Do animals have consciousness?

[Freddy]

What is interesting, additionally, is that I didn’t make any claims to what is actually the case vis a vis animals, I merely provided three philosophical possibilities as to what MIGHT be the case.

Your posts certainly imply a position. But maybe I have it wrong, in which case my apologies. So could you give us your personal view (as opposed to what the possible cases might be) so I can rectify any error on my part?

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

But don’t you see the irony?

I do. You claim to be making a rational, objective argument, but rely on “what reasonable people” believe.

I wouldn’t discount those ‘reasonable people’ that deny claims by people like Swanson. They include you.

 

[Gorgias]

I wouldn’t discount those ‘reasonable people’. They include you.

I count you as “reasonable” in quite the same way.

Have a great evening!

 

[EndTimes]

Giving into Evil coming from Satan - is the Sin…

 

[JosephDColeman]

Yes, I think we all agree animals have memory.

And memory would seem to point to consciousness
.

Rather than sense directly your sadness or anger, they see subtle facial expressions or hear changes in breathing patterns or the like and react.

Okay, so they are sensing emotions through the facial expressions…you’re saying the same thing.

Thank you Lord for the gift of pain! How many times did you swat Fido with the newspaper to elicit that behavior?

And consciousness would seem a requirement to connect pain to the act of going outside.

He remembered that the smell of cheap gin meant your strange behaviors immediately followed.

I didn’t drink gin. Once again, it would seem that consciousness would be required to connect memory of strange behavior with the smell of alcohol.

 

[o_mlly]

Okay, so they are sensing emotions through the facial expressions…you’re saying the same thing.

No, not the same thing. Merely using its sensory capabilities is not the same as emoting, e.g., empathy.

And consciousness would seem a requirement to connect pain to the act of going outside.

Yes.

I didn’t drink gin. Once again, it would seem that consciousness would be required to connect memory of strange behavior with the smell of alcohol.

The olfactory bulb in a dog is 40 times the relative size of a human’s. The point is that Fido senses, that is it smells the liquor, remembers the previous times he smelt the same and your erratic behavior.

As to Fido’s consciousness, please read the posts. ?

Yes. Animals are aware. What animals lack and humans possess is self-awareness.

? Read my posts. Animals are conscious beings.

 

[Metis1]

In regards to the OP, if an animal did not have “consciousness”, it simply wouldn’t respond.

Studies indicate that an adult chimp has an average mental capacity of a two year old human baby, and I do believe two year olds have “consciousness”.

BTW, for what it’s worth, I’m an anthropologist, now retired.

 

[JosephDColeman]

I guess I’m confused on why you were replying to me like you were if we both agree animals have consciousness.

The olfactory bulb in a dog is 40 times the relative size of a human’s.

Wrong. Please reread Matthew 21 and rethink your answer.

 

[EndTimes]

It’s self-evident that animals are very conscious and aware of the world around them…

HOWEVER… Do they possess a Conscience? (note the huge difference!)

I don’t involve in such potential endless speculations.

_

 

[o_mlly]

The olfactory bulb in a dog is 40 times the relative size of a human’s.

Wrong. Please reread Matthew 21 and rethink your answer.

I didn’t see anything in Matt 21 about the olfactory bulb. ?

 

[Gorgias]

I didn’t see anything in Matt 21 about the olfactory bulb. ?

Maybe he’s calling you a “cursed, withered fig”?

 

[JosephDColeman]

I didn’t see anything in Matt 21 about the olfactory bulb. ?

That’s because you didn’t read it right. Please reference the catechism on this and think about it a little harder.

 

[o_mlly]

Friend, I took exception to your post in which you personified your dog. I explained that Fido’s behaviors noted are simply animal cognition using its senses and memory. Dogs may feel shame but not guilt. Dogs may perceive but not deduce. These are not religious but science and philosophical issues. On these issues, neither scripture nor the catechism illuminate.

 

[HarryStotle]

The point I will make here is that the above rationale is horrid. Everything we experience tells us indisputably that animals feel pain. Yet theologians and apologists rationalize it as you have with the sole purpose of justifying the limitations of Catholic morality. It’s all an illusion - and thus the failures that would be evident if animals did suffer are simply washed away.
I ask you this - why then would a great all-powerful designer make it appear as if animals experience pain? What benefit does that provide? Plants do not appear to suffer pain, so why make every action, effect and result of nature demonstrate animal pain - yet it is all an illusion.

So your argument is that we KNOW animals feel pain BECAUSE we EXPERIENCE pain.

No need to explain why we can possibly feel pain in a subjective sense.

No need to address the question of relevant differences between our capacities and the capacities of animals for cognitive awareness and subjective identity.

No need to address the question of what capacities underwrite subjective awareness and cognition for human beings to begin with.

Just assertion after assertion.

Pretty hard to argue against assertions, but also pretty easy to not take them very seriously, either.

