CatComConM2023

Monday, August 28, 2023

10a. Dennett, D. (unpublished) The fantasy of first-person science

Extra optional readings:

Harnad, S. (2011) Minds, Brains and Turing. Consciousness Online 3.

Harnad, S. (2014) Animal pain and human pleasure: ethical dilemmas outside the classroom. LSE Impact Blog 6/13 June 13 2014

Dennett, D. (unpublished) The fantasy of first-person science.

"I find it ironic that while Chalmers has made something of a mission of trying to convince scientists that they must abandon 3rd-person science for 1st-person science, when asked to recommend some avenues to explore, he falls back on the very work that I showcased in my account of how to study human consciousness empirically from the 3rd-person point of view. Moreover, it is telling that none of the work on consciousness that he has mentioned favorably addresses his so-called Hard Problem in any fashion; it is all concerned, quite appropriately, with what he insists on calling the easy problems. First-person science of consciousness is a discipline with no methods, no data, no results, no future, no promise. It will remain a fantasy."

Click here -->Dan Dennett's Video

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Week 10 overview:

and also this (from week 10 of the very first year this course was given, 2011):

Reminder: The Turing Test Hierarchy of Reverse Engineering Candidates

t1: a candidate that can do something a human can do

T2: a reverse-engineered candidate that can do anything a human can do verbally, indistinguishably from a human, to a human, for a lifetime

T3: a reverse-engineered candidate that can do anything a human can do verbally as well as robotically, in the external world, indistinguishably from a human, to a human, for a lifetime

T4: a reverse-engineered candidate that can do anything a human can do verbally as well as robotically, in the external world, and also internally (i.e., neurologically), indistinguishably from a human, to a human, for a lifetime

T5: a real human

(The distinction between T4 and T5 is fuzzy because the boundary between synthetic and biological neural function is fuzzy.)

10b. Harnad, S. (unpublished) On Dennett on Consciousness: The Mind/Body Problem is the Feeling/Function Problem

Harnad, S. (unpublished) On Dennett on Consciousness: The Mind/Body Problem is the Feeling/Function Problem.

The mind/body problem is the feeling/function problem (Harnad 2001). The only way to "solve" it is to provide a causal/functional explanation of how and why we feel...

Click here to view --> HARNAD VIDEO

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“Scientists discover the on-off switch for human consciousness deep within the brain” :

But... "Claustrum Nostrum"

10c. Harnad, S. (2012) Alan Turing and the “hard” and “easy” problem of cognition: doing and feeling.æ

Harnad, S. (2012) Alan Turing and the “hard” and “easy” problem of cognition: doing and feeling. [in special issue: Turing Year 2012] Turing100: Essays in Honour of Centenary Turing Year 2012, Summer Issue

The "easy" problem of cognitive science is explaining how and why we can do what we can do. The "hard" problem is explaining how and why we feel. Turing's methodology for cognitive science (the Turing Test) is based on doing: Design a model that can do anything a human can do, indistinguishably from a human, to a human, and you have explained cognition. Searle has shown that the successful model cannot be solely computational. Sensory-motor robotic capacities are necessary to ground some, at least, of the model's words, in what the robot can do with the things in the world that the words are about. But even grounding is not enough to guarantee that -- nor to explain how and why -- the model feels (if it does). That problem is much harder to solve (and perhaps insoluble).

Spielberg's AI: Another Cuddly No-Brainer

11a. Key, Brian (2016) Why fish do not feel pain.

Key, Brian (2016) Why fish do not feel pain. Animal Sentience 3(1) (after reading the article, read the abstracts of some of the commentaries too, for contrary vuews).

Only humans can report feeling pain. In contrast, pain in animals is typically inferred on the basis of nonverbal behaviour. Unfortunately, these behavioural data can be problematic when the reliability and validity of the behavioural tests are questionable. The thesis proposed here is based on the bioengineering principle that structure determines function. Basic functional homologies can be mapped to structural homologies across a broad spectrum of vertebrate species. For example, olfaction depends on olfactory glomeruli in the olfactory bulbs of the forebrain, visual orientation responses depend on the laminated optic tectum in the midbrain, and locomotion depends on pattern generators in the spinal cord throughout vertebrate phylogeny, from fish to humans. Here I delineate the region of the human brain that is directly responsible for feeling painful stimuli. The principal structural features of this region are identified and then used as biomarkers to infer whether fish are, at least, anatomically capable of feeling pain. Using this strategy, I conclude that fish lack the necessary neurocytoarchitecture, microcircuitry, and structural connectivity for the neural processing required for feeling pain.

