Different in degree or kind (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, November 12, 2013, 19:12 (4029 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Here is a research scientist in animal behavior, that Torley quotes from in his next article:-"Secondly, it struck me that, from a scientific view, we understand so little about animal consciousness (and indeed our own consciousness) that to make the claim that we do understand it, and that we now know which animals experience emotions, may not be the best way to make the case for animal welfare. Anthropomorphism (seeing animals as just like humans) and anecdote were assuming a place in the study of animal consciousness that, it seemed to me, leaves the whole area very vulnerable to being completely demolished by logical argument. A particular threat is posed by the so-called "kill-joy" explanations that are increasingly appearing in the philosophical and scientific literature. Kill-joy explanations are simple explanations for what have previously been thought to be examples of complex achievements by animals. A classic example is where the exciting claim that a horse or dog can count and do sums is replaced by the kill-joy explanation that all that the animal is doing is taking cues from a human, who is really doing the sums. Kill-joy explanations are now everywhere, "explaining away" many of the clever things animals were supposed to do, such as reading each other's minds, deceiving each other, and insightfully anticipating their futures."-vhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/marian-stamp-dawkins/animal-welfare_b_1581615.html-DAVID: It suggests that we have to be careful about how much consciousness we infer into studies of animal cleverness.-True, but her next paragraph suggests that we have to be careful about how LITTLE consciousness we infer into studies of animal cleverness:-"But kill-joy explanations do not kill off claims of animal consciousness, at least not if we continue to acknowledge how little we actually know about what animals subjectively experience. If we acknowledge that we don't really know whether a particular behavior implies conscious awareness or not, then all the kill-joy explanations in the world will have no effect. For all we know, a horse that takes its cues from its owner's body language is just as emotional and just as conscious as a mathematical genius. I personally see no reason at all why only clever animals should be conscious or have emotions, given that it does not take a great intellect to feel hunger or to experience pain. A very wide range of different animals are potentially part of my "consciousness club," membership of which is still undetermined and therefore unaffected by kill-joy explanations."-DAVID: It infers that we do not know if animals have any degree of phenomenal consciousness, defined as: Phenomenal consciousness: The subjective, feeling part of any conscious sensation.-Since Marian Stamp Hawkins is apparently concerned about animal welfare, I doubt if she would go along with that. In her conclusion she writes: "It is this search for real evidence that the Colorado biologist Marc Bekoff has wrongly interpreted as my "dismissing" many current studies. What I hope he will come to understand is that my concern is to make the case for animal emotions as watertight as possible and thereby to strengthen it." Marc Bekoff, another expert in the field, is far more insistent on the reality of animal conciousness. Perhaps you should read his article too, which is accessible through hers.-As for anthropomorphism, as I have said repeatedly, this approach puts carts before horses. Social animals came before social humans, and they laid the ground rules. If they hadn't felt pain and fear, cherished and trained their offspring, shared with one another, learned from mistakes, planned for the future etc., they wouldn't have survived. We are not imposing human values on them ... we inherited those values from them.-DAVID: Taken from the same website is access consciousness, the consciousness of observation:
"Access consciousness 
The philosopher Ned Block distinguishes, on conceptual grounds, access consciousness from phenomenal consciousness (Block, 1999, 2005). Phenomenal consciousness corresponds to the subjective feeling of seeing red (as compared to the feeling of seeing green), while access consciousness is what is made accessible to multiple cognitive processes, including memory, language, and other behaviors. Phenomenal consciousness in isolation may correspond to consciousness without top-down attention, while the confluence of access and phenomenal consciousness occurs when the subject is attending to an object or event and is consciousness of it. Access consciousness is usually what is studied in the laboratory, while phenomenal consciousness encompasses experiences difficult to quantify."-http://www.klab.caltech.edu/koch/glossary.html-DAVID: Torley makes much of the problems in research on animals and these terms they use make it clear to me why he does.-I much prefer Torley's own distinction between primary consciousness (or the moment-to-moment awareness of sensory experiences and internal feelings such as emotions) and higher-order consciousness (also called self-awareness)...We can really do without the highfalutin terminology, but I'm glad something is clear to you.