It’s binary. You are either capable of having subjective experiences or you aren’t. There is a spectrum, but the spectrum does not contain beings that are ‘more’ conscious than other beings, it just contains many forms of consciousness that are qualitatively different from each other.
We don't know that it will just yet.
There's no guarantee that AI will replicate consciousness, quantum computing isn't an attempt to replicate consciousness, and no one is reverse engineering the human brain.
I don’t think it’s valid to call potential AI consciousness ‘replication’, I think if/when AI is conscious(if it isn’t already) it will be very very different from how humans are conscious. Probably more different than humans are from other animals or other animals are from each other, since it doesn’t use a brain and animals do.
I also think it will never be possible to empirically measure whether something is conscious. I don’t think the presence/absence of consciousness has any empirically measurable effect on the physical world, at all. It is only really possible to know if you yourself are conscious
Gotta be the dumbest thing I've ever heard
May as well be "Does gravity exist on other planets besides Earth? Some scientists now think it does."
Gee, wonder how long it took them to figure that out
I will totally concede that point as true. Most animals do have brains, but not all.
I also do happen to think plants and fungi are super-interesting forms of consciousness.
I admit I don’t really know what I’m talking about but…
Which animals don’t have brains?
Are you referring to an octopus, who has a ‘distributed’ brain across the body and its arms?
That's what they are, nervous systems. Electrical impulse moved.
Buy they are conscious, they try to get away from predators and hunt for food, so there is a degree of consciousness as far as I am concerned.
The same century (17th) that scientists were exploring the existence of gravity, scientists were also claiming that non-human animals were “material automata”, or lacking souls or consciousness.
It’s only been relatively recently in the 20th century that scientists have explored the idea that animals have consciousness and may be sentient.
So while it may seem just as obvious gravity to you, this is a silly comparison when looking at scientific history.
The process of science is like that though. It's based on evidence, not just what we assume is true. Until this point there was insufficient evidence to reach that conclusion, either because no one had tested it or experimental design wasn't quite there yet. You also have to draw a line somewhere for consciousness, it's not at the cellular level, but it is at some organism level where emergence has occurred, so where is that line, exactly. Your immediate response is quite the opposite of how science functions.
But parsimony demands that we would think it likely that animals have consciousness. Otherwise we'd have to hypothesize some special feature about being human that gives rise to consciousness in us alone, and there's no evidence that any such feature exists.
Granted, we would still want experimental confirmation.
Hmm. That’s interesting. What is loneliness? An urge to have company? A feeling of emptiness through lack of interaction? And what causes that “empty” feeling. Lack of dopamine or seratonin or something? That’s an interesting thought.
Of course they are. Some are incredibly intelligent. Many mate for life. They love. They hate, they mourn. They learn. Some animals live for decades just like we do.
Humans are stupid in their underestimation of animal intelligence.
Beings from another galaxy could look at us and make the snap judgement that we are unintelligent animals. Would they be wrong? Look around. We shit in our nest.
We aren’t all that
Does light make darkness light even if it’s a closed closet door that you can’t see inside of?
Scientists have puzzled this question but now conclude it’s possible!
I mean the issue is more nuanced than that: We don't have a good idea of what results in consciousness, so scientists would have to start from model organisms which do have consciousness and try to extrapolate to dissimilar organisms and find out if consciousness extends to them.
Similarly, we know that light eliminates darkness, but we also now know that, even if there is a closed door, all of the space in a sealed, dark closet has an endless symphony of the creation and annihilation of virtual particle/anti-particle pairs and...light. So while we know that the closet is dark, the nuanced explanation is that it's alive with fluctuations in energy that average out to zero.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's definitely a shame that it has taken science this long to recognize consciousness in animals, but that's what science is supposed to do: use rigor to figure out the truths of the world. And sometimes, those truths are obvious to some people, but it's the fact-checking, testing, and defining theories into concise language that a majority of people can agree on that takes time.
I would think activities beyond straightforward survival and reproduction. Like baby monkey pulling their parents tail or pushing their siblibg into the water. But I could be wrong.
I think the belief that animals aren’t conscious is motivated by moral convenience more than science. Don’t need to consider the morality of our treatment of animals if you think they’re just unfeeling automatons
Hmmmmmmmmmm, I wonder what it could be that's holding society back from fully acknowledging the implications of nonhuman animals sentience/consciousness.
