[FRIAM] Is consciousness a mystery? (used to be "mystery...deeper".T

[Prof David West]

Maybe I should not be replying, as I do believe my dogs (and your cat if you have one) are conscious.

I have not experienced a Vulcan Mind-Meld with either of my dogs, so I cannot say with certainty they are conscious—I must infer it from observations:
1- interactions with other dogs would seem to indicate they "remember" past interactions and do not require the same butt-sniffing protocol with dogs they have met at the park frequently. Also they seem to remember who plays with who and who doesn't. "That ball is not mine, this one is."
2-they modify their behavior depending on the tenor, sharpness, and volume of barks, ear positions, tail wagging differences, by the other dogs; e.g., "that's enough."
3-They do not communicate to me in English, but seem to accept communication from me in that language—not trained responses to commands, but "listening to conversations" between myself and Mary and reacting to words (e.g., dog park) that are exchanged in those conversations. Mary and I are totally sedentary and speaking in conversational tone, so pretty sure there we are not sending 'signals' akin to training words, training tone of voice.
4-they seem to remember trauma, (one of our dogs spent three days with dead owner before anyone knew the owner was deceased and will bite if anyone tries to forcefully remove him from my (current bonded owner) presence.
5-seek "psychological comfort" by crawling into my bed and sleeping on my shoulder when the thunderstorm comes.

**_All of these are grounded in anthropomorphism—long considered a deadly error by ethologists._** (Some contemporary ethologists are exploring accepting and leveraging this "error" to extend our understanding of animal behavior.)

davew




On Tue, Jul 9, 2024, at 2:54 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> While I find all the  ancillary considerations raised on the original thread extremely interesting,  I would like to reopen the discussion of Conscious as a Mystery and ask that those that join it stay close to the question of what consciousness is and how we know it when we see it.  Baby Steps.  
> 
> Where were we?   I think I was asking Jochen, and perhaps Peitr and anybody else who thought that animals were not conscious (i.e., not aware of their own awareness)  what basis they had in experience for thinking that..  One offering for such an experience is the absence of language in animals.  Because my cat cannot  describe his experience in words, he cannot be  conscious.  This requires the following syllogism:
> 
> Nothing that does not employ a language (or two?) is conscious.
> Animals (with ;the possible exception of signing apes) do not employ languages.
> Ergo, Animals are not conscious. 
> 
> But I was trying to find out the basis for the first premise.  How do we know that there are no non-linguistic beings that are not conscious.  I hope we could rule out the answer,"because they are non-linguistic",  both in its strictly  tautological or merely circular form. 
> 
> There is a closely related syllogism which we also need to explore:
> 
> All language using beings are conscious.
> George Peter Tremblay IV is a language-using being.
> George Peter Tremblay IV is conscious. 
> 
> Both are valid syllogisms.  But where do the premises come from.
> 
> Nick
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