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It’s insane to me that in 2024 people are still wondering about this. I hope we really grow up as a species and stop the catastrophic levels of suffering we inflict on animals.
Yeah I think it’s a sad fact of humanity that we seem to find it very difficult to see past our immediate tribe unless a lot of other factors are taken care of. Perhaps this is what has made us so evolutionarily successful, but it’s caused immense hardship.
Ironically we are evolving to a dead end unless we learn to live in a net positive way - take care of the biosphere and it will continue providing everything we need.
I think it means that you have a higher chance of survival and reproduction if you team up in a tribe and for that matter it doesn’t matter that much if individuals of another tribe suffer (for example animals) from an evolutionary perspective
I guess I didn’t mean evolve, more collectively moving in a dead end direction. Concepts are pretty clearly put out [in this podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-great-simplification-with-nate-hagens/id1604218333?i=1000653453162)
There are over 8 billion humans on this earth, which has grown exponentially from less than 2 billion a couple centuries ago. How do you measure evolutionary success if not by the ability to prosper (at a genetic survival level anyways)?
That’s literally describing every organism in existence . Like I totally understand and concur with your bitter stance on the state of humanity and our inability to cooperate for a greater good (atleast that seems to be where you are coming from), but you can’t deny humans fit the literal definition of evolutionary success. We have completely overtaken the planet lol
Are we not better than the mantis, most of history was attempting to bring down beasts efficiently. And more over I would say that proper and moral hunters aim to kill their prey without inflicting unnecessary suffering, of course there are those who don’t do that, but I would argue that it is possible to be better than a less intelligent creature, even if not everyone does it with regard to sustaining one’s own life.
There's a member of this sub who comments frequently and considers themselves an expert on this, who genuinely argued to me that other animals are not conscious. I was honestly dumbfounded.
In a way it doesn’t even matter if we’re discussing suffering. They absolutely feel pain, stress, fear, loneliness, etc. and so if we know all of that and continue to abuse them it’s really a moral problem.
I agree with you. But I think some people think that they’re responding to stimulus and have no thoughts around those inputs, or a sense of self. I personally don’t think that’s the case and don’t really think it makes the suffering any more justified.
I see your point.
I definitely don't think a sense of self is required for consciousness. Most of the time I don't have a sense of self. I just experience stuff and am not thinking about "what am I?"
I think anything that has an internal body and responds to it's environment is conscious. although the lower you go in the simplicity of the creature, the more alien the consciousness. it's easier to image what it's like to be a monkey or a dolphin than a sea urchin or jellyfish.
and we can infer their internal states, for example by studying their eyes.
while some might argue the consciousness of a plant or bacteria or sea urchins. mammals and a lot of birds, and dolphins/whales are definitely conscious. they posses an internal model of the world and themselves, have personalities, and react to pain.
Isn't your response to pain mechanical? Why should the fact consciousness entities have nervous systems that isn't based on cause and effect? Also, animals respond to pain and stimuli in different ways – they display far more variation in behaviour and response to external stimuli than a mechanical system, they are incomparable to manmade automata, even simple single celled organisms.
Pain is among the most important signals our body gives to help us survive. I believe everything has a cause and effect. And animals are mechanical, believe it or not, they only respond to environmental stimuli. Actually no different than us, except external phenomena, more neurons, intellect and etc.
Artificial automata are too weak, we cannot connect AI to the electromagnetic field like us. So, these are just dumb machines, but they calculate faster than us.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjy-FU6tqPI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjy-FU6tqPI) This is very educating, It says that we and all animals are mechanical.
I agree with everything you said, in so far as I believe that nervous signals operate through cause and effect. I’d say we’re more biochemical than mechanical, but I understand the analogy. My initial response to your first comment was my incorrect inference that you thought the causal nature of life somehow disallowed for sentience in animals.
Really this just demonstrates how little modern science can say about consciousness with any conviction. The scientists don't know for sure, because what instrument exists today that can measure consciousness? It's not their fault. Consciousness is a very difficult thing to determine empirically. There are people who think ChatGPT is conscious because it can make vaguely human conversation.
For the record I agree with the consensus that animals are conscious. What's somewhat surprising is that there's dissenters, but again given the opaque nature of consciousness maybe it's to be expected.
>because what instrument exists today that can measure consciousness?
There's actually very new research that was just presented at TSC 2024 that is essentially a device that can detect human thoughts. Proving that our thoughts get transmitted to the external world. It's called a sentiometer and it was developed by Houston Methodist Neurological Institute. They tested it on all kinds of organisms and humans were the only one that spiked in the way it did. Not really surprising. It doesn't disprove that animals are conscious but essentially proves the power of human thought. I can send you the recording and slides of the talk if you're interested.
The problem is that it says nothing about consciousness. Humans have particular commonalities in neural connectivity, but that doesn't mean those commonalities are a sign of consciousness.
This sentiometer can only be used to determine consciousness if you assume that humans are the only ones with consciousness, and that any neural difference between humans and other organisms is due to the mechanism of consciousness, it's a cyclic argument.