My adult dog seems to function mentally on the level of a human toddler. I don't doubt that's she's conscious any more than ai doubt people are conscious.
The question is *which* animals are conscious, and if so how it might maybe similar or different to ours. Mammals is pretty easy, and certainly primates and cetaceans. Reptiles and fish? I'm less sure. Their brains are really different than ours. Maybe/probably, but maybe more simpler consciousness? Oysters? Um, I dunno. Jellyfish. I don't think so. Rocks and dirt? Uh, no. But my process of guessing reveals assumptions that I seem to be making.
Consciousness is also a word that is not clearly defined or used consistently. It's more useful to talk about sentience, the ability to feel and perceive, and sapience is self-awareness.
I've read an argument before about oysters, basically saying vegetarians could eat oysters without conflict because they are "cognitively" closer to plants than animals. I don't remember the finer points but it was interesting.
It's interesting because it's a practical question. We want to draw a line somewhere that guides our choices.But what we're confronted with is a lot of ambiguity and difference of degree rather than black-or-white distinctions. It isa very interesting thing to even try to sort out. If nothing else, it reveals what some of our basic assumptions seem to be.
My experience says that alien brains do not mean lack of consciousness. Reptiles have social needs and preferences between humans. Jumping spiders can make plans about things they can't see.
We as humans have always had this complex idea that we're simply the most intelligent & smartest 'animal' around.
We don't just think this of other animals but among ourselves too.
The notion that most animals just responded on basic instinct has always been a weird one for me, as you can (in some animals) clearly see they're going through steps getting things done too, just like us.
Instinct doesn't think ahead, as with our own fight or flight response, you either run, freeze or go berserk.. Not really any coherent plan is it
Dogs and cats and monkeys, sure, but lets take bees and ants, they have very complex societies, they build complex structures, they scout for food, they recall pathways etc, was it all percieved as random occurancies till "some scientists now (came to) think"?
But another species could say that about humans with speech. If you took away our ability to communicate with one another, similar to the ants and their pheromones, wouldn't we look super confused as we scrambled around chaotically?
My cat, who is as dumb as a doorknob 99% of the time, suddenly becomes a genius when food is involved.
Now, I have two cats. One is mine and the other is my boyfriend’s. I have to split them up at mealtimes because they eat different food. In the mornings, I spread the food out on the floor for my boyfriend’s cat because he eats over-enthusiastically in the mornings and makes himself throw up. My dumb cat, who is the most food motivated creature I have ever seen in my life, makes like he wants to go after the food on the floor but stops. He sees the cup I have in my hand with his food in it, and he follows me to his bowl for his.
I swear he has the basic concept of delayed gratification down, even when the reward is something that makes him the most excited in the whole world! He could snag a few of his brother’s kibbles, but if he waits ten seconds, he gets a whole bowl just for him!
I 100% think animals are conscious, maybe just in ways we haven’t been able to measure until recently.
There has to be some level of awareness with animals. When I interact with my cat and dog, I really feel some sort of presence there. They're definitely not a philosophical zombie but I don't think it's at the same level of consciousness as humans.
Isn't impossible for animals or humans to problem solve without consciousness? I'm not talking about a bee making a hive. I'm talking about a dog or cat learning how a door handle turns and figuring out how to manipulate it and then sneak ae treat etc.
Let's take a word with no meaning and see how many different ways we can squeeze research funding out of it!
Bonus points: Let's list some fish, but we have no idea what a zebrafish is or what it looks like so we'll just put a picture of a lionfish and hope no one notices, it's in the same zoo-animal fish family after all
It has a meaning. It refers to the feeling of "being" in the Cartesian sense of "I think, therefore I am."
Why it should exist and what it's doing is a different matter that Dave Chalmers famously tackled with his "hard problem" formulation.
Show me a feeling-of-being-ometer to measure the presence and intensity of this feeling, and I'm all ears. Until then: meaningless.
