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Animal consciousness... have we been wrong? - Maxmars - 04-23-2024
A little over a decade ago, at a meeting at Cambridge, a group of respected scientists and researcher published a statement indicating that creatures of all types have everything neurologically necessary to manifest true consciousness... sentience of a sort [1]. They proposed that we should openly recognize that we have been mistaken by accepting Descartes's statements that indicated animals were a sort of biological automata ... without feelings, without a mind.
A short while ago, another group of academicians and thinkers at a New York conference made a similar 'declaration' [2] ... that animals may very well be conscious.
A flurry of reporting has occurred in the media, with several outlets publishing on this subject...
From Quanta Magazine: Insects and Other Animals Have Consciousness, Experts Declare
Subtitled: A group of prominent biologists and philosophers announced a new consensus: There’s “a realistic possibility” that insects, octopuses, crustaceans, fish and other overlooked animals experience consciousness.
From Nature: Do insects have an inner life? Animal consciousness needs a rethink
Subtitled: A declaration signed by dozens of scientists says there is “a realistic possibility” for elements of consciousness in reptiles, insects and molluscs.
From The Hill: It’s ‘irresponsible’ to ignore widespread consciousness across animal world, dozens of scientists argue
From NBC News: Scientists push new paradigm of animal consciousness, saying even insects may be sentient
Subtitled: Far more animals than previously thought likely have consciousness, top scientists say in a new declaration — including fish, lobsters and octopus.
From Animal Ethics.org: 10th Anniversary of the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness
That's a lot of attention for a very simple scientific declaration. Even minimized, the assertion is important... It is not impossible that non-humans lack a sense of experiential existence. They may well be sentient in some analogous way to human consciousness. I offer some excerpted examples from the various articles to give you some ideas of what's in there...
The [NY] declaration, signed by biologists and philosophers, formally embraces that view. It reads, in part: “The empirical evidence indicates at least a realistic possibility of conscious experience in all vertebrates (including all reptiles, amphibians and fishes) and many invertebrates (including, at minimum, cephalopod mollusks, decapod crustaceans and insects).” Inspired by recent research findings that describe complex cognitive behaviors in these and other animals, the document represents a new consensus and suggests that researchers may have overestimated the degree of neural complexity required for consciousness.
On a side note, the first such declaration presented practically the same message. It was a bit wordier, (the New York declaration is impressively brief) but the idea was never stated then, or now, that animals "are" conscious... only that we have inadequate scientific standing to say they can not be.
(I like reiterating the meaning because I have seen people re-brand scientific utterances to serve their own ends...)
I have been an on and off pet owner for many decades... I know each of them had some kind of consciousness, by long observation... but I can't state it scientifically because even the scientists are still hammering out what 'consciousness' is exactly...
There is not a standard definition for animal sentience or consciousness, but generally the terms denote an ability to have subjective experiences: to sense and map the outside world, to have capacity for feelings like joy or pain. In some cases, it can mean that animals possess a level of self-awareness.
Some encouraging observations, from my perspective, is summed up well...
The new declaration expands the scope of its predecessor and is also worded more carefully, Seth wrote. “It doesn’t try to do science by diktat, but rather emphasizes what we should take seriously regarding animal consciousness and the relevant ethics given the evidence and theories that we have.”
[Underlining is mine] I love that it was openly acknowledged, that often these 'declarations' are, in some sense, "Science by diktat" (science by decree... as in the Descartes pronouncement of 'material automata.')
It may seem obvious to us that mammals, birds, and octopuses are conscious because of the way they act and the way they react to pleasant and unpleasant things. When he heard about the Cambridge Declaration, ethologist Marc Bekoff said he thought it was a joke because animal consciousness is something so obvious to anyone who works with or lives with nonhuman animals.
So why did it take so long for scientists to declare this, and why was their wording so careful? Instead of directly claiming that the nonhuman animals they mentioned are conscious, they said that other animals have “the substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors.”
Each of these articles has good material in it... well presented and worth reading... for once.
RE: Animal consciousness... have we been wrong? - Byrd - 04-23-2024
I think the conundrum is over the definition of "consciousness"... the same problem they have with "sentience."
Consider the amoeba. We could argue that it's conscious... that it's aware of and reacts to its environment... but then this also means that grass is conscious since it is aware of its environment and reacts to it (even if just by wilting.)
RE: Animal consciousness... have we been wrong? - CCoburn - 04-24-2024
I believe that any other mammals that share an identical set of sentient faculties have a similar base consciousness where there would exist other discernments between us and them such as intelligence and self-awareness.
As stated, consciousness is not entirely understood but it seems to be at least a root or central processing factor of the biological machinery that interprets the environment via the senses. At the core it's what remains when you clear your mind of all thoughts. The ever present and never changing - I am.
