Animal consciousness

Do you think I have consciousness? What's the difference?

Very simply, we go to neuroscientists and doctors, ask them how our experiences work chemically, and find out whether animals also have such a mechanism.

Shlomo, Sue is the problem with other minds. You can talk and are a person like me, so it is likely that what you describe happening inside you is similar to what I experience inside me. Regarding animals, there is no such consideration. Of course, there is never certainty in anything.

Sam, it is indeed very simple. Good luck. 🙂

This is not about Sam, because it has already been done. Biologists have been doing experiments like this for nearly a year and with very good results. Just open a good ethology book. Most of them have a chapter on it.

The elephant is absolutely right. This is a simple way to check. I learned about this in a physiology course as part of a mind-expanding course at the Hebrew University. The results are that in general, the brains of animals are less developed, and this also includes the size of the cortex, which in humans is significantly larger and more convoluted than in chimpanzees, for example. In addition, the secretion of neurotransmitters is less. But the system is the same. This can be likened to the brains of babies. What kind of consciousness do they have??? When did they have it??? Except that it is not developed and that with the refinement of the brain, it also becomes more conscious. Conclusion: It is not correct to talk about consciousness as a dichotomous variable, there is consciousness/no consciousness. But a continuous variable. And it is certainly plausible that animals have it to some degree or another. And anyone who wants to claim that there is none, there is no certainty about anything (Rabbi Shalit). So this statement also applies to the question of the consciousness of man! And if he accepts the assumption that man has consciousness, then he is likely to assume, as a guardian, that animals also have some kind of consciousness.

Does the Rabbi intend to address this? According to the above, animals also have a "soul", according to the Rabbi, the mental cannot be created from matter alone.

Those who assume that the mental is nothing more than an expression of a more sophisticated brain can indeed easily test this. But this is the controversy itself, and I know of no way, any easier or less, to test this claim. It reminds me of the claims of artificial intelligence people about the consciousness and will of computers with advanced artificial intelligence (as in the movie SHE, where a person falls in love with a program). I have written several columns about this in the past.
And as for the ad hominem, I have long since stopped being impressed by what is taught in such courses regarding philosophical questions. The amount of mistakes made by brain researchers on these subjects is truly disgraceful.
What is reasonable or unreasonable is a question of taste. The question was whether it is possible to “know”, that is, to make a scientific claim and provide scientific evidence for it on this subject. As far as I know – no.

Shlomo,
The question is not about a soul but about mental functions (consciousness, choice, etc.).

The analogy is not only in nervous systems, but also in similar behaviors. In other words, on the consciousness of animals, you can build an argument similar to the one you gave to the person who mentioned the problem of other souls

Open a book on ethology and start reading. Philosophy without science is a dogma, and science without philosophy is barren. This is one of the fields in which the engagement with philosophical issues happens all the time, both by researchers in the field and by philosophers who are active in it precisely because of the importance of philosophical issues for methodology and understanding the findings.

It is indeed true that there is quite a bit of philosophy there and, as I have written many times, mistakes. I have also explained more than once the problem of multidisciplinary in which each expert contributes in his aspect and is wrong in the other aspects and no correct picture is created from the combination.
Yes, I have read a little in the field, the bottom line is that it is about impressions. And it is not true that the conclusions are similar to the question of the other minds. And indeed, even in relation to it, it is difficult to say to someone who denies the existence of others that there is a scientific way to know this.

My point was that if animals do indeed have mental functions, then according to the Rabbi they also have a soul. You have written several times that you believe the explanation for mental experiences is dualism.

And so? I didn't understand the comment.