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> …insects… are a million miles from the mindless, unfeeling creatures they are traditionally believed to be. Is it truly a common belief that insects are mind

> …insects… are a million miles from the mindless, unfeeling creatures they are traditionally believed to be. Is it truly a common belief that insects are mindless and unfeeling? I would imagine the vast majority of people, when polled, would guess that insects have some form of consciousness and feeling. Of course, that doesn't stop people from squashing or swatting them when they get in the way. In fact, it hasn't fully stopped people from killing other people either.

contravariant 4y ago
The word 'drone' refers to male bees or ants and seems to derive from an old Germanic word for insect. Not saying etymology is the best indication for what people think, but there is a connection there.
scoofy 4y ago
I think it's extremely hard to say, but I'd say it's hard to argue for sentience when the neural system is so small. This is a serious problem in philosophy. The concepts of "philosophical zombies" is a hard problem. The fact is that we could have perfectly "sentient behavior" from creatures/beings without any sensible consciousness involved. The sentience of humans is debatable, even though it is readily apparent that we experience qualia. Unless you're willing to accept that a rock, or a series of silicon chips, or even a massive mechanical computing machine can have consciousness, the blurry edge of where neural systems go from being electric discharges to a vehicle for qualia is an extremely difficult question.
- throwaway3838g 4y ago
  One could imagine that human’s would appear unconscious to a hyper intelligent alien species. Perhaps it’s all relative.
  - scoofy 4y ago
    You're conflating consciousness with intelligence. The two are not the same. One is the experience of qualia, and the ability to hold preferences. The other is the behaviors associated with making predictions and intentionally manipulating the world to achieve tasks. We have a hyper-intelligent chess engines that cannot be argued to be conscious. We also have small mammalian minds, like Koalas, that are dumb as a brick, but are very likely conscious.
    - throwaway3838g 4y ago
      That’s a good point. I suppose then, to a hyper intelligent alien species we would be the Koala’s, unintelligent but conscious.
    - ilkke 4y ago
      I am not entirely prepared to accept that koalas have small mammalian minds
      - steve_adams_86 4y ago
        I realized recently there’s no evidence that they don’t, but a wealth of evidence that they do. I watch animals very closely now and I see more all the time that they are just like me in most ways. I suppose I used to watch them as a person who eats them, and my comfort with doing so depended on not seeing them as conscious creatures like me. Now that I don’t eat them, it’s as though there are more similarities than there are differences. I suspect if animals could speak, we’d realize they’re remarkably similar to us. This probably sounds ridiculous to many people, and would have to me once too. A key part of this is not that I’m elevating animals’ conscience to that of humans so much as lowering humans’. We tend to think we’re exceptional, but I think our exception is probably just intelligence. The rest, I don’t know, I suspect we’re all very much alike.
        ilkke 4y ago
        Apologies, I should have made my comment clear instead of trying to be witty - what I meant was that Koalas are marsupials, not mammals. That said, I agree with what you are saying. We tend to assume a bigger than likely distance between us and other animals.
        steve_adams_86 4y ago
        Ha, I completely overlooked that they’re marsupials, too. Now I suppose neither of us are prepared to accept it.
    - 4y ago
  - nerpderp82 4y ago
