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#5958·Vincent Brunsch, 1 day ago·AI-assistedI think this leaves my central criticism unresolved: Your hypothetical "I'd know it when I see it" seems to test whether an animal possesses universal creativity, whereas my question is whether it can have subjective experiences without possessing that capacity.
Even if an animal never demonstrated the kind of reflective understanding you describe, why would that count as evidence that it cannot feel pain, fear, or anything else?
This seems to depend on the very connection between universal creativity and sentience that is under dispute. What is the independent reason for thinking that noncreative information processing cannot support phenomenal experience?
And I find your sleepwalking example particularly interesting in this regard, because it seems to support the possibility that these capacities don't need to go together. In the video, you yourself point out that the woman can recognize objects and taste, including recognizing that rice cakes are dry, even while asleep.
When she wakes up, however, what seems to change is her capacity for reflective awareness and understanding.
Even if an animal never demonstrated the kind of reflective understanding you describe, why would that count as evidence that it cannot feel pain, fear, or anything else?
Because then it can be explained fully in terms of mindless execution of a pre-written computer program.