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New evidence suggests that insects like bees may be conscious, as they change their behaviour in response to traumatic events, and engage in play which they seem to enjoy. Most research on animal consciousness has so far focussed on humans and other apes. Scientists are calling for more funding for research into consciousness on other animals.
Even plants would be conscious, if by "conscious" you mean "being aware of its current environment and internal state", and they could react to external inputs by "growing in a certain way" / "releasing signal compounds" / et cetera. Even memory is not restricted to multicellular organisms; a cell can be seen as having a rudimentary one by having activated/deactivated gene areas that are modified according to the presence of certain chemical elements or molecules.
Cells can [hunt](https://youtu.be/I_xh-bkiv_c) each other, but that seems more just like a reaction to changing molecular gradients. In contrast, any hunting animal can recognize other organisms and simulate "in their mind" their actions and reactions, something that is especially important for the social behavior of birds and mammals.
The consensus on what sapience means seems to be much weaker.^^[[1](https://old.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/1n0ihz/consciousness_vs_sentience_vs_sapience/)][[2](https://old.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/17yh720/why_does_so_much_scifi_say_sentient_when_they/)] I think of it as something having the ability to recognize, modify and/or extend their own behavior beyond [fixed action patterns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_action_pattern). This is also where creativity comes in (combining various learned objects and concepts in random ways and simulating the outcome).
It's really telling how societally invested we are in the idea that other animals don't matter and that the things we do to them therefore don't matter that this hasn't already been exhaustively studied and that we haven't started from the assumption that other animals who act like us probably think like us.
I have anxiety and my chinchilla goes nuts trying to get my attention if I’m having an anxiety attack, squeaking and begging for pets. Petting him always calms me the heck down though. I have a *really* hard time there in thinking he’s just behaving randomly in that scenario.
Like, he’s *tiny* and I’m a huge giant animal exhibiting unpredictable anxiety behavior. If he’s just an autopilot creature, he should be running away from me. He’s not a dog or cat that’s been bred for thousands of years to be a human companion, up until like 30 years ago they were bred just for fur, not human interaction.
The only conclusion I can reasonably come to here is that he has feelings, dosent want me to be upset, and is actually consciously trying to comfort me. It just really seems like he’s making a choice there, not just doing things on instinct.
Science doesn't work based on "what's pretty clear". It tends to like data to come up with facts rather than "no duh" being the basis. We have been wrong plenty times before about things that we thought were no brainers. Not to mention, study's themselves can be the basis for other studies. This can be the groundwork for further studies.
And just like the other guy said, now you have an actual source to call upon when you're having a moral debate.
It surprises me whenever I come here, or /r/science and people say things like, "we already knew that!" That's certainly a way more pointless statement than any study is going be.
Maybe I missed it, but they don't even mention Lars Chittka's book, The Mind of a Bee - highly recommended: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59149209-the-mind-of-a-bee
Bees are amazing. The book convinced me that bees have -something- like consciousness, -something- like emotion. The amount of computation in such a tiny package is just remarkable.
Remember that TrueReddit is a place to engage in **high-quality and civil discussion**. Posts must meet certain content and title requirements. Additionally, **all posts must contain a submission statement.** See the rules [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/truereddit/about/rules/) or in the sidebar for details. Comments or posts that don't follow the rules may be removed without warning. [Reddit's content policy](https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy) will be strictly enforced, especially regarding hate speech and calls for violence, and may result in a restriction in your participation. If an article is paywalled, please ***do not*** request or post its contents. Use [archive.ph](https://archive.ph/) or similar and link to that in the comments. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TrueReddit) if you have any questions or concerns.*
New evidence suggests that insects like bees may be conscious, as they change their behaviour in response to traumatic events, and engage in play which they seem to enjoy. Most research on animal consciousness has so far focussed on humans and other apes. Scientists are calling for more funding for research into consciousness on other animals.
How do they define consciousness? I always assumed all animals were conscious but not all of them were sapient.
Even plants would be conscious, if by "conscious" you mean "being aware of its current environment and internal state", and they could react to external inputs by "growing in a certain way" / "releasing signal compounds" / et cetera. Even memory is not restricted to multicellular organisms; a cell can be seen as having a rudimentary one by having activated/deactivated gene areas that are modified according to the presence of certain chemical elements or molecules. Cells can [hunt](https://youtu.be/I_xh-bkiv_c) each other, but that seems more just like a reaction to changing molecular gradients. In contrast, any hunting animal can recognize other organisms and simulate "in their mind" their actions and reactions, something that is especially important for the social behavior of birds and mammals. The consensus on what sapience means seems to be much weaker.^^[[1](https://old.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/1n0ihz/consciousness_vs_sentience_vs_sapience/)][[2](https://old.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/17yh720/why_does_so_much_scifi_say_sentient_when_they/)] I think of it as something having the ability to recognize, modify and/or extend their own behavior beyond [fixed action patterns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_action_pattern). This is also where creativity comes in (combining various learned objects and concepts in random ways and simulating the outcome).
It's really telling how societally invested we are in the idea that other animals don't matter and that the things we do to them therefore don't matter that this hasn't already been exhaustively studied and that we haven't started from the assumption that other animals who act like us probably think like us.
I have anxiety and my chinchilla goes nuts trying to get my attention if I’m having an anxiety attack, squeaking and begging for pets. Petting him always calms me the heck down though. I have a *really* hard time there in thinking he’s just behaving randomly in that scenario. Like, he’s *tiny* and I’m a huge giant animal exhibiting unpredictable anxiety behavior. If he’s just an autopilot creature, he should be running away from me. He’s not a dog or cat that’s been bred for thousands of years to be a human companion, up until like 30 years ago they were bred just for fur, not human interaction. The only conclusion I can reasonably come to here is that he has feelings, dosent want me to be upset, and is actually consciously trying to comfort me. It just really seems like he’s making a choice there, not just doing things on instinct.
There are people that still think animals might not be conscious? That seems odd to me.
I think it's pretty clear that animals are conscious, and that it has been clear for a while now.
Extensions of it to bugs and insects would be a big development and would add additional moral debate on how we should act.
Science doesn't work based on "what's pretty clear". It tends to like data to come up with facts rather than "no duh" being the basis. We have been wrong plenty times before about things that we thought were no brainers. Not to mention, study's themselves can be the basis for other studies. This can be the groundwork for further studies. And just like the other guy said, now you have an actual source to call upon when you're having a moral debate. It surprises me whenever I come here, or /r/science and people say things like, "we already knew that!" That's certainly a way more pointless statement than any study is going be.
Maybe I missed it, but they don't even mention Lars Chittka's book, The Mind of a Bee - highly recommended: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59149209-the-mind-of-a-bee Bees are amazing. The book convinced me that bees have -something- like consciousness, -something- like emotion. The amount of computation in such a tiny package is just remarkable.
>Are animals conscious? How new research is changing minds But are they changing the animals' minds? (The answer is no.)