Insect Consciousness
Some of the materialists here get all huffy when you ask them if insects are conscious. Well,
"In other words, it now looks like at least some species of insectsand maybe all of themare sentient."
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-insects-feel-joy-and-pain/
"In other words, it now looks like at least some species of insectsand maybe all of themare sentient."
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-insects-feel-joy-and-pain/
Comments (50)
Not "insects" per se, but entities without nervous systems (e.g. stars, rocks, cells, atoms).
It makes sense. They have a body, sense organs, digestion. But it would be silly to say that such dissimilar bodies would result in a similar consciousness.
Can't think of a more sadistic way to dispose of them?
Go see Naked Lunch and you will come away with a new respect for insects. :cool:
The differences are more superficial than the similarities.
Nothing that originates and evolves on this planet, on this same 'tree of life' is entirely dissimilar.
Consider
biochemistry,
defining characteristics
basic requirements,
symmetry,
and motivation
Honeybee brains have ~960,000 neurons.
Human brains have ~100,000,000,000 neurons.
That does not seem like a superficial difference to me.
Neuron count plays a role in determining how much information processing capability a brain has, although synapse count would likely be a better indicator. See here.
A bumblebee clocks in with a million neurons. If 302 neurons can run a nematode, maybe a million are enough to run a bumblebee with a little left over for consciousness. A cockroach also has a million neurons.
It seems to me that consciousness requires a number of neurons well above the number needed to keep the animal alive. I don't think C. elegans has enough neurons; a bumblebee, on the other hand, can learn to do a few things not related to life support -- like "play" a very simple game. On up the ladder re many animals with billions of brain cells. A dog has 530 million cortical neurons--gray matter. Humans have about 16 billion cortical (gray matter) cells.
It seems like Fido has a better chance at consciousness than the cockroach or bumblebee had before you stepped on them.
Why? Isn't that like saying you need a lot of hydrogen and oxygen before you get liquid water to emerge?
Quantity is not quality. We also have bigger kidneys and absolutely enormous intestines, but they don't seem to make our waste elimination any more efficient than a honeybee's. They live about six weeks, don't mate, don't drive, don't have to deal with banks, lawyers, landlords or politics - so, how much memory storage do they need? However, they can find and identify foods that are good for them, find their way home and lead others to the food, store enough for winter and take excellent care of their children.
How many big-brains can claim as much?
I'm quite gratified to see scientists starting to abandon the anthropotistic attitude that's so severely retarded ecological studies. Gratified on one hand that they're catching on - on the other, chagrined that they're catching on too late.
All I know is that it was the novel in which there was a metal dildo called Steely Dan which then provided the name for the well-known musical ensemble (and my personal all-time favourite band).
What bet?
It's an interesting article. I have no trouble accepting the idea that insects are sentient, although I'm dubious about whether the experience of pain would be the same as the human's (after all, what would it be like to be a bee?) But overall, I'm forming the view that as organisms are all agents of greater or lesser degrees of intelligence, then the article is quite congenial.
Are you a Vonnegut fan?
Life would be sweet.
Makes me mad as a hornet.
He said waspishly.
Among other things. Why?
I get the impression that you might appreciate Vonnegut's thinking.
Which might not have occurred to me, except someone in my science fiction book group recently suggested a group field trip to the Kurt Vonnegut museum. I haven't read anything by Vonnegut in a long time, other than the short story Harrison Bergeron which I reread occasionally.
I've recently re-read a couple of them. One of my favourites is Galapagos and the other is Cat's Cradle. The book is dated; the issues are eternal.
(It's hard to find a link to books that's not commercial - unless I resort to wiki, which is often a pain in the ass to navigate)
I've also gone back to Bradbury as a refuge from the news headlines.
I tried to read that articles, but as with so many newspapers and journals on line, it's like peering through a damn mail slot, so much of the page is obscured by mastheads and flags or advertisements. Too annoying!
However, it stands to reason that bees should be able to learn: their environment changes by weather and available crops; not every worker in a hive comes to maturity in the same part of the season, so they can't be pre-programmed to specific plants or foraging routes. They are required to explore, decide, correct for mistakes.
Two videos I enjoyed
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLi5htzDd4o
Cat's Cradle is what my book group is planning to read prior to our museum trip. I've read it, but I think I was 14 or 15 at the time, so I expect to get a lot out of rereading it.
The scale of difference between an insect and a man is astronomical. Ascribing to them elements of human consciousness is patently absurd on those grounds.
Unless you just ate a salad.
Who said "human consciousness"? A cockroach has beetle consciousness; a chameleon has reptile consciousness; a shark has piscine consciousness ... a human has hominid consciousness.
As to 'elements' - those are the characteristics of biological entities which make up humans, as well as other monkeys, insects and frogs. (It's not size that counts; it's what you can do with it.)
Some humans - well, over the centuries, an unfortunately large number of humans, including some very influential ones - are insecure of their place at the tippy-top of Creation, they use every excuse to put other species down, make them insignificant, reduce them to 'things' that exist for the use of humans. The last of us will be all alone on a dying planet.
When we speak of pain and joy, are speaking of any other consciousness than human consciousness? No. Sharks have shark physiology. Insects have insect physiology. Its an anthropomorphic mistake to assume they feel the same.
We dont really understand anything about consciousness. So its hard to say if insects have it or not.
The claim is not that they feel the same kinds of things as humans necessarily, it's that they feel something at all. Insects are conscious, but they feel insecty things.
What makes you think that? You've never met a dog?*
Quoting NOS4A2
The similarity of physiologies throughout the animal kingdom make it possible to classify them (us) as animalia. We have similar cells that perform similar functions.
*I had an acquaintance once who subscribed to the everything but humans are just automatons school of contempt. He explained as how animals don't have emotions, they just respond to stimuli and act on instinct and then he told me that his neighbour's dog hated him. I wasn't surprised - either by the animosity or the self-contradiction.
Me too