them, or if my
| understanding of what they are saying is indeed what they are
| saying, but if true, i wonder if these folks are more like what
| other animals feel in their heads. I have no clue. Frankly, i
| can't imagine that someone wouldn't have a journaller in their
| heads, and so it's even hard for me to imagine. I assume i just
| don't understand.
| jbarberu wrote:
| I definitely don't have an inner voice. I certainly can "enable
| it", for things such as composing this reply. But in general
| I'd describe it as a stream of thought, not bound to any
| language. Then when I need to actually communicate I "pipe" it
| through whatever language I need (I grew up in a home with
| multiple languages, don't know if that influences it).
|
| One way I notice this is how thoughts are generally unpacked
| and stored without a language association, meaning I can't
| remember how people phrased something, only how I interpreted
| it. I feel like this is a decent memory optimization, but it
| drives my wife nuts and can be very unhelpful during
| arguments...
| Unbefleckt wrote:
| I'm the same but I tend to remember very precisely what
| people say. My partner is the opposite and yeah it's
| frustrating as hell especially when I'm being misquoted from
| mere minutes ago.
| mbfg wrote:
| >> I'd describe it as a stream of thought, not bound to any
| language.
|
| as it's your head i accept that at face value. However i
| couldn't possibly understand how that could possibly work.
| How do you think not in a language not in words? What are the
| "atoms" of stream of thought for you, is it picture based,
| or???
|
| My head talks to me all day long, unprovoked, uncontrolled by
| myself and in english. i can certainly interrupt and quiet it
| if i like, but i just am doing something ordinary and notice
| that i'm mentally talking to myself.
|
| As a corrolary... when you read a book, what is that
| experience like? do you have a reader reading the book to
| you? Do you 'hear' words as they are read. I don't mean
| audibly, but is a story told to you as you read? To me this
| journaller is very similar to what i sense when i read a
| book, altho obviously it's not surprising in the book reading
| sense.
| QuantumGood wrote:
| 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.
| zzo38computer wrote:
| I think animals do have consciousness, and I had thought that
| many times in the past. However, it is also necessary to define
| "consciousness". (Even this article admits that, though.)
|
| About placing humanity (or something else) in a category of its
| own, that depends on how the categorization is made, and it could
| be done in any way, so such a categorization of humanity does not
| really help, and can be deceptive to think it is the only one or
| the best one.
|
| I also think that "intelligence" would not be simply defined by
| higher vs lower; it is more complicated because of different kind
| of intelligence and more subclassifications of those too, and
| then there is the difference of e.g. speed vs knowledge vs etc.
| There is a sense to identify the intelligence of kind of animals
| (and of the same kind of animals, e.g. human), but if you merely
| say it is higher or lower then it is imprecise.
|
| This article also mentions colours, such as red colours. (And
| other things that you can also feel.) But, not all kind of animal
| can see all of the colours; some can see some colours that humans
| does not see but also does not see some that humans does see.
| Humans can see three colours, but some animals might see four
| colours. (And, some people also are partially or fully colour
| blind.)
|
| I had also read in a book once, they said, they are sure that
| insects have feelings but is not sure about emotions. Well, my
| guess is probably they do; but, it would be a mistake to think
| that having emotion would necessarily mean that it is like humans
| emotions; it can be difference.
|
| Nevertheless, many things that people have said are only for
| humans and are not what other kind of animals are. In many cases,
| I think they are wrong (and may even apply for some kind of
| plants, etc); "conscious" is not the only thing. However, there
| are also differences (including differences in the details of the
| things that actually are similar in many ways); and probably some
| of the differences have been missed as much as many of the
| similarities have been missed. (There are also differences
| between individuals, but that is a different thing.)
|
| > And this is important because we need to set rules to protect
| them either in the lab or in the wild.
|
| You do not need to know exactly how those animals will feel to
| justify avoiding treating animals badly.
|
| Differences of different kind of animals does not justify to
| treat them badly.
|
| But, it is good that scientists are actually finally figuring out
| this stuff scientifically, now. Although I and others had said
| such things before, that is not the same as doing it
| scientifically; so now that it can be done scientifically, it
| will be understood better scientifically, too.