Videos from 2018 Summer School on Animal Sentience and Cognition

11b. Harnad, S (2016) Animal sentience: The other-minds problem

Harnad, S (2016) Animal sentience: The other-minds problem. Animal Sentience 1(1)

The only feelings we can feel are our own. When it comes to the feelings of others, we can only infer them, based on their behavior — unless they tell us. This is the “other-minds problem.” Within our own species, thanks to language, this problem arises only for states in which people cannot speak (infancy, aphasia, sleep, anaesthesia, coma). Our species also has a uniquely powerful empathic or “mind-reading” capacity: We can (sometimes) perceive from the behavior of others when they are in states like our own. Our inferences have also been systematized and operationalized in biobehavioral science and supplemented by cognitive neuroimagery. Together, these make the other-minds problem within our own species a relatively minor one. But we cohabit the planet with other species, most of them very different from our own, and none of them able to talk. Inferring whether and what they feel is important not only for scientific but also for ethical reasons, because where feelings are felt, they can also be hurt. As animals are at long last beginning to be accorded legal status and protection as sentient beings, our new journal Animal Sentience, will be devoted to exploring in depth what, how and why organisms feel. Individual “target articles” (and sometimes précis of books) addressing different species’ sentient and cognitive capacities will each be accorded “open peer commentary,” consisting of multiple shorter articles, both invited and freely submitted ones, by specialists from many disciplines, each elaborating, applying, supplementing or criticizing the content of the target article, along with responses from the target author(s). The members of the nonhuman species under discussion will not be able to join in the conversation, but their spokesmen and advocates, the specialists who know them best, will. The inaugural issue launches with the all-important question (for fish) of whether fish can feel pain.

Videos from 2018 Summer School on Animal Sentience and Cognition

OPTIONAL READING: Some have raised a highly improbable hypothesis: that plants, too, feel.. "Stevan Says" that this hypothesis is as improbable as Brian Key's hypothesis that fish don't feel.

What do you think?

Segundo-Ortin, Miguel and Calvo, Paco (2023) Plant sentience? Between romanticism and denial: Science. Animal Sentience 33(1)

ABSTRACT:

A growing number of non-human animal species are being seriously considered as candidates for sentience, but plants are either forgotten or explicitly excluded from these debates. In our view, this is based on the belief that plant behavior is hardwired and inflexible and on an underestimation of the role of plant electrophysiology. We weigh such assumptions against the evidence to suggest that it is time to take seriously the hypothesis that plants, too, might be sentient. We hope this target article will serve as an invitation to investigate sentience in plants with the same rigor as in non-human animals.

Harnad, Stevan (2023) Insentient “cognition”?. Animal Sentience 33(2)

Struik, Paul C (2023) Plants detect and adapt, but do not feel. Animal Sentience 33(3)

Gutfreund, Yoram (2023) Questions about sentience are not scientific but cultural. Animal Sentience 33(4)

Milburn, Josh (2023) Plant sentience and the case for ethical veganism. Animal Sentience 33(5)

Pessoa, Luiz (2023) What can plant science learn from animal nervous systems?. Animal Sentience 33(6)

Robinson, David G; Blatt, Michael R; Draguhn, Andreas; Taiz, Lincoln; and Mallatt, Jon (2023) Plants lack the functional neurotransmitters and signaling pathways required for sentience in animals. Animal Sentience 33(7)

Yilmaz, Özlem (2023) Stress: An adaptive problem common to plant and animal science. Animal Sentience 33(8)

Booth, David A (2023) Sentience: back to the science from the words. Animal Sentience 33(9)

Dung, Leonard (2023) From animal to plant sentience: Is there credible evidence?. Animal Sentience 33(10)

Brooks Pribac, Teya (2023) Language matters. Animal Sentience 33(11)

Carls-Diamante, Sidney (2023) Plant sentience: Bias and promise. Animal Sentience33(12)

ten Cate, Carel (2023) Plant sentience: A hypothesis based on shaky premises. Animal Sentience 33(13)

Mastinu, Andrea (2023) Plant sentience: "feeling" or biological automatism?. Animal Sentience 33(14)

