Animal Minds; how much can we learn about them? (Animals)

by dhw, Tuesday, December 08, 2015, 21:04 (3271 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Let us remember that consciousness is not the same as self-awareness. You accept that animals, with their lesser degree of consciousness (I prefer “intelligence”) may have souls. How about birds, reptiles, fish, insects, bacteria? How do you determine where the line is to be drawn?
DAVID: Anything with a brain may have a degree of consciousness. I have no problem with that.-Since it's a matter of degree, theoretically that should allow our weaverbird, egg-on-spider-laying wasp, monarch butterfly, ants and bees the possibility of doing their own thing, as opposed to being preprogrammed. You just don't think they're intelligent enough.-dhw: Common descent goes back to the first forms of life, and if they had not had the “drive to improvement”, there would have been no evolution. [...]
DAVID: I have said all along there is a drive to complexity which is seen in all branches of evolution.-Then we agree that your drive to complexity, which is my quest or drive for improvement, goes all the way back to single-celled organisms. The same history applies, of course, to many other characteristics which some people consider to be uniquely human. (This is not aimed at you personally. I am making a general observation.) There are many people who believe that altruism, grief, fear, love, stress etc. are strictly human attributes, and it is ”anthropomorphic” to ascribe them to our fellow creatures. The same attitude used to be (and sometimes still is) applied even to other members of the human race. 
 
dhw: The presence of intelligence is shown by WHAT is communicated, not by HOW communication takes place.
DAVID: This bucks up against our usual difference. Intelligent instructions can control communication which appear to be intelligent information.
dhw: But whenever we discuss the subject, you emphasize the chemical nature of the communication, as if somehow that invalidated the possibility of thought. Your response in relation to plants was: ”Again you presume too much. Plants use gases and chemicals to communicate through their roots and through the air.” That is totally irrelevant to the claim that they may think.
DAVID: Matt answered this elsewhere; of course it invalidates 'thought' at the one cell level. I will never back down until there is scientific proof of your thesis. -Bacteria communicate through chemicals. Plants also communicate through chemicals. Animals use chemicals. Even we use chemicals. How does this ‘invalidate' thought? I know you will never back down. I am only pointing out that you use an irrelevant argument to support your case. I sympathize with the need for scientific proof, but actually this is not MY thesis: it comes from some experts in the field who are convinced that they have the proof. But obviously not enough for you to open your mind just a tiny crack.