Fish Minds Project

Grre

What began as as assignment for a philosophy class this year (epistemology) has turned into a bit of an obsession.I started with the skeptical premise that we cannot be sure, due to the nature of subjective minds/qualia, that animals do not have minds/think like us. Then I started to think about animals that aren't really considered in animal sentience discussions and started thinking about fish. Now I am a philosophy major, not a biology one, so I felt quite out of depth at first when I began more heavily researching the questions;

Do fish have subjective lives? Do they feel, or think, like we do? Differently than we do? At all? How do we come to these assumptions, and what are the implications for making these assumptions about other beings?

I came to some good conclusions though, drawing heavily on Nagel's work such as "What it is Like to Be a Bat" and some philosophy of animals theory ie. like concepts of human exceptionalism, and of course, economic theories that explore the incentives of controlling/dominating nature.
I wrote a second, more specific essay on the topic. The essay actually won me an award at my university and I presented it to the philosophy faculty. Very cool.

Now I'm not sure where to go with it though; which is why I'm appealing here. I'm not here to defend my thesis (that fish likely have minds, different from ours, perhaps better than ours in different ways, therefore precautionary treatment and respect ect.) but rather, to ask for help and direction regarding resources and where I could take this project further. I feel as if I have exhausted my research regarding fish sentience (there was never much there to begin with besides a few scientific studies and Jonathan Balcombe's "What is it Like to Be a Fish") and feel a bit lost when I try to delve deeper into the philosophy of other minds/animal consciousness ect.

So if anyone could recommend me some philosophers/thinkers/theory they feel would help me in my continued project, (or any insight!) that would be great, even if anyone could point me in the direction for some good marine biology resources...I feel a bit ridiculous so consumed with fish yet I barely could pass grade 10 science.

Shawn

The most important question you could ask a hypothetical talking fish is what does the water feel like.

Metaphysics 101.

creativesoul

What began as as assignment for a philosophy class this year (epistemology) has turned into a bit of an obsession.I started with the skeptical premise that we cannot be sure, due to the nature of subjective minds/qualia, that animals do not have minds/think like us. — Grre

This presupposes that all humans think in the same way, or words to that effect/affect. While I would not disagree, there is much to be said and/or unpacked here.

In order to know whether or not animals 'think like us', we must first know how we think, or perhaps what all human thought consists of and/or is existentially dependent upon.

Relativist

↪Grre

I recommend Micheal Tye's book ,"Tense Bees and Shell Shocked Crabs: Are Animals Conscious?". He explores the very topic you are investigating.

Here's a link to it on Amazon: here, where you can see a preview.

Grre

↪creativesoul

I never meant to generalize, human minds, but you're right. How do we define our own minds, besides in opposition from those other beings?

Human minds: Above/superior to other beings

Grre

↪Relativist

Thank you for this!!

creativesoul

I never meant to generalize, human minds, but you're right. How do we define our own minds, besides in opposition from those other beings?

Human minds: Above/superior to other beings — Grre

Then your answer is no... by definition alone. If human minds are superior to other species, and that superiority is what makes our minds different, then no other species think like humans.

Grre

↪creativesoul

I meant this to be the common cultural conception of human minds.

creativesoul

↪Grre

Is there such a thing as a common cultural conception of the human mind?

I do not think that there is.

creativesoul

I would say that not all human minds are superior. An infant does not have the same superior mind as an adult. Not all adults have the same superiorness of mind. Not all adults have the same conception/notion/idea of what a mind is.

The ontology of mind is paramount here.

Seems undeniable to me that the human mind is something that existed in it's entirety prior to our taking account of it(at least in some more rudimentary sense). Thus, like all things that exist in their entirety prior to our account of them, we can be wrong in our account.

Any and all notions of mind that posit elements/constituents/parts of mind that are themselves existentially dependent upon language are mistaken in a specific way, for mind is prior to language and that which is prior to language cannot be existentially dependent upon language.

SteveKlinko

↪Grre

We Humans say we have Consciousness, but we don't really know what Consciousness is. We won't be able to say too much about the Consciousness of Fish until we understand what our own Human Consciousness is. I like to emphasize Conscious Sensory experiences like the perception of Color and specifically the perception of the color Red. What is the Redness of Red as a Conscious Experience? Hint: It has nothing to do with 680nm Electromagnetic phenomena. Just ponder the Redness in and of itself apart from the Physical phenomenon. I think that, when we can understand just one tiny aspect of our Consciousness, then we will understand it all, Human and Fish.

