Bees rolling wooden balls, apparently, for fun... It really looks like the observer was anthropomorphizing the bee with the experiment setup. The bees were in a unnatural environment with nothing...
Exemplary
Bees rolling wooden balls, apparently, for fun...
It really looks like the observer was anthropomorphizing the bee with the experiment setup. The bees were in a unnatural environment with nothing other than a few essentials and the wooden balls. The bees checked the wooden balls and did something to them. Honestly, watching the videos, it seems to me like the bees are struggling with the balls rather than having fun, maybe checking if they are dangerous? Maybe they return to the box where the balls used to be to check if danger is still there? Two can play the anthropomorphism-game. Maybe it's not play, maybe it's bee-pilates.
The experimenters kind of decided that the ball rolling cannot be an attempt to clear clutter or to mate, but the reasoning did not seem so conclusive. And I am no bumblebee biologist, but maybe their repertoire is more varied than just sex and cleaning and there are many many more behaviors they need to exclude first.
Anyway, it would be more meaningful if bumble bees actually would be know to 'play' in nature and this was a study trying to emulate a phenomenon in nature. Otherwise, the scientist here didn't just discover that bumblebees have fun, they also witnessed bees discovering the concept of fun for the first time. What is the evolutionary reason bees would play?
This article should be taken with a huge grain of salt because it jumps from this very narrow observation about bumble bees in weird wooden boxes to to the mind-blowing idea of insect-consciousness.
There isn't even an agreedupon definition of consciousness yet. For a long time, it was impossible to even start studying consciousness with objective empirical experiments. Psychological and neurological experiments test a specific concept of consciousness that is still being honed in on through medical case studies with, for example, trauma patients and psychological experiments.
Did the concept of consciousness graduate out of being a philosophical concept? It seems to be in a sort of scientific grey-zone to me, like free will.
I am skeptical of observations of consciousness in animals. If they do experience it like we do, perhaps the conclusion should be that it is not so important after all. Consciousness could just be a trick we play on ourselves, like free will. Perhaps some form of self-awareness is just useful in nature, but at its most basuc level, does not include the thought-luggage our human brains associate with it.
All that to state that I am just very skeptical of all this.
Ok, whether they were having fun with the wooden balls or they were just investigating them... they didn't have instincts to tell them do that with a wooden ball. Point is they were acting above...
Ok, whether they were having fun with the wooden balls or they were just investigating them... they didn't have instincts to tell them do that with a wooden ball. Point is they were acting above what just coded instructions would tell them to do with it.
And really? You are skeptical of observations of conciousness in animals (like all animals?)? Then you must either never have had any pets or just never paid any attention to them. I can't even fathom some one having a pet who actually paid attention to it not thinking they have their own little thoughts (even undecipherable to us as they are especially as they don't have words to put to those thoughts, just feelings). My cats all have different preferences (like one loves this little squirrel toy that I've never seen my other cats care about but he throws it about so that he can go chase it. I've had that toy since before this cat and he's the only one who has taken a shine to it. He and one other cat I've had were more excited if they heard you take a toy out then if you took out a treat. And I've had cats who don't find playing all that exciting). Two think that new humans are scary, one has no problem at all with new humans and thinks they are just there to give him more treats.
Also, there are videos of stuff like crows finding pieces of metal, flying up to a roof, and sledding down the roof on them (in a snowy area). As well as many studies showing htat crows can learn to remember our faces and even teach faces of humans they don't like to their young before the young even see the person.
I think that @llehsadam is not denying the consciousness in animals but expressing skepticism about the confidence that some researchers push their claims with, especially since these researchers...
I think that @llehsadam is not denying the consciousness in animals but expressing skepticism about the confidence that some researchers push their claims with, especially since these researchers are observing with anthropomorphizing biases.
The problem is that if we cannot pinpoint and define consciousness, how can we be so confident to say X or Y animal is conscious?
There are some clues that it's possible to interact with the world without consciousness.
For example, some people sleepwalk: they don't just walk, they can use the bathroom, dress themselves, cook and eat food, drive, and even have sex, all while being unconscious.
(Anecdotally, people have said they were able to have short conversations with me when I was in bed, but I don't recall being awake for them.)
I've always found it hard to believe that there's a binary between human-level sentience and non-sentient living creatures. There's gotta be some sort of gradient, right?
I've always found it hard to believe that there's a binary between human-level sentience and non-sentient living creatures. There's gotta be some sort of gradient, right?
Almost necessarily so, if you accept that evolution was a gradual process from mudskipper to man. Besides that most people have some notion of a changing consciousness as they grew from zygote to...
Almost necessarily so, if you accept that evolution was a gradual process from mudskipper to man. Besides that most people have some notion of a changing consciousness as they grew from zygote to adult, or when they're tired, fevered, or otherwise altered (inc. recreationally) as Julien Offray de La Mettrie noticed.
It seems to me a matter not unlike the heap paradox. And that's assuming consciousness is an emergent property like we traditionally think. The problem is that, until we know concretely what it...
And that's assuming consciousness is an emergent property like we traditionally think. The problem is that, until we know concretely what it is, it's hard to really begin to say what is and is not conscious.
The idea that even insects are conscious is just something I've always assumed to be true. I was surprised recently to learn that a sizable number of people think that they aren't.
The idea that even insects are conscious is just something I've always assumed to be true. I was surprised recently to learn that a sizable number of people think that they aren't.
Judging by what I’ve seen online, there is a fairly sizable contingent that refuses to acknowledge that even dogs and cats are conscious. They seem to genuinely think that animals are just robots...
Judging by what I’ve seen online, there is a fairly sizable contingent that refuses to acknowledge that even dogs and cats are conscious. They seem to genuinely think that animals are just robots made of meat.
It's a lot easier to accept the ways that humans currently interact with animals if you think that way. If they're robots made of meat, no need for self-reflection.
It's a lot easier to accept the ways that humans currently interact with animals if you think that way. If they're robots made of meat, no need for self-reflection.
Based on the comments on this thread, I guess part of the reason is that the implications of even other mammals being conscious (to say nothing of insects) are simply too terrible for it to be...
Based on the comments on this thread, I guess part of the reason is that the implications of even other mammals being conscious (to say nothing of insects) are simply too terrible for it to be true.
