Animal Consciousness
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I 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
Dozens of videos compiling and explaining evidence of animal insentience: https://libertythroughreason.com/insentience-in-animals-and-sleepwalkers/
Additional reasoning:
You propose in your writings that universal creativity can emerge from lower-level, mindless computation, and that consciousness is among the emergent properties associated with creativity. But why must phenomenal experience emerge only together with universal creativity?
The fact that simple execution-only systems are not conscious does not show that no noncreative computation can have phenomenal properties. For example, pain could in principle have emerged from a different kind of lower-level computation long before that system acquired universal creativity.
So unless there is an explanation for why phenomenal experience cannot emerge from noncreative computation, the inference from “animals are noncreative” to “animals are insentient” does not seem to follow.
The inference would seem more natural in the opposite direction: evidence that animals lacked phenomenal experience might support doubts about more general mental capacities, but the absence of universal creativity does not by itself explain why even pain or color experience should be absent.
Hi Vincent, welcome to V. Nice meeting you at Conjecture Con.
But why must phenomenal experience emerge only together with universal creativity?
Idk why you switched from “consciousness” to “phenomenal experience” here. But the argument is that behavior that may just as well be preprogrammed and then executed mindlessly is not evidence of consciousness (because it is, again, mindless).
I have seen no evidence of any animal behavior that could not have been preprogrammed. If you know of any, please show me.
But the argument is that behavior that may just as well be preprogrammed and then executed mindlessly is not evidence of consciousness (because it is, again, mindless).
This seems to be circular reasoning:
Your reply seems to move from “the behavior could have been preprogrammed” to “the behavior is therefore mindless.” But those are different claims.
“Preprogrammed” describes how the behavior is generated. “Mindless” additionally says that no phenomenal experience accompanies that process. That does not follow unless we already assume that non-universal or preprogrammed computation cannot support phenomenal experience. Which is precisely the connection my criticism questioned.
So showing that animal behavior could be preprogrammed may show that the behavior does not prove sentience, but it does not by itself provide evidence of insentience.
Explanations of animal behavior can be phrased fully in terms of unconscious, purely dogmatic information processing. We can write the programs and simulate animals on a computer. We don’t need consciousness for any of it. But we can’t write the program that would simulate a person on a computer. That program would result in consciousness. There’s an asymmetry there.
Can I prove that dogmatic programs don’t give rise to consciousness? No. But I think that’s the wrong epistemological standard. I can’t prove that rocks aren’t conscious either. What I do know is that I don’t invoke the concept of consciousness when explaining rocks (whatever little there is to explain about them).
I understand “we can write the programs and simulate animals” to mean that we can write an underlying program capable of generating an animal’s full behavioral and cognitive repertoire across novel circumstances. If you only mean that we can reproduce particular behaviors, then I don’t see the asymmetry, since we can reproduce particular human behaviors computationally too.
But I think we should be careful with the stronger claim. As far as I know, we cannot currently write such a complete generative program for animals such as crows or apes either. Indeed, even for vastly simpler animals such as the fruit fly or C. elegans, despite having mapped its complete connectome, our executable models still reproduce only parts of its behavior rather than the organism’s full repertoire.
… since we can reproduce particular human behaviors computationally too
Only for very narrow tasks, and even then there’s no guarantee humans won’t deviate from it, whereas for animals there basically is. Humans aren’t predictable like that but animals are.
… our executable models still reproduce only parts of its behavior rather than the organism’s full repertoire.
Maybe so, still I have seen nothing any animal does that could not be explained through the uncritical/mindless execution of existing knowledge or plain bugs.
Suppose we eventually can write complete generative programs for both a crow and a human. You say that the human program “would result in consciousness.”
I agree that this follows from your theory if universal creativity entails consciousness. But then I don’t think it can also serve as an independent argument for that connection. The possibility of a universally creative philosophical zombie is ruled out by your theory, rather than independently by the fact that the program is universally creative.
