Notes � animal behaviour III, animal consciousness

(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=JournalURL&_issn=01664328_auth=y&acct=C000010360&_version=1&urlVersion=0&userid=126524&md5=00d2c0d3384311f4447732fd8fa76543)

See issue of Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond., B. 353 (issue 1377) (1998).

Dawkins sees herself as steering a path between two audiences: those hardened anthropocentric sceptics who refuse to admit that any non-human animal could be at all conscious, and on the other other extreme, those who would too readily ascribe consciousness to the animal kingdom. She argues that consciousness will eventually prove accommodable within a Darwinian framework, though exactly how consciousness is adaptive is beyond our current understanding.

She considers the view that the privileged nature of conscious phenomena poses an obstruction to a scientific study of consciousness, using the �argument by analogy� which we use when assuming consciousness for other people. But in order to apply the argument from analogy to other animals, we need to learn a great deal about the animal, and about what the similarities we can draw analogies with are.

Dawkins makes the hard-headed and reasonable claim that if consciousness has some adaptive function, then there must be some measurable effect. As her example of the mysterious engine-booster invention shows, a function that has no effect is not a function. However, there are some �observable� effects that we cannot actually observe. Dawkins gives the example of physicists studying elementary particles that they cannot see, but whose effects they can monitor and use as the basis for inferences. The difference between such experiments and experiments in consciousness relates to the degree of control and measurement we have.

She thinks that there are three particular aspects of human behaviour that we can use in our argument from analogy to other species, which would lead us to conclude that many animals are conscious at least to some degree: complexity of behaviour, thought and having a point of view. To this, I think we must add anthropomorphic behaviour, since the argument from analogy that we make to other humans is based on the similarities of their behaviour to our own (as individuals).

However, I can see why she might be reluctant to add this fourth means of assessing consciousness. It excludes many complex, thinking, ego-centric areas of the animal kingdom who are simply evolutionarily distant to us. But if we are strictly proceeding along the lines she recommends, we have no choice but to suspend judgement on these animals until we have a better understanding of how consciousness manifests itself.

Quotes

Discarded

Greenfield does her best to imagine what an inferior level of consciousness might be like.

As a rough guide, we might settle on the sort of tests that give results that tally with the average pet-owner�s view of the world. But wouldn�t this be presupposing the results? How do we choose the test? This bit is necessarily subjective. What happened to an objective test/measure of consciousness �??? This is what the argument from analogy seeks to do, but it looks purely for similarities with us, with human behaviour.

Points

try to answer this without turning it into a big debate about what consciousness is � Dennett, �heartbreak of premature definition�

different meanings of consciousness � require a broad one, ideally related to/based on what it feels like for the animal/mind to be that mind, yet publicly testable without requiring a lingusitic report

what (working) definition might I use for �consciousness�???

reportability - Weiskrantz�s position on consciousness: being able to tell or express, (the medium is the message), being able to report consciousness

self-aware �publicly testable without linguistic report??? mirrors etc.???

complexity of behaviour (e.g. humour)

qualia � definitely privileged and not publicly testable without linguistic report

sentience � pleasure/pain, sensory systems

why do we think that consciousness is continuous, rather than discrete/binary???

what might an inferior level of consciousness be like???

can science say anything about consciousness???

can we develop a quantitative measure of consciousness??? psycho-physical correlations, but only if we have verbal reports to tally against physiological measurements

in what ways might animals be different to us?

proportion of neocortex, language, sheer brain size/complexity, size of social groups

Koch loops in cingulate gyrus, Jaynes bicameral mind

what similarities does Dawkins suggest we might use in an argument from analogy to animal consciousness???

e.g. pg 176

what about looking at consciousness in the light of Tinbergen�s 4 problems

(causation, survival value, ontogeny and evolution)

how did consciousness evolve??? what, if anything, is its adaptive value???

are there creatures that do/don�t appear to be conscious unexpectedly???

how might consciousness be an exaptation???

why do we care if animals are conscious???

moral reasons, animal rights

help us better understand why we are conscious, and how our own bodies work - curiosity

implications for our perceptions of humanity within the Cosmos

is language vital for conscious thought???

�actions speak louder than words�

are babies conscious???

what might the function of consciousness be??? i.e. how might consciousness be adaptive???

novel situations

long-term approach

bad for learned, �second-nature� behaviour

related to internal models + complex social behaviour (Byrne, �Machiavellian intelligence�)

how do we eliminate epiphenomenalism??? how do we measure the effect of consciousness without a control (i.e. a decidedly non-conscious being)??? what are the indep/dependent variables, and can we directly alter them???

how does it fit in with a deterministic world picture???

can we use animal language studies (e.g. Kanzi and Alex) to support animal consciousness???

what would most anthropomorphic/sentimentalist criteria of consciousness (if it seems/acts conscious and human-like, then i'm prepared to call it conscious - sufficient, too narrow, ignores potentially conscious beings whose behaviour we cannot so immediately interpet) say to Kanzi and Alex - what might such criteria be??? language, compassion, social/parental attachment, humour/playfulness, a look in the eyes, contentedness

what even vaguely might an experiment about consciousness be like???

can we ever distinguish consciousness from intelligent, complex but zombie behaviour???

what implicit assumptions do ethologists seem to (or want to) make about consciousness???

doesn�t blindsight provide pretty strong evidence that we can function in certain limited ways without conscious awareness (which we already knew anyway) � by extension, this would seem to make zombies a logical possibility, along with zombie animals

justify the claim about the 3 types of mind theory and brain state complexity

Weiskrantz - blindsight

Richard Gregory - mirrors

Nagel � what is it like to be a bat

Dennett � cognitive ethology

Jaynes + Bernard Baars � we don�t actually need consciousness particularly for many of the things we do (though we may be conscious of them at the time???)

bonobos

the problem of other minds

Glossary

panpsychism /pan"sVIkIz(<schwa>)m/ n.L19. [f. PAN- + PSYCHISM.] Philos. The doctrine or belief that all matter, however small, has a psychical aspect or component.panpsychic a. pertaining to or based on panpsychism L19.panpsychist n. & a. (a) n. a believer in panpsychism; (b) adj. panpsychic: E20.panpsy'chistic a. panpsychic E20.

Questions

different to/from

animal which can rationally adjust its anticipatory behaviour = thought about thought??? (Weiskrantz)