| kull wrote:
| Super interesting topic. Long and boring article.
| swader999 wrote:
| Can they think about the future, are they aware of their
| mortality? The degree we do seems to fundamentally set us apart.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| Memory and intelligence are not the same as consciousness. Yes,
| we're different in the way that we use our intelligence but it
| doesn't prove that other beings are without consciousness.
| swader999 wrote:
| What about humour? Only rats, people and chimps can laugh.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| All of this is very much dependent on the types of senses.
| The Samkhya metaphysics system gives a breakdown of
| everything that exists on top of the conscious entity:
|
| 1. Intellect
|
| 2. Ego
|
| 3. Mind
|
| 5. Sensory capacities
|
| 6. Action capacities
|
| Humor would be a part of the Mind and Sensory capacities
| which reflects back the changes in Action capacities.
|
| So 'consciousness' is actually none of these things. It's
| the irreducible entity, or in simple terms energy or force
| that animates what would otherwise be dead matter.
| swader999 wrote:
| As soon as we ate the forbidden fruit we became self aware, aware
| we were naked, aware we were vulnerable and mortal. We learned
| about the future and that we could sacrifice things now to
| perhaps make it better. So we work, we pass on more than instinct
| with language to our children. Read of the transformation that
| Helen Keller went through once she learned language, many
| similarities to this biblical narrative.
| https://scentofdawn.blogspot.com/2011/07/before-soul-dawn-he...
| utkarsh858 wrote:
| In Indian culture, various species were regarded as being on a
| certain place in a spectrum of consciousness. Vedic literatures
| regarded even plants as beings who can have feelings. From zero
| (a rock) to almost 100% (a human) differentiation of species was
| primarily based on level of consciousness (bodily features as
| another factor, ofcourse) and interestingly, according to
| philosophy, selection of a specific species depended on a living
| entities 'karma', one gets a body with a certain level of
| consciousness according to the 'good' or 'bad' deeds one does in
| ones life.
| imposter wrote:
| Next up, are LLMs conscious?
| moi2388 wrote:
| 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. Are animals self-aware? Some of them, some
| only sometimes, some not.
|
| To think of consciousness as a dichotomy instead of a spectrum is
| baffling to me. As is thinking of consciousness as being a
| single, indivisible thing.
| tuatoru wrote:
| Do animals have friends, enemies, cliques? Yes. Do animals play
| practical jokes on each other? Yes. I've seen all of these in
| cows.
| sleepychu wrote:
| Cow practical joke anecdotes, please! :-)
| tuatoru wrote:
| Real simple stuff. Luring a cow over near a bank and then
| pushing her down it. Pretending there's some lush grass in
| the gap between trees. Nudging each other into the electric
| fence, or into the gatepost when going through a gate.
| King-Aaron wrote:
| Cows are just big dogs
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| One my cats attempts to lure me around the back of the shed
| so that she can then race out the other side, down the
| driveway, and jump the fence to precious freedom.
|
| She has a number of variations on this theme, and with each
| failure she tries something slightly different. Until I catch
| her and bring her back inside.
|
| The reason I know this is because, before I was aware that it
| was happening, it succeeded at least twice. (I'm picturing
| people reading this saying, in Lisa Simpsons's voice, "is my
| brother dumber than a hamster? Hamster two, Bart zero" -
| because that's what my inner voice is saying right now).
| b800h wrote:
| This problem is compounded by a certain class of
| neuroscientist, who upon hitting the hard (scientifically
| unresolvable) problem of consciousness, declares that
| consiousness is something else, like neural correlates of
| stimulation. This invariably causes disappointment when
| attending mainstream lectures with the word "consciousness" in
| the title.
| nikkwong wrote:
| 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 experience it
| ourselves. And because of that, we can't truly know if other's
| are conscious from a philosophical sense (i.e.--philosophical
| zombies) but we can posit scientifically that they must be
| since they share the same brain structure that we do.