Likewise, your theory predicts that the crow program would be unconscious if it remains non-universal. Competing theories of consciousness could make different predictions about the same two programs. For example, IIT explicitly allows functionally equivalent systems to differ in consciousness depending on their intrinsic causal organization. I’m not assuming IIT is correct. It just illustrates that knowing what the two programs can do would not by itself decide which theory of consciousness is correct.
So I think the simulation comparison inherits the disagreement about which theory of consciousness is correct; it does not by itself resolve the link between universal creativity and phenomenal experience.
For example, IIT explicitly allows functionally equivalent systems to differ in consciousness depending on their intrinsic causal organization.
I don’t see how that can be possible. Surely the same source code would arise in consciousness every time?
It just illustrates that knowing what the two programs can do would not by itself decide which theory of consciousness is correct.
There would need to be something different about a program that gives rise to consciousness. We just haven’t seen any such program because we don’t know how to write one. But I do think the difference would be apparent once we see the source code.
Rival predictions don’t keep a question open. By that standard, the question of whether rocks or thermostats are conscious stays open too. IIT gives some consciousness even to a photodiode, and panpsychism gives it to everything. That rival theories predict different things doesn’t leave a question undecided, or no question would ever be decided. What settles it is which rivals survive criticism.
I have seen no evidence of any animal behavior that could not have been preprogrammed. If you know of any, please show me. <
You ask for animal behavior that could not have been preprogrammed. But I’m not sure any finite observed behavior could meet that standard.
For any finite sequence of behavior, it seems possible in principle to posit a sufficiently elaborate fixed program that produces it. The same would apply to human behavior.
So if the criterion for sentience is behavior that could not possibly have been preprogrammed, it is unclear how sentience could ever be established behaviorally, including in humans.
For any finite sequence of behavior, it seems possible in principle to posit a sufficiently elaborate fixed program that produces it. The same would apply to human behavior.
I disagree. Human behavior is so far off the mark I can’t explain it in terms of preprogramming only. I don’t know how to explain poems and rocket ships. Biological evolution had no reason to create any of the knowledge needed to make rocket ships, so preprogramming doesn’t make sense as an explanation.
If monkeys suddenly started making rocket ships one day, I would have trouble explaining that, for the same reason.
Ultimately the criterion will depend on an explanation of how the underlying program works. There can’t be a purely behavioral criterion, as DD argues in BoI ch. 7 (IIRC). But until we have that, some behavior is so blatantly robotic, like a Roomba, that I think we can reasonably conclude it has nothing to do with consciousness.
I agree that behavior which is blatantly robotic can be evidence that the behavior itself does not involve universal creativity, questioning or error correction. But I don't see how that gets us to the stronger conclusion that it “has nothing to do with consciousness.”
A system could execute a rigid, preprogrammed behavior while still having phenomenal experiences such as seeing color or feeling pain. The robotic character of the behavior seems relevant to whether the system is exercising universal creativity, but not by itself to whether anything is being experienced.
To infer insentience from the robotic behavior, we would still need the separate premise that phenomenal experience cannot accompany non-universal information processing, which is the point under dispute.
Humans working at an assembly line can be ‘robotic’ in the sense you describe. That’s a fair point. But then they go home and don’t act robotically.
Sleepwalkers are another example: they act robotically/uncritically while sleepwalking, but then they wake up and stop.
The claim is that animals always act robotically (outside of just plain random or buggy behavior). They can’t do otherwise. The claim is not that humans never act robotically. They do, sometimes, but they can be critical and change course.
To infer insentience from the robotic behavior, we would still need the separate premise that phenomenal experience cannot accompany non-universal information processing, which is the point under dispute.
Same goes for inferring sentience from robotic behavior; for the claim that phenomenal experience can accompany non-universal information processing.
Hence my suggestion that conscious information processing is critical.
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.