Streetlight

Ahh, this is so interesting! Have you looked into the connections between physiology and perception? Or more generally animal ethology and perception? A classic would be something like Jakob von Uexküll's A Foray Into the Worlds of Animals and Humans, in particular the concept of the umwelt ('experienced world', roughly).

Another line of interest might be animal aesthetics and coevolution, where the specific evolution of animals can be put down to aesthetic reasons (rather than 'mere' survival - see Richard Prum's The Evolution of Beauty), or where species evolve along-side each other for mutual benefit (like the orchid and the wasp). These might seem a bit tangential, but I'm a big believer in morphology and how it 'affects' or gives rise to mind, especially with respect to how animal bodies are put to use (how animals move, how they interact with their environment and other animals, etc).

In this regard you wanna look up research in line with Maxine Sheets-Johnston on movement and mind, like this paper for instance. In fact, the journal where that paper is from (Animal Sentience also seems right up your alley (lots of stuff about fish!). Otherwise, one of my favourite books that deals with similar themes is Hans Jonas's The Phenomenon of Life. Anyway, it's a super interesting line of research to pursue - good luck!

Grre

↪creativesoul

Do you have any recommendations for the ontology of mind? Any papers or thinkers I should look into?

Grre

↪StreetlightX

These recommendations are great. I've already ordered two of these books from my local library!

BC

↪Grre

I thought "Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body" by Neil Shubin was very interesting. I don't think he resolved the question of a continuity of consciousness between fish and humans, but there is a continuity of structure between fishes and people that have made our consciousness possible.

Insects, fish, mammals, ourselves have ancient common roots. The way neurons operate, for instance, was worked out very early on, and their operation has some continuity throughout the species.

(Interesting factoid: the bones of your inner ear were once part of fish jaws.

Have a piece of your distant cousins today - fried, baked, broiled, stewed, or raw.

VagabondSpectre

↪Grre

Get into the philosophy behind artificial neural networks, although it will require you to adventure into computer science.

We're on the lookout for "general artificial intelligence" that is as good or better than humans, but we are scarcely getting there. We can make the learning networks, but they can only learn one specific task at a time (we haven't figured out how to integrate multiple specific intelligence into one operant algorithm, which might be something not unlike "conscious thought").

I think trying to model a fish like intelligence through an artificial neural network (and maybe a simulation providing inputs) could actually be useful for isolating pieces of the more complex puzzle.

Grre

↪VagabondSpectre

This sounds interesting, and I'll (try) to get into it! Not the best at computer science outside of rudimentary HTML coding...though on that note, I suppose we'd have to figure out what "intelligence" means. I'm starting to come to the conclusion that if we stopped making human intelligence the 'benchmark' for intelligence, we would get a lot farther.

Grre

↪Bitter Crank

Sounds like an interesting read, have some infinite time on my hands to do lots of reading in the next two months, so will be sure to add it to my list. Is it about the development of the human being? Or more so about fish evolution/anatomy?

creativesoul

↪Grre

Sorry to say...

I have yet to have read a philosophical position on mind that does not have fundamentally fatal flaws. That said, Searle is interesting and well-known/respected.

BC

↪Grre

It's about how similar, in a number of ways, fish and people are.

Well, you've met people who you thought were cold fish, so there you go.

It's about how evolution carried through fish development into mammal, and eventually human development. For instance, during the fetal stage (in utero) the fetus forms gill slits and arches. Why do they do this? Because all vertebrates have a common fish ancestor from which we all descended. Chick, pig, and human embryos all display this feature. It's a good read written for the at-least-somewhat informed general reader.

TheMadFool

↪Grre

What would define a mind? Is it simply information processing? A fish can do that. Is it some form of self-awareness? A fish probably can't do that.

Grre

↪TheMadFool

What makes you say a fish cannot develop some form of self-awareness?

TheMadFool

What makes you say a fish cannot develop some form of self-awareness? — Grre

A fish probably can't do that. — TheMadFool

While I can't rule out such a thing completely we only have to compare fish to something that we're quite ''sure'' doesn't have sentience: computers. I don't think it's that difficult to create robot fish in a sense passing the fish-turing test but such a robot would never pass the human-turing test

Fish Minds Project

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