For the longest time, humans have desired to better understand animals, especially when it comes to communicating with their beloved pets, and scientists believe emotions might hold the key to animal consciousness. Spoiler alert: it has to do with joy.
As it happens, it’s no secret that animals demonstrate a range of emotions that we can identify with. According to Jeff Sebo, a philosopher and director of the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection and the Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy at New York University, consciousness is usually defined as having subjective experiences, Scientific American reported on March 11.
What are some ways in which animals express their happiness?
Animals can show they’re happy in many different and observable ways. For instance, dogs wag their tails, and cats purr and make biscuits when they’re subjectively feeling happy (and we know it), raising the issue of consciousness in non-human animals.
Other than that, Sebo explained they display happiness through vocalizations that sometimes even resemble laughter, optimism when pursuing the unknown, and play, like when bees roll a ball around for no evolutionary reason other than to have fun. Then there’s the observable presence of oxytocin, dopamine, or serotonin (the ‘happy’ chemicals) in the brain.
‘Measuring’ animal consciousness
Sebo, alongside philosophers Kristin Andrews and Jonathan Birch, co-authored an essay in Science arguing that when animals demonstrate behaviors similar to those explained by conscious experiences in humans, such as joy, suffering, and other emotions, that might indicate animals’ conscious experience as well.
“We identify behavioral and anatomical markers that are consistent with a range of leading scientific theories of consciousness, and then we search for those markers in animals. (…) And when we find a lot of markers or indicators together in an animal, that can take up the probability that consciousness is present.”
Finally, they estimate a rough probability of consciousness based on how many of the above markets are present – high, medium, or low. Establishing this could be a major step toward making informed decisions regarding the way of studying an animal or interacting with it.
Animal consciousness: Conscious until proven unconscious?
As Sebo pointed out, scientists often assume that consciousness is absent unless evidence demonstrates otherwise. But his colleague, Andrews, has suggested flipping the premise to the presence of consciousness in animals, or that we should presume animals are conscious by default and then study the dimensions of their consciousness.
“[She argues that] this assumption is good not only ethically because it represents a kind of precautionary stance toward our interactions with animals, but also scientifically because it leads to better and more rigorous hypotheses about the nature of consciousness and the dimensions of consciousness that we can then research.”
For the moment, researchers rely on pain markers – intentionally inflicting pain to see how animals respond to it, i.e. the probability that particular members of the fauna can consciously experience negative states like pain and suffering. But if there’s a chance animals are conscious, Sebo believes “there should be ethical safeguards on how pain markers are used.”
“We can look at past studies [investigating] the presence or absence of pain markers. We can also conduct observational field research and use observations of animals experiencing pain and nursing their wounds in the wild without intentionally inflicting pain. We can still use pain markers if we collect them ethically.”
What animals feel joy?
Aside from cats and dogs that we already know can feel joy, other members of the animal kingdom can experience pleasure. This includes tigers, dolphins, birds, and elephants. Whales, too – expressing their happiness with fun activities like acrobatic jumps and breaches.
All things considered, Sebo and his colleagues believe that the markers for joy can give us a better understanding of consciousness in animals. And if they truly have it, then we need to rethink how we treat them, both in ethical and scientific terms.
Elsewhere, animals, specifically ants, can teach us a thing or two about how to avoid traffic jams. They travel in perfect lines, without tailgating or passing each other, making their strategies teachable not just to humans, but to self-driving vehicles as well.
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