Far more animals than previously thought likely have consciousness, top scientists say in a new declaration — including fish, lobsters and octopus.
Bees play by rolling wooden balls — apparently for fun. The cleaner wrasse fish appears to recognize its own visage in an underwater mirror. Octopuses seem to react to anesthetic drugs and will avoid settings where they likely experienced past pain.
All three of these discoveries came in the last five years — indications that the more scientists test animals, the more they find that many species may have inner lives and be sentient. A surprising range of creatures have shown evidence of conscious thought or experience, including insects, fish and some crustaceans.
That has prompted a group of top researchers on animal cognition to publish a new pronouncement that they hope will transform how scientists and society view — and care — for animals.
Nearly 40 researchers signed “The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness,” which was first presented at a conference at New York University on Friday morning. It marks a pivotal moment, as a flood of research on animal cognition collides with debates over how various species ought to be treated.
Yes, and if the argument is that, “we must all become vegans,” because animals experience pain or because they’re closer related to humans than plants and deserve more empathy, it fails for insects, and more so in the case of some animals we’re even closer related to, like echinoderms with decentralized nervous systems. In that case it would make more sense to farm both plants and arthropods (and echinoderms?), and while eating insects doesn’t seem appetizing or appealing to me more, I’m sure it would be fine after a few tries and with some quality recipes.
If it’s about animal intelligence, I don’t see any way to decide for or against it or even begin to approach it, since that definition isn’t even locked down for humans.
If it’s about sapience or sentience or consciousness, we can’t even resolve that with people when it comes to how to think of humans who are severely mentally disabled, comatose, braindead, etc. And obviously neither vegans nor omnivores are trying to eat human vegetables.
Even if we could assume we all agreed on a definition of consciousness, humans still don’t agree on how to treat other conscious humans with empathy, as we see day after day across the world.
It would be nice to at least see animal farming improve the approach to minimizing the pain and suffering of food animals that we certainly know have a pain response.
Not sure how your answer is related to my.
Just agreeing that it doesn’t make sense to attribute qualities to insects that they don’t have, and pointing out that even the terms being attributed don’t have clear agreed-on definitions when they’re used for humans.
Thanks for explaining, I somehow didn’t get your point.
I find it hard to express my thoughts concisely, and it often ends up being a wall of gibberish. 🫤
Just give a small summary at the end maybe, like you did after I asked you? Might help yourself to stay on point.