Which is, of course, absurd. Reality is under no obligation to be nice.
I think people tend to understand that there is some kind of spectrum of intelligence. And when they say stuff like "animals aren't conscious" that's based in part on the poorly defined...
I think people tend to understand that there is some kind of spectrum of intelligence. And when they say stuff like "animals aren't conscious" that's based in part on the poorly defined definitions we have of stuff like what consciousness really is.
What they're really saying is just that animals are not like us humans to some significant degree.
Like, if you hear about ant death spirals, and how ants will sometimes get stuck in a loop and just walk in circles until they all die, that sounds weird to think of humans doing that, and nobody ever being like "wow, this scenery sure looks familar". If a pack of dogs somehow got into a chase which led them in a circle, eventually the dogs would probably stop running and do something else. So it feels like there's some meaningful distinction in how ants are processing things and how dogs are processing things that lead to ants having this seemingly robotic behavior, but other animals that we think of as closer to human do not.
But it's hard to describe weird behavior patterns with an overarching term so lots of people just default to the idea of "consciousness" or "sentience" or "sapience" because those are all thinking words.
Only ants have behavior loops that lead far beyond the point of self-destruction? Ok. Oh, have you heard about GameStop stock? I hear it's going to THE MOON! Diamond Hands! Rocket emoji Rocket...
Only ants have behavior loops that lead far beyond the point of self-destruction? Ok.
Oh, have you heard about GameStop stock? I hear it's going to THE MOON! Diamond Hands! Rocket emoji Rocket emoji Rocket emoji!
I joke, a little bit, but many animals will engage in self-destructive or collectively destructive behavior. We put cones on dogs and cats with an injury because they will worry at it, making it worse. Horses won't hold still if they hurt their leg. Sheep will push each other off of cliffs from bunching up together. We think we're smarter than that, but humans get caught up in collective manias or self-destructive loops all the time.
I think an argument can be made, that scientific understanding is gradually moving towards the realization that this is true for all animals, including humans ... that some, much, perhaps even...
I think an argument can be made, that scientific understanding is gradually moving towards the realization that this is true for all animals, including humans ... that some, much, perhaps even all, free will, self-awareness and sentience ... is illusory.
So you're saying that you did not perceive or understand my earlier comment, that you were entirely unaware of it, and your brain wrote a response to it automatically?
So you're saying that you did not perceive or understand my earlier comment, that you were entirely unaware of it, and your brain wrote a response to it automatically?
I'm saying the brain leads, the mind follows. Put another way, I suspect it's possible to have a human brain with no ego that can still accomplish the same tasks. This is of course just one...
I'm saying the brain leads, the mind follows. Put another way, I suspect it's possible to have a human brain with no ego that can still accomplish the same tasks.
This is of course just one possible explanation. I toy with many different models of consciousness.
People often talk about a "God of the gaps" ... I think Carl Sagan may have coined the expression originally ... the idea that, whatever Science has not (yet) figured out, people attribute to God...
People often talk about a "God of the gaps" ... I think Carl Sagan may have coined the expression originally ... the idea that, whatever Science has not (yet) figured out, people attribute to God and miracles, until Science does figure it out and religion (often, reluctantly) gives up its hold over that particular domain ... and as Science learns more and more of how our world actually works, we gradually see "God" disappearing from the equation.
I suspect we are entering a similar "free will of the gaps" phase, where more and more, Science is discovering that people's motivations and behaviors and choices in life are dictated by environmental variables beyond their control, much more so than by their own personal volition ... changes in the gut biome driving our decisions ... chemicals and pollutants in the environment ... Scrooge's declaration that "you may just be an undigested bit of beef...", etc.
Perhaps, in the end, we determine that it's 50/50, half of the decisions we think we make are just illusions that were actually outside our control, and the other half is us, actually choosing our path in life. Or perhaps that "free will" part of our world keeps shrinking as Science understands better and better how our brains actually work.
An argument can be made like that, but imo it's kind of silly to pretend conversations like "consciousness" and "free will" (which are already two different things) are even in the domain of...
An argument can be made like that, but imo it's kind of silly to pretend conversations like "consciousness" and "free will" (which are already two different things) are even in the domain of science as a field. These are philosophical conversations, and science does not (and is not intended to!) answer all the questions of philosophy.
Hard disagree. There is, of course, a philosophical side of the discussion, and it is easy to start pushing a discussion in that direction. However, basically the entire scientific field of AGI...
Hard disagree. There is, of course, a philosophical side of the discussion, and it is easy to start pushing a discussion in that direction.
However, basically the entire scientific field of AGI ("real" artificial intelligence, so-to-speak) is devoted explicitly to figuring out exactly what these things are, and whether/how they can be duplicated with computer code.
There are also things like, eg, the recent reports about the Arc virus, suggesting that self consciousness in humans (and, I think, most/all mammals?) may be nothing more than a side-effect of a viral symbiotic thing going on in our brains.
Specific findings and claims are certainly open to debate, but to suggest these subjects aren't even in the domain of science ... no.
To be fair, scientists do study consciousness because it is highly relevant to certain fields, such as medicine and neuroscience. Anesthesiologists concern themselves a great deal with...
To be fair, scientists do study consciousness because it is highly relevant to certain fields, such as medicine and neuroscience. Anesthesiologists concern themselves a great deal with consciousness, for example.
I think that the use of the term "consciousness" in that medical context is different (and much more concrete) from its use in this context. They're imo really two different things that we...
I think that the use of the term "consciousness" in that medical context is different (and much more concrete) from its use in this context. They're imo really two different things that we unfortunately use the same word for. After all, a study involving bees 'playing' doesn't say much about the medical definition of consciousness, regardless of how strong or weak it is as evidence of this more philosophical sort of "consciousness".
News like this one have profound existential implications. Looking past the obvious ones, they also relate to philosophical pessimism—the idea that life or universe is filled with more negatives...
News like this one have profound existential implications. Looking past the obvious ones, they also relate to philosophical pessimism—the idea that life or universe is filled with more negatives than positives, or that the former outweigh the latter.
