Animal Consciousness

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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. Ken B11:47 AM

    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. gcallah4:19 PM

      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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