Which animals have the capacity for conscious experience? While much uncertainty remains, some points of wide agreement have emerged.
First, there is strong scientific support for attributions of conscious experience to other mammals and to birds.
Second, the empirical evidence indicates at least a realistic possibility of conscious experience in all vertebrates (including reptiles, amphibians, and fishes) and many invertebrates (including, at minimum, cephalopod mollusks, decapod crustaceans, and insects).
Third, when there is a realistic possibility of conscious experience in an animal, it is irresponsible to ignore that possibility in decisions affecting that animal. We should consider welfare risks and use the evidence to inform our responses to these risks. — NY Declaration on Animal Consciousness - Homepage
What is consciousness? The term has a variety of meanings. The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness focuses on one important meaning, sometimes called “phenomenal consciousness” or “sentience.” The question here is which animals can have subjective experiences. This can include sensory experiences (say, the experience of a particular touch, taste, sight, or smell) as well as experiences that feel good or bad (say, the experience of pleasure, pain, hope, or fear). This sense of the term “consciousness” is what Thomas Nagel had in mind when he famously asked “What is it like to be a bat?”.
Subjective experience requires more than the mere ability to detect stimuli. However, it does not require sophisticated capacities such as human-like language or reason. Phenomenal consciousness is raw feeling—immediate felt experience, be it sensory or emotional—and this is something that may well be shared between humans and many other animals. Of course, human-like linguistic and rational capabilities may allow some humans to have forms of experience that other animals lack (e.g. a linguistic “inner monologue”). Likewise, many other animals may have forms of experience that we lack.
Which animals are conscious in this sense? The advances just described, taken together, are sending a clear message: we need to take seriously the possibility that a very wide range of animals, including all vertebrates and many invertebrates, can have subjective experiences.
It would be inappropriate to talk about “proof,” “certainty,” or “conclusive evidence” in the search for animal consciousness, because the nature of consciousness is still hotly contested. However, it is entirely appropriate to interpret these remarkable displays of learning, memory, planning, problem-solving, self-awareness, and other such capacities as evidence of consciousness in cases where the same behavior, if found in a human or other mammal, would be well explained by conscious processing. These behaviors make it more likely that these animals have consciousness without proving that they have it, just as the symptoms of a disease make it more likely that you have the disease without proving that you have it.
With other mammals and birds, we can now say that the evidence establishes strong scientific support for attributions of consciousness—not conclusive evidence, but many lines of evidence all pointing in the same direction. With other vertebrates (reptiles, amphibians, and fishes) and many invertebrates (cephalopod mollusks such as octopuses and cuttlefish, decapod crustaceans such as hermit crabs and crayfish, and insects such as bees and fruit flies), we can now say that the evidence establishes at least a realistic possibility of consciousness. The chance is high enough to warrant further research aimed at addressing questions of consciousness in these animals. The chance is also high enough to warrant serious consideration of their welfare. — NYDAC, Background
Well, I thought it was meaningful. That’s why I posted it. I guess I must have misjudged the ambient cynicism. — Wayfarer
Or, there is a very nice documentaryDammit! Stop making me think that I need to read that book. — wonderer1
It's good to have an authoritative voice speak up for our suffering fellow creatures — Vera Mont
They just don’t realize that subjectivity cannot and mustn’t be proved. — Angelo Cannata
It would be inappropriate to talk about “proof,” “certainty,” or “conclusive evidence” in the search for animal consciousness, because the nature of consciousness is still hotly contested. However, it is entirely appropriate to interpret these remarkable displays of learning, memory, planning, problem-solving, self-awareness, and other such capacities as evidence of consciousness in cases where the same behavior, if found in a human or other mammal, would be well explained by conscious processing.
This means that, whenever we talk about subjectivity, we cannot escape turning it automatically into an objective concept made and expressed by objective and shared reference points, so that what we are talking about is not anymore the subjectivity we wanted to explain. — Angelo Cannata
Quite agree, and also agree that it is something that cannot be explained. — Wayfarer
To communicate through the network, trees send chemical, hormonal and slow-pulsing electrical signals, which scientists are just beginning to decipher. Edward Farmer at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland has been studying the electrical pulses, and he has identified a voltage-based signaling system that appears strikingly similar to animal nervous systems (although he does not suggest that plants have neurons or brains). Alarm and distress appear to be the main topics of tree conversation, although Wohlleben wonders if that’s all they talk about. “What do trees say when there is no danger and they feel content? This I would love to know.” Monica Gagliano at the University of Western Australia has gathered evidence that some plants may also emit and detect sounds, and in particular, a crackling noise in the roots at a frequency of 220 hertz, inaudible to humans. — Smithonian
Therefore, in his school of thought, all humans are also eligible for protein, slave labour, spare parts and experimentation without their consent?According to him and his ilk, if something can’t be described or understood in scientific terms, then it ought not to be considered worthy of analysis. — Wayfarer
I get the contest between conscience and self-interest. I don't get the separate categorization of equally inexplicable consciousnesses.Notice that the background statement acknowledges that definitions of consciousness are ‘hotly contested’. — Wayfarer
Therefore, in his school of thought, all humans are also eligible for protein, slave labour, spare parts and experimentation without their consent? — Vera Mont
True, none of us act as if animals are machines, but the mechanistic metaphor still holds considerable sway over the scientific attitude. — Wayfarer
Can you hear the bigotry in the phrase "the scientific attitude"? — wonderer1
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