If even insects are conscious, then this is horrible news. Insect taxon is vicious, even by the low standards of nature in general. They are also numerous. This means nature is filled with much more suffering than previously imagined. Much, much more. To quote Joseph de Maistre.
"The whole earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but a vast altar upon which all that is living must be sacrificed without end, without measure, without pause, until the consummation of things, until evil is extinct, until the death of death."
I'm not saying life is not worth living for us because of this, but it's certainly an existential point to ponder on.
But when the animals came to their water-hole, where he out of habit waited for them, he no longer knew the spring of the tiger in his blood, but a great psalm to the brotherhood of suffering shared by all that lives.
Would you make the same arguments regarding human consciousness? Because, scientifically, we don't know humans are conscious. As you said, we don't even know what consciousness physically is. I...
Would you make the same arguments regarding human consciousness? Because, scientifically, we don't know humans are conscious. As you said, we don't even know what consciousness physically is.
I assume you treat your fellow humans like they can experience joy and pain even though you can't prove it. Why not play it safe with other animals until we know for sure?
I'd argue humans have a pretty good roadmap for understanding human consciousness. A neurologist could look at imaging of a damaged brain and have a decent guess as to how that person would...
I'd argue humans have a pretty good roadmap for understanding human consciousness. A neurologist could look at imaging of a damaged brain and have a decent guess as to how that person would describe how they feel. They may have cortical blindness, or not feel like they owned their hands, or feel their loved ones had been replaced with imposters, etc.
You could take the strong sollipsist position that humans except for you are p-zombies, but being able to alter your own brain activity with medication or something like TMS and see how it lines up with what other people describe gives a decent intuition that your conscious experience is coming from the brain's activity and organization, and it's not a huge leap to believe that isn't unique to you.
Why not play it safe with other animals until we know for sure?
Definitely in favor of better treatment of animals, but it's hard to know what consciousness is valuable, human-like, or even accessible.
Is the aversion of single-celled bacteria pain or reflex? What about the spinal reflexes of a person with significant brain damage? What about a foetus, human or otherwise? Does the simulated connectome of C. elegans or Google have a consciousness?
Is avoidance of pain the main goal, when a good deal of the animal kingdom ends up being eaten alive, parasite-ridden, or starving to death? Where do you place the line between mercy killing a deer with Chronic Wasting Disease, population control, or full-on anti-natalism for animals (humanely) raised for food or in pastoralism? Are lab rats that get better treatment than "building rats" unethical?
"Playing it safe" depending on what you consider to be your defaults can lead you to some weird places. Maybe you'd be opposed to abortion or euthenasia. Maybe you'd want to ban cats, or replace obligate carnivores with hunters wherever possible.
Recent psychology got a lot of good criticism for trying to generalize using college students (WEIRD pops), so I can't imagine how bad it is when you get into something as alien as ants passing mirror tests. "Suffering" could have less to do with getting smooshed and more with being on an optimal route to food that ant-feels really inefficient. Or to steal from the Simpson's...
If you want to play it safe, you still have to draw a line somewhere. I'm responsible for the deaths of many thousands, if not millions, of insects just trying to keep them out of my home. Does...
If you want to play it safe, you still have to draw a line somewhere. I'm responsible for the deaths of many thousands, if not millions, of insects just trying to keep them out of my home. Does that make me a monster? I would think that your suggestion makes sense, but I can't figure out how to follow it without logically falling down a slope either towards everything mattering or nothing mattering. The perspective presented here only makes it harder to know what playing it safe even means. What does "play it safe" mean to you, and how did you choose that position?
What I mean by "play it safe" is to assume that animals can experience joy and pain and treat them as such. It's not always possible to not hurt them in some way. If someone wants to steal my...
What I mean by "play it safe" is to assume that animals can experience joy and pain and treat them as such. It's not always possible to not hurt them in some way. If someone wants to steal my wallet or eat me, I'm going to give them a hard time, regardles of the species they belong to. Where to draw the line is an open question and something everyone ultimately has to decide for themselves. In my book, this is true for humans and other animals. In both cases, it's been an debated for thousands of years.
Bees play by rolling wooden balls — apparently for fun. The cleaner wrasse fish appears to recognize its own visage in an underwater mirror. Octopuses seem to react to anesthetic drugs and will avoid settings where they likely experienced past pain.
All three of these discoveries came in the last five years — indications that the more scientists test animals, the more they find that many species may have inner lives and be sentient. A surprising range of creatures have shown evidence of conscious thought or experience, including insects, fish and some crustaceans.
That has prompted a group of top researchers on animal cognition to publish a new pronouncement that they hope will transform how scientists and society view — and care — for animals.
Nearly 40 researchers signed “The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness,” which was first presented at a conference at New York University on Friday morning. It marks a pivotal moment, as a flood of research on animal cognition collides with debates over how various species ought to be treated.
Gerrold likely cribbed that quote from somewhere, because it's far from a unique sentiment, but that series is where I first heard it. And always what I think of when this kind of subject comes...
"Mother nature doesn't give a shit." David Gerrold, from The War against the Chtorr
Gerrold likely cribbed that quote from somewhere, because it's far from a unique sentiment, but that series is where I first heard it. And always what I think of when this kind of subject comes up.
I question the motives of those scientists. They're claiming consciousness exists in many, probably most based on the article, members of the animal and insect kingdoms.
“When there is a realistic possibility of conscious experience in an animal, it is irresponsible to ignore that possibility in decisions affecting that animal,” the declaration says. “We should consider welfare risks and use the evidence to inform our responses to these risks.”
Their point seems to be, without perhaps outright saying it, that PETA and similar animal rights viewpoints are the correct one, and everyone should hew to those rules of behavior. Namely, no use of animals or animal products for reasons of morality.
Okay, so that's a viewpoint. But, let us think for perhaps a moment or three? If animals are conscious, and that makes it immoral to do or use them in basically any way ... what does that make predators? If animals are conscious, predators are animals. That'd mean they have some understanding of their actions. Are wolves, lions, bears, any predator animal/insect immoral? Are they evil? Should they knock that shit off too?
