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#3039·Dennis Hackethal, 11 months agoI don’t think animals are sentient.
I realize this view sounds outlandish to most but it’s a considered, researched conclusion.
There’s lots of evidence of insentience in the way animals behave. If they were sentient, they would not behave the way they do: https://blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/evidence-of-animal-insentience
Additional reasoning:
Animal-Sentience FAQI answer the most frequently asked questions, and address the most commonly raised objections, about animal (in)sentience.Konrad Lorenz Hacked AnimalsLorenz showed how easily animals like geese can be hacked – they imprint on the first thing they see, revealing how robotic and uncritical their behavior is.Animal-Sentience Discussion TreeHow I use Twitter discussion trees and Treeverse to track, address, and resolve criticisms on animal (in)sentience, making my position stronger.The ‘Animal-Rights’ Community Is Based on Fear and IntimidationAnimal-rights activists often rely on fear and intimidation over reasoned debate. This post breaks down common tactics used to silence dissent.
In the reasoning you link in support of animal insentience, you argue that sentience and the capacity for universal creativity/critical thought come as a package deal. Dreaming seems to provide evidence against that connection.
Ordinary dreams can involve vivid visual experience, fear, pleasure, pain, etc., while metacognition, reality testing and critical reflection are greatly diminished. Lucid dreaming makes the distinction especially interesting: metacognitive awareness can return during an already conscious dream. The dream does not become phenomenally conscious only when lucidity begins; rather, an additional capacity for recognizing and critically reflecting on the experience appears.
This suggests that phenomenal experience can occur independently of the active critical capacities you take animals to lack.