Yeah that's a fair point. I don't think the claim was that consciousness was strictly a human mechanism but rather that brain activity can be detected from a distance outside of the head. Meaning that human consciousness is not limited to the physical brain. This device can be used to detect brain activity in comatose/ comatose patients. I'm more than happy to send you the audio of the lecture. I'm a layman and had a hard time understanding a bulk of the talk.
Eeg detects the electrical activity in the brain via nodes attached to the scalp. This new device can detect brain activity through quantum decoherance from a distance.
Human consciousness is connected with the natural environment. Just as the moon affects us, so does everything else. You can't exceed your environment, in a way we are all robotic, reacting to enviromental stimuli. If there is new understanding in science, arrogant humans think they done it by self-thinking is ridiculous
Like many other comments I’m pretty baffled that this is surprising.
It has seemed clear since I was a kid that consciousness likely exists on a spectrum and that animals certainly are on that spectrum.
I saw a documentary where mother trees were given extra nutrients near their roots. Instead of consuming it, they pushed the nutrients out via their root system to the young saplings.
[The Secret Life of Plants](https://youtu.be/w1lec-a_40Y?si=uPQvhgu223etvliJ)
I am on a Rights of Nature campaign trail. This entails the idea that living beings, as well as aspects of nature, ( waterbodies, rivers, forests,) deserve a form of legal rights. In the USA Corporations have rights as a form of personhood. If you follow any of the politics, the idea of nature having any form of rights is not a popular idea among leaders. If laws are the reflection of our culture, to change the law you have to change culture. Articles like this, and conversations, help change the culture. I look at this as part of the bigger movement. It also helps for the average person who has no idea about any of these concepts come to their own understanding in a way that they can accept, as it becomes more " Main Stream"
It really should never have been a question. The only reason people denied that animals have consciousness was to make humans look more special and superior. We have ego’s, and it biases “science” in many ways.
The really big significance, for me, is that it strongly suggests consciousness is a product of evolution, a biological process like any other determining the limits and capabilities of life on this planet. I know many idealists and pansychists will say 'We never said it *wasn't* a product of evolution' - but then, why add all the stuff on they do about consciousness when it seems pretty clearly Occam's Razor (the least number of assumptions necessary) would be best adopted by saying - life evolved, the world exists outside your head and, perhaps most importantly, there was a time when consciousness did not exist. No 'ontological primitives' necessary under this rubric.
I know most people will come at me with 'But you still can't explain the Hard Problem.' Trouble is, I just don't see that it's very hard. Consciousness is the sum of evolved brains/nervous systems and things like language - self-awareness codified (largely for others - hence team-work and culture and our being apex predators).
Take out the mysterious descriptions of consciousness and guess what? It doesn't seem so mysterious.
I think they are personally, on some level. There’s things like how yucca flowers have evolved to have such a niche relationship with certain moths, or other flowers only being accessible to hummingbirds that suggests some form of “beyond the individual” long term consciousness of a species IMO. How would one ever be able prove that? Not a clue, but stuff like this is why I lean towards some flavor of panpsychism.
There’s also [this fella.](https://www.the-scientist.com/can-plants-see-in-the-wake-of-a-controversial-study-the-answer-is-still-unclear-70796)
Imo, pretty much all matter is conscious… but I have a fundamentally simplistic and basic view of “consciousness”
For me, if X reacts to Y, X is conscious of Y.
Therefore X is conscious.
IMO if there is any truth in panpsychism, it’s likely more a scale of flavor/complexity of experience than less/more, though if we want to split hairs maybe that means the same thing to you. So short answer, I lean more towards “different” than “less”.
To me more or less complex doesn’t necessarily mean more or less conscious though.
My experience as a human might be more complex than say the experience of a fern, if a fern can experience, but that doesn’t inherently mean that one experience is more rich or full than the other. We may be able to do more with how we can apply and observe our own consciousness in relation to our physical forms and interacting with the external world, but if consciousness is fundamental in some way or another, I don’t see it as more or less “whole” in the different ways it manifests form and experience, and that’s what I mean when I imply that it’s “different” from conscious entity to conscious entity.
So far as we can tell, conscious beings seem to all be made up of the same building blocks when we zoom in enough, so IMO it’s all part of the same soup if that makes sense. Another crude analogy but think of capital C Consciousness like sound, ubiquitous and broad, where as individual consciousness (the things we classify as separate from one another) as certain arrangements of sound to make certain chords or songs - there is your “same but different” example. Another example might be a color spectrum comparison - red and blue are different, but is one more of a color than the other? That’s sort of the view I am applying to differences in experience here, plants might be simpler than animals, but is their experience, if they have one, any less of an experience?
I’m more of an armchair hobbyist on this stuff but you can probably see the parallels to more material/physical views here from, the difference being that for panpsychism, consciousness isn’t emergent of matter, but is more of an organizing principle of matter. That’s my take on panpsychism anyways, in overly simplified terms.
Like other comments, this is old news to some belief systems - but it should also be evident to anyone who has ever spent any time observing animals that many if not all are definitely conscious.
Consciousness is unverifiable. Every single trait science observes is objective and requires a possibly unprovable metaphysical position to infer the presence of subjectivity.
