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/sci/ - Science & Math

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9171931 No.9171931 [Reply] [Original]

How can we know if another animal has consciousness?

>> No.9171937

if they have neurons

>> No.9171946

>>9171931
There's the mirror test, beyond that we'll have to get creative.

>> No.9171950

>>9171931
How can I know if other humans have consciousness?

>> No.9171983

How can I know that anything exists outside of my perceptions?

>> No.9171986

>>9171931
Look how it works.

>> No.9171993

>>9171950
>>9171983
>t. solipsist p-zombie

Everyone feels like they're conscious from their own perspective. The question is, how do you know YOU'RE conscious, and that someone else isn't doing the thinking for you?

>> No.9172018

>>9171993

Someone else is definitely doing the thinking for me. I don't decide hardly anything that goes on, cognitively wise. I don't decide my thoughts, I don't decide what my perceptions pick up, I don't even decide at what level of performance my cognition works at, at any give time.
Free will is a joke

>> No.9172036

>>9171946
ants have passed the mirror test
it means nothing
That's not to say ants aren't conscious but they're not more conscious than mammals that don't pass the test.

>> No.9172042

>>9171931
ask them to invent something new
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSjqEopnC9w

>> No.9173284

>>9172018
Objectively, you have no intrinsic value, and you are unhappy. Therefore, suicide is the optimal solution. So go and kill yourself; it'll make you happier.

>> No.9173953

>>9173284

Nice projection Anon

>> No.9173989

>>9171950
They have a brain that's almost identical to your own. If you have consciousness, why wouldn't they?

>> No.9174069

>>9171931
General consensus is that other mammals and birds feel the exact range and intensity of emotion, feel sensations, experience, decide, and comprehend just like humans do. We're not that special.

>> No.9174075

>>9174069
And, other chordates are conscious too. They don't feel some of the emotions we do though, and sharks apparently aren't affected by pain like we are. There's debate on the level of consciousness the invertebrates feel, but some even claim that plants and microbes have minds and experience things.

>> No.9174082

Let's imagine two similiar cats, treated with perfect equality, eventually one will fight and impose its precedence over the second. Isn't this a proof they experience subjectivity, thus consciousness?

>> No.9174095

>>9174069
>dogs think

>> No.9174465
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9174465

>>9174069
>General consensus is that other mammals and birds feel the exact range and intensity of emotion, feel sensations, experience, decide, and comprehend just like humans do.

>> No.9174724
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9174724

>>9172036
>they're not more conscious than mammals that don't pass the test

Ants have
>working communism
>cast system
>division of labour
>architecture
>vast colonies
>climate control
>agriculture
>domesticated livestock
>olfactory language

you really think that's less likely to be related to some form of consciousness than your average grazing mammal?

>> No.9174741

>>9174724
>spontaneous order does not exist

>> No.9174749

>>9174741
Humans are also the result of spontaneous order.

>> No.9174802

>>9174741
>a "spontaneous" organised hive organism is somehow less capable of consciousness than an "spontaneous" organized neural network

>> No.9174816

>>9174802
>>a "spontaneous" organised hive organism is somehow less capable of consciousness than an "spontaneous" organized neural network
The question is not whether one is more or less capable of consciousness, the question is whether the complexity of ant society indicates consciousness. Your argument is similar to that of a creationist, who see any complexity as necessarily designed.

>> No.9174831

>>9172018
You've mislocated your YOU. Your YOU is whatever is deciding your thoughts. Try seeing yourself as others see you, and identifying with that self, even if it's bad. You have to have located your self first in order to change it.

>> No.9174841

>>9174831
...unless you're surrounded by terrible people, in which case having a resistance to YOU feedback is critical... Agh, humans are complicated.

>> No.9174894

>>9174831
There is no self.

>> No.9174939

>>9174816
The question IS whether or not they are capable of consciousness.
Complexity seems to be a necessary requirement for the development of consciousness.
Ant colonies are complex.
So we can check that point.
Are they conscious?
Are there other necessary requirements for consciousness?
What would the consciousness of a hive organism be like?
How do we test all that?
>>9172036 says they passed the mirror test, so there's that.
What IS consciousness anyway?

We don't really now the first things about this topic right now.

>> No.9174954

only humans can have consciousness because we were created in god's own image

>> No.9175137

>>9174831
>>>/x/

>> No.9175200

>>9171993
Because Descartes nigga

>> No.9175221

>>9171946

Mirror test is more of an example of environmental understanding, not proof of conciousness. Very few animals pass because few need to have an awareness of nonapplicative relativity.

For example dogs don't pass and almost all people it's experience of them would claim there concious experience is very close to our own.

The mirror test is a fucking meme.

>> No.9175236

>>9175221

I also think it's reasonable to assume that many animals that aren't thought to recognise their reflection due to complete non attention and passiveness to a mirrors presence are actually aware that is just their reflection but do not have the attitude or behavioural reason to pay any attention to it.

For example many of you will probabably notice as a cat or dog gets older after having freaked out at a mirror before will simply to not pay any attention anymore as they are wise to it.

I also believe more fish need to be tested because it would make sense for fish to be able to know a boundary layer reflection is not another fish. I believe that some rays have been shown to know that their reflection is not another ray.