Des points très intéressant ont été amené. Notamment, sur la science. Même si elle appuie la conscience chez plusieurs espèces animales, il faut que la société humaine et les personnes au pouvoir soit prêt à accepter cette perspective. Aussi, nous attribuons plus facilement le ressenti à des espèces animales qui nous ressemblent, comme les primates par exemple, ou des espèces avec des capacités cognitives supérieurs selon nos standard. Il faut peut-être être prêt à accepter que leurs expériences conscientes sont très différentes des nôtres. Or, le concept de conscience doit davantage être opérationnalisé.
Lots of interesting questions were brought up during the panel especially those regarding the determination of non-human animals legal status based on the level of complexity of their cognitive functions. Really appreciated when Mr. Wise stated that "judges play amateur psychologists" when having to decide whether a specific specie is worthy of legal recognition on the basis of its cognitive abilities/sentience. The lack of consensus on what constitute a "complex cognitive system" and which animals possess one brings me to question whether it is ethically relevant to draw the line at consciousness when its time to decide which specie is worthy of legal protection. Could the simple fact that every specie exists in its own ecological right be enough for humans to care about biodiversity's welfare as a whole, not only for those who share similarities with humans?
I was asking myself the same question, specifically regarding complexity as an objective criteria to decide who is worthy of protection. I am definitely the killjoy type that considers a simple explanation more plausible than a complicated one. But I cannot adequate complexity with worthiness.
I agree that using complexity of animal cognitive functions as an objective criterion is not adequate from an ethical perspective to decide who is worthy of protection, especially if we consider the lack of consensus on what is a sufficiently complex cognitive system. However, considering that we have to focus limited conservation efforts, we need such kind of criterium if we want legal recognition of species value on the basis of their cognitive abilities.
Ma question s’adresse au Dr Harnad : À un certain point, après l’une de vos questions, les panelistes spécialistes en biologie ou autres domaines apparentés s’engagent entre eux dans une discussion portant sur l’apprentissage supervisé ou non et les processus biologiques qui y sont associés. Bien que formée en psychologie et à ce titre connaissant bien sûr les théories behavioristes et des concepts tels que le rôle de la dopamine et de la récompense dans le processus d’apprentissage, je ne peux néanmoins pas suivre la discussion au-delà d’un certain point, notamment et non limitativement de certains nouveaux concepts (ex. associative learning, standard learning, etc.). Il serait intéressant, au profit des étudiants qui sont formés dans les domaines autres que la médecine ou la biologie, si vous pouviez nous donner quelques explications de vulgarisation ou nous indiquer des références afin que nous puissions mieux comprendre cette partie de la discussion.
Thank you for the talk. During the discussion, the topic of electric eels having voluntary control over their zap came up. Given the energy required to produce the zap, the eel would use the zap only when required. To explain the difference between sentience and consciousness, Dawkins (2006) refers to the work of Block (1991), where sentience is seen as the most basic feature of consciousness (phenomenal consciousness), i.e. the ability to hear, see, feel pain, etc. I find that the surgery involving the use of a drug to stop this voluntary zap is a compelling evidence of such basic feature of consciousness. Could we say that an animal that has a voluntary control over their defense mechanism to deal with threats, such as the eel, a convincing proof of sentience?
Des points très intéressant ont été amené. Notamment, sur la science. Même si elle appuie la conscience chez plusieurs espèces animales, il faut que la société humaine et les personnes au pouvoir soit prêt à accepter cette perspective. Aussi, nous attribuons plus facilement le ressenti à des espèces animales qui nous ressemblent, comme les primates par exemple, ou des espèces avec des capacités cognitives supérieurs selon nos standard. Il faut peut-être être prêt à accepter que leurs expériences conscientes sont très différentes des nôtres. Or, le concept de conscience doit davantage être opérationnalisé.
ReplyDeleteLots of interesting questions were brought up during the panel especially those regarding the determination of non-human animals legal status based on the level of complexity of their cognitive functions. Really appreciated when Mr. Wise stated that "judges play amateur psychologists" when having to decide whether a specific specie is worthy of legal recognition on the basis of its cognitive abilities/sentience. The lack of consensus on what constitute a "complex cognitive system" and which animals possess one brings me to question whether it is ethically relevant to draw the line at consciousness when its time to decide which specie is worthy of legal protection. Could the simple fact that every specie exists in its own ecological right be enough for humans to care about biodiversity's welfare as a whole, not only for those who share similarities with humans?
ReplyDeleteI was asking myself the same question, specifically regarding complexity as an objective criteria to decide who is worthy of protection. I am definitely the killjoy type that considers a simple explanation more plausible than a complicated one. But I cannot adequate complexity with worthiness.
DeleteI agree that using complexity of animal cognitive functions as an objective criterion is not adequate from an ethical perspective to decide who is worthy of protection, especially if we consider the lack of consensus on what is a sufficiently complex cognitive system. However, considering that we have to focus limited conservation efforts, we need such kind of criterium if we want legal recognition of species value on the basis of their cognitive abilities.
DeleteMa question s’adresse au Dr Harnad : À un certain point, après l’une de vos questions, les panelistes spécialistes en biologie ou autres domaines apparentés s’engagent entre eux dans une discussion portant sur l’apprentissage supervisé ou non et les processus biologiques qui y sont associés. Bien que formée en psychologie et à ce titre connaissant bien sûr les théories behavioristes et des concepts tels que le rôle de la dopamine et de la récompense dans le processus d’apprentissage, je ne peux néanmoins pas suivre la discussion au-delà d’un certain point, notamment et non limitativement de certains nouveaux concepts (ex. associative learning, standard learning, etc.). Il serait intéressant, au profit des étudiants qui sont formés dans les domaines autres que la médecine ou la biologie, si vous pouviez nous donner quelques explications de vulgarisation ou nous indiquer des références afin que nous puissions mieux comprendre cette partie de la discussion.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the talk. During the discussion, the topic of electric eels having voluntary control over their zap came up. Given the energy required to produce the zap, the eel would use the zap only when required. To explain the difference between sentience and consciousness, Dawkins (2006) refers to the work of Block (1991), where sentience is seen as the most basic feature of consciousness (phenomenal consciousness), i.e. the ability to hear, see, feel pain, etc. I find that the surgery involving the use of a drug to stop this voluntary zap is a compelling evidence of such basic feature of consciousness. Could we say that an animal that has a voluntary control over their defense mechanism to deal with threats, such as the eel, a convincing proof of sentience?
ReplyDelete