This suggests that phenomenal experience can occur independently of the active critical capacities you take animals to lack.
I don’t think so, since, as you write yourself, the critical attitude while dreaming is only “diminished”, not completely gone.
If vivid phenomenal experience persists while the relevant critical capacities are greatly diminished (and some forms of meta-awareness appear to be absent altogether in ordinary dreams) that seems at least evidence that phenomenal experience does not closely depend on the degree to which those capacities are active. Lucid dreaming strengthens this: reflective/metacognitive capacities can return within an experience that was already phenomenal.
I usually find that terms like “phenomenal experience” and “cognition” are confusing and make discussions harder. Ultimately, there’s one type of consciousness and one type of information processing that gives rise to it. I don’t think distinctions between different types of ‘cognition’ or ‘experience’ are worth drawing, if they even exist in reality at all.
By “phenomenal experience” I simply mean there being something it is like to see red, feel pain, fear, etc. Your claim that animals are insentient is itself a claim that these experiences are absent.
Whether such experience can occur without universal/critical cognition is precisely what is under dispute. So saying that these distinctions may not exist, because ultimately there is one kind of information processing that gives rise to consciousness, seems to assume the package-deal hypothesis rather than provide an argument for it.
If there is an independent reason why phenomenal experience cannot occur without universal creativity, that would address the criticism. But I don’t think collapsing the distinction itself does.
… seems to assume the package-deal hypothesis rather than provide an argument for it.
It sounds like you’re using a non-Popperian epistemology, with positive reasons to adopt some stance.
I don’t think that’s right, for the reasons Popper explained. I don’t make arguments for any stance. I ask if anyone finds anything wrong with it. I keep advocating it until someone does.
We have different degrees of awareness during different dreams, I agree. But we’re aware of them. With higher critical ability, we plausibly have more control over a dream – lower instead means passive observation.
It’s like watching a movie. I have no control over what happens in the movie, still I’m consciously aware of it. I could instead play a video game, where I do have some control over what happens, and which arguably requires more of a critical attitude. I don’t see how this refutes my stance.
I think “awareness” is doing two different jobs here. Of course we are consciously experiencing an ordinary dream (seeing, feeling, fearing, etc.). That is a premise of my criticism.
What is characteristically absent in a non-lucid dream is awareness that one is dreaming, together with much of the associated reality monitoring and critical reflection. Becoming aware that one is dreaming is precisely what distinguishes lucid dreaming.
So saying “we’re aware of them” does not seem to address the distinction I was making between phenomenal experience and reflective/metacognitive awareness.
OK but there are many things we do while awake that we aren’t aware of either. People aren’t aware always of their accents or ticks or fidgeting. I don’t understand why that matters.
What is characteristically absent in a non-lucid dream is awareness that one is dreaming, together with much of the associated reality monitoring and critical reflection.
This sounds like you’re agreeing with me – absence of awareness = absence of critical reflection – yet it’s marked as a criticism.
… the distinction I was making between phenomenal experience and reflective/metacognitive awareness.
As Deutsch likes to emphasize, there’s a G in AGI for a reason. No distinction need be made here.
I don’t think the movie/video-game analogy captures what I find interesting about dreaming here, because it seems to put phenomenal awareness, meta-awareness and control on a single scale of “critical ability”.
These capacities can dissociate: In an ordinary non-lucid dream there can already be vivid phenomenal experience without awareness that one is dreaming. Lucidity adds that meta-awareness, but does not necessarily add control (lucid dreams can themselves occur with or without substantial control over what happens).
So rather than a simple progression from passive/uncritical to active/critical, dreaming seems to give us different combinations of phenomenal experience, meta-awareness and control.
That is precisely why I think it provides some evidence that phenomenal experience is not tightly bound to the other capacities.
That is precisely why I think it provides some evidence that phenomenal experience is not tightly bound to the other capacities.
