RE: Does the fact that many non-human animals have pituitary disprove Cartesian Dualism?
June 23, 2023 at 5:21 pm
(This post was last modified: June 23, 2023 at 5:26 pm by Anomalocaris.)
behavior in animals that can’t talk back is hard to pin down to consciousness and not reflex. A person with blind sight can navigate a crowded corridor with every appearance of conscious awareness and his surroundings without the conscious person, being aware at all of what he is doing, and what is surrounding in which he’s doing this, and this is in a human with demonstrable consciousness. Now to say that an animal consciously feel pain, merely because he has an organ that we think is responsible for some form of consciousness humans is a stretch.
I suspect creatures like chimpanzees and dolphins do actually have a concept of self, based on the fact that they seem to be able to grasp the image of themselves in a mirror is, in fact, they themselves, and not just another member of their species. However, to assume that having the consciousness imported by a concept of self means it is therefore conscious of exactly the same things that we are is also a stretch
I suspect creatures like chimpanzees and dolphins do actually have a concept of self, based on the fact that they seem to be able to grasp the image of themselves in a mirror is, in fact, they themselves, and not just another member of their species. However, to assume that having the consciousness imported by a concept of self means it is therefore conscious of exactly the same things that we are is also a stretch