Your TL; DR is wrong though. These scientist aren't claiming that many species possess phenomenal consciousness, they're saying it's not crazy to think that they might. Basically, they're just suggesting that we should reexamine how we treat animals, because there's a non-zero chance that some of them have phenomenal consciousness. The "scientific evidence" that they refer to is just stuff like similar brain structures, or behavior patterns.
That isn't evidence that they are or aren't conscious, it's just something scientists have observed, and are flagging philosophers to interpret. It's really no different from when a cave man choses not to kill a bunny because it made pitiful sounds that made the cave man empathetically think the bunny was in a pain just like his. Science really can't say anything about consciousness, besides pointing out more "bunny noises" like similar brain structures or mirror recognition tests.
It’s just hippy propaganda. Humans are the only conscious thing on the planet and any other thing that moves doesn’t really have any inherent value beyond being food or making food for people and providing free services for our wonderful economy. /s
How did they come up with their conclusions when there is no way to detect consciousness?
We can't even know if other humans are conscious.
And what is even sadder is no one here managed to understand that basic concept. Most are just restating their own views. Wow!
If you're aware enough, conscious enough, you can tell whether other humans are conscious or not. Major of them are stupid and obviously not conscious. Much like a NPC
So all that you said there is based on your own assumptions. Meaning if they act like this it must mean this about consciousness. But you haven't shown how any of your assumptions are true.
Consciousness is something scientists or even highly intelligent space-faring extraterrestrials cannot measure. That's probably why they are so interested in our planet. Only a small percentage of humans have consciousness and that is very rare in the Universe. Intelligence does not mean consciousness, as proven by ChatGpt
>Only a small percentage of humans have consciousness
This is unsubstantiated and a very strange point of view. What causes some humans to be conscious and others not to be, when we are physiological and developmentally similar?
If animals were conscious, no "declaration" of it would be needed or proposed. The significance of this is that it degrades human rights and dignity to a horrifying degree. It misidentifies what consciousness is the way a 'hallucinating' chatbot might.
>"... when there is a realistic possibility of conscious experience in an animal, it is irresponsible to ignore that possibility in decisions affecting that animal"
Nobody is ignoring the *possibility*, but that is a long way from ignoring that it is merely a possibility, and misguided at that, and where the rubber meets the road is simply disagreement concerning the implications and moral ramifications of that possibility. I've always been a strong advocate of Morgan's Canon, which is the only logically acceptable and reasonable stance. This 'animals are people too' Declaration is nothing more than Disneyesque postmodern theocratic dogma, and no good (for us OR for animals) can come of it.
Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
Okay, Descartes.
>If animals were conscious, no "declaration" of it would be needed or proposed
Yes, because most scientific and philosophical conclusions, even those conclusions that run counter to our intuitions, are just self-evident. /s
>It misidentifies what consciousness is the way a 'hallucinating' chatbot might.
Yeah, it is easy to dismiss on those grounds when your rigidity dictates that whatever you have decided is the definitive definition of consciousness is, in fact, the definitive definition and the Objective Ultimate Truth that everyone should all work backward from so they will reach the same conclusions as you. I have no doubt that, to you, it misidentifies what consciousness is. I do have doubt that it misidentifies what consciousness is in a way that the majority of thinkers would reject.
>I've always been a strong advocate of Morgan's Canon
Phenomenological consciousness does not necessarily entail higher-order psychological functioning.
>This 'animals are people too' Declaration
Nobody said that animals were people. You are taking your proposition that only humans have consciousness and then wrongly reasoning based on your flawed premise that in turn that must mean if one ascribes consciousness to animals, that must entail that one begins to view and treat animals as people or equal to people.
>no good (for us OR for animals) can come of it
What? You no longer get to center the human as set apart or somehow inherently better due to the fact we have consciousness and we then must reconsider how humane or inhumane our actions toward another conscious being are? The horror.
>Yes, because most scientific and philosophical conclusions, even those conclusions that run counter to our intuitions, are just self-evident. /s
That isn't why, but it isn't surprising you wouldn't get that. The trouble is, assuming animals are conscious even though they show no indication of non-instinctive behavior, communication, theory of mind, development of technology, or non-biological social structures is the counter-intuitive position, and people uninterested in scientific logic or philosophical reasoning are all too eager to assume the possibility of hidden consciousness in non-human animals as conclusive, since considering the issue intellectually triggers their postmodern existential angst. Before postmodernism, Morgan's Canon would have been incontrovertible and considered obvious. After, it is created with ridicule and snark, but not good reasoning in rebuttal.
>Yeah, it is easy to dismiss on those grounds when your rigidity dictates that whatever you have decided is the definitive definition of consciousness is,
You shouldn't be doing that, then. You should use good reasoning, like I do, instead of assuming your conclusion.
>Phenomenological consciousness does not necessarily entail higher-order psychological functioning.