Oh, but wait. They'd more or less die out then. A lot of carnivores need protein diets. Or, at least, don't currently have the instincts to retrain themselves to not hunt and kill, but instead forage for ... what? I'm not sure what a carnivore that relies on meat might be able to "switch" to if it somehow decided its diet is immoral and requires change. And if it even could retrain itself somehow.
Do the scientists have any proof of morality on the part of these supposedly conscious animals? Guilt? Shame? Not generally; specifically related to their "immoral" carnivorous natures. Does a wolf feel shame or guilt for hunting, killing, and eating a deer? And doing a large portion of that activity while the prey is alive? After all, not all prey takedowns die upon falling; it's not entirely uncommon for some of these prey animals to be alive when the victorious hunter begins feeding.
Everything in nature uses a lot of other things that exist in nature. To survive. Much less to grow, thrive, and multiply. Plants grow up and out seeking sunlight, water, nutrients. Plants that have adapted to grow quicker, or broader, are better able to out compete plants that don't; and the shade those victors cast (or the water or nutrients they take for their own use) will hinder (even kill) the lesser plants without those adaptations. Trees will take over and reform many ecosystems, for example; because trees get first crack at the sun.
On our planet, to our scientific knowledge, everything alive kills to survive. Plants extract nutrients from the soil (removing them from the soil, and thus from the possible use of other plants). Plants usually need sun, and some will prevent others from getting it.
Animals evolved to eat the plants. My understanding of evolution indicates animal life (including humans) takes advantage of the efficiency of doing this to make better use of the energy. A food plant takes weeks, months, to grow. So you need a lot of them, but they're all busy collecting that energy in parallel. An animal then comes along and eats the plant, taking the energy.
Some animals eat other animals. This is even more efficient than eating plants. Any cursory look at animal biology tends to show how herbivores are usually less developed than carnivores in various ways; often slower, or less adept either physically or mentally, and so on.
A lot of herbivores need to devote much higher percentages of their time and effort to consuming and digesting food to stay alive, grow, and eventually reproduce. Whereas predators might go days, sometimes weeks, between meals; but those meals are very energy intensive and can sustain them for those hungry times.
Which brings us straight back to this notion of it being immoral to use another entity in this way.
This is not a new debate. Argument really, in my experience; because the people who favor the PETA/vegetarian side of it are often pretty vocal and insistent that they're right. That their side is more moral, more good, less evil, less abusive. They love to tell you that, in fact. They'll preach against anyone who doesn't agree with their moral position quite enthusiastically.
But if most everything (apparently) in the links of the big chain of life above single celled organisms is probably conscious, then that just again calls into question the validity of the "morality" of that pro-animal position.
Again, are we arguing a wolf is evil? Immoral? If we are, then someone start popping the corn because oh my that's an argument for the ages. But if we aren't, if we're not going to rail against predators, then this whole notion is just designed to make humans feel bad for not reverting to an exclusively plant diet. Because, according to the morality being alleged in this case, eating an animal is like eating a person, and thus is not just wrong but evil.
Mother nature doesn't give a shit. You live, you die, whatever happens happens and mom don't care. If you starve to death, bye. Next example of your species needs to do better or else, well, eventually that species isn't around anymore. That's how evolution works; all the everythings compete, and the ones that can't eventually die off due to it. When you can't eat enough to survive, you're history.
I'm not interesting in the omnivore vs herbivore in humanity argument. It's a moral question, and morality is up to individuals. If someone wants to not eat meat, not use animal products, that is that person's individual choice. Just as an omnivore has no right to get in a herbivore's face and trash them for only eating plants, the same works in reverse. If you bother someone, you might find yourself in a competition you didn't plan for, or be able to win in.
Consciousness is an extremely nebulous subject. So is sentience. Some people argue they're the same, some argue they're different (if somewhat related) things entirely. If animals can and do communicate with one another, and if they do so related to their higher order goals and decisions, then they might qualify as conscious on some level.
Which means the predators know they're killing something conscious or sentient. And don't feel hesitation in doing so since I don't think it's exactly common for the "moral" wolf in the pack to have much success in convincing the others to stop chowing down on reindeer. Assuming that non-killing wolf has the energy to keep up with the ones hunting for their next meal.
It also means the prey animals (some of them, if conscious) know they're regular targets by predators. Have we any signs of revolts or uprisings by prey populations? Deer banding together and waging war against wolves, anything like that? Sure some herds have instinctive in-the-moment defensive behaviors, even group defensive behaviors, but the moment their predators make a kill and start eating, the surviving prey don't get revenge or plot to eliminate them.
The deer just go back to eating plants until the next time they might get hunted.
So the whole argument these scientists seem to be trying to start, or at least feed fuel into, doesn't really feel supported by the evidence of life. One way or another, everything kills to survive. Everything. Large or small, mobile or not, everything takes from someone and something else. Usually many someones and somethings. They do it to survive.
Humans are the ones that do it out of greed. But the fact that humans take advantage of their genetic advantages (mobility, opposable thumbs, conscious brains) to use animals in a variety of manners (including as food) to support all those advantages doesn't make humans evil. Or immoral.
It just makes humans more evolved.
Humanity got there first. If it hadn't been us, perhaps some other offshoot of the primate family would be in our shoes. Or perhaps it might be dolphins. Or something the we of today haven't ever met since the we of many yesterdays ago already out competed it and that rival died out.
Mother nature doesn't give a shit. But only something with so much consciousness they have time and energy to devote to things other than survival could come up with a theory like this one. That everything's conscious, and thus immoral for stepping on that which is lesser.
That's a theory born out of an organism with enough time on its hands that it doesn't have to spend all day every day coming up with enough food to make it to tomorrow. From a species that figured out how to out compete the other things on its planet, find efficiencies that free up time to figure things out that free up more time, and so on and so on. Building efficiencies one upon the others, until we get to a point where that entire process is being labeled immoral by those who've benefited from it in the first place.
Perhaps it's not only mother nature who benefits from not giving a shit?
I'm going to take the opportunity to promote Frans de Waal's books about primates and the the book Alex and Me about the parrot who helped demonstrate intelligence in birds. At this point I assume...
I'm going to take the opportunity to promote Frans de Waal's books about primates and the the book Alex and Me about the parrot who helped demonstrate intelligence in birds.
At this point I assume sentience in mammals and birds. Insects are harder to believe, but it's possible.
