
Why won't biologists say that animals might be conscious? - eatitraw
https://aeon.co/essays/why-wont-biologists-say-that-animals-might-be-conscious
======
vivekd
It's so easy for humans to anthropomorphize animals and believe that they have
thoughts, feelings and inner lives similar to that of humans. We do it every
day when looking at cute cat videos on the internet and imagining that the
cats are laughing, or smiling or crying based on superficial similarities with
human emotions. I think it's so tempting for our species to project our inner
words onto the animal kingdom.

I think that's why so few biologists are willing to consider this area, it
looks like they are projecting their biases and ways of thinking onto their
subjects of study, which wouldn't be conductive to their research.

~~~
thatusertwo
I sometimes wonder if other humans have an inner life like me, it's very
tempting for me to project my inner world onto other humans.

~~~
pessimizer
We don't have any more evidence that other animals are conscious than we have
that other people are conscious. As far as evidence is concerned, your cat is
no more conscious than I am.

Are logfiles enough to count as an inner life? We have clear evidence of
those.

~~~
maxerickson
I think it's the other way around. We have plenty of evidence that humans are
doing something different than most creatures and have trouble articulating
exactly what it is.

~~~
pessimizer
I don't think we do. The only evidence I have that other people are conscious
is by analogy; because I assume that whatever conscious is, I am, and other
people seem like me.

~~~
maxerickson
You've skipped my point though, I'm saying that your definition of conscious
isn't a useful articulation of the difference, so of course it doesn't yield a
satisfying result.

Then compare the life's work of Picasso to the life's work of most cats. Art
is evocative. Cats poop a lot.

~~~
Nursie
Compare it to the life's work of most humans.

Humans poop a lot, I'd guess even more than cats...

~~~
maxerickson
See, it's hard to articulate.

------
robbrown451
The word consciousness, as most people seem to use it, is not defined in a way
that science can touch it. It only makes sense from a certain perspective, and
that is not the perspective of science.

Asking "is some entity X conscious?" is sort of like asking "last December 6,
what were the chances of there being a big earthquake in Indonesia the
following day?" The only way to answer a "what are the chances?" type question
is from the perspective of someone with limited knowledge. From the point of
view of us, today, we don't have limited knowledge, we know the earthquake
happened. So the question doesn't make sense.

Likewise with consciousness. You can't analyze it from a perspective other
than that of the entity in question. It doesn't make sense.

There are plenty of other ways of defining consciousness that make it more
accessible to science. But you might find it difficult to make sure it isn't
inclusive of things that you don't consider conscious, like a self driving car
or even your phone.

~~~
judahmeek
I once read someone theorize that the terms "consciousness" and "artificial
intelligence" are much like the dragons & sea monsters that used to be drawn
on ancient maps. "Consciousness" is what we don't know about how the human
mind works and "artificial intelligence" is what we don't know about how to
get a computer to work like the human mind. Once we learn something new about
the human mind or getting a computer to act like the human mind, it is no
longer "consciousness" or "artificial intelligence", but is filed away as
psychology, neuro-biology, machine learning, or some other field of study.

Basically, because science can not define terms like "consciousness", because
the term represents what we don't know and we can not define what we don't
know.

~~~
pixl97
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect)

------
Nomentatus
I think it's a pendulum. I remember when no scientist would say in print that
animals could experience pain, and my shock when first reading a peer-reviewed
article that suggested that (fish I think it was) did. Back then the Nim
experiments were held to show that animals were not capable of understanding
language in any way ('cause their syntax was imperfect.) However, before that
scientists had been too quick to trumpet any sign of symbolic understanding as
"animals understanding language." Of course, it is also strict traditional
(Thomist) Catholic doctrine that animals do not have souls (the seat of
experience) or go to heaven; go back far enough and that was a strong limit on
what science it was easy to publish.

------
pekk
Why won't they say that humans are conscious? Because this is not a question
of biology and it is not a question biologists have the training or data to
answer, even if you want them to take this stand for essentially political
reasons.

------
alexandercrohde
The fact that pushed me over the edge is when I learned a cat twitching in its
sleep is dreaming. Apparently all mammals dream.

Now we haven't exactly defined consciousness, but I can't really imagine how
you can have dreaming without having an experience that "counts" to me.

Sometimes scientists use "recognizing oneself in a mirror" as the definition
of "self-awareness", but I'd be sure to differentiate self-aware and
conscious, because infants can't recognize themselves in mirrors, but they
almost certainly experience pain that shapes them for life.

~~~
waqf
Philosophers have come up with a long string of traits which supposedly
separate us from the animals, and they have a very poor track record:

"Animals can't recognize themselves in a mirror"

"Animals can't use tools"

"Ok, but animals can't make a _plan_ to go get a tool and use it"

"Animals can't _make_ tools"
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYZnsO2ZgWo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYZnsO2ZgWo))

… and so it goes on. My impression at this point is that scientists are
spending time patiently disproving these theories only because philosophers
are so far off track in suggesting them to begin with.

~~~
dmurray
The article deals with this, slightly tongue in cheek, as:

> A funny pattern in animal behaviour seems to be that whatever difficult task
> you devise will eventually be done by pigeons

A charitable interpretation is that scientifically, we ascribe the simplest
possible behaviour (no conscious thought! No tool making! No tool using!) to
animals and treat it as a notable result when these assumptions are proven
wrong.

------
JoeAltmaier
That old word - 'conscious'. We misuse it terribly. For instance we know when
someone is 'unconscious', which should reasonably be the converse of being
conscious. By that view, every animal that is aware and responding to its
environment is conscious.

Another use (misuse?) of the word is to mean 'self-aware'. That one is harder
to measure. But plenty of animals seem to meet that bar - if they recognize
themselves in a mirror; if they can empathize with others etc.