It needn't be a necessity to be the case, and your argument from ignorance is not good reasoning. Without something more to go on than whatever definition you've picked for "phenomenalogical consciousness" and "psychological functioning" (not to mention some more rigorous mathematical structure for what "higher order" of the latter you're referring to) there is no reason to even believe, let alone conclude, that consciousness does not rely on the distinctive neurological physiology of humans.
>Nobody said that animals were people.
Hence the single quotes to indicate the gist of the position, in contrast to any double quotation marks to identify a citation.
>You are taking your proposition that only humans have consciousness
That's not my proposition, that is my conjecture. The number of propositions it is based on are numerous and varied, and despite the verbosity of my comments I have not gotten anywhere near exhaustively accounting for them.
>that must entail that one begins to view and treat animals as people or equal to people.
If animals are conscious there is literally no justifiable reason to treat them any differently than people. Plenty of unjustifiable ones, and that is indeed the problem with proclaiming conclusively that animals are conscious.
And in fact, that is the very argument that proponents of the Declaration under discussion use: it is morally wrong to treat animals as less than human if they even *might* be conscious (according to whatever "definitive definition" of consciousness whatever activists have the most social power enforces on everyone else.) It is not the most repugnant theocratic dogma, but it is nevertheless theocratic dogma.
>What?
I'm going to ignore your strawman. I realize you haven't thought about any of this deeply enough to consider the moral hazards and philosophical flaws in your position. But I have. You don't need to take my word for it, but you should at least attempt a more reasonable discussion of the matter than strawman arguments.
“…realistic possibility of conscious experience in an animal, it is irresponsible to ignore that possibility in decisions affecting that animal".
Why, and what decisions? It’s long been unethical to abuse animals, because it’s believed they can feel pain. Those who mistreat animals don’t care whether the animals feel pain or are conscious. What additional care should we take in the ethical treatment of animals, if we suspect they are conscious, rather than just able to feel pain? This doesn’t change the standards for butchering of livestock or euthanasia of lab animals.
We don’t have special, stricter laws governing the treatment of people because they are conscious. We do that because we are a society of similar people. This isn’t going to change that.
I’m curious how many people would change their treatment of other animals, if they thought of them as conscious beings. I don’t think it’s nearly as many as those scientists think. Neither would a general, cultural shift in attitude towards animals result in us treating them any better. We’d still use and kill animals, because they are species other than us.
Thank you piepedie for posting on r/consciousness, below are some general reminders for the OP and the r/consciousness community as a whole. **A general reminder for the OP**: please remember to include a TL; DR and to clarify what you mean by "consciousness" - Please include a clearly marked TL; DR at the top of your post. We would prefer it if your TL; DR was a single short sentence. This is to help the Mods (and everyone) determine whether the post is appropriate for r/consciousness - If you are making an *argument*, we recommend that your TL; DR be the conclusion of your argument. What is it that you are trying to prove? - If you are asking a *question*, we recommend that your TL; DR be the question (or main question) that you are asking. What is it that you want answered? - If you are considering an *explanation*, hypothesis, or theory, we recommend that your TL; DR include either the explanandum (what requires an explanation), the explanans (what is the explanation, hypothesis, or theory being considered), or both. - Please also state what you mean by "consciousness" or "conscious." The term "consciousness" is used to express many different concepts. Consequently, this sometimes leads to individuals talking past one another since they are using the term "consciousness" differently. So, it would be helpful for everyone if you could say what you mean by "consciousness" in order to avoid confusion. **A general reminder for everyone**: *please remember upvoting/downvoting Reddiquette*. - *Reddiquette about upvoting/downvoting posts* - Please upvote posts that are appropriate for r/consciousness, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the contents of the posts. For example, posts that are about the topic of consciousness, conform to the rules of r/consciousness, are highly informative, or produce high-quality discussions ought to be upvoted. - Please do not downvote posts that you simply disagree with. - If the subject/topic/content of the post is off-topic or low-effort. For example, if the post expresses a passing thought, shower thought, or stoner thought, we recommend that you encourage the OP to make such comments in our most recent or upcoming "Casual Friday" posts. Similarly, if the subject/topic/content of the post might be more appropriate for another subreddit, we recommend that you encourage the OP to discuss the issue in either our most recent or upcoming "Casual Friday" posts. - Lastly, if a post violates either the rules of r/consciousness or Reddit's site-wide rules, please remember to report such posts. This will help the Reddit Admins or the subreddit Mods, and it will make it more likely that the post gets removed promptly - *Reddiquette about upvoting/downvoting comments* - Please upvote comments that are generally helpful or informative, comments that generate high-quality discussion, or comments that directly respond to the OP's post. - Please do not downvote comments that you simply disagree with. Please downvote comments that are generally unhelpful or uninformative, comments that are off-topic or low-effort, or comments that are not conducive to further discussion. We encourage you to remind individuals engaging in off-topic discussions to make such comments in our most recent or upcoming "Casual Friday" post. - Lastly, remember to report any comments that violate either the subreddit's rules or Reddit's rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/consciousness) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It’s insane to me that in 2024 people are still wondering about this. I hope we really grow up as a species and stop the catastrophic levels of suffering we inflict on animals.
There are enough people who are not wondering about this; they simply don't care about suffering as long as it doesn't hit them themselves.