I used to be involved in behavioral studies on pollinating insects. I strongly suspect that at least some insects could have something we might call consciousness because they perform behaviors...
I used to be involved in behavioral studies on pollinating insects. I strongly suspect that at least some insects could have something we might call consciousness because they perform behaviors that we associate with consciousness. Insects are an extremely diverse group, and there is a wide degree of intelligence between different insect species (and, to a surprisingly large degree, between individuals within the same species), and I would not be surprised if consciousness tracks with intelligence to a reasonable extent.
In our studies, honeybees seem to be much quicker at learning non-instinctive behaviors than the non-bee pollinators we looked at, and solitary native bees seemed to be quicker at learning than honeybees (it honestly sometimes felt like the solitary bees were faster learners than we were). Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to work with any pollinating wasps (they just aren't important enough pollinators for the crops we were studying), but I suspect they would be faster learners still.
Within all of the insect species, there were some individuals who would put a lot of effort into exploring the puzzle and would figure things out faster than their compatriots (sometimes much faster); there were others who would not explore the puzzle very much themselves, but they would copy the behavior of those that did and learn that way (this seemed very common with honeybees in particular); and then there were others who did little of either and therefore learned very slowly or not at all. There were also some amusingly familiar demographic trends; for example, young male insects were particularly unfocused and slow to learn when in the presence of females, whereas older males and females of all ages showed no significant differences in a co-ed environment.
It was very easy to ascribe mammal-like qualities to some of these insects, in a way that I never had done before I had the opportunity to do a very detailed observation of their behavior in controlled circumstances. It was tempting to imagine the hypothetical thought process they might be having, much like I do with my dogs. It is super unlikely that they have human-like (nor dog-like) consciousness, and I would certainly not make any claims about any kind of consciousness in a paper or presentation, but the behavioral features that ping my this-person/animal-is-thinking-consciously instinct in vertebrates was definitely pinged by these bugs as well — especially the solitary bees (who sometimes made us feel eerily like they were attributing consciousness to us and had figured out we were fucking with them).
I definitely don't want to put forth the idea that I believe some insects are conscious. I really and truly do not know. However, my gut instinct (which, mind you, is honed for social cooperation within a human society and is no doubt biased toward theory of mind) leans that way. Basically, if we could magically peer into the ganglia of insects and determine whether they have anything we might call conscious experience or conscious thought, I would be a little surprised if all insects exhibit it, but I would equally be a little surprised if no insects exhibit it.
Bees rolling wooden balls, apparently, for fun...
It really looks like the observer was anthropomorphizing the bee with the experiment setup. The bees were in a unnatural environment with nothing other than a few essentials and the wooden balls. The bees checked the wooden balls and did something to them. Honestly, watching the videos, it seems to me like the bees are struggling with the balls rather than having fun, maybe checking if they are dangerous? Maybe they return to the box where the balls used to be to check if danger is still there? Two can play the anthropomorphism-game. Maybe it's not play, maybe it's bee-pilates.
The experimenters kind of decided that the ball rolling cannot be an attempt to clear clutter or to mate, but the reasoning did not seem so conclusive. And I am no bumblebee biologist, but maybe their repertoire is more varied than just sex and cleaning and there are many many more behaviors they need to exclude first.
Here's the study with videos: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347222002366?via%3Dihub
Anyway, it would be more meaningful if bumble bees actually would be know to 'play' in nature and this was a study trying to emulate a phenomenon in nature. Otherwise, the scientist here didn't just discover that bumblebees have fun, they also witnessed bees discovering the concept of fun for the first time. What is the evolutionary reason bees would play?
This article should be taken with a huge grain of salt because it jumps from this very narrow observation about bumble bees in weird wooden boxes to to the mind-blowing idea of insect-consciousness.
There isn't even an agreedupon definition of consciousness yet. For a long time, it was impossible to even start studying consciousness with objective empirical experiments. Psychological and neurological experiments test a specific concept of consciousness that is still being honed in on through medical case studies with, for example, trauma patients and psychological experiments.
Did the concept of consciousness graduate out of being a philosophical concept? It seems to be in a sort of scientific grey-zone to me, like free will.
I am skeptical of observations of consciousness in animals. If they do experience it like we do, perhaps the conclusion should be that it is not so important after all. Consciousness could just be a trick we play on ourselves, like free will. Perhaps some form of self-awareness is just useful in nature, but at its most basuc level, does not include the thought-luggage our human brains associate with it.
All that to state that I am just very skeptical of all this.
Ok, whether they were having fun with the wooden balls or they were just investigating them... they didn't have instincts to tell them do that with a wooden ball. Point is they were acting above what just coded instructions would tell them to do with it.
And really? You are skeptical of observations of conciousness in animals (like all animals?)? Then you must either never have had any pets or just never paid any attention to them. I can't even fathom some one having a pet who actually paid attention to it not thinking they have their own little thoughts (even undecipherable to us as they are especially as they don't have words to put to those thoughts, just feelings). My cats all have different preferences (like one loves this little squirrel toy that I've never seen my other cats care about but he throws it about so that he can go chase it. I've had that toy since before this cat and he's the only one who has taken a shine to it. He and one other cat I've had were more excited if they heard you take a toy out then if you took out a treat. And I've had cats who don't find playing all that exciting). Two think that new humans are scary, one has no problem at all with new humans and thinks they are just there to give him more treats.
Also, there are videos of stuff like crows finding pieces of metal, flying up to a roof, and sledding down the roof on them (in a snowy area). As well as many studies showing htat crows can learn to remember our faces and even teach faces of humans they don't like to their young before the young even see the person.
I think that @llehsadam is not denying the consciousness in animals but expressing skepticism about the confidence that some researchers push their claims with, especially since these researchers are observing with anthropomorphizing biases.
The problem is that if we cannot pinpoint and define consciousness, how can we be so confident to say X or Y animal is conscious?
There are some clues that it's possible to interact with the world without consciousness.
For example, some people sleepwalk: they don't just walk, they can use the bathroom, dress themselves, cook and eat food, drive, and even have sex, all while being unconscious.
(Anecdotally, people have said they were able to have short conversations with me when I was in bed, but I don't recall being awake for them.)