It's likely the quality of awareness that varies from lifeform to lifeform where there are additional modes of processing that are built upon this "base consciousness" with more or less sentient factors involved and of course the complexity and potentiality of any gray matter involved.
Some might even go so far as to say that it is 'spirit' that is a basal seeding of consciousness that results in a 'soul' when paired with a physical vessel(or other construct) resulting in the duality of mind and body and that ultimately if anything moves at all than it is moved through "spirit" at the outset - panpsychism.
RE: Animal consciousness... have we been wrong? - pianopraze - 04-24-2024
I think humans are arrogant self centered pricks to consider other animals as less conscious or aware.
we just want some excuse for our humanity based cruelty to other species.
nature is cruel in its own way, but we assume we are superior and justify our cruelty by assuming other species are less.
some species are just as cruel though… take orca playing football with seals and small dolphins.
we don’t have a monopoly on purposeful cruelty. Nature is mostly eat or get eaten, not the furry lovey fairytale some portray.
we are also capable of altruism and compassion… yet so are whales, dolphins, dogs and many other species.
only difference is our arrogance assuming other species are not.
RE: Animal consciousness... have we been wrong? - CCoburn - 04-24-2024
(04-24-2024, 07:20 AM)pianopraze Wrote: I think humans are arrogant self centered pricks to consider other animals as less conscious or aware.
I was always annoyed by the claims that other intelligent mammals have some second-rate experience in perceiving their environment.
RE: Animal consciousness... have we been wrong? - putnam6 - 04-24-2024
Two things Ive almost always thought the opposite, not that the animals are unaware, but that there are many levels of comprehension, and they are probably partially species related. The octopus probably has better spacial awareness than say a herd animal, because a herd animal responds to the herd's reaction hell it doesn't just respond it does exactly as the herd does
But generally, I'd think animals are hyperaware of thier surroundings much more than humans, just watching that healthy coyote running around Central Park, animals are infinitely more adaptable to thier surroundings.
But does that cross into deep-level thought and intelligence, chimpanzees are much better at memorization and quick accurate recall than humans but it doesn't mean they ponder the what if questions
RE: Animal consciousness... have we been wrong? - pianopraze - 04-24-2024
(04-24-2024, 08:10 AM)CCoburn Wrote: I was always annoyed by the claims that other intelligent mammals have some second-rate experience in perceiving their environment.
These whales have a bigger brain area devoted to altruism and compassion than we do:
RE: Animal consciousness... have we been wrong? - Maxmars - 04-24-2024
Our problem right now is quite simple.
We have identified parts of the physiology of the brain which seem to correspond to conscious processes in our minds. We have also identified physiological processes and markers that seem to indicate functioning of sentience and consciousness...
... but we have not measured or described 'consciousness' itself. There is no unit of consciousness, no metric to describe it's presence. And it does seem foolishly arrogant to assume that all consciousness must conform to the exact same manner as it does in humans.
I think this debate is overdue because we are actively purporting to 'create synthetic consciousness' without have any useful handle on what that is in the first place.
RE: Animal consciousness... have we been wrong? - CCoburn - 04-24-2024
(04-24-2024, 12:58 PM)Maxmars Wrote: I think this debate is overdue because we are actively purporting to 'create synthetic consciousness' without have any useful handle on what that is in the first place.
Its scale is likely quantum and measured in Planck lengths rendering it non observable via the visual mechanism. There are theories as to the structure of consciousness as "permanent atoms" that could function as individual consciousness possibly in the form of a 'soul atom'.
The physical vessel would be dissolvable but there would be permanence of consciousness in the form of these atomic structures. The consciousness itself would likely be situated at the nucleus as a spark or soul segment of the primordial light energy.
RE: Animal consciousness... have we been wrong? - Maxmars - 04-24-2024
(04-24-2024, 05:29 PM)CCoburn Wrote: Its scale is likely quantum and measured in Planck lengths rendering it non observable via the visual mechanism. There are theories as to the structure of consciousness as "permanent atoms" that could function as individual consciousness possibly in the form of a 'soul atom'.
The physical vessel would be dissolvable but there would be permanence of consciousness in the form of these atomic structures. The consciousness itself would likely be situated at the nucleus as a spark or soul segment of the primordial light energy.
That is a very interesting proposition, and I suspect that the difficulty might be in understanding the mechanics mathematically... especially for me (not so gifted in the understanding of it.) However there does seem to be some emerging sense of another kind of (or level of) understanding when it comes to creating a model based solely upon three-dimensional physics... but I don't want to pretend that I fully get the 'soul' atom idea.
It seems that "matter" is not a simple 'thing'... but a foundational relationship between waveforms and (perhaps) 'other' circumstances.
Scratch that... I'm just guessing here.
(Sorry for the topic drift...)