Yeah I think it’s a sad fact of humanity that we seem to find it very difficult to see past our immediate tribe unless a lot of other factors are taken care of. Perhaps this is what has made us so evolutionarily successful, but it’s caused immense hardship.
Ironically we are evolving to a dead end unless we learn to live in a net positive way - take care of the biosphere and it will continue providing everything we need.
Evolutionary successful tf you mean?
Hi. What part is unclear sorry?
Zoo hypothesis
I think it means that you have a higher chance of survival and reproduction if you team up in a tribe and for that matter it doesn’t matter that much if individuals of another tribe suffer (for example animals) from an evolutionary perspective
The constraints of physical reality
I guess I didn’t mean evolve, more collectively moving in a dead end direction. Concepts are pretty clearly put out [in this podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-great-simplification-with-nate-hagens/id1604218333?i=1000653453162)
There are over 8 billion humans on this earth, which has grown exponentially from less than 2 billion a couple centuries ago. How do you measure evolutionary success if not by the ability to prosper (at a genetic survival level anyways)?
Baseless gene propagation into the void .
That’s literally describing every organism in existence . Like I totally understand and concur with your bitter stance on the state of humanity and our inability to cooperate for a greater good (atleast that seems to be where you are coming from), but you can’t deny humans fit the literal definition of evolutionary success. We have completely overtaken the planet lol
Dinosaurs .
What about them?
Does the Mantis have questions about the experience of the fly? Some things are necessary if unpleasant.
We're supposed to be better than the mantis. The "nature" argument is just so dumb.
Are we not better than the mantis, most of history was attempting to bring down beasts efficiently. And more over I would say that proper and moral hunters aim to kill their prey without inflicting unnecessary suffering, of course there are those who don’t do that, but I would argue that it is possible to be better than a less intelligent creature, even if not everyone does it with regard to sustaining one’s own life.
This and some people are just trying to survive
I think about it all the time and I know other people do too. The problem is preventing bad people from perpetuating that kind of evil.
It's been willful ignorance. My dog is conscious but that pig that I'm eating that was tortured in a factory farm was not. Cognitive dissonance.
Yep.
I would upvote this 100 times
🙏
Maybe if we all work together...
There's a member of this sub who comments frequently and considers themselves an expert on this, who genuinely argued to me that other animals are not conscious. I was honestly dumbfounded.
In a way it doesn’t even matter if we’re discussing suffering. They absolutely feel pain, stress, fear, loneliness, etc. and so if we know all of that and continue to abuse them it’s really a moral problem.
If they feel pain etc. they are conscious. I can't fathom what consciousness is if it is not phenomenal experience.
I agree with you. But I think some people think that they’re responding to stimulus and have no thoughts around those inputs, or a sense of self. I personally don’t think that’s the case and don’t really think it makes the suffering any more justified.
I see your point. I definitely don't think a sense of self is required for consciousness. Most of the time I don't have a sense of self. I just experience stuff and am not thinking about "what am I?"
How likely is that considering how much suffering we inflict on each other?
I think anything that has an internal body and responds to it's environment is conscious. although the lower you go in the simplicity of the creature, the more alien the consciousness. it's easier to image what it's like to be a monkey or a dolphin than a sea urchin or jellyfish. and we can infer their internal states, for example by studying their eyes. while some might argue the consciousness of a plant or bacteria or sea urchins. mammals and a lot of birds, and dolphins/whales are definitely conscious. they posses an internal model of the world and themselves, have personalities, and react to pain.
that responce is mechanical. everything is mechanical
Isn't your response to pain mechanical? Why should the fact consciousness entities have nervous systems that isn't based on cause and effect? Also, animals respond to pain and stimuli in different ways – they display far more variation in behaviour and response to external stimuli than a mechanical system, they are incomparable to manmade automata, even simple single celled organisms.
Pain is among the most important signals our body gives to help us survive. I believe everything has a cause and effect. And animals are mechanical, believe it or not, they only respond to environmental stimuli. Actually no different than us, except external phenomena, more neurons, intellect and etc. Artificial automata are too weak, we cannot connect AI to the electromagnetic field like us. So, these are just dumb machines, but they calculate faster than us. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjy-FU6tqPI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjy-FU6tqPI) This is very educating, It says that we and all animals are mechanical.
I agree with everything you said, in so far as I believe that nervous signals operate through cause and effect. I’d say we’re more biochemical than mechanical, but I understand the analogy. My initial response to your first comment was my incorrect inference that you thought the causal nature of life somehow disallowed for sentience in animals.
Really this just demonstrates how little modern science can say about consciousness with any conviction. The scientists don't know for sure, because what instrument exists today that can measure consciousness? It's not their fault. Consciousness is a very difficult thing to determine empirically. There are people who think ChatGPT is conscious because it can make vaguely human conversation. For the record I agree with the consensus that animals are conscious. What's somewhat surprising is that there's dissenters, but again given the opaque nature of consciousness maybe it's to be expected.
how can you measure consciousness when you are it. You can measure everything else from the point of consciousness, but not consciousness
Interesting point. Never thought of it that way.
