Humor Darwinian gardening again 18 Jun 2008 The Darwinian Gardener is interviewed in the newsjournalonline. He explains how Darwinian gardening also applies to buried sprinkler systems, which is something that never occurred to me, I must admit. But I think he’s running perilously close to self-contradiction even having sprinklers. Read More
General Science Expertise and ignorance 21 Mar 2008 On the one hand you have Jake Young discussing the role of expertise in public debates, concluding that maybe experts shouldn’t expect that information from knowledgeable folk will automatically influence the uneducated. On the other hand, this… Read More
John, where do you draw the line on which animals have consciousness? Obviously a lot homo sapiens have it. Not all of course. Do you think the other great Apes have some level of consciousness? What about other mamals like dogs and cats? I reckon my cat knows what he’s up to, and he spends an bit of time in front of the mirror admiring his reflection. Some birds seem to be pretty good at problem solving, e.g. corvids, but does that mean they have any consciousness? And then there’s those cephalopods beloved by PZ?
Seriously that’s a complex question. The short answer is that I think there is no single state or property of consciousness, so no boundary. It depends on what you are tracking.
Fair enough, that’s how I see it. I was just asking after you mentioned that chickens have no consciousness. I don’t think chickens are up there in introspection and internal life, but I have no idea if they do or don’t ponder the existential angst of a diet of snails or pellets. Probably unlikely.
Speaking of zombies, I’ve seen a chicken dance (well, run around like …) after a voodoo priest bit its head off. But I couldn’t figure out what it was thinking. Probably, it just wanted to be loved.