That is what I am trying to say, thanks for making the point more concise.
I've always found it hard to believe that there's a binary between human-level sentience and non-sentient living creatures. There's gotta be some sort of gradient, right?
Almost necessarily so, if you accept that evolution was a gradual process from mudskipper to man. Besides that most people have some notion of a changing consciousness as they grew from zygote to adult, or when they're tired, fevered, or otherwise altered (inc. recreationally) as Julien Offray de La Mettrie noticed.
It seems to me a matter not unlike the heap paradox.
And that's assuming consciousness is an emergent property like we traditionally think. The problem is that, until we know concretely what it is, it's hard to really begin to say what is and is not conscious.
The idea that even insects are conscious is just something I've always assumed to be true. I was surprised recently to learn that a sizable number of people think that they aren't.
Judging by what I’ve seen online, there is a fairly sizable contingent that refuses to acknowledge that even dogs and cats are conscious. They seem to genuinely think that animals are just robots made of meat.
It's a lot easier to accept the ways that humans currently interact with animals if you think that way. If they're robots made of meat, no need for self-reflection.
Based on the comments on this thread, I guess part of the reason is that the implications of even other mammals being conscious (to say nothing of insects) are simply too terrible for it to be true.
Which is, of course, absurd. Reality is under no obligation to be nice.
I think people tend to understand that there is some kind of spectrum of intelligence. And when they say stuff like "animals aren't conscious" that's based in part on the poorly defined definitions we have of stuff like what consciousness really is.
What they're really saying is just that animals are not like us humans to some significant degree.
Like, if you hear about ant death spirals, and how ants will sometimes get stuck in a loop and just walk in circles until they all die, that sounds weird to think of humans doing that, and nobody ever being like "wow, this scenery sure looks familar". If a pack of dogs somehow got into a chase which led them in a circle, eventually the dogs would probably stop running and do something else. So it feels like there's some meaningful distinction in how ants are processing things and how dogs are processing things that lead to ants having this seemingly robotic behavior, but other animals that we think of as closer to human do not.
But it's hard to describe weird behavior patterns with an overarching term so lots of people just default to the idea of "consciousness" or "sentience" or "sapience" because those are all thinking words.
Only ants have behavior loops that lead far beyond the point of self-destruction? Ok.
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I joke, a little bit, but many animals will engage in self-destructive or collectively destructive behavior. We put cones on dogs and cats with an injury because they will worry at it, making it worse. Horses won't hold still if they hurt their leg. Sheep will push each other off of cliffs from bunching up together. We think we're smarter than that, but humans get caught up in collective manias or self-destructive loops all the time.
I think an argument can be made, that scientific understanding is gradually moving towards the realization that this is true for all animals, including humans ... that some, much, perhaps even all, free will, self-awareness and sentience ... is illusory.
Then what is perceiving the illusion?
A brain driven by automatic responses. Then the ego will write stories afterwards to claim ownership.
So you're saying that you did not perceive or understand my earlier comment, that you were entirely unaware of it, and your brain wrote a response to it automatically?
I'm saying the brain leads, the mind follows. Put another way, I suspect it's possible to have a human brain with no ego that can still accomplish the same tasks.
This is of course just one possible explanation. I toy with many different models of consciousness.
It might be possible, but that is manifestly not what is happening.
People often talk about a "God of the gaps" ... I think Carl Sagan may have coined the expression originally ... the idea that, whatever Science has not (yet) figured out, people attribute to God and miracles, until Science does figure it out and religion (often, reluctantly) gives up its hold over that particular domain ... and as Science learns more and more of how our world actually works, we gradually see "God" disappearing from the equation.
I suspect we are entering a similar "free will of the gaps" phase, where more and more, Science is discovering that people's motivations and behaviors and choices in life are dictated by environmental variables beyond their control, much more so than by their own personal volition ... changes in the gut biome driving our decisions ... chemicals and pollutants in the environment ... Scrooge's declaration that "you may just be an undigested bit of beef...", etc.
Perhaps, in the end, we determine that it's 50/50, half of the decisions we think we make are just illusions that were actually outside our control, and the other half is us, actually choosing our path in life. Or perhaps that "free will" part of our world keeps shrinking as Science understands better and better how our brains actually work.
Clockwork Universe.
An argument can be made like that, but imo it's kind of silly to pretend conversations like "consciousness" and "free will" (which are already two different things) are even in the domain of science as a field. These are philosophical conversations, and science does not (and is not intended to!) answer all the questions of philosophy.
Hard disagree. There is, of course, a philosophical side of the discussion, and it is easy to start pushing a discussion in that direction.
However, basically the entire scientific field of AGI ("real" artificial intelligence, so-to-speak) is devoted explicitly to figuring out exactly what these things are, and whether/how they can be duplicated with computer code.
There are also things like, eg, the recent reports about the Arc virus, suggesting that self consciousness in humans (and, I think, most/all mammals?) may be nothing more than a side-effect of a viral symbiotic thing going on in our brains.
Specific findings and claims are certainly open to debate, but to suggest these subjects aren't even in the domain of science ... no.
To be fair, scientists do study consciousness because it is highly relevant to certain fields, such as medicine and neuroscience. Anesthesiologists concern themselves a great deal with consciousness, for example.
Free will is a different matter, and I am unconvinced that it is a logically coherent concept in the first place.
I think that the use of the term "consciousness" in that medical context is different (and much more concrete) from its use in this context. They're imo really two different things that we unfortunately use the same word for. After all, a study involving bees 'playing' doesn't say much about the medical definition of consciousness, regardless of how strong or weak it is as evidence of this more philosophical sort of "consciousness".
How are you defining conscious?
Something like: the capacity to experience qualia.
News like this one have profound existential implications. Looking past the obvious ones, they also relate to philosophical pessimism—the idea that life or universe is filled with more negatives than positives, or that the former outweigh the latter.
If even insects are conscious, then this is horrible news. Insect taxon is vicious, even by the low standards of nature in general. They are also numerous. This means nature is filled with much more suffering than previously imagined. Much, much more. To quote Joseph de Maistre.
I'm not saying life is not worth living for us because of this, but it's certainly an existential point to ponder on.