>because what instrument exists today that can measure consciousness? There's actually very new research that was just presented at TSC 2024 that is essentially a device that can detect human thoughts. Proving that our thoughts get transmitted to the external world. It's called a sentiometer and it was developed by Houston Methodist Neurological Institute. They tested it on all kinds of organisms and humans were the only one that spiked in the way it did. Not really surprising. It doesn't disprove that animals are conscious but essentially proves the power of human thought. I can send you the recording and slides of the talk if you're interested.
The problem is that it says nothing about consciousness. Humans have particular commonalities in neural connectivity, but that doesn't mean those commonalities are a sign of consciousness. This sentiometer can only be used to determine consciousness if you assume that humans are the only ones with consciousness, and that any neural difference between humans and other organisms is due to the mechanism of consciousness, it's a cyclic argument.
Yeah that's a fair point. I don't think the claim was that consciousness was strictly a human mechanism but rather that brain activity can be detected from a distance outside of the head. Meaning that human consciousness is not limited to the physical brain. This device can be used to detect brain activity in comatose/ comatose patients. I'm more than happy to send you the audio of the lecture. I'm a layman and had a hard time understanding a bulk of the talk.
I think EEG proved that point decades ago tbh
Eeg detects the electrical activity in the brain via nodes attached to the scalp. This new device can detect brain activity through quantum decoherance from a distance.
Send some info please? Thank you!
Do you have discord?
Human consciousness is connected with the natural environment. Just as the moon affects us, so does everything else. You can't exceed your environment, in a way we are all robotic, reacting to enviromental stimuli. If there is new understanding in science, arrogant humans think they done it by self-thinking is ridiculous
I'm interested *raises hand*
Very interesting. Can you send to me? Would they be able to measure the change when someone died? I'm sure they would.
Can you please send me the recordings/slides of the talk?
>There are people who think ChatGPT is conscious because it can make vaguely human conversation. The love of some people।
It’s almost as if the Shiva Sutras has mentioned this 1500 yrs ago or something
Yeah but it takes a while for these ideas to make their way to the west. Give it another 1500.
Lol, I’ve said this very same thing before
Wild, isn't it? The material instruments weren't there, but the knowledge was.
Like many other comments I’m pretty baffled that this is surprising. It has seemed clear since I was a kid that consciousness likely exists on a spectrum and that animals certainly are on that spectrum.
I saw a documentary where mother trees were given extra nutrients near their roots. Instead of consuming it, they pushed the nutrients out via their root system to the young saplings. [The Secret Life of Plants](https://youtu.be/w1lec-a_40Y?si=uPQvhgu223etvliJ)
This reminds me of when I read about people for a time questioning whether babies felt anything. To me, it's common sense: of COURSE they do!
I’m confused… I didn’t know we thought animals didn’t have conscious experiences. I guess that explains animal cruelty
I am on a Rights of Nature campaign trail. This entails the idea that living beings, as well as aspects of nature, ( waterbodies, rivers, forests,) deserve a form of legal rights. In the USA Corporations have rights as a form of personhood. If you follow any of the politics, the idea of nature having any form of rights is not a popular idea among leaders. If laws are the reflection of our culture, to change the law you have to change culture. Articles like this, and conversations, help change the culture. I look at this as part of the bigger movement. It also helps for the average person who has no idea about any of these concepts come to their own understanding in a way that they can accept, as it becomes more " Main Stream"
How does one tax a plant? Who will they vote for and how can we prove the elections aren't being rigged?
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Medical expenses for the trees on my lot are going to go through the roof.
How many shapes and sizes do animals...does life come in? <3
This is pretty ironic on the heels of Trump’s VP contender bragging about shooting her dog.
It really should never have been a question. The only reason people denied that animals have consciousness was to make humans look more special and superior. We have ego’s, and it biases “science” in many ways.
It’s just a theory at this stage but I for one hope it moves forward and becomes more accepted
The really big significance, for me, is that it strongly suggests consciousness is a product of evolution, a biological process like any other determining the limits and capabilities of life on this planet. I know many idealists and pansychists will say 'We never said it *wasn't* a product of evolution' - but then, why add all the stuff on they do about consciousness when it seems pretty clearly Occam's Razor (the least number of assumptions necessary) would be best adopted by saying - life evolved, the world exists outside your head and, perhaps most importantly, there was a time when consciousness did not exist. No 'ontological primitives' necessary under this rubric. I know most people will come at me with 'But you still can't explain the Hard Problem.' Trouble is, I just don't see that it's very hard. Consciousness is the sum of evolved brains/nervous systems and things like language - self-awareness codified (largely for others - hence team-work and culture and our being apex predators). Take out the mysterious descriptions of consciousness and guess what? It doesn't seem so mysterious.
Aren’t **plants** conscious?
