The Question of Animal Consciousness

THE QUESTION OF ANIMAL CONSCIOUSNESS

      This will be a brief look into the question of whether or not animals have consciousness, and to what extent do they have consciousness? What is it like for the various animals of the earth to experience life? If animals do have enough of this quality of mind…will this mean that we need to rethink our attitudes and treatment of these so called lower life forms? There is a more important point to mention here, and it is that animals develop familial ties forming family groups, breeding pairs and even hunting methodologies; they also feel pain and can mourn their dead. The African elephant can return after a long time after the death of a member of their group and identify the bones of their kin. How then can we still call them proto-intelligent? Can we continue to use them as slave labor and property as well as for scientific experimentation?

      One important point that is made time and again from a number of sources used for this paper is the question of pain and suffering. It appears that animals do in fact feel pain and can suffer not only physical pain but also suffer emotionally as well. A dog “yelps” if you should step on its paw and that dog will pull that injured appendage away and nurse it. The question of whether certain so called lower life forms can feel pain is a subjective one that needs to be clarified. The so called lower life forms we call fish may or may not feel pain although most sources maintain that fish at least can experience fear but pain is still in question. The certainty that Microbial life cannot experience pain lacking a complex nervous system in which to make suffering possible is the common consensus of the scientific world. The question of whether or not having a complex nervous system allows suffering from pain and fear as well as stress is evident. Suffering is demonstrated in the form of high cortisol levels found in mammalian subjects. In some examples the female lion will lose cubs and call out for them and will search for several days. After two or three days the female lion will give up if the missing cubs are not found. Does the lioness suffer? Or is it just blind instinct? The lion has a complex nervous system and to suffer, a life form must have enough associative circuits in its brain in order to genuinely experience fear and pain in a manner that we humans would call suffering. It seems that all vertebrates can be fear conditioned so that a fear response is not per se proof positive of consciousness well above the waking level. The only assumption that can be made so far is that some animals can suffer physical pain and stress as well as emotional distress, some more than others depending on where on the evolutionary ladder the animal in question is. Pain fear and suffering seems to appear as a component that helps to comprise consciousness rather than consciousness itself.