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Strong opinion, loosely held:
A century from now, our descendants will not look kindly upon how we treat other* animals today. I wager that within this century, a radical shift will occur in mankind's perception of animal consciousness, and with it, animal rights as well.
We will eventually come to accept as obvious that Homo sapiens does not hold an exceptional place in the animal kingdom; that our qualia is not substantively different from that of other living fauna; and that an elaborate language, while a great multiplier for intelligence, is not a prerequisite for it.
It will appear evident to our great grandchildren that other animals feel perceive, and think; and that if those qualia are difficult for us to imagine, it's only because of our own sensorial and brain limitations.
The seismic change starts here: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cv223z15mpmo
* I eventually added "others" but my first human bias was to skip the word, as if we were not ourselves members of the vast animal kingdom 18 replies
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Exactly. Consciousness is such a broad idea. I think everyone agrees that all animals are aware of and react to their surroundings to a certain extent, and you could say that is consciousness, but that’s not really what people mean in the context of these discussions.
Then you have the awareness of the self, that you are a thing. Like you said, probably not all animals possess this. Next we have awareness of other minds, you can see this progression in human children very clearly as they reach a new level of consciousness once they understand that other minds exist the same as theirs.
I think the big one is the concept of the future and the past, to comprehend, think about, and make decisions based on things that are not happening immediately. In my opinion this is what language enables, it gives us a theoretical world where we can describe, visualise, and order scenarios that have not occurred yet. I don’t think animals can do this (maybe to some extent when they dream?) 1 reply
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