© RUB, MarquardWhile hardly anyone would dispute that their own cat subjectively feels pain, there are many species for which people are uncertain: do birds, fish, insects and worms have conscious perception?
Animal consciousness should not be thought of as a light switch, which can be on or off, Bochum philosophers say. They advocate a different approach.
There are reasons to assume that not only humans but also some non-human species of animal have conscious perception. Which species have consciousness and how the subjective experience of various species could differ is being investigated by Professor Albert Newen and PhD student Leonard Dung from the Institute for Philosophy II at Ruhr University Bochum. To do this, they characterise consciousness with ten different dimensions and work out which behaviours indicate the presence of each of these consciousness dimensions. They describe their approach in the academic journal
Cognition, published online on 21 February 2023.
Consciousness is not like a light switchThere is a debate within research as to which animals have consciousness. There are also various views as to how consciousness can be expressed. "According to one view, consciousness is like a light switch, which is either on or off: a species either has consciousness or it does not," explains Albert Newen.
A more refined idea is that consciousness can be thought of as a dimmer switch: it can exist in varying degrees.Albert Newen and Leonard Dung do not agree with either of these theories. According to them, ten dimensions, or aspects, of consciousness can be distinguished, which cannot necessarily be placed in a ranking. These include, for example, a rich emotional inner life, self-awareness and or conscious perception. "It is not necessarily worthwhile to ask whether a mouse has more consciousness than an octopus," clarifies Albert Newen. "You may get a different answer, depending on the aspect of consciousness that you are looking at."
The researchers from Bochum suggest distinguishing between strong and weak indicators of consciousness and allocating each of these to certain aspects of consciousness. "We hope to ultimately make it possible to measure how the subjective experience of various species differs between species and compared to humans," summarises Leonard Dung.
