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Article 7636 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Consciousness in animals
Message-ID: <Stafford-131192113148@stafford.winona.msus.edu>
>From: Stafford@Vax2.Winona.MSUS.EDU (John Stafford)
Date: 13 Nov 92 11:37:09 -0600
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In article <1992Nov11.043222.2004@cc.uow.edu.au>,
plumpton@wampyr.cc.uow.edu.au (David Plumpton) wrote:
> 
> 
> 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.

It may be erroneous to assume that because we can reduce the behavior of
an animal to predictable mechanisms that that is all there is to observe
and 'all there is' to the animal.  Consciousness may still exist for
that animal.  We may simply not have the capability of sensing it.


