Are Animals Conscious?

VERY? –

June 15, 2024 – Charles Darwin enjoys a near god-like status among scientists for his theory of evolution. But his ideas that animals are conscious in the same way humans are have long been shunned. Until now. “There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery,” Darwin wrote.

But his suggestion that animals think and feel was seen as scientific heresy among many, if not most animal behaviour experts.

Attributing consciousness to animals based on their responses was seen as a cardinal sin. The argument went that projecting human traits, feelings, and behaviours onto animals had no scientific basis and there was no way of testing what goes on in animals’ minds.

But if new evidence emerges of animals’ abilities to feel and process what is going on around them, could that mean they are, in fact, conscious?

We now know that bees can count, recognise human faces and learn how to use tools.

Prof Lars Chittka of Queen Mary University of London has worked on many of the major studies of bee intelligence.

“If bees are that intelligent, maybe they can think and feel something, which are the building blocks of consciousness,” he says.

Prof Chittka’s experiments showed that bees would modify their behaviour following a traumatic incident and seemed to be able to play, rolling small wooden balls, which he says they appeared to enjoy as an activity.