Are animals conscious? Yes, many animals are conscious, but they have a different level of consciousness to us, and animals differ in their level of consciousness.
Consciousness in animals is usually taken to mean that they show awareness, emotions, sensations like pain, and they can adapt their behavior. They don’t have language like ours, human-style reasoning, or an understanding of the self. That being said, there are several animals that can reason through and solve problems, but their reasoning ability is limited. There are also animals that have a rudimentary sense of self, too, but that is not as complete as ours. And there are also animals that can communicate, but they don’t have language, which requires grammar and syntax. However, many animals do show signs of actions that would be more closely termed conscious than unconscious. Let’s look at five areas where animals appear to show consciousness. And remember, we can never know if any being is conscious outside of ourselves, because we can never experience life from a different being’s perspective. It is easier to understand consciousness in another human because we can tell each other what it is like to be us, but animals cannot communicate that.
First, animals that have a level of consciousness can experience sensory sensations subjectively. An animal with no consciousness, such as a sea sponge, reacts to a stimulus, and they always react in the same way. One stimulus produces one response. Their nervous system is only reacting to light, pressure, chemicals, or some other stimulus. There is no processing. Animals with consciousness react to a sensory stimulus and don’t always have the same response. The animal might have a different response if repeatedly exposed, or two animals of the same species might have different responses. The animal is receiving the stimulus and then processing it before reacting. They are not thinking in the way that we think, but they are considering what to do with the information they have received.
Second, is the ability to feel things like pain, comfort, stress, relief, reward, aversion, and curiosity. This is very difficult to quantify because it is hard to know if an animal is experiencing pain. A jellyfish will move away from a harmful stimulus, but it is not necessarily feeling the pain on any deeper level. Bears in a zoo exhibit boredom if they have nothing to do and curiosity if new things are placed in their enclosures. Dogs and cats obviously play, and some captive octopuses have been seen playing with a ball. This is difficult to show as a sign of consciousness because it could be an evolved behavior for animals to learn how to hunt and catch food. It could be that, and a sign of consciousness at the same time.
Third, is the ability to change behavior depending on a situation, to learn from outcomes, or to approach situations in a novel way. This can be something like crows bending a wire to use it as a hook, to a rat choosing a different route to solve a maze when one path is blocked. They can change their behavior when conditions change. Animals have been taught rules, such as choosing one color to get food, and then they are able to adapt and change when the rules change. They can balance various outcomes to choose an action. They might force themselves to go into an unpleasant area to get food, or leave the food and find somewhere safe when they are in danger. All of these things suggest a level of consciousness.
Fourth, many animals can use memories and past experiences to anticipate future outcomes to some extent. If animals are shocked when they go to a certain place, they remember that they were shocked there before and anticipate that they will be shocked if they go there again. Or, if they get food when they do something, they will remember and anticipate that they will get food if they repeat the action.
And fifth, paying attention to one specific thing. Our brains and animals’ brains are constantly overwhelmed with sensory information. Sometimes, we need to shut all of that out and focus on one particular thing. Either to find food, or to escape being food. Being able to select what to focus on could be a sign of consciousness.
There are two other things that some animals exhibit, which could be a sign of slightly more advanced consciousness. Some animals can plan for the future. This is exceptionally rare, but some animals have been seen making future preparations. Apes have been seen making tools and then keeping them to use again in the future. Scrub jays, a type of bird, have been seen catching food depending on future conditions. If they are in an area where they know a particular food won’t be available in the morning, they catch the food the night before and hide it, ready for the morning. And then there are the very few animals that seem to exhibit self-awareness.
There is a test called the mirror test. Animals have a dot painted on them that they cannot see by turning their heads. Then they are put in front of a mirror where the dot can now be seen. Animals that are self-aware realize that the animal in the mirror is them and try to remove the dot. Animals that do this are elephants, chimpanzees, orangutans, wrasse fish, and a few others. Are they self-conscious? Maybe we will never know.
One difficulty we have is our habit of anthropomorphizing animals. Just like we see faces in rocks, we project our feelings and emotions onto animals. This can lead us to feel that they are far more conscious and human than they actually are. And this is what I learned today.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_consciousness
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cv223z15mpmo
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature05575
Photo by Daigoro Folz: https://www.pexels.com/photo/charming-long-haired-dog-relaxing-indoors-32710694/