If that is so, please give example source code that has “phenomenal experience” but no consciousness.
… without awareness that one is dreaming.
I can be unaware that I’m dreaming but still be aware of the dream itself. Just like I can be unaware that someone’s utterances are lies but still aware of their utterances. The word ‘aware’ has more to do with knowledge here than with consciousness.
In the reasoning you link in support of animal insentience, you argue that similarities between human and animal nervous systems do not tell us whether the same conscious “software” is running. But humans and other mammals are not analogous to two identical computers on which entirely unrelated programs happen to have been installed. The relevant systems have a shared evolutionary history, with substantial continuity in sensory, affective, nociceptive and learning mechanisms.
A change in that inherited system may indeed have produced the qualitative leap to universal creativity. Since universality is necessarily all-or-nothing in the relevant sense, that leap is unsurprising. But it does not follow that every other aspect of mental life (including pain or other phenomenal experience) must have appeared in the same leap, or even require a comparable leap at all.
Neural continuity therefore seems evidentially relevant even if it cannot by itself prove sentience. The observation that universal creativity is uniquely human still leaves open whether older, shared systems already supported phenomenal experience.
The relevant systems have a shared evolutionary history…
So do laptops and their hardware, only with memetic evolutionary history. So what?
I agree that shared evolutionary history by itself would not establish that the same “software” is running. But that wasn’t my claim.
My point is that humans inherited from earlier animals many of the same organized systems involved in things like sensory processing, nociception, affect and learning. The emergence of universal creativity could have changed the overall cognitive architecture dramatically without implying that all of those older systems acquired their phenomenal properties only at that same point.
So the laptop analogy shows that common ancestry does not entail identical software, which I agree with. What I don’t think it shows is that the continuity of these particular inherited systems is evidentially irrelevant to whether phenomenal experience may already have been present before universality.
What I don’t think it shows is that the continuity of these particular inherited systems is evidentially irrelevant to whether phenomenal experience may already have been present before universality.
It’s the software that would give rise to consciousness because computation is substrate-independent. So yes, I think hardware continuity is irrelevant (unless there’s a switch from non-universal computer to universal or vice versa).
What I don’t think it shows is that the continuity of these particular inherited systems is evidentially irrelevant to whether phenomenal experience may already have been present before universality.
Please don’t write like you’re trying to impress a teacher. Use simple language anyone can understand. If you’re using AI to write or help write your ideas, you must tell people by checking the checkbox in the form.
A change in that inherited system may indeed have produced the qualitative leap to universal creativity. Since universality is necessarily all-or-nothing in the relevant sense, that leap is unsurprising. But it does not follow that every other aspect of mental life (including pain or other phenomenal experience) must have appeared in the same leap, or even require a comparable leap at all.
It’s a guess. No other explanation is known. If you have a different guess, propose it here.
Yes, it’s a guess. So the leap to universal creativity does not itself imply that phenomenal experience appeared in the same leap.
I proposed an alternative possibility (#5739): older, shared systems may already have supported phenomenal experience before universal creativity emerged. I’m not claiming that this alternative is established either.
I’m not sure “no other explanation is known” is quite right. For example, IIT offers a very different theory under which consciousness depends on a system’s intrinsic causal organization. My conjecture that phenomenal experience could predate universal creativity is at least compatible with that kind of account.
So it seems to me that we currently have competing conjectures here, rather than one known explanation and no alternative.
I’m not claiming that this alternative is established either.
This is again the wrong epistemology.
So it seems to me that we currently have competing conjectures here, rather than one known explanation and no alternative.
It only seems that way because of the wrong epistemology.
Neural continuity therefore seems evidentially relevant even if it cannot by itself prove sentience.
No, the substrate independence of computation rules that out. Neurons don’t matter for our purposes here, at all.
I agree of course that consciousness, if computational, need not depend on neurons as a particular material substrate. But that is different from saying that the organization and activity implemented by those neurons tell us nothing.