|
| Now when we're trying to establish scientifically whether or
| not an animal is conscious or not, it's more difficult because
| we don't have the subjective experience of being that animal,
| and we can't philosophically transfer the phenomenology of the
| experience our brain creates onto theirs. So, while I think the
| question "are animals conscious?" is well-bounded, it's not one
| that is currently answerable due to the currently private
| nature of consciousness.
|
| > 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.
|
| Reacting to stimuli is all possible without consciousness--just
| like crabs react to noxious, painful stimuli without
| nociceptors. So the phenomena you're describing is not what
| people are talking about when they're debating consciousness
| navane wrote:
| 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.
| nikkwong wrote:
| 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.
| nprateem wrote:
| 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.
| navane wrote:
| In one way, that sounds like more consciously present, in
| the other way it sounds like less. You are more here and
| now as you lack distracting commentary, or are you more
| here if you sit and ponder it?
| nprateem wrote:
| The fact it's possible to not ponder shows consciousness
| doesn't depend on pondering.
|
| I can't see how distracting yourself with something else
| (thoughts) could make you more conscious.
| rusticpenn wrote:
| 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.
| nikkwong wrote:
| 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.
| __s wrote:
| My father had a siamese cat growing up, smart, would open
| drawers from behind to get food, tease dogs outside by
| standing just out of range of their leash. One day it
| slipped on a jump, his brother laughed at it. It ran away
| humiliated. That night while they were asleep it attacked
| his brother
| biztos wrote:
| 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.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| As an Aphantasian, this!
|
| Because there's no rigorous scientific definition of what
| consciousness is, and you can't even just roughly point to
| it, just like most quasi-sciences it's all up for debate.
|
| From my perspective, the only people questioning whether or
| not non-humans have consciousness are coming from a
| religious perspective trying to reconcile their cognitive
| dissonance
| moi2388 wrote:
| Now you've just replaced "consciousness" with "awareness".
| Self-awareness? Awareness of stimuli? Awareness of
| demarcation of animate and inanimate objects?
|
| I understand it sounds simple, but there are so many
| different systems interplaying to give rise to whatever
| definition of consciousness you give, it's really hard to
| give exact definitions.
|
| Also, you still talk as if this "awareness in the moment"
| might be a simple dichotomy. I seriously highly doubt this is
| the case, especially when it comes to stuff like reflexes and
| instincts.
| a_cardboard_box wrote:
| When I say "consciousness", the concept that I mean isn't
| reducible to other concepts. It's a concept that can only
| be found through introspection. And it seems like many have
| noticed the same concept, so we can label it with a word.
| But we can't define it such that someone who hasn't already
| noticed the concept will understand it. We can only
| describe it in such a way that those who already noticed it
| can confirm we're talking about the same thing. I think the
| parent's comment has done this adequately, and I don't
| think it's a problem that the definition is incomplete.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| So how do you define "aware"? Some inner model reflecting the
| environment?
|
| A stone is "aware in the present moment". Its temperature is
| an inner state reflecting the environment, short-term. Its
| composition is an inner state reflecting the environment,
| long-term.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| > 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.
| Simon_ORourke wrote:
| Again, without definition then anything measured against an
| invisible yardstick are just words on a page. Then again, the
| few months I spent living in Bakersfield CA, led me to question
| whether some or indeed most of the folks there were just low
| fidelity NPC's.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Consciousness must be mipmapped. It only starts to present at
| a reasonably close distance.
| ysofunny wrote:
| energy most certainly is "mipmapped" but this would be a
| funky way to think about inverse square type of laws
| King-Aaron wrote:
| 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 biologist or a professional in
| this field - this appears to be consciousness. I couldn't
| imagine anyone trying to argue against that.
| Vampiero wrote:
| 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.
| adrianN wrote:
| 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.
| efilife wrote:
| Just FYI, all the _it 's_es you used in this comment are the
| wrong ones. Should have been _its_
| slumberdisrupt wrote:
| If there is such a thing as consciousness, no matter its
| variety (like how the viscosity of water varies on a "spectrum"
| without become its opposites ice or steam), there is by
| necessity such a thing as non-consciousness. That's just how
| concepts go.
