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yrger In English the word consciousness means:
the state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings.
2. a person's awareness or perception of something.
It could thus be said that consciousness is the ability to sense, feel, and experience needs and aversions, pleasure, discomfort, pain and suffering.
In my view, this applies just as much to animals as well.
I hope one day the dictionaries will change the wording of the definition to reflect that reality.
This week, a law was passed in the UK which acknowledges that animals are sentient (conscious). It is a first in the world, and it has huge implications for legal recognition of how humans treat and exploit animals.
There is debate about whether animals are capable of having self-consciousness in the sense of an awareness of selfhood and their individuality. The test applied is whether an animal, on seeing its image in a mirror, realises they are seeing themself and not another animal like themselves; the response is judged by how they respond to the image.
I think that's more a test of a certain type of intelligence, not a valid test of the sense of selfhood. The feeling of being oneself is internal and subjective. A child knows itself long before it first sees itself in a mirror.
I feel certain that most vertebrates have self-awareness. Anyone who has lived closely with animals knows that they respond with an awareness of the individuality, social positions and unique personalities of the other animals (their own species and others) around them in their environment. Any of us who have lived with dogs, cats, horses or other domestic animals has experienced this. Zookeepers see it in the wild animals they care for. Zoologists and gamekeepers see it in the behaviours of animals in the wild.
Each dolphin has a particular sound she makes to identify herself, and each knows and responds to the particular identifying sound (name) of each member of the pod.
We cannot, at this stage, prove consciousness in plants, much less self-awareness. But that might one day happen.
We certainly cannot see evidence of consciousness in inanimate matter.
It might be there at some miniscule level, as tiny as a single nanometer or even smaller. But if so, it doesn't register with us in any way that makes a difference to our lives or ethics.
If it were true that everything in existence is conscious, then we would have to ask is matter capable of suffering?
If it was, we would be wiser to kill ourselves this instant so as to cease causing suffering to matter in the ways we use it - presumably against its will.
Doesn't that seem somehow absurd?
If so, why is it absurd?
How do you define consciousness, yrger?
