“I think it is one of the great challenges facing science and philosophy in the 21st century,” said Dr Jonathan Birch, a philosopher of science at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. “It is not simply something that we can consider science as usual, we need new ways of thinking about sensitivity.”
While it is now generally accepted that many other mammals have some sort of sensitivity, or subjective experience, of the world and their own bodies, there are still large gaps in our knowledge . Things get more blurry the further we get away from humans, where animals can have vastly different brain and neural systems. “Evidence from other primates has been very influential in the science of human consciousness, but there has been a tendency to rule out non-mammals,” said Dr. Birch. “It is precisely non-mammals that have been the source of much recent discussion.”
In 2010, cephalopod mollusks, a group of animals that includes octopuses, squid and cuttlefish, were included along with vertebrates in the EU directive on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes. That has led to further debate about the nature of sensitivity in animals, including crustaceans, fish, and insects. It is a question that could be crucial for the conservation and ethical status of organisms in animal welfare legislation, since sensitivity and pain can be key criteria for the type of protection provided.
“As it evolves away from humans, the organization of the brain becomes increasingly different,” said Dr. Birch. “When you look at something like an octopus, it is completely different, so the source of evidence is no longer there.”
While some researchers support the idea that creatures like insects have consciousness , others perceive them as “natural zombies” that, like robots, may be cognitively sophisticated but have no conscious experiences. There is also limited knowledge and controversy about pain feelings in animals, and Dr. Birch explains that some reactions to seemingly painful events can be unconscious reflexes. “What makes it difficult is that you have so many theories of what conscious experience is and nothing is even close to agreement,” he said. “You have some theories that imply that all living things would have these experiences to some degree, and other theories that seem to imply that only humans could have them.”
New way of thinking
Although Dr. Birch acknowledges that there will always be a barrier to actually getting into the head of animals, he says we can discover much more. He believes that a new way of thinking is needed that crosses the divide between philosophy and science, wrapped in evolutionary biology, psychology, neuroscience, physiology, and animal welfare sciences. In this sense, the ASENT project that he directs aims to develop a conceptual framework for understanding animal sensitivity, with an attempt to bring such studies to the mainstream as a rigorous scientific discipline. In addition to researching and applying scientific and philosophical literature and theories over the next four years, ASENT plans to test sensitivity in bees.
Dr. Birch said that they are ideal study subjects in this area because they are sophisticated invertebrates with complex social networks, while they are also much easier to examine experimentally than animals such as cephalopods. “Bees are a great place to start if you are looking for evidence of conscious experience in these controversial cases,” he said. “They are cognitively sophisticated and very good learners, so it makes sense to ask:” Can they do these forms of learning that in us seem to be linked to consciousness? “The exact nature of the tests has yet to be decided amid Covid-related delays, but some will involve examining bees’ responses to flashing LEDs, with the goal of matching visual stimuli to types of reactions. sensory previously linked to human consciousness.
One such form of associative learning is trace conditioning, in which two stimuli are separated by a temporal space, such as a noise followed a second later by a puff of air towards the eye. Dr. Birch explains that humans only seem capable of learning this association, which is shown by blinking at the correct point, when they are aware of stimuli and the time interval. If they are assigned a distracting task at the same time, they cannot do this. “Learning about time in that way seems to be really difficult,” Dr. Birch said. “It is a sophisticated form of learning that in us seems to be facilitated by consciousness.” Other tests that may suggest awareness are rapid reverse learning, which involves the ability to learn a relationship between two stimuli and then the reverse when reversed, and intermodal learning, which involves associations that traverse senses such as sounds and smells. A battery of these tests on bees will be used to look for evidence of the extent to which a wide range of abilities is linked to conscious experience.
This can pave the way to investigate whether these learning patterns are replicated in other animals and whether the development of one skill makes them more likely to develop the others. Dr. Birch hopes the project will help build a rigorous methodological framework for assessing the consciousness profiles of individual species rather than classifying animals on a single sliding scale. “We are trying to think about feelings as broadly as possible and recognizing that animal feelings may not really fit into the categories we use to describe our own feelings,” he said.
Animal welfare
Part of the ASENT project is also about working with animal welfare charities like the UK’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA). Dr. Penny Hawkins, director of the RSPCA Department of Animals in Science, welcomes the greater emerging focus on sensitivity and says that a strong framework for awareness would provide a much better foundation for protecting animal welfare.
“It used to be thought of as a kind of dichotomy, where either you have full human awareness and sensitivity or you’re some kind of brainless automaton, like a light on or off. Now it’s a much more like an approach. intensity regulator, with a sliding scale “. She says there is a long way to go and that being considered sensitive is not a “golden ticket” for better treatment because it can still be relegated to political and economic considerations, while creating legislation will be complex. However, he believes this makes it even more important to gather strong evidence on the subject.
And Dr. Hawkins would like to see animal impact assessments that incorporate the subjective experience of animals in addressing conservation issues, in addition to current environmental impact assessments. Professor Donald Broom, Emeritus Researcher in Veterinary Medicine and Animal Welfare at the University of Cambridge, UK, who is not involved in the ASENT project, emphasizes that we must not forget that we, as humans, are also animals, so having A broader focus on the entire animal kingdom is a way to learn more about ourselves.
On top of that, says Professor Broom, we have stages in our own lives where we are less sensitive, such as before birth and in cases of dementia. However, that does not prevent our needs from being considered at this time, as he says they should be for other species. He adds that it is necessary to know more about brains different from ours. “There are these prejudices that you have to be quite similar to humans, and have a brain that is like a human brain, to have any cognitive ability,” said Professor Broom.
For example, he says, having a small brain does not necessarily imply reduced cognitive ability, supported by the sophisticated abilities of jumping spiders, ants, house flies, small squids, cleaning wrasses and hummingbirds. Hummingbirds obviously have small brains, but if you look at a hummingbird, you can see that it comes and looks at you, evaluates you fairly quickly and decides that you are too slow to have any consequences, and moves on. lifetime.’
Amassing evidence
Professor Broom points out the importance of accumulating more evidence for sensitivity in animals like bees, given the serious threats they currently face and the debates over the use of pesticides like neonicotinoids. He notes that it is now easier to monitor the brain in moving animals as well. “It is not only important to know if animals are sensitive, but also more specifically what kind of interests they have, ” added Dr. Susana Monsó, a philosopher who works on the mind and ethics of animals at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna. , Austria.
“Knowing that an animal is sensitive only tells you that it is owed a moral consideration. Knowing the interests that an animal has tells you much more about the type of treatment that is owed.” This is particularly crucial, he says, in animals affected by human practices, such as farm animals, while knowing this in insects may become more important if they are viewed more widely as a solution to global food crises.
“Given the large number of people who would be involved in its cultivation on a scale large enough to substitute for other sources of meat, there are potentially gigantic welfare costs that must be taken into account,” concludes Monsó.
Original article
This article was originally published in Horizon, the EU Research and Innovation Magazine
