Animal Minds: Consciousness

 AGENDA

1. Preview
• Reading for Monday: excerpt from Animals in Translation, Temple Grandin
• Presentation for Monday (zoos)
2. Animal morality
3. Report card (tab above)
4. Consciousness

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WHICH INDIVIDUALS HAVE CONSCIOUSNESS?

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DeWaal discusses consciousness --

"At the workshop he [Don Griffin] presented his view on consciousness: that it has to be part and parcel of all cognitive processes, including those of animals. My own position is slightly different in that I prefer not to make any firm statements about something as poorly defined as consciousness. No one seems to know what it is.  But for the same reason, I hasten to add, I'd never deny it to any species.  For all I know, a frog may be conscious." (p. 23)

Peter Godfrey-Smith -- philosopher, scientist, diver, Australian

    Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness

    Metazoa: Animal Minds and the Birth of Consciousness

Why should WE focus on insects, gastropods, octopuses, plants, etc.?

1. You have no doubt at all about the cat!
2. You genuinely wonder about insects, gastropods, etc.
3. Tom Regan – says he isn't sure about the "lower animals"
4. Peter Singer – assumes only sentient (conscious) animals count, ethically; where should he draw the line? 

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(1) What is consciousness?

• something "higher" and spiritual (not our assumption)
• sheer experience, feeling--doesn't have to be fancy or sophisticated

(2) Could it be absent?

• Could planning for the future, episodic memory, passing the mirror test, cooperating, etc., all go on without consciousness?
• Yes!  Robots, distracted driving

(3) Is there a simple test for consciousness?

• There's no neural correlate for consciousness

(4) Godfrey-Smith: two facets of consciousness (p. 210)

1. Sensory experience--what is going on
2. Evaluative experience--marking what is going on as good or bad
• pain, pleasure, optimism, pessimism, depression, elation

(5) Do bees have evaluative experiences?

 Markers of pain (p. 212): 

    (1) injury-guarding.  Bees don't

    (2) taking analgesics Bees don't

    (3) avoiding the situation that caused the pain

    (4) trade-offs

Emotions, moods: optimism, pessimism

• shaken bees behave pessimistically
• more about bees (Inside the Animal Mind 3: 13:09 - 16:20)

(6) Plants: unlikely to have consciousness (p. 223-224)

• A plant is a collection of parts, not unified enough to have a self
• No self --> no consciousness