Mallatt, Jon; Robinson, David G; Blatt, Michael R; Draguhn, Andreas; and Taiz, Lincoln (2023) Plant sentience: The burden of proof. Animal Sentience 33(15)

Damasio, Antonio and Damasio, Hanna (2023) Sensing is a far cry from sentience. Animal Sentience 33(16)

Vallverdú, Jordi (2023) What if plants compute?. Animal Sentience 33(17)

Solé, Ricard V. (2023) Do plants have the cognitive complexity for sentience?. Animal Sentience 33(18)

Bennett, Tom (2023) Cognition is not evidence of sentience. Animal Sentience 33(19)

Birch, Jonathan (2023) Disentangling sentience from developmental plasticity. Animal Sentience 33(20)

Henning, Tilo and Mittelbach, Moritz (2023) Complex floral behavior of an angiosperm family. Animal Sentience 33(21)

Plebe, Alessio (2023) Plant sentience: Time scale matters. Animal Sentience 33(22)

Baciadonna, Luigi; Macri, Catherine; and Giurfa, Martin (2023) Associative learning: Unmet criterion for plant sentience. Animal Sentience 33(23)

Dolega, Krzysztof; Siekierski, Savannah; and Cleeremans, Axel (2023) Plant sentience: Getting to the roots of the problem. Animal Sentience 33(24)

Ivanchei, Ivan; Coucke, Nicolas; and Cleeremans, Axel (2023) Dissociation between conscious and unconscious processes as a criterion for sentience. Animal Sentience33(25)

Broom, Donald M (2023) Limits to sentience. Animal Sentience 33(26)

Correia-Caeiro, Catia and Liebal, Katja (2023) Animal communication and sentience. Animal Sentience 33(27)

Burgos, José E and Castañeda, Giselle M. (2023) Crazier hypotheses: Panpsychism. Animal Sentience 33(28)

Tiffin, Helen (2023) Plant sentience: Not now, maybe later?. Animal Sentience 33(29)

Rouleau, Nicolas and Levin, Michael (2023) Multiple ways to implement and infer sentience. Animal Sentience 33(30)

11c. Bekoff, M., & Harnad, S. (2015). Doing the Right Thing + Wiebers & Feigin (2020) What the COVID-19 crisis is telling humanity

Bekoff, M., & Harnad, S. (2015). Doing the Right Thing: An Interview With Stevan Harnad. Psychology Today.

Twelve years after stepping down from the editorship of BBS I have accepted an invitation from the Humane Society of the United States to serve as editor in chief of Animal Sentience, a new journal just about to be launched that is devoted to understanding and protecting the feelings of other species. I hope the findings reported in this journal will help inspire us to “do the right thing to the right kind of thing” so that we can at last put an end to the greatest moral shame of our own species – and the greatest agony of all the others.

Leadbeater, Simon (2019) In Defence of Tears. Ecological Citizen.

Wiebers, David and Feigin, Valery (2020) What the COVID-19 crisis is telling humanity. Animal Sentience 30(1)

Summary: The planet is in a global health emergency exacting enormous medical and economic tolls. It is imperative for us as a society and species to focus and reflect deeply upon what this and other related human health crises are telling us about our role in these increasingly frequent events and about what we can do to prevent them in the future.

Cause: It is human behavior that is largely responsible for the alarming increase in lethal zoonotic diseases that jump the species barrier from animals to humans: (1) hunting, capture, and sale of wild animals for human consumption, particularly in live-animal markets; (2) massive overcrowding of animals for human consumption in stressful and unhygienic industrial “factory farm” environments, a major direct cause of new disease outbreaks and mounting antibiotic resistance; (3) vast numbers of wildlife species threatened with extinction from habitat destruction and incursion.

Action: The trade and consumption of wild animals in live-animal markets should be banned in all countries. Intensive confinement of animals in factory farm operations should be discontinued worldwide for the sake of animals, humans, and the environment, and we should rapidly evolve to eating other forms of protein that are safer for humans. Additional investment in plant-based agriculture to grow crops to feed humans rather than livestock for human consumption will feed more people while utilizing far less land and water, allowing for the preservation of vital ecosystems for innumerable species.

Each of us can have a positive impact, beginning with mindfulness about what we eat and how all of our daily choices and actions may be affecting animals and natural habitats. Rather than simply attempting to react to crises like COVID-19 after death and destruction are already upon us, we need to address underlying causes and act now to prevent future disasters.

Videos from 2018 Summer School on Animal Sentience and Cognition