The development of internal reward mechanisms is the very foundation of intelligence, no? I don’t find it surprising at all that almost every animal is conscious.
Without internal motivations, expectations, and stimulus, an animal might be incapable of novel actions. Behavior would be entirely deterministic based on input, and the animals would not exhibit unexpected behavior.
I’m not a scientist. Just thinking.
Even if you envision an animal as far simpler than that, pain has got to be the most basic sensation. The most basic motive for an organization is avoidance of a stimulus associated with harm, and that is what pain is designed for. It boggles my mind that a scientist could fail to take from that the assumption that even simple animals experience pain, in favor of some claptrap about consciousness which isn’t even well defined. It seems incredibly, idiotically obtuse.
Great point! Pain avoidance is pretty much universal!
I can see the argument though, that it isn’t tragic that a protozoa might move away from pain, since it perhaps has no expectation, or anticipation of it’s personal state of well being. A injured protozoa moves automatically, and ceases it’s arresting movement the moment the stimulus ends to resume foraging.
Maybe tragedy comes from the anticipation, the expectation, that your movements will continue, and that joy will come, and the dissonance between that expection and the presence, or memory, of pain.
We have literature which speaks about the ecstacy of sacrifice. Much is propaganda. But, maybe there is something less tragic, when a conscious being accepts pain and the cessation of movement in exchange for a strong purpose. Expectation and reality align, the dissonance is lifted, and so they die joyful, in pain.
Maybe bees feel this way when they attach a danger to the hive.
Idk what I’m on about. Regardless, to subject an animal to pain, that needs to be considered as carefully as ourselves.
It seems to me tragedy is matter of audience perspective, a reflection of their sympathies, and of perceiving a narrative. (The audience could be self.)
If you are struck with sudden excruciating pain, with no time to anticipate it, and no brain-space left to reflect on it, does that make it less terrible?
The question of a protozoa is a good one. Does such an organism even have a mental state? (And I suppose that’s all the author of the article meant by “consciousness”… some kind of flow of subjective experience.) I can understand doubt at that level, but insects even have brains.