The article you link makes this distinction itself: substrate independence means that most details of the substrate do not matter; what matters is the relevant pattern or structure of information processing. Studying homologous neural systems can give us evidence about exactly that organization and processing.
So my claim is not “they have similar neurons, therefore they have similar experiences.” It is that there is evolutionary continuity not only in the neural substrate, but also in how systems involved in sensory, nociceptive and affective processing are organized, what signals they process, and how they interact with other systems.
That seems evidentially relevant to what information processing is occurring. Substrate independence does not make that evidence irrelevant.
There’s also continuity in how MacBooks process information over the years, and how their hardware evolved, including ‘sensory processing’ like their cameras and microphones, yet none of them are sentient/conscious, and if one became conscious tomorrow, it would have nothing to do with its hardware and everything to do with its software.
I think you're still missing the distinction I've made. Initially, you invoked substrate independence as though it contradicted my argument, but I never argued that the physical substrate was what mattered.
As Tegmark explains in the article you linked, it's the organization of information processing that matters, not the material implementing it. And that's exactly what I've been talking about: humans and other animals share evolved mechanisms with significant continuity in how information processing is organized.
Your MacBook analogy doesn't address that. In fact, if a future MacBook became sentient, it would be very interesting to investigate its predecessors (probably) ONLY if they shared a sufficiently similar organization of information processing. If, instead, sentience arose through a fundamentally different program, those predecessors would be much less plausible candidates for sentience.
So when you conclude that it would be about software rather than hardware, you're arguing against a claim I never made.
… I never argued that the physical substrate was what mattered.
As I understood it, you argued that it mattered insofar as it was part of evolutionary continuity. Did I misunderstand you there?
Yes, I think you misunderstood. I've been referring to continuity in the organization of information processing, not the physical substrate. Evolutionary continuity is relevant because humans and other animals share many mechanisms and processing structures, some of which may be relevant to sentience. That doesn't imply that evolution couldn't also produce fundamentally new cognitive capacities.
organization of information processing
What does this mean if nothing physical? You mean the structure of their code?
And that's exactly what I've been talking about: humans and other animals share evolved mechanisms with significant continuity in how information processing is organized.
I disagree. I think there’s an important break/jump in human evolution: https://blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/the-neo-darwinian-theory-of-the-mind
In fact, if a future MacBook became sentient, it would be very interesting to investigate its predecessors (probably) ONLY if they shared a sufficiently similar organization of information processing.
But we already know both current and future MacBooks will have von Neumann architecture. We already know it’s only different programming that could matter re: consciousness.
The relevant systems have a shared evolutionary history, with substantial continuity in sensory, affective, nociceptive and learning mechanisms.
Unnecessarily complex language like this makes ideas harder to criticize. Just write ‘they sense things, feel pain, and change behavior.’
I initially wondered whether you were right that I could simplify this, but I think the distinction is necessary here. Writing “they … feel pain” would already assume part of the conclusion under dispute: that animal nociceptive processing is accompanied by phenomenal pain.
By “sensory, affective, nociceptive and learning mechanisms” I was trying to refer to processes we can identify without assuming that they involve conscious experience. The wording is less simple, but in this case I think the precision actually matters.
Precision isn’t the issue here. Simple language can be precise. Read Popper and Feynman on expressing yourself so your readers understand you and your ideas get easier to criticize.
I also wonder whether your note here should be a criticism rather than a comment. As I understand Veritula, an outstanding criticism makes the parent idea problematic and therefore not rationally adoptable, whereas comments are neutral.
A suggestion that an idea could be phrased more simply seems like a useful comment, but unless the wording actually makes the content of the claim ambiguous or substantively defective, I don’t see why it should count as a reason to reject the idea itself.
Criticisms target ideas as written. That includes grammar, typos, complexity/simplicity, etc.