| dandanua wrote:
| I presume many people actually mean self-consciousness when
| they talk about consciousness. It's the concepts of "I" and
| "will" that puzzle the most. Anything else can be treated as
| automatic actions (yet very complicated).
| LawrenceKerr wrote:
| 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
| the world, basically. No frame of reference. Unless you believe
| in panpsychism; then everything is conscious and we can ask
| ourselves what it's like to be a rock.
|
| It's just that the hard problem of consciousness states that we
| haven't been able to define this "state" in its exact physical,
| neural correlates, but just because we haven't been able to do
| that yet, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It quite literally is
| the only thing we can know for sure exists, because otherwise
| no one would be there to ask or hear the question to begin
| with.
|
| And sure, you can try to break it down into behavior and other
| properties of a living being, but that is simply side-stepping
| the hard problem and just ignoring the question of qualia.
|
| Then again, there's something like "aphantasia": some people do
| not have the capacity to mentally visualize anything, and often
| aren't even aware of that themselves. I can imagine there's
| something analogous with the quality of consciousness, i.e.
| literal "NPCs" who do not experience the world from a frame of
| reference, but are basically non-sentient, human, autonomous
| agents. That's just a very dangerous line of thought, so don't
| take that too seriously :)
| senordevnyc wrote:
| _It quite literally is the only thing we can know for sure
| exists_
|
| To be precise, it's the only thing _I_ can know for sure
| exists. I can 't know for sure if anyone else knows it.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| > 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.
| 0x20cowboy wrote:
| Maybe if we made LLMs out of steak people would stop thinking
| they were conscious.
| ysofunny wrote:
| don't worry, some people already do
|
| or at least that is my read of academics that say the universe
| is deterministic
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| Modern science is so clueless that it's now trying to answer
| metaphysical questions with physical processes. What's next?
| Using empiricism to negate the concept of justice since none of
| us are the same in any shape or form?
| knallfrosch wrote:
| I'm not even sure you other guys are conscious. Let's test it
| with some electric shocks.
| nprateem wrote:
| The philosophical zombie idea needs to be put to bed. Instead we
| should be thinking on the balance of probabilities instead. This
| is far more pragmatic.
|
| We can't know anything for certain, and the zombie idea is a
| convenient stonewall that allows us to ignore the behavioural
| evidence and continue to abuse animals as a society (mainly by
| killing them).
| jumploops wrote:
| I once witnessed a spider controlling a motion activated flood
| light to catch prey.
|
| At first I assumed the flood light in my backyard was just being
| triggered by the wind, as a spider had built a web in front of
| the sensor, however I then noticed that the light would turn on
| even when there wasn't any wind.
|
| Upon closer inspection, I found that the spider had created a
| singular strand of webbing, thicker than the rest (5x-10x),
| directly over the front of the sensor.
|
| It would then pluck this thicker strand whenever it wanted the
| light to turn on.
|
| I had previously read a few papers on spider intelligence,
| specifically the planning capabilities of certain species, but
| this seemed like another level.
|
| Not only had it discovered the sensor, it crafted a tool to use
| it for it's own advantage.
|
| Humans think they're something forever unique and special in the
| evolutionary timeline, but the remembered words of our ancestors
| trick us into thinking individuals are larger than the herd.
|
| Intelligence comes in many shapes and sizes, and claiming to be
| above the rest parallels, in my experience, the likes of a liar
| more so than a truth seeker.
|
| What is consciousness? That which separates us from the animal
| kingdom. A lie we tell ourselves to sleep at night and die for
| false prophets.
| efilife wrote:
| Just a heads up - for _its_ own advantage
| jumploops wrote:
| The fun thing about language is that we define it.
|
| (On a serious note, this one always gets me after midnight!)
| machiaweliczny wrote:
| Yeah spiders are uniquely smart for their size. I had one using
| stone and some complicated physics to catch pray (don't
| remember exactly the details but was impressed)
| solardev wrote:
| Don't those motion lights typically use passive infrared
| sensors? I'm surprised it's sensitive enough to see spider silk
| moving. Could the strand possibly have been blocking some
| radiative source behind the strand (the sun?)?