But when the animals came to their water-hole, where he out of habit waited for them, he no longer knew the spring of the tiger in his blood, but a great psalm to the brotherhood of suffering shared by all that lives.
Would you make the same arguments regarding human consciousness? Because, scientifically, we don't know humans are conscious. As you said, we don't even know what consciousness physically is.
I assume you treat your fellow humans like they can experience joy and pain even though you can't prove it. Why not play it safe with other animals until we know for sure?
I'd argue humans have a pretty good roadmap for understanding human consciousness. A neurologist could look at imaging of a damaged brain and have a decent guess as to how that person would describe how they feel. They may have cortical blindness, or not feel like they owned their hands, or feel their loved ones had been replaced with imposters, etc.
You could take the strong sollipsist position that humans except for you are p-zombies, but being able to alter your own brain activity with medication or something like TMS and see how it lines up with what other people describe gives a decent intuition that your conscious experience is coming from the brain's activity and organization, and it's not a huge leap to believe that isn't unique to you.
Definitely in favor of better treatment of animals, but it's hard to know what consciousness is valuable, human-like, or even accessible.
Is the aversion of single-celled bacteria pain or reflex? What about the spinal reflexes of a person with significant brain damage? What about a foetus, human or otherwise? Does the simulated connectome of C. elegans or Google have a consciousness?
Is avoidance of pain the main goal, when a good deal of the animal kingdom ends up being eaten alive, parasite-ridden, or starving to death? Where do you place the line between mercy killing a deer with Chronic Wasting Disease, population control, or full-on anti-natalism for animals (humanely) raised for food or in pastoralism? Are lab rats that get better treatment than "building rats" unethical?
"Playing it safe" depending on what you consider to be your defaults can lead you to some weird places. Maybe you'd be opposed to abortion or euthenasia. Maybe you'd want to ban cats, or replace obligate carnivores with hunters wherever possible.
Recent psychology got a lot of good criticism for trying to generalize using college students (WEIRD pops), so I can't imagine how bad it is when you get into something as alien as ants passing mirror tests. "Suffering" could have less to do with getting smooshed and more with being on an optimal route to food that ant-feels really inefficient. Or to steal from the Simpson's...
If you want to play it safe, you still have to draw a line somewhere. I'm responsible for the deaths of many thousands, if not millions, of insects just trying to keep them out of my home. Does that make me a monster? I would think that your suggestion makes sense, but I can't figure out how to follow it without logically falling down a slope either towards everything mattering or nothing mattering. The perspective presented here only makes it harder to know what playing it safe even means. What does "play it safe" mean to you, and how did you choose that position?
What I mean by "play it safe" is to assume that animals can experience joy and pain and treat them as such. It's not always possible to not hurt them in some way. If someone wants to steal my wallet or eat me, I'm going to give them a hard time, regardles of the species they belong to. Where to draw the line is an open question and something everyone ultimately has to decide for themselves. In my book, this is true for humans and other animals. In both cases, it's been an debated for thousands of years.
(More at the original link)
Gerrold likely cribbed that quote from somewhere, because it's far from a unique sentiment, but that series is where I first heard it. And always what I think of when this kind of subject comes up.
I question the motives of those scientists. They're claiming consciousness exists in many, probably most based on the article, members of the animal and insect kingdoms.
Their point seems to be, without perhaps outright saying it, that PETA and similar animal rights viewpoints are the correct one, and everyone should hew to those rules of behavior. Namely, no use of animals or animal products for reasons of morality.
Okay, so that's a viewpoint. But, let us think for perhaps a moment or three? If animals are conscious, and that makes it immoral to do or use them in basically any way ... what does that make predators? If animals are conscious, predators are animals. That'd mean they have some understanding of their actions. Are wolves, lions, bears, any predator animal/insect immoral? Are they evil? Should they knock that shit off too?
Oh, but wait. They'd more or less die out then. A lot of carnivores need protein diets. Or, at least, don't currently have the instincts to retrain themselves to not hunt and kill, but instead forage for ... what? I'm not sure what a carnivore that relies on meat might be able to "switch" to if it somehow decided its diet is immoral and requires change. And if it even could retrain itself somehow.
Do the scientists have any proof of morality on the part of these supposedly conscious animals? Guilt? Shame? Not generally; specifically related to their "immoral" carnivorous natures. Does a wolf feel shame or guilt for hunting, killing, and eating a deer? And doing a large portion of that activity while the prey is alive? After all, not all prey takedowns die upon falling; it's not entirely uncommon for some of these prey animals to be alive when the victorious hunter begins feeding.
Everything in nature uses a lot of other things that exist in nature. To survive. Much less to grow, thrive, and multiply. Plants grow up and out seeking sunlight, water, nutrients. Plants that have adapted to grow quicker, or broader, are better able to out compete plants that don't; and the shade those victors cast (or the water or nutrients they take for their own use) will hinder (even kill) the lesser plants without those adaptations. Trees will take over and reform many ecosystems, for example; because trees get first crack at the sun.
On our planet, to our scientific knowledge, everything alive kills to survive. Plants extract nutrients from the soil (removing them from the soil, and thus from the possible use of other plants). Plants usually need sun, and some will prevent others from getting it.
Animals evolved to eat the plants. My understanding of evolution indicates animal life (including humans) takes advantage of the efficiency of doing this to make better use of the energy. A food plant takes weeks, months, to grow. So you need a lot of them, but they're all busy collecting that energy in parallel. An animal then comes along and eats the plant, taking the energy.
Some animals eat other animals. This is even more efficient than eating plants. Any cursory look at animal biology tends to show how herbivores are usually less developed than carnivores in various ways; often slower, or less adept either physically or mentally, and so on.
A lot of herbivores need to devote much higher percentages of their time and effort to consuming and digesting food to stay alive, grow, and eventually reproduce. Whereas predators might go days, sometimes weeks, between meals; but those meals are very energy intensive and can sustain them for those hungry times.
Which brings us straight back to this notion of it being immoral to use another entity in this way.
This is not a new debate. Argument really, in my experience; because the people who favor the PETA/vegetarian side of it are often pretty vocal and insistent that they're right. That their side is more moral, more good, less evil, less abusive. They love to tell you that, in fact. They'll preach against anyone who doesn't agree with their moral position quite enthusiastically.