The relevant systems have a shared evolutionary history, with substantial continuity in sensory, affective, nociceptive and learning mechanisms.
That isn’t learning in the relevant sense that has to do with consciousness. DD explains some of that here.
I agree that this is not “learning” in the special Deutschian sense of universal knowledge creation. I was using “learning” in the ordinary biological sense of experience-dependent changes in processing and behavior.
In fact, the passage you link makes that distinction explicitly: Deutsch allows that the robot’s useful change can be called learning, while denying that it constitutes genuine creation of new knowledge.
That distinction is actually part of my point. I’m not claiming continuity in universal creativity between humans and other animals. I’m pointing to continuity in the older, non-universal capacities (such as sensory, nociceptive, affective and ordinary learning processes). Whether those processes can support phenomenal experience is precisely what is under discussion.
Ok but whether systems unrelated to learning in the Deutschian sense have continuity doesn’t seem to matter then.
The evolution of feathers has continuity in birds. So what? How does that matter for consciousness?
The evidential standard seems asymmetric.
You have said that there ultimately cannot be a purely behavioral criterion for consciousness, because what matters is an explanation of the underlying program (#5693). But at the same time, apparently rigid or “blatantly robotic” behavior is allowed to count as evidence against consciousness.
In the other direction, apparently flexible, sophisticated or sentient-like animal behavior does not seem able to count correspondingly in favor of consciousness, because it could always in principle have been produced by a nonconscious program.
If behavior alone cannot establish sentience because we need to understand the underlying processing, I don’t see why apparently robotic behavior should by itself count more readily toward insentience. Unless there is already an independent reason to think phenomenal experience requires universal creativity, the evidential standard seems to favor insentience in advance.
But at the same time, apparently rigid or “blatantly robotic” behavior is allowed to count as evidence against consciousness.
I think animals are so blatantly mindless and stupid, like so far off the charts, that it counts for something. I’d bet money that you use the same standard for a Tesla bot or a Roomba, even though neither of us has a working theory of consciousness.
… the evidential standard seems to favor insentience in advance.
As I noted elsewhere, you seem to be using some other epistemology, unlike Popper’s/Veritula’s. You could make it explicit in a separate discussion and then maybe continue here later. Until then, we may well reach an impasse in the animal discussion. Veritula doesn’t have a way to reflect impasses; in the meantime, it may not show the adoptability of ideas the right way.
… because it could always in principle have been produced by a nonconscious program.
I don’t think that’s right. There could be animal behavior I’d have serious trouble explaining.
People asked me about this at Conjecture Con. For example, if we took an animal out of the context in which it evolved, and put it in a new context it didn’t evolve for – that’s where animals bug out – but instead of bugging out, it behaved more like a human in an unknown situation and became reflective, actually seemed to understand what was going on, that would at least give me pause.
I can’t be more specific than that because it would depend in part on new knowledge the animal would have to create in that situation, and by definition I can’t predict new knowledge. But I’d know it when I see it.
That may not be completely satisfying, but it shows that it’s simply not true that any animal behavior “could always in principle have been produced by a nonconscious program.” (Or rather, the implication that I could always explain any animal behavior away.)
To be as specific as I can though, video 15 in my series on animals and sleepwalkers shows the kind of thing I mean. The woman in the video is asleep while talking to her husband for most of the video, but toward the end she wakes up, and there’s something different in her eyes and about her attitude and responses. It’s hard to put into words, but again you know it when you see it.
I 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.
What is the independent reason for thinking that noncreative information processing cannot support phenomenal experience?
Because nothing is missing in our explanations of how calculators, roombas, self-driving cars etc work. Consciousness doesn’t figure in our explanations of them. The information processing animals do is the same as that of calculators etc. So the same conclusion applies.
Your hypothetical "I'd know it when I see it" seems to test whether an animal possesses universal creativity…
More needlessly complicated language.
… 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.
She’s unconscious for all of that! It shows the opposite.