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Prominent Scientists Sign Declaration that Animals have Conscious Awareness
Iggyman
Posts: 8,021 Forum Member
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"An international group of prominent scientists has signed The Cambridge Declaration of Consciousness in which they are proclaiming their support for the idea that animals are conscious and aware to the degree that humans are — a list of animals that includes all mammals, birds, and even the octopus."
More here:
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/dvorsky201208251
More here:
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/dvorsky201208251
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As a pet owner I'm not disagreeing at all - just noticed the headline and thought it worthy of note.
I agree.
Any animal that demonstrates an ability to plan ahead, must be conscious to some degree.
BTW I'm a bit puzzled by the "even the octopus" bit ... they've been shown to be highly intelligent for a while now -- in some respects exceeding the brainpower of cats and dogs.
Studies of non-human animals have shown that homologous brain circuits correlated with conscious experience and perception can be selectively facilitated and disrupted to assess whether they are in fact necessary for those experiences
My dog's get jealous if I shout one of them and give one particular dog all the attention, the others will come over and push my hand with their nose to try and get my attention. My dog's can use the process of elimination with a simple thing as 'shake-a-paw', normally, it will react to "The other one" with a predetermined paw, but when you switch them, "The other one" becomes the paw which it hasn't given to you.
Only if they tidy up afterwards
It's not clear what anyone means by consciousness. Seems to be a flexible term.
We just pulled more useful tools out of the evolutionary bag, that's all. We evolved and one day we'll be extinct, just like everything else on this rock. I'd much rather be a cat - they have it sweeeeet.
Do plants or creatures in other kingdoms?
Exactly.
What the does that even mean? Are they aware of their physical surroundings? Obviously
Do they have a sense of self and understand that other individuals have a sense of self just like them too? Not necessarily considering research has suggested that not even humans before the age of 3 or 4 are capable of this.
But then again, this area of study is very difficult to research so maybe other animals are sentient.
I know what you mean. I've seen definitions such as "the universe is consciousness" or "life is consciousness" or other such phrases which make little sense.
We don't know yet, we may never know, at the moment scientists don't think so I think. I'm not convinced either way though, we know trees, plants, fungi etc.. are alive, and compete with each other. Their way of existence is too different to ours to know for sure maybe?