Re:The Consciousness of Invertebrates
by pdonis on Tuesday June 08, 2021 @03:45PM
(#27439857)
> it seems to conflate intelligence and consciousness repeatedly
It seems to consider them to be the same thing. Which is a common viewpoint. Basically, the idea appears to be that, in order to display all those intelligent behaviors, the animal must be aware of them just as we are (or think we are) aware of what we're doing when we display such behaviors.
Of course my parenthetical qualifier there is the key point: actually, we humans are often not aware of what we're doing when we display behaviors that, to an outside observer, would appear to be intelligent. We perform all kinds of complex tasks on autopilot, while our conscious awareness is elsewhere. If we can do it, we should expect that other animals can do it, too.
And that at once raises the question, how do we know when we are consciously aware of intelligent things we are doing? The only answer we have, at least at our current level of understanding, is that we can talk about the things we are consciously aware of. We can report what we did and why we did it, and can answer questions about it. Which, if we take this at face value, means that without such evidence from animals, the default assumption should be that they do all their intelligent behaviors on autopilot--they are never consciously aware of what they are doing.
I think that claim, as it stands, is too strong--for example, anyone who has cats or dogs as pets would probably say that their cats or dogs give plenty of nonverbal evidence of being aware of things they are doing (and I include myself in this category)--but it should at least make clear that intelligent behavior and consciousness are not the same thing and do not have to go together. Which in turn means that our scientific efforts should be focused on figuring out what kinds of nonverbal evidence would count as indicating, not just intelligent behavior, but consciousness.
It seems to consider them to be the same thing. Which is a common viewpoint. Basically, the idea appears to be that, in order to display all those intelligent behaviors, the animal must be aware of them just as we are (or think we are) aware of what we're doing when we display such behaviors.
Of course my parenthetical qualifier there is the key point: actually, we humans are often not aware of what we're doing when we display behaviors that, to an outside observer, would appear to be intelligent. We perform all kinds of complex tasks on autopilot, while our conscious awareness is elsewhere. If we can do it, we should expect that other animals can do it, too.
And that at once raises the question, how do we know when we are consciously aware of intelligent things we are doing? The only answer we have, at least at our current level of understanding, is that we can talk about the things we are consciously aware of. We can report what we did and why we did it, and can answer questions about it. Which, if we take this at face value, means that without such evidence from animals, the default assumption should be that they do all their intelligent behaviors on autopilot--they are never consciously aware of what they are doing.
I think that claim, as it stands, is too strong--for example, anyone who has cats or dogs as pets would probably say that their cats or dogs give plenty of nonverbal evidence of being aware of things they are doing (and I include myself in this category)--but it should at least make clear that intelligent behavior and consciousness are not the same thing and do not have to go together. Which in turn means that our scientific efforts should be focused on figuring out what kinds of nonverbal evidence would count as indicating, not just intelligent behavior, but consciousness.