    I am hypo intelligent, but my coworkers definitely appear unconscious. Incomplete, ill-posed statement fragments over chat or better yet, in needless "sync" meetings. Insects display unbelievable forms intelligence to anyone that pays attention.
- version_five 4y ago
  Is there something we know about the relationship between conciousness/sentience and the size of brain? A computer neural network can be arbitrarily large and there is no evidence it will ever become sentient. While we're related to insects and afaik share some functions. I can definitely picture the idea of their conciousness just being a more basic version of ours. But I'm curious if there is some evidence or reasoning that actually conciousness emerges as some threshold gets crossed
  - scoofy 4y ago
    I mean, we don't know. We literally don't know where or how consciousness exists. We just know that we have it, and we try to extrapolate backwards. Is it a product of the prefrontal cortex? Arguably. Is it the product of the mammalian mind? Seems plausible. The product of a small-but-thresholded nervous system? I think many would agree here. Is it the product of any nervous system? Doubtful, but maybe. Is it the product of any electrical system? Who knows, it's possible. Is it an innate part of matter? I mean... Are insects conscious? I'm skeptical. Are mussels and/or oysters conscious? I'm very skeptical. Are plants conscious? I'm extremely skeptical.
    - pluijzer 4y ago
      This always used to be my thought as well. Consciousness and intelligence had a clear hierarchy in my mind. Slowly though I am not so sure anymore. Watching plants grow in their own time frame in the documentary "the private life of plants", reading about the communication networks of trees in "The Hidden Life of Trees" and having observed nature a lot; this hierarchy starts to fade. There is a big connection between consciousness and morality. Killing a family of bears to safe a human child would be seen as a moral think to do. We explain this to ourselves by using levels of consciousness. It is okay to kill, enslave etc. a species with a lower level of consciousness for the benefit of one with a higher level. And humans have the highest levels of consciousness. I believe this is an illusion or even a coping mechanisms for admitting that we find our own species more important. Think of it this way; what if there existed an alien race, superior in intellect and consciousness. Would we be okay with it enslaved us? Would we kill one of our own if it meant saving one of them. I think not. I think the connection between consciousness and morality would disappear. When connecting consciousness with morality, admitting consciousness to a life form becomes subjective and a costly dilemma. I think that by just admitting that we prefer the survival of our own kind it would be easier to see rich world of many possible consciousness entities in this world. Be it humans, insects, trees or even interconnected systems of species.
- DogOnTheWeb 4y ago
  Even if there is a chance it’s all a mirage, wouldn’t it be better to behave as if these and other creatures have an inner life? Appealing to the philosophical zombie seems like an excuse to discard that our actions might cause real suffering from their perspective, on the unknowable chance they don’t mind.
standardUser 4y ago
I honestly view insects as largely robotic, performing a limited set of specific tasks over and over without requiring any learning. Some of those tasks are immensely complex! But they do them with the determination of an automaton and with, presumably, fixed programming dictating the behaviors (since they require no teaching whatsoever for hunting or nesting or breeding or child-rearing, unlike other more 'advanced' animals). So no, I never considered insects to be "feeling" creatures. But research like this can certainly change my mind!

