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Article 7610 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: tim@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au (Tim Roberts)
Subject: Re: Consciousness in animals
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Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
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Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 01:55:06 GMT
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plumpton@wampyr.cc.uow.edu.au (David Plumpton) writes:


>On the assumption that animals experience consciousness (which I believe),
>where abouts in the level of animal development would people think that
>it starts? i.e. where is the very first 'spark' of self-awareness?

>If we list organisms of decreasing mental complexity from humans to virii as:
>Humans, monkeys, dogs, mice, bees, flies, ameobas, virii,
>where would you first say "Stop, no self-awareness there" ?

>My personal guess would go between bees and flies, i.e. nothing for a fly,
>but the barest degree of consciousness for a bee.

>From observing the behaviour of chimps I have no doubt at all that they
>are conscious. It's pretty much the same for dogs. A mouse seems like a
>scaled down dog. A bee looks to me to have small amounts of planning and
>navigating, but a fly seems "hard-wired" and aimless.

Oh dear.  Yet again we have the idea that something "has" consciousness, or it
does not. I really can't agree with this approach.

I can look at a lot of human actions (my own included) and conclude they're "
hard-wired and aimless" too....


-- 
Tim S Roberts
School of Applied Science                 tel:     051-226467
Monash University (Gippsland)             fax:     051-221348
Switchback Road
Churchill                                 email:   tim@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au
Victoria 3842
Australia


