As a parent I can say that a lot of urges in parenting come from somewhere deep and intuitive, rather than as a result of some higher level erudition on the situation.

Still, the urge for care ones young, while not necessarily very - cerebral? - at least creates a feeling of familiarity and connection - ie. empathy. When this empathy comes across from an arthropod to a higher mammal it's still humbling and awe inspiring, even though it might tell more of our autonomous nature than the intellect of the arhtropod.

It feels like there’s some interplay between instinct/emotion and intelligence/decision-making in the behaviours we’re describing, which I felt was a sign of awareness or consciousness.

I wouldn’t say what I experienced was much more than instinct and making a new web, but the emotional response of a mother protecting its young was relatable across very different species, which is useful for building empathy and respect.

The examples in the article are much more interesting from an intelligence standpoint though.

> One could also conclude the opposite. What we perceive as concious thought or emotion is just instinct.

Pretty sure this is what doctors said as their justification for not using anesthetic on babies during medical procedures.

"Oh, they're just crying and screaming because baby, duh"

We now look back at that as being quite a barbaric practice/way of thinking.

But babies don't logically reason that crying is how to express their pain, it is instinct. The error was downplaying instinctive behaviors as separate from the total consciousness. Basically equating all instinctive action to the knee reflex test: harmless reactions that our bodies happen to do, rather than the essential part of our psyche that most instincts are.

"Conscious thought" is an undefined term applied to non-verbal subjects, except where sequential reasoning is demonstrated, and then becomes a metaphysical morass. Emotion is well-defined and interpretable from behavior, and is not the opposite of instinct, but a pathway it operates by.

At that point isn't it a bit a matter of semantics? I do agree with your point though. I think the way we think of instincts is far too simplistic and lacks an appreciation for how complex, adaptive, and context-aware instincts are

This is something I’ve thought about quite a bit. IMO, emotions are probably the drivers for “instinct”; are nature’s way of getting organisms to do things.