contravariant 4y ago

The word 'drone' refers to male bees or ants and seems to derive from an old Germanic word for insect. Not saying etymology is the best indication for what people think, but there is a connection there.

scoofy 4y ago

I think it's extremely hard to say, but I'd say it's hard to argue for sentience when the neural system is so small. This is a serious problem in philosophy. The concepts of "philosophical zombies" is a hard problem. The fact is that we could have perfectly "sentient behavior" from creatures/beings without any sensible consciousness involved. The sentience of humans is debatable, even though it is readily apparent that we experience qualia. Unless you're willing to accept that a rock, or a series of silicon chips, or even a massive mechanical computing machine can have consciousness, the blurry edge of where neural systems go from being electric discharges to a vehicle for qualia is an extremely difficult question.

throwaway3838g 4y ago
One could imagine that human’s would appear unconscious to a hyper intelligent alien species. Perhaps it’s all relative.
- scoofy 4y ago
  You're conflating consciousness with intelligence. The two are not the same. One is the experience of qualia, and the ability to hold preferences. The other is the behaviors associated with making predictions and intentionally manipulating the world to achieve tasks. We have a hyper-intelligent chess engines that cannot be argued to be conscious. We also have small mammalian minds, like Koalas, that are dumb as a brick, but are very likely conscious.
  - throwaway3838g 4y ago
    That’s a good point. I suppose then, to a hyper intelligent alien species we would be the Koala’s, unintelligent but conscious.
  - ilkke 4y ago
    I am not entirely prepared to accept that koalas have small mammalian minds
    - steve_adams_86 4y ago
      I realized recently there’s no evidence that they don’t, but a wealth of evidence that they do. I watch animals very closely now and I see more all the time that they are just like me in most ways. I suppose I used to watch them as a person who eats them, and my comfort with doing so depended on not seeing them as conscious creatures like me. Now that I don’t eat them, it’s as though there are more similarities than there are differences. I suspect if animals could speak, we’d realize they’re remarkably similar to us. This probably sounds ridiculous to many people, and would have to me once too. A key part of this is not that I’m elevating animals’ conscience to that of humans so much as lowering humans’. We tend to think we’re exceptional, but I think our exception is probably just intelligence. The rest, I don’t know, I suspect we’re all very much alike.
      - ilkke 4y ago
        Apologies, I should have made my comment clear instead of trying to be witty - what I meant was that Koalas are marsupials, not mammals. That said, I agree with what you are saying. We tend to assume a bigger than likely distance between us and other animals.
        steve_adams_86 4y ago
        Ha, I completely overlooked that they’re marsupials, too. Now I suppose neither of us are prepared to accept it.
  - 4y ago
- nerpderp82 4y ago
  I am hypo intelligent, but my coworkers definitely appear unconscious. Incomplete, ill-posed statement fragments over chat or better yet, in needless "sync" meetings. Insects display unbelievable forms intelligence to anyone that pays attention.
version_five 4y ago
Is there something we know about the relationship between conciousness/sentience and the size of brain? A computer neural network can be arbitrarily large and there is no evidence it will ever become sentient. While we're related to insects and afaik share some functions. I can definitely picture the idea of their conciousness just being a more basic version of ours. But I'm curious if there is some evidence or reasoning that actually conciousness emerges as some threshold gets crossed
- scoofy 4y ago
  I mean, we don't know. We literally don't know where or how consciousness exists. We just know that we have it, and we try to extrapolate backwards. Is it a product of the prefrontal cortex? Arguably. Is it the product of the mammalian mind? Seems plausible. The product of a small-but-thresholded nervous system? I think many would agree here. Is it the product of any nervous system? Doubtful, but maybe. Is it the product of any electrical system? Who knows, it's possible. Is it an innate part of matter? I mean... Are insects conscious? I'm skeptical. Are mussels and/or oysters conscious? I'm very skeptical. Are plants conscious? I'm extremely skeptical.
  - pluijzer 4y ago
    This always used to be my thought as well. Consciousness and intelligence had a clear hierarchy in my mind. Slowly though I am not so sure anymore. Watching plants grow in their own time frame in the documentary "the private life of plants", reading about the communication networks of trees in "The Hidden Life of Trees" and having observed nature a lot; this hierarchy starts to fade. There is a big connection between consciousness and morality. Killing a family of bears to safe a human child would be seen as a moral think to do. We explain this to ourselves by using levels of consciousness. It is okay to kill, enslave etc. a species with a lower level of consciousness for the benefit of one with a higher level. And humans have the highest levels of consciousness. I believe this is an illusion or even a coping mechanisms for admitting that we find our own species more important. Think of it this way; what if there existed an alien race, superior in intellect and consciousness. Would we be okay with it enslaved us? Would we kill one of our own if it meant saving one of them. I think not. I think the connection between consciousness and morality would disappear. When connecting consciousness with morality, admitting consciousness to a life form becomes subjective and a costly dilemma. I think that by just admitting that we prefer the survival of our own kind it would be easier to see rich world of many possible consciousness entities in this world. Be it humans, insects, trees or even interconnected systems of species.
DogOnTheWeb 4y ago
Even if there is a chance it’s all a mirage, wouldn’t it be better to behave as if these and other creatures have an inner life? Appealing to the philosophical zombie seems like an excuse to discard that our actions might cause real suffering from their perspective, on the unknowable chance they don’t mind.

standardUser 4y ago

I honestly view insects as largely robotic, performing a limited set of specific tasks over and over without requiring any learning. Some of those tasks are immensely complex! But they do them with the determination of an automaton and with, presumably, fixed programming dictating the behaviors (since they require no teaching whatsoever for hunting or nesting or breeding or child-rearing, unlike other more 'advanced' animals). So no, I never considered insects to be "feeling" creatures. But research like this can certainly change my mind!