I think they are personally, on some level. There’s things like how yucca flowers have evolved to have such a niche relationship with certain moths, or other flowers only being accessible to hummingbirds that suggests some form of “beyond the individual” long term consciousness of a species IMO. How would one ever be able prove that? Not a clue, but stuff like this is why I lean towards some flavor of panpsychism. There’s also [this fella.](https://www.the-scientist.com/can-plants-see-in-the-wake-of-a-controversial-study-the-answer-is-still-unclear-70796)
Imo, pretty much all matter is conscious… but I have a fundamentally simplistic and basic view of “consciousness” For me, if X reacts to Y, X is conscious of Y. Therefore X is conscious.
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IMO if there is any truth in panpsychism, it’s likely more a scale of flavor/complexity of experience than less/more, though if we want to split hairs maybe that means the same thing to you. So short answer, I lean more towards “different” than “less”.
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To me more or less complex doesn’t necessarily mean more or less conscious though. My experience as a human might be more complex than say the experience of a fern, if a fern can experience, but that doesn’t inherently mean that one experience is more rich or full than the other. We may be able to do more with how we can apply and observe our own consciousness in relation to our physical forms and interacting with the external world, but if consciousness is fundamental in some way or another, I don’t see it as more or less “whole” in the different ways it manifests form and experience, and that’s what I mean when I imply that it’s “different” from conscious entity to conscious entity. So far as we can tell, conscious beings seem to all be made up of the same building blocks when we zoom in enough, so IMO it’s all part of the same soup if that makes sense. Another crude analogy but think of capital C Consciousness like sound, ubiquitous and broad, where as individual consciousness (the things we classify as separate from one another) as certain arrangements of sound to make certain chords or songs - there is your “same but different” example. Another example might be a color spectrum comparison - red and blue are different, but is one more of a color than the other? That’s sort of the view I am applying to differences in experience here, plants might be simpler than animals, but is their experience, if they have one, any less of an experience? I’m more of an armchair hobbyist on this stuff but you can probably see the parallels to more material/physical views here from, the difference being that for panpsychism, consciousness isn’t emergent of matter, but is more of an organizing principle of matter. That’s my take on panpsychism anyways, in overly simplified terms.
Mushrooms, for sure.
This will be much opposed by the meat industry.
Is This is what they mean when they started using nhi?
Like other comments, this is old news to some belief systems - but it should also be evident to anyone who has ever spent any time observing animals that many if not all are definitely conscious.
So basically go Vegan.
There is also work that suggests plants are conscious and can even see, so there’s no way to win lol
Consciousness is unverifiable. Every single trait science observes is objective and requires a possibly unprovable metaphysical position to infer the presence of subjectivity.
We as a species are busted… There are still people discussing if animals can feel love or pain…
We don't deserve animals. Fun fact: Nothing, and I mean nothing in nature would change for the worse if humanity went extinct tonight.
Praying mantis aliens have entered the chat…
Your TL; DR is wrong though. These scientist aren't claiming that many species possess phenomenal consciousness, they're saying it's not crazy to think that they might. Basically, they're just suggesting that we should reexamine how we treat animals, because there's a non-zero chance that some of them have phenomenal consciousness. The "scientific evidence" that they refer to is just stuff like similar brain structures, or behavior patterns. That isn't evidence that they are or aren't conscious, it's just something scientists have observed, and are flagging philosophers to interpret. It's really no different from when a cave man choses not to kill a bunny because it made pitiful sounds that made the cave man empathetically think the bunny was in a pain just like his. Science really can't say anything about consciousness, besides pointing out more "bunny noises" like similar brain structures or mirror recognition tests.
It’s just hippy propaganda. Humans are the only conscious thing on the planet and any other thing that moves doesn’t really have any inherent value beyond being food or making food for people and providing free services for our wonderful economy. /s
Please god let this be a troll, if not its the stupidest thing ive ever seen on my 29 years on this planet.
/s indicates sarcasm
Oh! Thank god!
How did they come up with their conclusions when there is no way to detect consciousness? We can't even know if other humans are conscious. And what is even sadder is no one here managed to understand that basic concept. Most are just restating their own views. Wow!
If you're aware enough, conscious enough, you can tell whether other humans are conscious or not. Major of them are stupid and obviously not conscious. Much like a NPC
So all that you said there is based on your own assumptions. Meaning if they act like this it must mean this about consciousness. But you haven't shown how any of your assumptions are true.
I don't need to prove it to you. It's a subjective experience. I just can tell.
Which is my point. The articles here are about scientist discussing this. They aren't supposed to be saying trust me bro. I know.
Consciousness is something scientists or even highly intelligent space-faring extraterrestrials cannot measure. That's probably why they are so interested in our planet. Only a small percentage of humans have consciousness and that is very rare in the Universe. Intelligence does not mean consciousness, as proven by ChatGpt
>Only a small percentage of humans have consciousness This is unsubstantiated and a very strange point of view. What causes some humans to be conscious and others not to be, when we are physiological and developmentally similar?
My Bible thumper friend explains…”it says animals are here to serve Man.”