~~~
psyc
I'd happily forfeit all my Christmas presents this year if internet people
would all stop noising up discussions of consciousness with protests that it's
ill-defined. One meaning is the opposite of unconscious. Another perfectly
fine meaning is having subjective experience. Just like every other word with
shades of meaning, we can tell from context - e.g. if the one using the word
is a philosopher, or an anesthesiologist. Neither necessarily implies self-
awareness. That's a third thing. Poorly understood, yes. Ill-defined - I just
don't see it.

~~~
harryjo
you just gave two vague definitions and also said it has shades of meaning --
that's what "ill-defined" is.

------
jplasmeier
Hmm. I had read in a book that volitional attentional binding (being able to
shift your attention to different parts of your experience was closely related
to what we call consciousness/experience, and that a lot of animals exhibit
this behavior. So, most likely, animals are in fact conscious. Sadly I don't
have any sources of research done in this area...

------
Pseudosudowoodo
Consciousness is tricky philosophical business.

The reality is that on our planet, even something as simple as a plant (or
fungi) can have memory, communication, and the ability to anticipate results.
Where do we draw the line? Is there even a line that can be drawn? This issue
goes way beyond just animals and until we have a functional metric of
intelligence, I can't see us getting any real answers past simply recording
data.

A link to a researcher on this subject as well as some of her published work:
[http://www.web.uwa.edu.au/people/monica.gagliano](http://www.web.uwa.edu.au/people/monica.gagliano)

There are quite a few people, all more qualified than I, researching matters
like this. Figured that this was something that most might not even consider
and thus was worth mentioning.

------
justinpombrio
For anyone that wants to actually learn about consciousness, I recommend the
book "In the Theater of Consciousness: The Workspace of the Mind"[1]. It
teases apart different aspects of what people call "consciousness", gives a
theory that explains them, and describes the supporting evidence found so far.
The theory suggests that some but not all animals are conscious.

I believe the theory -- "Global Workspace Theory"[2] -- is currently the
leading theory of consciousness, though the field is still very new.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Theater-Consciousness-Workspace-
Mind/...](https://www.amazon.com/Theater-Consciousness-Workspace-
Mind/dp/0195147030) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Workspace_Theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Workspace_Theory)

------
westoncb
I think the author is conflating two every different notions of consciousness
here, more specifically by not quite getting what the 'hard problem' of
consciousness refers to.

The easy problem, which is what most of the article is about, is just self-
monitoring—having some 'meta' processing. It's not hard to conceive of a
system structured (roughly) like this: you start with a first order brain that
just reacts to external stimuli, then you layer another system on it that
monitors its state and calculates new inputs for it based on what was
observed.

The hard problem isn't a scientific problem at all. It relates to immediate
experience: what it's like to actually _feel_ cold, or the experience of the
color red, etc. It's basically accounting for 'qualia'—and it has nothing to
do with what's usually called 'conscious thought.'

------
negamax
I recently spent good bit of time studying neuroscience. It's fascinating the
way brain and nervous system functions. My own understanding is that animals
are much more a slave to their neural networks as compared to humans. Because
of frontal lobe and series of evolutionary changes, human beings have branched
too far. Consciousness is also not fully understood at this stage. But I do
concur that on cellular and structural level we are quite similar to other
vertebrates. Still different.

Edit: if anyone is studying biology, medicine and are from software
background; give me a shout. I would love to exchange ideas and collaborate

------
roflchoppa
I was in a lecture by James Blackmon (cool dude, has some really interesting
points about AI consciousness) He gave this example of testing for a Moral
Patient, he stated "you would not hit a dog with a hammer, not because it can
feel pain, but because it has an adverse reaction to the sensory input." By
that conclusion he was saying that similarly an AI could be a moral patient
because it can react to sensory input.

Interesting to think about.

------
dominotw
because there is no precise definition of consciousness...duh.

------
fellellor
All the better to eat you, my dear..

------
pvaldes
Because we have much more urgent problems to solve, that aren't being solved.

~~~
kleer001
My friend. I'm sad to say, that's not how science works.

~~~
pvaldes
Ok, I'll rephrase it. Becoming a scientist is so incredibly hard that for the
99% or scientists in the planet there is absolutely neither point nor desire
into spend their huge inversion validating the 2.0 version of old
uninteresting themes linked with pseudo-religious connotations.

We are instead thinking about cancer and other diseases, biological invasions,
contamination, climate change, and how explore, discover and save new animals
and plants. Each one of this problems could fill several lives.

Do you feel that your turtle pet is so smart that could read your mind? Sorry
if I'm being rough, but honestly... I don't care. We are trying to fight
against the sixth extinction here.

~~~
chillwaves
Perhaps if you valued the philosophy of considering lower intelligence as more
than resources to be exploited, we would not have so many problems to solve in
the first place.

To expand, there is value in nature and the existent ecosystems in ways that
are not immediately apparent. The perspective of mankind subjugating nature,
conquering our planet is in my mind the root cause of the disruptions creating
the extinction event you allude to. Consider there is value in caring about
these sort of questions.

~~~
pvaldes
"If you embrace (our) philosophy the world would became sin-less and a
paradise again, just because". Yeah, I've heard this before. Illusory
correlation.

------
SFJulie
Because the bible says so. And, it has always been the taboo in biology where
biologists are a tad more reverent to religions than in other science.

Bibles says so: else eating/using animals would be a sin, and a lot of human
«non virtuous behaviour» could be acceptable and animalism would be almost
acceptable.

If human beings where animals (and animals considered conscious) monotheism
most important axiom would disappear and most of our social order.

~~~
mikeash
You know there are a lot of non-monotheistic biologists out there?

