(I have just learned that my family's dog, sadly, will have to be put down. He has lived a good many years, by dog reckoning, and I hope that he feels content. Though he will probably not realize what is happening until too late, I hope also that he understands that we have come to this very difficult decision because we care for him and want to ease his suffering. Since animal matters are on my mind, I feel the least I can do to honor him is to finally put pen to paper (so to speak) on an issue which I have long pondered: animal consciousness...)
To begin with, I make no apologies nor will I mince words with my conclusion: I firmly believe that all animals are conscious beings. To claim otherwise seems to me to be spoken from a position of anthrocentrism and profound ignorance. Of all the many contrary explanations and theories I have heard, I have found none to be satisfying.
It may be easy to believe that humans are the only conscious beings on the planet. We "know" that we are conscious, and beyond that, have used this consciousness to conquer the Earth, our predestined domain. But, one should see that the assumptions underlying these beliefs are overwhelming. Many may cite sources such as the early Judeo-Christian-Islamic texts, specifically the Old Testament as stating that (God) has given Man dominion over the planet, and this certainly seems fortuitous as we find ourselves to be just this privileged species. In claims of this sort, these texts are often corroborated by other ancient mythologies. But, appeals to these sources would require a confirmation of the utter authenticity of them first, which is a battle that continues to rage without end in sight. So, simply because (God) says it is so, is not an acceptable argument from an objective point of view. What this thought process does point out to us is that it sets up a hierarchy with ourselves at the top. This feature, ethnocentrism, is well-documented in cultural anthropology and needs to be examined very critically. Of course, a tribe will envision themselves as exemplars of proper living and the pinnacle of progress. The point can never be stated enough: one would not hold a belief unless one believed it to be true. And so then the question becomes: Why do we believe this? In a similar way, the claim that only humans have souls is equally ridiculous and offensive. That we, a small race that has existed for barely a blink of the Universe's eye living on an unassuming planet on the outskirts of one out of billions of galaxies, that this group is the only creatures possessed of souls is unfounded and reeks of self-worship. If souls even exist, what basis have we for such conceit? We are obviously of utmost importance to ourselves, but to the Universe, we barely exist at all, we are as good as invisible. In all likelihood, we will destroy ourselves long before we have a chance to appreciably impact the cosmos, if such a thing is even possible.
There have been a good deal of studies into animal intelligence and, by implication, animal consciousness. The troubling thing to me is the extent to which these results seem to strongly indicate learned behavioral and social adaptations amongst other species, not to mention some sophisticated problem-solving skills, and yet researchers still, seemingly without reason, practically fall over themselves scrambling to invent convenient explanations for why such and such a behavior only appears to be learned but is actually instinctual. I once was giving a speech about what I believe to be the Universal equivalence of humans with the other animals, which I take to be an issue about perspective, when, to mock a point I had made, one of the audience called out: "Well, have you ever seen a cricket driving a car?" Disregarding, the sheer physical impossibility of this absurd "argument", I was troubled because I saw several others nodding their heads in ignorant assent, as if somehow this nonsensical point had truly proven the case. Troubled because I knew that this line of illogical thinking actually reflects (though also cariciatures) a fatal error in the way most of us assess intelligence.
I suspect that the problem lies in a deeply ingrained unconscious attitude in society's perceptions that has pervaded throughout Western civilization (possibly in large part due to the very same texts I cited earlier). It is that "they" are different from us, the "animals" are beneath us. We are badly in need of a paradigm shift. That we even speak in the language of "animal consciousness" as if it is a thing much different from "human consciousness" indicates a profound linguistic and physical bias which is embedded deep within our cultural unconscious. We fail to realize that we are cut of the same mortal cloth as they. We are no more than animals, perhaps we are the most animalistic, certainly we can be the most vicious and beastly. And at the same time, we are confusing. We commit unspeakable atrocity and, almost in the same breath, indescribable beauty. We are the beautiful savage.
We measure a rat's ability to navigate a maze or a rhesus monkey's skills in constructing a solution to a dilemma, yet, the real problem is that we have designed the test. As such, it is inherently biased to measure the things that we, as humans have designated as intelligence, in short, human intelligence. It is quite possible that, if the tables were turned and a rat devised a similar game of "rat intelligence," a human would fail miserably and fall in disgrace among the ranks of the other "dumb" animals of which rats had mounted the apex. To claim that intelligence is a measure of an ability to deal with novel situations hardly helps because the sheer persistence of many species of animals throughout much longer ages than humans and a greater degree of environmental and climactic shift would seem to make a stronger case for the species's intelligence than humans. That we have dictated what intelligence is and tried to impose this definition upon other species who have no experience or need to think in the way that we do is illogical and irrelevant. Even our conception of our own intelligence is constantly changing. In recent years, we have vastly amended the ways we quantify intelligence among humans based on varying skill sets, so is it ridiculous to think the same might be true for other species?
So, what of the consciousness question? An argument against the consciousness of a fruit fly was given that their brains simply possess too few neurons to be able to give rise to anything so complex as conscious thought. The mechanisms that flies demonstrate are like the unconscious workings of a simple machine. This begs the question: what does one define as consciousness? Is it an awareness of self, of deeds, of desires? If this is so, it seems difficult to claim that even a fruit fly lacks consciousness. It flies about, careening wildly through its brief lifespan searching madly for food and a mate. These drives probably consume most of its "thoughts" (for lack of a better term), yet can we truly call this unconscious? Do we know, and how can we prove that a fly's brain doesn't register things such as: "There's food over there! How can I get to it?" Indeed, even this simple primitive thought demonstrates some level of consciousness. By the very virtue that it acknowledges the concept of self, which must be presumed by recognizing that there is something else which is not already incorporated inside of whatever is doing the thinking, the fly has become conscious. The concept of self must be understood once any creature realizes that some thing exists apart from itself, in a way, before it even knows it has a self. This designation of something as other necessitates a realization of Self, it needs a context in which to set this other entity. And this, I believe, is all that is needed to establish the rudiments of consciousness.
A more agreeable hypothesis has been proposed that perhaps Consciousness is not an all-or-nothing switch, that instead it is gradated and a matter of degree. It seems more acceptable to claim that a fly is simply less-conscious than a dog or human rather than being a completely unconscious automaton. The range of actions seem to indicate that something is different between all of these animals, yet perhaps it is even too much to try to guess which state of consciousness is "higher". In some ways, a fly may be said to be more conscious than a human. It is focused on these perhaps one or two things which are the principal drives and motives of its life, whereas we humans are so confused and pulled in all directions, constantly, perhaps perpetually distracted from the true and essential purpose of life, which is simply to live. It may be possible that flies actually represent a more evolved form of life than we, no politics, no emotions, no imposed structures, simplicity defined.
However, I, for one, believe that this misses out on the subtleties of existence, which are the true pleasures in living. They are the reasons why we seek companionship in the first place, why we find so much in common with animals, why we consider them our pets. We are not to say what is better or higher, things simply are. We feel a strong desire to engage in all of the things that we can to fill up our lives, and that means the elated highs of love just as much as the sad, grim reality of mortality. This is our consciousness, the ways in which we diverge from the path of autotomia. We cannot help but feel it, it sustains us, even through the loss of those we hold so dear. Since we cannot hope to win in this game of mortality, the best we may be able to do is to recognize the ephemeral nature of everything around us. In this way, we can hold things more dear, savor each moment and relish in the opportunity of experience. We must learn to "drink life to the lees" before life turns to dust.