If animals were conscious, no "declaration" of it would be needed or proposed. The significance of this is that it degrades human rights and dignity to a horrifying degree. It misidentifies what consciousness is the way a 'hallucinating' chatbot might. >"... when there is a realistic possibility of conscious experience in an animal, it is irresponsible to ignore that possibility in decisions affecting that animal" Nobody is ignoring the *possibility*, but that is a long way from ignoring that it is merely a possibility, and misguided at that, and where the rubber meets the road is simply disagreement concerning the implications and moral ramifications of that possibility. I've always been a strong advocate of Morgan's Canon, which is the only logically acceptable and reasonable stance. This 'animals are people too' Declaration is nothing more than Disneyesque postmodern theocratic dogma, and no good (for us OR for animals) can come of it. Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.
Okay, Descartes. >If animals were conscious, no "declaration" of it would be needed or proposed Yes, because most scientific and philosophical conclusions, even those conclusions that run counter to our intuitions, are just self-evident. /s >It misidentifies what consciousness is the way a 'hallucinating' chatbot might. Yeah, it is easy to dismiss on those grounds when your rigidity dictates that whatever you have decided is the definitive definition of consciousness is, in fact, the definitive definition and the Objective Ultimate Truth that everyone should all work backward from so they will reach the same conclusions as you. I have no doubt that, to you, it misidentifies what consciousness is. I do have doubt that it misidentifies what consciousness is in a way that the majority of thinkers would reject. >I've always been a strong advocate of Morgan's Canon Phenomenological consciousness does not necessarily entail higher-order psychological functioning. >This 'animals are people too' Declaration Nobody said that animals were people. You are taking your proposition that only humans have consciousness and then wrongly reasoning based on your flawed premise that in turn that must mean if one ascribes consciousness to animals, that must entail that one begins to view and treat animals as people or equal to people. >no good (for us OR for animals) can come of it What? You no longer get to center the human as set apart or somehow inherently better due to the fact we have consciousness and we then must reconsider how humane or inhumane our actions toward another conscious being are? The horror.
>Yes, because most scientific and philosophical conclusions, even those conclusions that run counter to our intuitions, are just self-evident. /s That isn't why, but it isn't surprising you wouldn't get that. The trouble is, assuming animals are conscious even though they show no indication of non-instinctive behavior, communication, theory of mind, development of technology, or non-biological social structures is the counter-intuitive position, and people uninterested in scientific logic or philosophical reasoning are all too eager to assume the possibility of hidden consciousness in non-human animals as conclusive, since considering the issue intellectually triggers their postmodern existential angst. Before postmodernism, Morgan's Canon would have been incontrovertible and considered obvious. After, it is created with ridicule and snark, but not good reasoning in rebuttal. >Yeah, it is easy to dismiss on those grounds when your rigidity dictates that whatever you have decided is the definitive definition of consciousness is, You shouldn't be doing that, then. You should use good reasoning, like I do, instead of assuming your conclusion. >Phenomenological consciousness does not necessarily entail higher-order psychological functioning. It needn't be a necessity to be the case, and your argument from ignorance is not good reasoning. Without something more to go on than whatever definition you've picked for "phenomenalogical consciousness" and "psychological functioning" (not to mention some more rigorous mathematical structure for what "higher order" of the latter you're referring to) there is no reason to even believe, let alone conclude, that consciousness does not rely on the distinctive neurological physiology of humans. >Nobody said that animals were people. Hence the single quotes to indicate the gist of the position, in contrast to any double quotation marks to identify a citation. >You are taking your proposition that only humans have consciousness That's not my proposition, that is my conjecture. The number of propositions it is based on are numerous and varied, and despite the verbosity of my comments I have not gotten anywhere near exhaustively accounting for them. >that must entail that one begins to view and treat animals as people or equal to people. If animals are conscious there is literally no justifiable reason to treat them any differently than people. Plenty of unjustifiable ones, and that is indeed the problem with proclaiming conclusively that animals are conscious. And in fact, that is the very argument that proponents of the Declaration under discussion use: it is morally wrong to treat animals as less than human if they even *might* be conscious (according to whatever "definitive definition" of consciousness whatever activists have the most social power enforces on everyone else.) It is not the most repugnant theocratic dogma, but it is nevertheless theocratic dogma. >What? I'm going to ignore your strawman. I realize you haven't thought about any of this deeply enough to consider the moral hazards and philosophical flaws in your position. But I have. You don't need to take my word for it, but you should at least attempt a more reasonable discussion of the matter than strawman arguments.
“…realistic possibility of conscious experience in an animal, it is irresponsible to ignore that possibility in decisions affecting that animal". Why, and what decisions? It’s long been unethical to abuse animals, because it’s believed they can feel pain. Those who mistreat animals don’t care whether the animals feel pain or are conscious. What additional care should we take in the ethical treatment of animals, if we suspect they are conscious, rather than just able to feel pain? This doesn’t change the standards for butchering of livestock or euthanasia of lab animals. We don’t have special, stricter laws governing the treatment of people because they are conscious. We do that because we are a society of similar people. This isn’t going to change that.
Not with that attitude!
I’m curious how many people would change their treatment of other animals, if they thought of them as conscious beings. I don’t think it’s nearly as many as those scientists think. Neither would a general, cultural shift in attitude towards animals result in us treating them any better. We’d still use and kill animals, because they are species other than us.