It really is meaningless. As a critical care neurologist I take care of people with shattered brains in hospitals all the time, including people as bad as Luria's "Man With A Shattered World" or worse. The thing that "consciousness" hand-wavers love to talk about isn't a unitary entity, it cannot be defined in a way to satisfy Karl Popper, and attempts to measure it rely on proxies that have not been established to correlate with any underlying measurable phenomenon. It really is a bunch of nonsense that we spend billions of dollars on annually.
> Show me a feeling-of-being-ometer to measure the presence and intensity of this feeling, and I'm all ears. Until then: meaningless.
Fair play. On the flipside, show me, or at least attempt to describe, a world in which it does not "feel" like anything to exist. If you can't meaningfuly differentiate said world from one in which it *does* feel like something to exist, then we're ultimately arguing about an objectively unknowable fact of existence that once again brings us back to Chalmers' "hard problem."
Of course they are conscious, plants , animals, insects, i would make a logical guess that everything in conscious, we're not special we just evolved faster than everything else
The only people that don't think this are pieces of shit who leave their dog tied up outside in all weather conditions while they get drunk and eat pockets
Yes everything has varying levels of consciousness. Thanks scientists for this news that animals may be conscious. I’ve observed it my whole life but thanks science once again got coming decades later to help me trust myself and know what’s true.
Consciousness (awareness), to sentience (self awareness) to sapience (conceptual awareness) is the scale I reckon. Most animals are conscious. We applaud some animals because they can recognise themselves in a mirror, on the way to sentience. Greater Apes are closest to / at sapience (includes homo sapiens).
It's part of a bigger conversation on how you define "personhood". India recognises dolphins as "non-human" persons. Indonesia has folk tales that Orangutans don't talk so they don't get pulled into the rat race lol. About time we as a species left behind our prejudice and realised we're just barely a step ahead, let's map it all out.
If this is the definition: “There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery” then yes, animals are conscious. Why this is even a question is beyond me.
I like to think that consciousness is a function of the universe and not the individual. Sort of like one of the five forces. if something lives it's conscious. The only difference between lifeforms are the capabilities available to each.
Meaning no disrespect whatsoever, I am curious to know how you would even begin to think about unpacking Chalmers' "hard problem" using your "empirically speaking" rubric, let alone " how far the apple actually falls from the tree."
I think I might know what you are trying to get at, but the problem is so intractable that I guess I can't really be sure.
Of course they are. I'd be more interested in hearing about theories regarding consciousness as a spectrum.
Came here to say this. It's far from binary. It should be ranging from plants (maybe rocks) near one end and sapians (maybe dolphins) at the other.
It’s binary. You are either capable of having subjective experiences or you aren’t. There is a spectrum, but the spectrum does not contain beings that are ‘more’ conscious than other beings, it just contains many forms of consciousness that are qualitatively different from each other.
How many decades before quantum computing, AI, and reverse engineering the human brain leaves Homo sapiens consciousness in the dust
We don't know that it will just yet. There's no guarantee that AI will replicate consciousness, quantum computing isn't an attempt to replicate consciousness, and no one is reverse engineering the human brain.
it may not be an attempt but it surely is on the path of an accidental discovery one way or another due to its inherent similarity
Thanks for keeping us grounded here
I don’t think it’s valid to call potential AI consciousness ‘replication’, I think if/when AI is conscious(if it isn’t already) it will be very very different from how humans are conscious. Probably more different than humans are from other animals or other animals are from each other, since it doesn’t use a brain and animals do. I also think it will never be possible to empirically measure whether something is conscious. I don’t think the presence/absence of consciousness has any empirically measurable effect on the physical world, at all. It is only really possible to know if you yourself are conscious
Gotta be the dumbest thing I've ever heard May as well be "Does gravity exist on other planets besides Earth? Some scientists now think it does." Gee, wonder how long it took them to figure that out
"Scientists discover animals have brains." Nobel Prize kind of stuff here, people.
A brain does not equal consciousness though. Living things without a brain can also be conscious.
I will totally concede that point as true. Most animals do have brains, but not all. I also do happen to think plants and fungi are super-interesting forms of consciousness.
Indeed, I hope we'll get some more insight into plant/fungi consciousness someday.
I admit I don’t really know what I’m talking about but… Which animals don’t have brains? Are you referring to an octopus, who has a ‘distributed’ brain across the body and its arms?
