10 ms·

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.

by jraph 2y ago

epgui 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    Could you prove that another person is conscious? Could you prove that you are conscious?
    - delecti 2y ago
      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 2y ago
        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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    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 2y ago
      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 2y ago
      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.
- jjtheblunt 2y ago
  > 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 2y ago
    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 2y ago
Especially when you consider humans are animals too.
lkdfjlkdfjlg 2y ago
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 2y ago
  Do they? It's easier to test humans than other animals because it's easier to communicate.
- copirate 2y ago
  > 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_sentience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience#Indicators_of_sentie...
  - lkdfjlkdfjlg 2y ago
    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.
    - echoangle 2y ago
      I’m not saying that this is the case, but all the mentioned behaviors are only indicators and could also be reflexive actions which the dog is genetically programmed to do because they work. If a beetle is flipped, it also has a “program” to get upright again, but that doesn’t mean it’s aware of its situation and is actively deciding something. I’m pretty sure dogs are conscious, but you can’t really tell from the outside. LLMs also appear to reason and make arguments but I wouldn’t call them conscious.
npteljes 2y ago
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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  > science didn't admit to a female orgasm, either Science doesn't admit anything. It is a methodology that is practiced.
greenavocado 2y ago
Apparently someone in the NIH disagrees since they actually performed the sandfly experiment on beagles.

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.

by jraph 2y ago

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 2y ago

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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  Could you prove that another person is conscious? Could you prove that you are conscious?
  - delecti 2y ago
    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 2y ago
      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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    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 2y ago
    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.
jjtheblunt 2y ago
> 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 2y ago
  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 2y ago

Especially when you consider humans are animals too.

lkdfjlkdfjlg 2y ago

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 2y ago
Do they? It's easier to test humans than other animals because it's easier to communicate.
copirate 2y ago
> 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_sentience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience#Indicators_of_sentie...
- lkdfjlkdfjlg 2y ago
  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.
  - echoangle 2y ago
    I’m not saying that this is the case, but all the mentioned behaviors are only indicators and could also be reflexive actions which the dog is genetically programmed to do because they work. If a beetle is flipped, it also has a “program” to get upright again, but that doesn’t mean it’s aware of its situation and is actively deciding something. I’m pretty sure dogs are conscious, but you can’t really tell from the outside. LLMs also appear to reason and make arguments but I wouldn’t call them conscious.

npteljes 2y ago

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 2y ago

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 2y ago
> science didn't admit to a female orgasm, either Science doesn't admit anything. It is a methodology that is practiced.

greenavocado 2y ago

Apparently someone in the NIH disagrees since they actually performed the sandfly experiment on beagles.