|
| Now if the spider knew THAT...
| jcul wrote:
| Judging from the spiderwebs clinging to it, the emergency
| stairway was hardly ever used.
|
| To each web clung a small black spider, patiently waiting for
| its small prey to come along.
|
| Not that the spiders had any awareness of being "patient." A
| spider had no special skill other than building its web, and no
| lifestyle choice other than sitting still. It would stay in one
| place waiting for its prey until, in the natural course of
| things, it shriveled up and died. This was all genetically
| predetermined. The spider had no confusion, no despair, no
| regrets. No metaphysical doubt, no moral complications.
| Probably.
| Hoasi wrote:
| It seems unfortunate that they inflicted pain and negative
| experiences on animals to prove common knowledge.
| formvoltron wrote:
| given that we don't remember what happened before our lives, and
| most likely when we die we enter a similar state... so that life
| starts whenever a physical life begins (later a mental life
| starts and exists until the time that physical life dies)... Then
| the idea that all creatures are conscious is a pretty bad idea.
| It means that being a conscious being such as a human is
| ridiculously improbable, given the very high ratio of all
| conscious creatures count vs human count.
| ShuffleBoard wrote:
| First of all it's crawfish not crayfish. Second of all that's a
| hermit crab not a crawfish.
| nullstyle wrote:
| For those of you who think we have crappy definitions for things
| like Intelligence, Consciousness, Sentience, or even just
| Existence, I invite you to ponder Joscha Bach's thoughts on these
| subjects: https://youtu.be/cs9Ls0m5QVE?si=E2TKfnuV8tXo4J_3
| johnwheeler wrote:
| Unquestionably. No study required.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Anyone who has had a pet knows they're conscious. Of course
| they're conscious.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Consciousness is a spectrum, it's the best bet because there are
| too many biological similarities the difference being the amount
| of intelligence
| jsz0 wrote:
| 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 understands we share a
| common motivation of sleeping in the comfy bed. She clearly
| understands a concept of the future where she lets me know her
| position and expects me not to accidentally bother her again. If
| I continue to bother he she will simply get up and move just far
| enough away to avoid further trouble.
| ok_dad wrote:
| 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.
| banish-m4 wrote:
| The most anthropocentric thing I've read all year.
| doodpants wrote:
| "But his ideas that animals are conscious in the same way humans
| are have long been shunned."
|
| ...except by every single dog or cat owner ever.
|
| Seriously, I've never understood how anyone could interact with
| or observe animals for any length of time and _not_ perceive
| obvious signs of conciousness.
| dboreham wrote:
| WTF? Who said animals aren't conscious?
|
| Edit: reading below, the answer appears to be: God.
| senordevnyc wrote:
| How is it that neither the article nor anyone here has mentioned
| the seminal paper by Nagel, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F
| pjs_ wrote:
| One day we may even prove that BBC journalists are conscious
| SpaceFarmer wrote:
| I've always had trouble with people's definition of
| consciousness. What is amazing to me is that I've lived my whole
| life, from the perspective of this one seemingly random guy. I
| can't prove anyone or anything else is consciousness, but I know
| "I'm in here" so to speak. As amazing and complex as the
| configuration of atoms in the human brain is, it doesn't even
| begin to explain to me how "I" ended up perceiving reality from
| this one object in particular. Or even explain what "I" am.
| __lbracket__ wrote:
| No, animals arent conscious. Kill them indiscriminately and
| brutally. Happy Bakrid everyone !
| tomcam wrote:
| Anyone who's met my stupid stupid chickens would appreciate that
| the stupid stupid chickens can totally manipulate us by making
| pathetic sounds when we know we are near, so they can get treats.
| Pre-chicken it was obvious to me that dogs, dolphins, higher
| primates, etc. were conscious. But stupid stupid chickens? Yes,
| stupid stupid chickens, it turns out. I love them despite the
| fact that they are ruthlessly committed to training me.
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