It is simply ridiculous. It makes no sense at all. Every fiber in my being tells me it is immoral to hurt animals - to me, animals have moral value. Yet, Christianity says no - it’s an illusion. Treat animals with respect not because it is morally right, but because they are objects that God created - our possessions, if you will.

So the reality of animal pain is logically grounded upon your subjective feelings?

Is that the claim you want to make?

How your feelings – at least how the fibers of your being (whatever they are) – intuitively feel about something is the ground and final determiner of all moral truth?

Well, okay, then. I cannot possibly argue against that since you have, contained within you, the source of moral truth.

No need for God to explain or justify anything when you have the “fibers” of ultimate reality underpinning morality on your side.

So "because it is morally right’ effectively means what “every fiber” of your being tells you?

Is that the case you are putting forward?

No need for any objective standard for morality when your subjectivity can be projected onto all of reality to arbitrate moral claims?

 

[Freddy]

jan10000:

The point I will make here is that the above rationale is horrid. Everything we experience tells us indisputably that animals feel pain. Yet theologians and apologists rationalize it as you have with the sole purpose of justifying the limitations of Catholic morality. It’s all an illusion - and thus the failures that would be evident if animals did suffer are simply washed away.
I ask you this - why then would a great all-powerful designer make it appear as if animals experience pain? What benefit does that provide? Plants do not appear to suffer pain, so why make every action, effect and result of nature demonstrate animal pain - yet it is all an illusion.

So your argument is that we KNOW animals feel pain BECAUSE we EXPERIENCE pain.

And we are animals. Do you think we would have felt less and less pain as we go back in our evolutionary past? That seems a very odd concept. Is that what you are implying?

 

[HarryStotle]

The fact that we share biological characteristics with animals does not logically imply that we share every characteristic that we possess with animals.

The only implication of my post was that we could not have any conscious or subjective awareness of anything without the cognitive faculties that could enable that kind of awareness. Absent a pre-frontal cortex (at the very minimum) there can be no subjective awareness unless consciousness is a capacity entirely unconnected to any physiological capacity whatsoever.

Ergo, some in this thread seem to want to argue that conscious awareness of pain is completely unrelated to brain capacity, which is rather odd since those same posters claim to be atheists who don’t profess a belief in transcendent reality to begin with.

So, either conscious awareness of anything whatsoever, including pain, must be dependent upon brain capacity or it is some magical property that we “feel in the fibers of our beings” that other animals have. If the former then it is up to scientists to locate the faculty or part of the brain responsible for conscious awareness. If the latter, then we are forced to leave the arbitration of the question to the fibers of one’s being to finally decide — which devolves to a question of which fibers and whose being?

Since the best of modern neurology and philosophy of mind remain very loathe to make any assertions about the source of consciousness even in human beings, it seems a very prodigal adventure for some on this thread to claim to know with certainty that animals are the conscious subjects of pain experiences.

But do go ahead and chastise others for not submitting to the infallible declarations of the fibers of one’s being irrespective of whether the fibers of other beings don’t feel the same way in answer to the question.

 

[Freddy]

The fact that we share biological characteristics with animals does not logically imply that we share every characteristic that we possess with animals.

You implied that it was a poor argument to suggest that animals feel pain just because we do. As I pointed out, we are animals. So the connection would appear to be valid. Unless you think that at some point we didn’t feel pain in some distant evolutionary past and then gradually we did.

Is that your position?

 

[EndTimes]

The fact that we share biological characteristics with animals does not logically imply that we share every characteristic that we possess with animals.

Observers note many similar characteristics… Hunger Hunting Pain Crying Playing…
And Animals - including Flies… are obviously Conscious of the world around… including of Humans…

 

[EndTimes]

Evolutionary theory shows that we are animals.

God’s Truth is that Humans are called to be Children of God.

 

[AlNg]

…it seems a very prodigal adventure for some on this thread to claim to know with certainty that animals are the conscious subjects of pain experiences.

“Nearly all the external signs that lead us to infer pain in other humans can be seen in other species, especially the species most closely related to us–the species of mammals and birds. The behavioral signs include writhing, facial contortions, moaning, yelping or other forms of calling, attempts to avoid the source of the pain, appearance of fear at the prospect of its repetition, and so on. In addition, we know that these animals have nervous systems very like ours, which respond physiologically like ours do when the animal is in circumstances in which we would feel pain: an initial rise of blood pressure, dilated pupils, perspiration, an increased pulse rate, and, if the stimulus continues, a fall in blood pressure. Although human beings have a more developed cerebral cortex than other animals, this part of the brain is concerned with thinking functions rather than with basic impulses, emotions, and feelings. These impulses, emotions, and feelings are located in the diencephalon, which is well developed in many other species of animals, especially mammals and birds.”
" It is surely unreasonable to suppose that nervous systems that are virtually identical physiologically, have a common origin and a common evolutionary function, and result in similar forms of behavior in similar circumstances should actually operate in an entirely different manner on the level of subjective feelings."
Do Animals Feel Pain?
by Peter Singer