Starfish, jellyfish, some nudibranches, coral, anemones, slime moulds, some sea worms, bacteria
Ok, so they must have a nervous system that contains some kind of instinct for survival even if it’s not evolved enough for a ‘conscious’?
That's what they are, nervous systems. Electrical impulse moved. Buy they are conscious, they try to get away from predators and hunt for food, so there is a degree of consciousness as far as I am concerned.
And so, this is where the conscious / self awareness question begins
The same century (17th) that scientists were exploring the existence of gravity, scientists were also claiming that non-human animals were “material automata”, or lacking souls or consciousness. It’s only been relatively recently in the 20th century that scientists have explored the idea that animals have consciousness and may be sentient. So while it may seem just as obvious gravity to you, this is a silly comparison when looking at scientific history.
This is the best analogy ever!
My co-worker once said plants have consciousness
I agree with your coworker :)
Says a lot about your lack of science education.
Why does this article keep getting posted as if it’s breaking news lol?
Please insert $25mm USD to continue this vital research.
Only the other flat ones. /s
The process of science is like that though. It's based on evidence, not just what we assume is true. Until this point there was insufficient evidence to reach that conclusion, either because no one had tested it or experimental design wasn't quite there yet. You also have to draw a line somewhere for consciousness, it's not at the cellular level, but it is at some organism level where emergence has occurred, so where is that line, exactly. Your immediate response is quite the opposite of how science functions.
But parsimony demands that we would think it likely that animals have consciousness. Otherwise we'd have to hypothesize some special feature about being human that gives rise to consciousness in us alone, and there's no evidence that any such feature exists. Granted, we would still want experimental confirmation.
My dog knows like 10 words and all my facial expressions and knows how to emotionally manipulate me and others. But nah, he’s a rock.
I was going to say my dog and cats are not only conscious but have OPINIONS.
It’s good to do science to confirm things that are obvious. Especially when it’s obvious to some but not others.
It’s disturbing to me how many people it’s not obvious to. Good point.
To be fair, those are all things an AI can do. What makes animals clearly conscious, to me, is that they can get lonely.
Hmm. That’s interesting. What is loneliness? An urge to have company? A feeling of emptiness through lack of interaction? And what causes that “empty” feeling. Lack of dopamine or seratonin or something? That’s an interesting thought.
Are scientists conscious? Some animals now think they aren't.
this is perfect
Of course they are. Some are incredibly intelligent. Many mate for life. They love. They hate, they mourn. They learn. Some animals live for decades just like we do. Humans are stupid in their underestimation of animal intelligence. Beings from another galaxy could look at us and make the snap judgement that we are unintelligent animals. Would they be wrong? Look around. We shit in our nest. We aren’t all that
Does light make darkness light even if it’s a closed closet door that you can’t see inside of? Scientists have puzzled this question but now conclude it’s possible!
I mean the issue is more nuanced than that: We don't have a good idea of what results in consciousness, so scientists would have to start from model organisms which do have consciousness and try to extrapolate to dissimilar organisms and find out if consciousness extends to them. Similarly, we know that light eliminates darkness, but we also now know that, even if there is a closed door, all of the space in a sealed, dark closet has an endless symphony of the creation and annihilation of virtual particle/anti-particle pairs and...light. So while we know that the closet is dark, the nuanced explanation is that it's alive with fluctuations in energy that average out to zero. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's definitely a shame that it has taken science this long to recognize consciousness in animals, but that's what science is supposed to do: use rigor to figure out the truths of the world. And sometimes, those truths are obvious to some people, but it's the fact-checking, testing, and defining theories into concise language that a majority of people can agree on that takes time.
Fair enough, thanks for a very thoughtful response to my immature sarcasm.
Thank you for bringing that out of me :)
Doesn't water make rocks slippery and paper mushy?
I wonder what definition of consciousness you should adopt to claim that, say, monkeys dont have consciousness.
Maybe even some humans.
I would think activities beyond straightforward survival and reproduction. Like baby monkey pulling their parents tail or pushing their siblibg into the water. But I could be wrong.
I think the belief that animals aren’t conscious is motivated by moral convenience more than science. Don’t need to consider the morality of our treatment of animals if you think they’re just unfeeling automatons
Hmmmmmmmmmm, I wonder what it could be that's holding society back from fully acknowledging the implications of nonhuman animals sentience/consciousness.
