Animal Consciousness

This big beautiful fellow flapped confusedly around my porch light for a while tonight as I read Bosanquet:



I have seen some people (Dawkins?) ask, "How could you think these creatures are conscious, given how easily they are confused by something as simple as a porch light?"

I ask, "How can you think something that is not conscious can be confused at all?"

Has anyone ever noted a confused rock? A confused cloud? A drop of water that has made a mistake? Mistakes and confusion are marks of consciousness, not signs of its absence!

Comments

  1. Doesn't sound very Dawkinsy to me to be honest.

    Siri makes mistakes. Mistakes are characteristic of calculation and inference, not consciousness.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Siri's programmers make mistakes. Siri has no purpose of its own, and so is incapable of its own mistakes.

      Delete

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