But if most everything (apparently) in the links of the big chain of life above single celled organisms is probably conscious, then that just again calls into question the validity of the "morality" of that pro-animal position.
Again, are we arguing a wolf is evil? Immoral? If we are, then someone start popping the corn because oh my that's an argument for the ages. But if we aren't, if we're not going to rail against predators, then this whole notion is just designed to make humans feel bad for not reverting to an exclusively plant diet. Because, according to the morality being alleged in this case, eating an animal is like eating a person, and thus is not just wrong but evil.
Mother nature doesn't give a shit. You live, you die, whatever happens happens and mom don't care. If you starve to death, bye. Next example of your species needs to do better or else, well, eventually that species isn't around anymore. That's how evolution works; all the everythings compete, and the ones that can't eventually die off due to it. When you can't eat enough to survive, you're history.
I'm not interesting in the omnivore vs herbivore in humanity argument. It's a moral question, and morality is up to individuals. If someone wants to not eat meat, not use animal products, that is that person's individual choice. Just as an omnivore has no right to get in a herbivore's face and trash them for only eating plants, the same works in reverse. If you bother someone, you might find yourself in a competition you didn't plan for, or be able to win in.
Consciousness is an extremely nebulous subject. So is sentience. Some people argue they're the same, some argue they're different (if somewhat related) things entirely. If animals can and do communicate with one another, and if they do so related to their higher order goals and decisions, then they might qualify as conscious on some level.
Which means the predators know they're killing something conscious or sentient. And don't feel hesitation in doing so since I don't think it's exactly common for the "moral" wolf in the pack to have much success in convincing the others to stop chowing down on reindeer. Assuming that non-killing wolf has the energy to keep up with the ones hunting for their next meal.
It also means the prey animals (some of them, if conscious) know they're regular targets by predators. Have we any signs of revolts or uprisings by prey populations? Deer banding together and waging war against wolves, anything like that? Sure some herds have instinctive in-the-moment defensive behaviors, even group defensive behaviors, but the moment their predators make a kill and start eating, the surviving prey don't get revenge or plot to eliminate them.
The deer just go back to eating plants until the next time they might get hunted.
So the whole argument these scientists seem to be trying to start, or at least feed fuel into, doesn't really feel supported by the evidence of life. One way or another, everything kills to survive. Everything. Large or small, mobile or not, everything takes from someone and something else. Usually many someones and somethings. They do it to survive.
Humans are the ones that do it out of greed. But the fact that humans take advantage of their genetic advantages (mobility, opposable thumbs, conscious brains) to use animals in a variety of manners (including as food) to support all those advantages doesn't make humans evil. Or immoral.
It just makes humans more evolved.
Humanity got there first. If it hadn't been us, perhaps some other offshoot of the primate family would be in our shoes. Or perhaps it might be dolphins. Or something the we of today haven't ever met since the we of many yesterdays ago already out competed it and that rival died out.
Mother nature doesn't give a shit. But only something with so much consciousness they have time and energy to devote to things other than survival could come up with a theory like this one. That everything's conscious, and thus immoral for stepping on that which is lesser.
That's a theory born out of an organism with enough time on its hands that it doesn't have to spend all day every day coming up with enough food to make it to tomorrow. From a species that figured out how to out compete the other things on its planet, find efficiencies that free up time to figure things out that free up more time, and so on and so on. Building efficiencies one upon the others, until we get to a point where that entire process is being labeled immoral by those who've benefited from it in the first place.
Perhaps it's not only mother nature who benefits from not giving a shit?
I'm going to take the opportunity to promote Frans de Waal's books about primates and the the book Alex and Me about the parrot who helped demonstrate intelligence in birds.
At this point I assume sentience in mammals and birds. Insects are harder to believe, but it's possible.
I used to be involved in behavioral studies on pollinating insects. I strongly suspect that at least some insects could have something we might call consciousness because they perform behaviors that we associate with consciousness. Insects are an extremely diverse group, and there is a wide degree of intelligence between different insect species (and, to a surprisingly large degree, between individuals within the same species), and I would not be surprised if consciousness tracks with intelligence to a reasonable extent.
In our studies, honeybees seem to be much quicker at learning non-instinctive behaviors than the non-bee pollinators we looked at, and solitary native bees seemed to be quicker at learning than honeybees (it honestly sometimes felt like the solitary bees were faster learners than we were). Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to work with any pollinating wasps (they just aren't important enough pollinators for the crops we were studying), but I suspect they would be faster learners still.
Within all of the insect species, there were some individuals who would put a lot of effort into exploring the puzzle and would figure things out faster than their compatriots (sometimes much faster); there were others who would not explore the puzzle very much themselves, but they would copy the behavior of those that did and learn that way (this seemed very common with honeybees in particular); and then there were others who did little of either and therefore learned very slowly or not at all. There were also some amusingly familiar demographic trends; for example, young male insects were particularly unfocused and slow to learn when in the presence of females, whereas older males and females of all ages showed no significant differences in a co-ed environment.
It was very easy to ascribe mammal-like qualities to some of these insects, in a way that I never had done before I had the opportunity to do a very detailed observation of their behavior in controlled circumstances. It was tempting to imagine the hypothetical thought process they might be having, much like I do with my dogs. It is super unlikely that they have human-like (nor dog-like) consciousness, and I would certainly not make any claims about any kind of consciousness in a paper or presentation, but the behavioral features that ping my this-person/animal-is-thinking-consciously instinct in vertebrates was definitely pinged by these bugs as well — especially the solitary bees (who sometimes made us feel eerily like they were attributing consciousness to us and had figured out we were fucking with them).
I definitely don't want to put forth the idea that I believe some insects are conscious. I really and truly do not know. However, my gut instinct (which, mind you, is honed for social cooperation within a human society and is no doubt biased toward theory of mind) leans that way. Basically, if we could magically peer into the ganglia of insects and determine whether they have anything we might call conscious experience or conscious thought, I would be a little surprised if all insects exhibit it, but I would equally be a little surprised if no insects exhibit it.
im...i might be a monster.
We all are, friend. But we're beautiful, too.