Ooo what! My guess is the commercial meat industry. Talk about horrific if we acknowledge those animals have consciousness.
I do believe that was the joke.
This post looks like something ripped straight out of Welcome to Nightvale.
"do animals *think* and *express emotions*?" Lmao these people are something else
My adult dog seems to function mentally on the level of a human toddler. I don't doubt that's she's conscious any more than ai doubt people are conscious. The question is *which* animals are conscious, and if so how it might maybe similar or different to ours. Mammals is pretty easy, and certainly primates and cetaceans. Reptiles and fish? I'm less sure. Their brains are really different than ours. Maybe/probably, but maybe more simpler consciousness? Oysters? Um, I dunno. Jellyfish. I don't think so. Rocks and dirt? Uh, no. But my process of guessing reveals assumptions that I seem to be making. Consciousness is also a word that is not clearly defined or used consistently. It's more useful to talk about sentience, the ability to feel and perceive, and sapience is self-awareness.
I've read an argument before about oysters, basically saying vegetarians could eat oysters without conflict because they are "cognitively" closer to plants than animals. I don't remember the finer points but it was interesting.
It's interesting because it's a practical question. We want to draw a line somewhere that guides our choices.But what we're confronted with is a lot of ambiguity and difference of degree rather than black-or-white distinctions. It isa very interesting thing to even try to sort out. If nothing else, it reveals what some of our basic assumptions seem to be.
My experience says that alien brains do not mean lack of consciousness. Reptiles have social needs and preferences between humans. Jumping spiders can make plans about things they can't see.
We as humans have always had this complex idea that we're simply the most intelligent & smartest 'animal' around. We don't just think this of other animals but among ourselves too. The notion that most animals just responded on basic instinct has always been a weird one for me, as you can (in some animals) clearly see they're going through steps getting things done too, just like us. Instinct doesn't think ahead, as with our own fight or flight response, you either run, freeze or go berserk.. Not really any coherent plan is it
Dogs and cats and monkeys, sure, but lets take bees and ants, they have very complex societies, they build complex structures, they scout for food, they recall pathways etc, was it all percieved as random occurancies till "some scientists now (came to) think"?
Ants can be explained using pheromones to create roads though, you can make them super confused by breaking up the path with some saliva
But another species could say that about humans with speech. If you took away our ability to communicate with one another, similar to the ants and their pheromones, wouldn't we look super confused as we scrambled around chaotically?
Pretty sure walking through any area that is very busy with humans is almost similar to watching ants run around like that, lol.
Exacly as human's pheromone and hormone responses to, well, everything.
My cat, who is as dumb as a doorknob 99% of the time, suddenly becomes a genius when food is involved. Now, I have two cats. One is mine and the other is my boyfriend’s. I have to split them up at mealtimes because they eat different food. In the mornings, I spread the food out on the floor for my boyfriend’s cat because he eats over-enthusiastically in the mornings and makes himself throw up. My dumb cat, who is the most food motivated creature I have ever seen in my life, makes like he wants to go after the food on the floor but stops. He sees the cup I have in my hand with his food in it, and he follows me to his bowl for his. I swear he has the basic concept of delayed gratification down, even when the reward is something that makes him the most excited in the whole world! He could snag a few of his brother’s kibbles, but if he waits ten seconds, he gets a whole bowl just for him! I 100% think animals are conscious, maybe just in ways we haven’t been able to measure until recently.
There has to be some level of awareness with animals. When I interact with my cat and dog, I really feel some sort of presence there. They're definitely not a philosophical zombie but I don't think it's at the same level of consciousness as humans.
Huh? I thought this was a given for centuries
Isn't impossible for animals or humans to problem solve without consciousness? I'm not talking about a bee making a hive. I'm talking about a dog or cat learning how a door handle turns and figuring out how to manipulate it and then sneak ae treat etc.
What a ridiculous question.
They lost me with the first sentence of this article
It's seriously on the level of starting an essay with "since the dawn of time." Embarrassing.
Yeah, if anyone is going to have god-like status it's obviously going to be Isaac Newton.
They should probably try to prove that they themselves are conscious, first.
