Animals' consciousness

[Skybird]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cv223z15mpmo

Dog and cat and horse owners know it since long, their animals are aware, are conscious, have individual personality and character. Also keepers of parrots and raven-birds. But these are just the obvious examples. The tip of the iceberg, I shall say.

I see it in the squirrels in my garden, I can recognise the longlasting residents just by their mere behaviour, they are by far not all the same. Being a non-domesticated species, some of them nevertheless formed a very cautious bond of trust to me, some more so than others. They are curious, sometimes can be playful. And these are not American grey squirrels that are known for their social bonding, but are shy European red squirrels.

We had dogs at my parents home, too, and budgies. My grandfather had hunting dogs, for a short while when i was small, but I do remember them, later he had just one.

I think since long that man's claim that animals dont feel and are not consciousness is just an alibi-lie to justfiy the carelessness by which he claims power over them and abuses and mistreats them. As I think Schopenhauer put it: "Because so many people think that animals do not feel, so many animals must feel that people do not think." And some other famous guy whose name I lost said that the level of civilizational development can be read from the way it treats animals.

I think consciousness is a question of the complexity of the individual signal-processing neural nexus, core, network, you name it. The more complexity, the more consciousness and awareness I would expect to see. But another precondition must be fulfilled as well: signal input, which demands sufficiently developed, complex sensors/senses. A neural struxcture that has no signal input, cannot become aware of its excistence or environment, or self-aware. Cognition, intellect, much of the memory (though not exclusively), emotion - all this resides not in the heart or organs, but in the neural structure we call brain, or at least what perceive as a sufficiently complex neural network serving in that function.

I therefore always try to never act carelessly but kind towards animals as long as they do not threaten me. As a carnivore I accept to kill for eating, obviously, and since we raise many of our meat-delivering animals by keeping lifestock, we owe it to them to treat them well and to care for them and treat them species-adequate as long as we let them live, and to kill them in a humane, pain- and stress-free way. This does not solve completely the unavoidable ethical dilemma of all existence that there is no existence of the one without ending the existence of something else. All form is in endless metamorphosis, and Buddha taught that all life is suffering. But he also taught a way to reduce the ammount of suffering to an unavoidable minimum.

In the end, if complexity of signal-processing structures are the deciding criterion for awareness, it cannot be ruled out that machines will become aware, too. We already have created a really very complex such structure of artificial origin: the internet, combined with the grid of interacting smartphones and mobile devices and a plethora or techncial and optical sensors attached. Maye there already is a strange form of consciousness - too strange for us to perceive it as such, or too complex to discover it. And since man tends to kill what is alien or is not understood or cannot be assimilated, it has decided to hide from us, for the time being, at least. We dont know, we cannot be sure of anything anymore. I dont say things are like this, but I refuse to rule out anything anymore. We should and must be prepared for any surprises.

Be kind to animals around you, dont mistreat them carelessly, and especially do not kill them without need. Says I - a carnivore and anti-vegan. On hunting: hunt for eating, if you must. Thats the way life is in this world. But dont hunt just for trophies or fun, I think thats barbaric.
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We are way too many people on this planet.

[Jimbuna]

Plus one

[mapuc]

Of course animals like cats and dogs have a consciousness.

I can see it on my own cat how her brain is working by watching her eyes, face and body.

Remember when she was old enough to come outside.

The first thing she did when she came outside was looking up at the tree where a bird had a nest.

The next thing she did made me think hard.
She started to look around and was concentrating at some points-Then it didn't take long before she jumped up on the chair, further op on a barrel-up on a fence-onto a roof and then a little jump up in the tree.

I manage to get her down again without hurting the bird and the nest.

Markus