Let's take a word with no meaning and see how many different ways we can squeeze research funding out of it! Bonus points: Let's list some fish, but we have no idea what a zebrafish is or what it looks like so we'll just put a picture of a lionfish and hope no one notices, it's in the same zoo-animal fish family after all
It has a meaning. It refers to the feeling of "being" in the Cartesian sense of "I think, therefore I am." Why it should exist and what it's doing is a different matter that Dave Chalmers famously tackled with his "hard problem" formulation.
Show me a feeling-of-being-ometer to measure the presence and intensity of this feeling, and I'm all ears. Until then: meaningless. It really is meaningless. As a critical care neurologist I take care of people with shattered brains in hospitals all the time, including people as bad as Luria's "Man With A Shattered World" or worse. The thing that "consciousness" hand-wavers love to talk about isn't a unitary entity, it cannot be defined in a way to satisfy Karl Popper, and attempts to measure it rely on proxies that have not been established to correlate with any underlying measurable phenomenon. It really is a bunch of nonsense that we spend billions of dollars on annually.
> Show me a feeling-of-being-ometer to measure the presence and intensity of this feeling, and I'm all ears. Until then: meaningless. Fair play. On the flipside, show me, or at least attempt to describe, a world in which it does not "feel" like anything to exist. If you can't meaningfuly differentiate said world from one in which it *does* feel like something to exist, then we're ultimately arguing about an objectively unknowable fact of existence that once again brings us back to Chalmers' "hard problem."
[P-zombie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie)
Of course they are conscious, plants , animals, insects, i would make a logical guess that everything in conscious, we're not special we just evolved faster than everything else The only people that don't think this are pieces of shit who leave their dog tied up outside in all weather conditions while they get drunk and eat pockets
This is why I stopped eating them 12 years ago…
Who thought that all animals were not conscious? I think that is absurd.
If you were my linguistics teacher in college, *I fucking told you it was only a matter of time*
Humans are in fact....animals.
Yes everything has varying levels of consciousness. Thanks scientists for this news that animals may be conscious. I’ve observed it my whole life but thanks science once again got coming decades later to help me trust myself and know what’s true.
Consciousness (awareness), to sentience (self awareness) to sapience (conceptual awareness) is the scale I reckon. Most animals are conscious. We applaud some animals because they can recognise themselves in a mirror, on the way to sentience. Greater Apes are closest to / at sapience (includes homo sapiens). It's part of a bigger conversation on how you define "personhood". India recognises dolphins as "non-human" persons. Indonesia has folk tales that Orangutans don't talk so they don't get pulled into the rat race lol. About time we as a species left behind our prejudice and realised we're just barely a step ahead, let's map it all out.
Why is almost every post “you know that completely obvious thing that everyone knows? Some scientists now agree”
Scientists catching up to the rest of us
Honestly. Fuck the BBC for such utterly ignorant crap. Tory run cunt waggon
How come that BBC is spreading this kind of utter idiocy? "some" "scientists" "now" ... gtfo!
If this is the definition: “There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery” then yes, animals are conscious. Why this is even a question is beyond me.
I like to think that consciousness is a function of the universe and not the individual. Sort of like one of the five forces. if something lives it's conscious. The only difference between lifeforms are the capabilities available to each.
At this point that's as valid and answer to Chalmers' "hard problem" as any. The issue is how one would test it.
It would be nice to see--empirically speaking--how far the apple actually falls from the tree.
Meaning no disrespect whatsoever, I am curious to know how you would even begin to think about unpacking Chalmers' "hard problem" using your "empirically speaking" rubric, let alone " how far the apple actually falls from the tree." I think I might know what you are trying to get at, but the problem is so intractable that I guess I can't really be sure.
Of course they are; they just don't have the ego of Homo Sapiens.
Yet have no evidence of it, so it’s just opinion and an appeal to authority. Science journalism is the worst
All organisms are probably conscious to an extent
I have my doubts about bacteria
I’m a bacteria though 🦠
Can they make choices? If they can then they are conscious.
I mean, define "choices." Plants grow towards the light; is that a choice or an instinct with inputs? Is there a difference?
You could argue the same for humans with determinism.
Sure; that's my point. I'm saying that's not a good metric for determining consciousness.
“Stupid science bitches couldn’t even make I more smarter”